All posts by Dorothy Nesbit

Choosing our forward path

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It is seventy years since the start of what has become known as the Blitz, a period beginning on 6th September 1940 and ending on 10 May 1941 during which the German Nazi Luftwaffe bombed towns and cities across the UK.  By the time the Blitz was over, more than  43,000 civilians, half of them in London, had been killed by bombing and more than a million houses were destroyed or damaged in London alone.

On Wednesday, home late after my rehearsal with the London Symphony Chorus, I watch ITV’s Words of the Blitz, in which footage of the Blitz is accompanied by readings from the diaries and letters of the men and women who experienced the attacks and their aftermath.  The people reading these letters include some who wrote them, and the descendants of some who wrote them.  Even knowing how unlikely it is that I will see what I seek, I find my eyes scanning the footage for a glimpse of my grandfather who, as a conscientious objector during World War II, chose to support the war effort by staying in London during the Blitz whilst his wife and children, including my mother, evacuated to Cornwall where they spent the war.  I wonder, too, about the full depth and breadth of experiences of my family during this time.

It is also nine years since the day that has become known as 9/11.  At home on the ninth anniversary I choose to watch Channel 4’s 9/11:  State of Emergency.  This minute-by-minute documentary combines both footage of the day and present-day testimonial to show how the day unfolded.  As it draws to a close, the narrator emphasises the thousands of decisions that were made that day and which, for many, meant the difference between life and death.

As I head towards bed, I ponder our present-day choices.  For it is one thing to look back on these events and reflect and another to make choices, based on our reflections, which shape our forward path.  I think of the men and women who have protested against plans to build an Islamic Centre and Mosque close to Ground Zero, the area that remains following the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11.  I think, too, of the US pastor who has made world news after saying he will burn a copy of the Koran in protest at the proposed Islamic Centre.  I know that each man and woman is making the best choices he or she knows how and I feel humble, knowing that I cannot know what choices I might make in their shoes.  And still, I yearn for choices that will move us towards – rather than away from – the outcomes I desire most.  Towards peace.  Towards understanding.  Towards compassion.  Towards harmony.

Seth Godin, formidable marketeer, puts it this way in his blog posting of Saturday, 11th September, 2010:

Lately, some marketers would like to push us to move from fear to hatred. It makes it easier for them. We honor and remember the heroes who gave everything, the innocent who were lost, the neighbors who narrowly escaped. A day to hate? I hope we can do better than that.

Empathy and 21st Century Enlightenment

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The RSA is a charity which encourages the development of a principled, prosperous society and the release of human potential.  As a Fellow, I appreciate the RSA’s ongoing programme of talks and occasionally dine in the RSA’s wonderful restaurant even whilst being aware that I am barely scratching the surface of what the RSA has to offer and of what I have to offer to the RSA.

I was curious this week to receive a link to a talk by Matthew Taylor, the RSA’s current chief executive, about 21st Century Enlightenment.  This is available on the RSA’s website and on YouTube.  It’s not only that the visual image which accompanies Taylor’s presentation is an intriguing live illustration by cognitive media (which you can download at their website at http://www.cognitivemedia.co.uk/).  It’s also that the substance of Taylor’s presentation is highly thought-provoking and intriguing.

Above all, I take from his presentation the question of the role that empathy has to play in shaping the world we live in as we go forward.  As an admirer of Marshall Rosenberg’s work in the area of nonviolent communication as well as through my work as an Executive Coach I am used to exploring the role of empathy and how to develop empathy in the context of the individual and his or her interactions with others.  Taylor’s presentation raises a much larger question for me:  what role does empathy play in the way we shape our society, including social policy and the way we live?  What role should it play going forward?

What are your thoughts?

Making my first visit to Belfast

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Occasionally my commitments take me beyond the boundaries of London where I live and mainly work to other parts of the UK and Ireland and this is where I was last week, making my first ever visit to Belfast.

