Unmasking lived experience
I mentioned lived experience yesterday, and it strikes me that people who read that phrase probably fall into two or three camps. Those that truly get it & talk and listen to others’ stories and experiences as second nature, because they love to learn and understand about different human experiences. Those who roll their eyes and wonder where this ‘woke nonsense’ is going and what the heck has lived experience got to do with them (I paraphrase ;-)).
And then there are those that are curious. Those that are interested in getting to know new methods, finding out more about why this is a business strategy, curious leaders and humans who want to know more about other experiences… Is that a single category, or a couple more maybe? What do you think?
As I said earlier, our life experience is unique to us. How we view it, learn from it and grow from it (or not) is unique too. Of course there are commonalities; I come from a single parent, white family, who owned their own home. I was the only child in the school from a single parent family — my mum worked 3 jobs a day, to make ends meet, and I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandparents and babysitters (no social support or breakfast clubs at that stage). My schooling was in the North West and was almost 100% white. I was bullied because I was fat & bright, and often questioned about my absent dad.
On the face of it (maybe apart from the house and the school population), my experience was like many people’s today. Given that, I might make assumptions about their experience, how it impacted their lives and ‘who they are’ / ‘what they’re like’. But how they adapted, coped, behaved because of this will be very different to me — and we will have taken very different paths through life. Exciting, interesting, human.
Exciting, interesting, human.
Thinking about ‘them & us’, and others that we discussed last week, I can (& do sometimes) make assumptions about those with a very different experience. I shouldn’t but I do, and my experience with some groups has given me certain thoughts and beliefs about ‘them’. It’s a human condition to take mental short-cuts, we all do it, we can’t possibly take in every sensory input around us and so our brain save us time and mental processing effort by leaping to conclusions that ‘just make sense’… Oh dear, then we believe it.
When we meet someone new, if we’re curious we ask questions and actively listen to the answers; asking follow-up questions which are relevant and provide clarity. We begin to peel the onion of their experience. That’s the beginning.
We all have layers which we’re willing to share, and as we spend time with people we develop trust and we learn more about their experience, and what has made them, well, them. And they learn about us too. That’s why it takes time to build trust and understanding in a work environment, but once that trust is earned, and understanding gained, the organisation will benefit from the willingness to challenge and develop which people will bring.
By listening, we start to understand things from their perspective, to understand there are valid and alternative perspectives. How certain occasions have shaped their confidence, or their thinking about certain topics. This shaping comes from our friends, the friends we develop and those we select, from our family (not a lot of selecting there, unless we leave them behind), from our teachers, from our dinner ladies, from our colleagues and the people we meet and greet socially. It comes from our experiences, the situations we encounter and our social & built environment.
The context we grow up in has a great impact on who we become, partly because of what it is, and partly because of how we respond to it.
All our experiences add to who we are, this brings diversity of thought and can be built into an extraordinary problem solving and decision-making network. We have to do the groundwork and include people with diverse lived experience for them to give their best, but my goodness it’s worth it!
Curiosity is a key skill or is it an attribute. Can you grow curiosity of it doesn’t exist in a closed mind? The most wonderful, respected and inclusive leaders I have met in industry, government, and the armed forces are curious. They read and they take time to spend with people in their organisation (not just their immediate hierarchy). They know how the cleaner gets to work, and they know how you take your tea and they have a grasp of the mood in the building on a Monday if 30% of people support the same team that won, or lost, at the weekend. This is important in any organisation, but for SMEs that are growing, or people trying to find the right change to move a business forward it is invaluable.
I would teach the value of the human on MBA’s, not people management (or HR), but psychology and understanding human behaviour. I would teach curiosity and active listening — because leaders who don’t value these things don’t value humans, ‘their people’.
I believe that leaders who don’t do this, don’t gain this understanding and awareness are the worse for it, and so are their organisations.
What do you think?
