The Big Interrupters
I have wild dreams of a world where we are, wherever we live, in the position to tell each other, this planet and all of its living components: “You matter”.
And I specifically think about some of us, some of you, who sit at a decision-making table, and who love to invest in social change.
In this ideal world, you tell me that the people you represent and even you are being heard, connected and trusted, and you don’t even have to justify your visionary ideas over and over again.
In this ideal world, trust, hope, open collaboration, and care are the normal ingredients of your day.
So I wonder… what has us shutting our voices when we most need to speak up? What makes us find comfort in constant interruptions?
What is holding us back from spreading compassion and care effortlessly?
We are hooked on the big interrupters.
We want collaboration but we cook, dine and sleep with ideas and behaviours that stop us from taking care of ourselves and each other.
For example:
- Mabel in Mexico leads this corporate foundation, funding human rights organisations, but the corporate board members don’t understand what decent living wages for workers mean.
- Matt is an investor, sadly lives with cancer, but only focuses on unattainable deadlines
- Senior leader Cecile in Paris is craving to change her funds from the inside out to stop it from greenwashing but is terrified of unwanted backlash from her colleagues.
It feels like, as decision-makers, we are intentionally overcooking disconnections, and that’s a recipe that seeds more inequalities, pains and frustration.
What more could you, could we all achieve and understand, if we had the opportunity to pause, be heard but also listen to our deepest thoughts?
What if we were not rushing to reply but were detached from the violence of having to perform and please?
What could become of us all if we had the recipe for connectedness rather than interruption?
Let’s try something here, take 30 minutes for yourself, and ask a friend or a colleague to sit with you.
Tell them you are going to think out loud for 15 minutes. Ask them not to interrupt, not to comment, not even give you feedback, but just be there for you, to listen with the intention to see you and hear you.
I know, it’s not always easy to be listened to.
Certainly not for such a long period of time.
Dare to come as you are.
Then do the same for them, for 15 minutes too.
In the end, share what you’ve noticed.
Notice what’s good.
Notice
How you both connect, how you both matter.
The quality of everything we do depends on the quality of the thinking we do first.
The quality of our thinking depends on the way we treat each other while we are thinking.~Nancy Kline, Time To Think
Have a great day.