I was there to visit the LILAC Team at Fleming Fulton School, who provide highly tailored support to schools across Northern Ireland to help them to meet the needs of children with various physical disabilities:  to enable access to the full experience of education, to support their achievement in school and to prepare them for life after school.  My visit was one of a series of visits to schools across Great Britain in my role as national judge on behalf of the Teaching Awards.

This was part of a process by which judges decide on the national winner for this year in the category of Outstanding School Team of the Year.  Following our visit we hole up in our hotel, the Park Avenue Hotel, to make our final decision.  I return to London to write a report on behalf of the team.  We will share this with our fellow judges at the end of next week.  After this, it will be under wraps until the national awards ceremony in October.

I am pleased to be able to make a flying visit to the City as a whole with one of my judging colleagues.  Following our arrival and on the way to dinner we ask our taxi driver to give us a quick guided tour of the City.  It is much changed since my colleague last visited some years ago.  “The Troubles” are mainly past and many of the old walls have come down.  Some remain and act as stark reminders of years gone by.

I am intrigued when our driver shows us a place where children still come to throw stones at each other across sectarian divides.  He tells us that he knows they text each other in advance to say that they are coming.  I wonder what needs are met by this strange ritual.  Perhaps they are honouring the past and in doing so honouring their parents.  Perhaps this is the way they have learnt to engage with each other.  Perhaps… perhaps…

I come away with a great curiosity about the city which clearly has a great deal to offer the visitor including and beyond its history of 20th century divide.  I also celebrate the LILAC team and all the other teams we have been able to observe at regional and national level on behalf of the Teaching Awards. 

Autumn

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By the time September starts autumn is already well on its way.  No matter how much the sun shines the mornings and evenings are fresh and the sky has a deep hue which signals a change of season.

There is a fullness as so much comes to fruition even whilst the signs of decay are already apparent.  The trees are laden with fruit.  The bushes, too.  I think of the daily crop of field mushrooms I loved to pick when I was growing up on my parents’ farm.  There is no doubt at this time of nature’s abundance.  So much is on offer that seems to have come by magic and without the efforts of human hands.  This is nature’s harvest.

 At the same time, the days are already shorter as they march slowly toward winter.  The trees are beginning to shed their leaves.  The temperature is dropping so that I am aware that soon I shall be closing doors and windows and turning on the heating.  Already I have raised the temperature of my morning shower.

 I find myself wondering what parallels there are in this change of seasons to our human experience.  How many of us harvest the fruits of our lives even as we are becoming aware of the passage of time towards our middle and even old age?  How many times, too, do we harvest the crop of one stage of our lives even as the signs are there that this stage is over.  How many of us miss this rich harvest of our Autumn as we connect with the fear evoked by our own slow march toward the winter of our lives.

 Each year I welcome the autumn with its fresh air, abundant fruits and deep vibrant colours.  May I also thrive in my own autumn seasons.

Returning from NVC summer camp

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It’s my second day back in the office after returning from NVC summer camp.  Nonviolent communication (also NVC or compassionate communication) starts from the intention of connecting with others and seeking to find ways in which everyone’s needs can be met.  In my own work as a coach I aim to hold people as resourceful and whole:  NVC does the same.

And yes, it was a busman’s holiday for me.  Some of my most precious moments were moments of connection and conversations in which I was able to draw on my skills as a coach in support of my friends and colleagues on the camp.  You know you are doing the work you love when you do it whether or not you are being paid.

I return with such a sense of nourishment and celebration.  I enjoyed connecting with people I know well and people I met for the first time at camp.  Opting for the “glamping” option (staying nearby in a house rented for the occasion) I cherish the community of women and children in the house.  I wonder whether Mark, who joined us several days in, is an honorary woman or an honorary child – maybe both.  I also celebrate the men on the camp and especially those moments when I witnessed the men supporting each other in the fulness of emotions that can arise when we commit to live from the heart.

Even as I write I feel the fullness of my heart and I experience this as a state – a way of being – that I want to maintain.  It’s not always easy in the busy-ness of everyday life.

