Edwin Rutsch 2

Intention

I want to create tools for fostering more empathy in the world. I’d like to make connections with people who value empathy and build a movement. I’d like to support other team members in starting to lead the meetings.

Lewis interviews Edwin

Lewis How is the empathy circle going for you?

Edwin: Really appreciated Wendy’s insights and openness. Impt to feel open about the process. IT felt like a real success. I have questions about how to address the feelings part. Emp circle can get deep over time but hearing that people want more of a felt experience. Wondering how to make that happen.

Lewis: Doing a lot of EC, how EC are there a lot of

Edwin: I’m hearing Criticism around parroting. Empathic listening, then we would shift partners or groups and have diff variety of people you’re interacting w/. I usually hear positive comments about that. I’ve mediated conflict w/ family member, it took about 3 hours. My sister was really grateful to have a tool to work through problems i see it as a real benefit.

Lewis: What do you think are other ways that we might diversify the empathy circle, or make different iterations, and how would these new ways of doing it affect people's responses

Edwin: I think using the focusing techniques, so that when someone is speaking they only speak about their felt experience. This wld be the next level to explore. I’m talking to focusing experts. I was offered a free workshop. Looking fwd to insights being gained from this. Can we find some conflicts? That would make it fun.

This one person would trash her own idea, because my own judgement would beat myself. We role played. Creativity and judgement play a role.

Lewis Interview Edwin

Insight: Through his experience with Empathy Circles Edwin sees the need for feedback and that it is

robust and yet still growing.

Feedback: Grateful for honesty; appreciates authenticity. Joyful, open.

Feelings

• • ready

  • grateful

  • joy

Needs

• • communication

  • openness

  • authenticity

Brainstorm How Might We… create more safe and authentic connection with feelings in the empathy circle?

have one on one empathy buddy listening with participants before and after the main circle

do a full 2 hour empathy circle to get the full experience.

each person lead an in-person empathy circle at home, with friends.

practice, practice practice.

more preparatory material. written stories, videos etc.

explain that empathy itself is supportive and healing.

Host a circle specifically on

• • authenticity

  • feelings

  • trust practices

  • practice confidentiality statement

  • with the topic of our HMW statement.

warm up circles

have a real emotional conflict to deal with in the empathy circle.

share a concern, anxiety, fear you are dealing with at the moment, share the contours of the felt experience.

making the empathy circle more relevant to the felt experience each person is having in their life at the moment.

develop and try the focusing process as a prototype in an empathy circle

have an option for selecting an empathy circle for emotions

small - medium - intense

Intention

Prepare to do research around testing the empathy circles as a prototype.

Keep learning how to do the HCD process better and improve the empathy circles platform and this online version of the design course.

Report

In Empathy Team 6, we moved into another stage of the design course which was planning our research in the inspiration phase. We worked through the step by step sections of Class 2 which gave us guidance and a clear structure to follow. I noticed how some participants had confusion about what we were doing in the course, but it seemed to turn to greater clarity and excitement in the end.

My most excitement and energy came from taking the original design challenge, that other participants didn’t feel terribly excited about, and translating that into a design challenge that had more energy and excitement for everyone.

The final challenge was,

How might we redesign the Empathy Circle to be more fun and engaging in education for high school?

team-8/2015-09-17

Summary We rushed through the mini design process again. which is ok. We had some technical problems to begin with but we got on track. We came up with a final prototype to test at the next meeting which was to celebrate our failures.. I feel quite energized about that because it is one of the principles of design to not be afraid of failure. ‘Fail early and fail often they say.’ i really enjoyed hearing all the experiences and insights from everyone and feel a real empathic growth cycle happening. We are getting more comfortable with the process and are ready for the next step of research.

Andreas interviews Edwin

What was your experience of the Empathy Circle?

Felt some frustration, some technical problems create some stress.

We ran out of time and did not have time to cover empathic listening question that we had designed..

We need 2 hours for doing it.

So some frustration around this.

Really interesting insights from teams members. Feel that there is growth happening and I feel happy about that.

Excited about that. Wish the technology was working better.

Posing Question and voting on it.

I really enjoy posing the questions and did go through the full cycle. We had the prototype question from the last meeting. Writing questions down, writing why questions work and rating it. This really worked.

We went through the full cycle and am glad about that.

Andreas Interview Edwin

Insight: Edwin feels happy that we could go through the full cycle of the design process even when we ran out of time.

Feelings

• • happiness, stimulated,

  • relieved

  • satisfaction

Needs

• • efficiency

  • growth

  • learning

Brainstorm: How Might We… develop a positive growth cycle of empathic listening?

• • think about the nature of positive cycles of empathy . understand how they work. do research

  • think about the positive empathy cycle.

  • do a empathy circle on the theme of a positive cycle. break it down to the cycle components

  • practice, practice, practice - how to make a cycle of practice

  • develop the Empathic design practice curriculum

    • one to one empathic listening practice.

