Shelley Paul

Intention

I would like to feel oriented and be able to contribute to the team’s efforts.

Empathy Circle

Speaker

    • feeling open and curious, thinking of serendipity and synchronicity

    • it is good for me to dwell in this space.

    • I did a lot of course reading, article about social innovation. reading about T shaped people.

    • showing up here will bolster my bravery

    • feeling sheepish about how little I understand my current context

      • strange to have a new person join

    • appreciated Chases comments

    • the context - is my work context. the craziness of my work. very demanding

    • aware and sensitive how a new person can affect group

Speaker

    • I really appreciate Wendy's comments

    • felt I wasn’t very helpful for Wendy

    • conscious on how to be an empathic listener

    • feeling really grateful - I struggle with being present in my life

      • failing forward - this a way to get better in this group

Edwin interviews Shelley

What was your experience of the Empathy Circle?

Edwin: Shelley can you tell me about your experience with the Empathy Circle?

Shelley: Had a beginners mind about it. Appreciated the care with which it was executed. My main wondering is how it might feel different if it had a different topic, not so self-referential. I also wondered about the role of the group. It’s a fishbowl and a conversation. Even if you’re not the direct speaker/listener, you can still hold the group. Passive listening vs. active listening. Wondering if it stitches together an understanding or if it is about creating and holding a container for the group

Edwin: Something that came up was the depth of the links, what was your feeling about the links (emotional, mental etc), where are you about the depths of feelings being shared.

Shelley: As a first time, I took it in. The essence of empathy is to feel with. It is tricky to get words correct and say them right. It does kind of take you out, but practicing may lead to a more organic feeling. I was curious Chase’s suggestion about intentionally focusing on the feeling part. Recently read NVC and obsessed with it.Oh I am with my people! ;)

Edwin: So interested in exploring that topic more, about feelings and nvc, the other part i was interested in exploring is empathy, is empathy important to you and why?

Shelley: Yes, empathy is deeply important to me. I’ve realized that connection, community, and relationships are all that matters. We inadvertently create distance between each other and make things harder. Since I started DT, the fact that it’s about deeply understanding someone else, it’s been a gift to me to have a reason to know someone and help solve a problem for them. It was transformative for me and my school community when we got it right. It’s at the core of being human. Any way that I can be better at it myself, and help others be better at it too, is a gift.

Edwin: So I’m hearing that you had done dt and it was sort of problem solving and the empathy was important to the end of problem solving?

Shelley: DT process is grounded in empathy, If you don’t do good empathy work, everything else is broken from there. Meta- the act of engaging in intentional empathy work is healing for designers and users. It’s real empathy again in action when the prototype solution is offered.

Edwin Interview Shelley

Insight: Shelley feels that connection, community, and relationships are all that matters and they are grounded in empathy. perhaps feels pain of those needs not being address

Feedback: feels a sense of purpose

Feelings

    • pain

    • Desiring deeper connection

    • driven purpose

Needs

    • connection

    • community

    • relationships

    • empathy

    • deeper connection

Brainstorms

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

    • Add empathic questioning (non-lawyer-like) to the reflection (more like empathy interview -- follow the user)

    • Add a protocol “I connect that to…” from the listener

    • Add a feeling response to the reflecting back (I hear X… That sounds like it might feel X… I am wondering if it might feel… )

    • Team of three - Have two listeners to backstop each other -- to allow for more connecting and less need to remember specific words?

    • Have a focusing topic? Go deeper with one person (sort of like a clearness committee)

    • Rest of group share a connection they made from listening before next pair goes

create list of themes - have an empathy circle to develop the questions.

    • trust practices

    • practice confidentiality statement

    • 2 listeners