My thanks to Des and all the team at the Rainbow Mill for making it possible to come together in this way.  Words aren’t quite enough to express the depth of gratitude I feel when I think of the many needs met and the fullness of a life lived in this way.

Chocolate, beetroot and the god of small things

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It’s holiday season and I am following the example of our new PM and holidaying at home in the UK.  As I write I am both celebrating my recent break (with my mother, my brother’s partner Arabella and my nephew Joel) and looking forward to joining my colleagues in the community of nonviolent communication at summer camp in Norfolk.

My mother, approaching her 80th birthday, came laden with vegetables from her allotment and with the intention of setting to work to strip my stairs.  We started, though we didn’t finish!  My nephew, Joel, soon to turn five, is outgoing and energetic and I enjoyed our time together as well as the stillness that descended after he left.  Arabella, who usually carries the weight of responsibility for responding to her son’s yearning for company was able to rest a little and I was able to experience the pleasure of spending time with her after Joel went to bed.  Today, a week after they all went home again, I am pausing to savour the pleasure of sharing time with them and the many needs met – to contribute and be contributed to, for connection and love, for fun and laughter and many more.  These are precious moments.

Mum brought beetroot with her, ready cooked, and Joel and I together made Chocolate and Beetroot Cake from Green & Black’s wonderful book of chocolate recipes – with Joel sifting the floor and chocolate powder, cracking open eggs and stirring the mixture.  The result was super-moist, highly tasty and a deep colour from the mix of chocolate and beetroot.  A great success.

And in case you’d like to try it, and until such time as Green & Blacks ask me to take the recipe off my blog and tell you to go and buy the book here it is:

Preparation time:  30 minutes
Cooking time:  50 minutes
Use:  18cm (7in) round cake tin
Makes:  8 slices

Ingredients

100g (3.5oz) drinking chocolate
230g (8oz) self raising flour
200g (7oz) golden caster sugar
100g (3.5oz) dark chocolate, minimum 60% cocoa solids, broken into pieces
125g (4.5oz) unsalted butter
250g (9oz) cooked beetroot
3 large eggs

To serve

Icing sugar for dusting
Creme fraiche

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 180deg C/350deg F/gas mark 4.

Butter and flour the cake tin.

Sift the flour and drinking chocolate together, then mix in the sugar.  Melt the chocolate and butter together in a heatproof bowl suspended over a saucepan of barely simmering water.  Puree the beetroot in a food processor.  Whisk the eggs, then stir them in with the beetroot.  Add the beetroot and the chocolate mixtures to the dry ingredients and mix together thoroughly.

Pour the mixture into the cake tin.  Bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and leave the cake to stand in its tin for 10 minutes before turning it out on to a wire rack to cool.  Serve dusted with icing sugar and some creme fraiche. 

Nonviolent Communication: resources for beginners

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All approaches to communication have applications in every area of our personal, group and societal lives.  For most people – let’s be clear, if there are exceptions, I don’t yet know them – the basic approaches to communication that we use are consistent in a number of respects.  Most of us, for example, communicate in line with beliefs and values which are consistent across the full range of our business and personal relationships.  We all have positive intentions when we communicate with others.

At the same time, for many of us, there are aspects of our communication that are both habitual and unexamined.  In particular, we may be unaware of the beliefs that inform our approach to communication.  And we may fail to notice the unintended (including negative) consequences of our chosen approach.  This is so commonplace that we can assume that the blind spots we have individually are a reflection of more widely-held blindspots in a culture or cultures which practise the same approach to communication.  (Indeed, in his book Vital Lies, Simple Truths* Daniel Goleman makes a compelling case to this effect).

Over the years, I have become a fan of a number of thinkers whose work points to alternative approaches which tend to support the healing of old misunderstandings and to communicate in ways which facilitate understanding and connection in the present moment.  For this reason I admire and engage actively in the work of Marshall Rosenberg (author of Nonviolent Communication:  A Language for Life).