    • taking part in an empathy circle

    • taking part in a mini design

    • taking part in a 10 week empathic design

    • facilitating or hosting a one to one with new people

    • hosting an empathy circle

    • hosting a mini design

    • hosting a 10 week empathic design

    • teaching or hosting others.

do an exercise in failure. write down your feeling of failure during the empathy circle. when you do test circle at home. We celebrate the failure.

workshops/2015-09-19

Summary

felt a bit rushed at the end. I really enjoyed the final design challenge of the bridging the gap of intellectual empathy and feeling.. If we can get into the feelings more, that will make the empathy circle much more engaging.

Brainstorm

How Might We… close the gap between limited intellectual empathy and shared experience empathy?

• • add Focusing techniques for felt experience - speak from the felt experience. Edwin, Herbert

  • if you have an idea, don’t just share the idea but describe where the idea is in your body

  • when speaking start with a motion of how you feel in the moment, have the listener reflect it.

  • when ending a sharing, do a motion and have it be reflected..

  • create more physical activities and synchronized movements.

  • don’t stop until you feel a deep connection.

  • have a measurement of how much you feel what person is saying S

  • hold a empathy circle with some trained Focusers (sept 6) and ask for their input on how to hold a more feeling based circle.

  • have a more felt experience would be engaging.

team-6/2015-09-21

Intention

I want to create tools for fostering more empathy in the world.

Support Lewis and Chase in leading the class today.

Keep focusing on the research phase of our design challenge.

Reports

Edwin

story about James listening to a woman tell about her dilemma with a feemale lover. when her husband found out, he asked her to choose between him and the lover. James found himself so engaged int nhe dialogue that they didnt notice the hot tub they were in was being drained. James concluded that he was so engaged with offering the woman e

Edwin talking to Wendy

edwin expressed that he hears some issues with ec, and suggested that turn taking skills are promoted in ec's. he discussed empathy cafes where he did this in groups of 4. people said they enjoyed being heard so deeply. edwin has done restorative empathy circles to mediate conflicts and arrive at resolution. he feels ec's are the core of mediation.

ec's are about conveying understanding of what the other person is saying, and of mediation processes. edwin wonders hmw we develop a curriculum that promotes empathic listening, turn taking, and resolution skills.

Wendy interviews Edwin

Wendy: Edwin how do you feel about taking high schoolers on field trips where they help the underprivileged? Do you think that might help with empathy?

Edwin: Yeah, service learning and contributing to community, then come back for debriefing forum would be a good idea to me. service learning students may be more motivated and concerned about others. coming back and working through their experience could work. I had an empathy tent for a few months, and a group of students from UC Berkeley came to clean and refurbish the square. They were all engaged and feeling like they're contributing. Post activity discussion for connection could be good. How it is facilitated would make a big difference. One way to make it more engaging, maybe make it a one-to-one experience so there is no waiting around. Direct practice 5-20 ins.

Wendy: Talking about the empathy tent, how would you approach people, what’s your elevator pitch, how would attract people to your empathy tent?

Edwin: I set up the empathy tent at a plaza where 16000 people pass through. I used the empathy test to tell what emotion people were feeling. I created a poster with 10 so people could see eyes and test their empathy skills. The goal was to identify the emotion in the eyes of the photo. Empathy test was a way of engaging people that brought them to receive empathy from edwin.

Wendy: So you would actually practice the empathy circle with them, people you were engaging with, without prefacing it with “hey want to do an empathy circle?” it would just be organic?

Edwin: Empathic listening was offered in a 1:1 setting after the empathy test. People felt better after.

Wendy: Do you think empathy tent popups at high schools would work?m You know the administration would be aware and we could announce it over the pa system. Do you think that might be effective?

Edwin: Students offering empathy to each other. some students could be on call for listening, mutual listening.... different forums for this sort of thing...

Wendy: Do you think there would be a need for privacy? While students are sharing?

Edwin: I was thinking about the need for privacy too. The person I want to interview has run ec's with teens. she got teens trained in empathy. The whole class was all about cultivating more empathy. So many problems emerged, including abuse at home. Some level of privacy and confidentiality is necessary.

Wendy: Now this women that you are talking about, did she work with high schoolers?

Edwin: i think middle schoolers

Wendy: It's Interesting you bring this up because these middles schoolers are sharing on an intimate level

Edwin: It's more the engagement more than fun. They were grateful for people hearing, so they weren't alone and isolated.

Wendy: Thank you! Good dialogue!

Wendy Interview Edwin

Insight: Middle schoolers will participate in ECs when fully engaged. Fun is not a necessary component. Privacy and discreteness is critical

Feedback: effective

Feelings

• • hopeful

  • positive

Needs

• • effective

Edwin talks to Mercedes

Reflects on Mercedes doubts about in tangible - Talks about Ideo applying design to intangibles

Following the steps/path after doing it five times!!!!

Tweaking the mini-design course - Seeing that the course improves by doing it over.

How might we redesign the Empathy Circle to foster a more empathic way of being?

Rate the design challenge, then add up your score.

Name: Edwin

Instinctively, how excited are you about this design challenge?

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What potential for impact in your community does this design challenge have?

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How feasible is it to tackle this challenge over the next three classes of the course?

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Write your thoughts about the challenge and write another one if you like:

I basically like the challenge but think there could be some way to make it better and perhaps narrow the scope. In our first team 6 we are looking at how to make empathy circle fun and engaging for high school students. resists change?