Now, all this is by way of introduction to some resources that were highlighted to me by Ray Taylor, a colleague in the world of Nonviolent Communication who shared two recordings which are available on-line and offer a clear introduction to Nonviolent Communication (or NVC).  Just follow the links as follows:  the first is an introduction to NVC by Marshall Rosenberg and the second is a link to a number of talks by Jorge Rubio.  I wish you happy listening.

PS Just to let you know, as a member of Amazon Associates UK, I shall receive a referral fee for any books you buy using the links in this posting.

Developing your empathy: learning from intimate relationships

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Recently I wrote at length about empathy and made a mental note to write about the “how” of empathy – both of giving and receiving empathy and of how you develop it if you’re not there yet.  I haven’t yet fulfilled this promise I made to myself so, when I was sent a link to a podcast by Kelly Bryson I took time to listen.

Kelly is talking about empathy in the context of intimate relationships, including sexual relationships.  And let’s be clear, if ever there’s a context in which challenging emotions and emotional pain are triggered it’s in our most intimate relationships.  Over the years, our failure to “mop up the mess” of our misunderstandings can drive us apart or create an inbuilt “toxicity” in our relationships.  Kelly’s podcast talks through some of the elements of Nonviolent Communication and how they can be used in intimate relationships to give and receive empathy.  In this way we can clean up the messes as they occur and – over time – build, restore and maintain trust.  It also completes with two exercises for giving and receiving empathy and building connection.

What is the relevance of this in our professional lives?  I could say so much about this.  Firstly, insofar as we carry the hurt of our unmet need for empathy in our private lives, we are likely to be sensitive in our professional lives – and so are others.  This is a common human experience, encoded in the most ancient parts of our brains.  Learning to give ourselves empathy or to ask for the empathy we need makes us more able in our work to be present in the here and now rather than to be triggered by “old stuff”.  As leaders, it helps to know that this is true for those we lead, too.  With this understanding we can see and respo9nd to the behaviours and responses of our staff in their wider human context.

And what else?  Well, for now, perhaps it helps to know that the skills for giving and receiving empathy are the same no matter what the context.  For this reason I share Kelly’s podcast as a resource for all my readers.  And if you do choose to listen to it, will you let me know what you take from it?  I’d love to see your comments below. 

Work/life balance: what if time has nothing to do with it?

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As I write I am looking forward to the holiday I’ll be on when you read this posting.  I was curious today about the following question, posted on the Human Resources UK forum on LinkedIn:  Work/life balance – what is the right percentage?  This is what I wrote by way of response:

Percentage of what? Are you assuming that this is a matter of how much time an individual spends on work and on other-than-work? My experience suggests that this may be missing the point.

For example, the person who is in the wrong job – one that is not a good match for his skills and underlying sense of purpose – may lack work/life balance no matter what the hours he works. Or the person who has become wealthy and retired early and yet who lacks a sense of what to do with all that time may also struggle. At the same time, the person whose work is offering challenges which in turn provide deep learning and healing for the soul may be fulfilled in ways which spill over into every corner of his or her life even whilst the balance of time between work and home is totally precarious.

So here’s a question for you and others – what if time has nothing to do with work/life balance?

Empathy in practice: free of enemy images

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I am grateful to Bridget Belgrave, certified trainer in Nonviolent Communication, for sharing this link to a video taken from the security camera of a mobile phone shop in the US.  The video shows how the shop’s manager, faced with a would-be armed robber, engages him in conversation and shows she understands what he is going through.  At the point at which she tells him that she will have to make up any shortfall that results from a theft he decides to leave.

The manager is showing one of the fundamental qualities of empathy – the ability to connect with their shared humanity and to engage with him as a real person rather than from a place of fear.  Her care for the would-be thief is striking.  In the case of this young manager it seems to be her Christian faith that inspires her, though this does not mean you have to be a Christian or have any religious faith to provide empathy.

So, if you are seeking to develop your ability to show empathy, take a look at the video on this BBC News Page.  To what extent are you able to engage with other people in your life from this place of seeking to understand them as fellow human beings?