[From Unsplash]
Good morning,
In Liminal Thinking, Dave Gray, founder of consulting firm Xplane, shares a simple hack from which one can draw interesting insights from others. At the core of it is storytelling.
He writes:
“When someone tells you a story, they are sharing an experience and expressing their beliefs about that experience at the same time. In addition, both teller and listener are pairing their brains, building relationships and creating social cohesion that makes it easier for them to develop shared goals and move toward those goals in a collaborative, coordinated way.
“Prompting other people to tell stories, and listening to them, is as much of an art as storytelling. When you ask someone to tell a story, you are telling them that their experiences are important, that they have meaning, and that they matter.
“A good way to elicit stories from people is through the use of something called a story prompt. Story prompts are questions about people’s experiences and how they made meaning out of them. Things like:
- “Think of the best team you’ve ever been a part of. What happened that made you feel that way?”
- “What is the most scared you have ever been? What happened?”
- “Tell me about a time when you felt uncomfortable or out of place. What did you do about it?”
- “What was your best day at work here, and what made it great?”
- “What was your worst day, and what happened that made it so bad?”
- “Did you ever have an experience that changed your life? What happened?”
“When you ask someone to tell you a story, you are inviting them to deepen their connection with you, to bond with you. It’s an invitation that says their life and experiences are important, meaningful, and worth learning from. It’s a simple step you can take, every day, to create a shared world with the people who matter to you.”
The importance of Rahul Gandhi
Why does the ruling BJP—which has six times the number of Lok Sabha MPs than the Congress and which rules in more states than the latter—obsess over their opponent’s diminished leader, Rahul Gandhi? This is a question Aakash Joshi deals with in The Indian Express and it got our attention because it offers perspective on the significance of optics in politics.
“Would the BJP leadership compare as favourably with Mamata Banerjee—a politician risen from the streets—or even MK Stalin or Jagan Reddy, who are both sons of leaders but do not have either the ‘elite’ or ‘outsider’ tag? Rahul Gandhi’s demonisation by the ruling forces has as much, if not more, to do with his background as it does with his political failures…
“Not enough (Congress party leaders) have either national name recognition or a mass base. It is in this regard that Rahul Gandhi presents a potent challenge.
“Unlike, say, a Jyotiraditya Scindia, he cannot be poached. He cannot abandon the Congress and the ideals it once represented—Rahul cannot abandon Nehru’s secularism or Indira Gandhi’s ‘garibi hatao’ because to do so would be to deny his raison d’etre as a politician. In that sense, he is perhaps one of the few significant implacable foes for the BJP that stands in the way of a ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’. Best, then, to keep the focus on the name.”
Dig deeper
Moral injuries and soul care
In the Harvard Business Review, Ron Carucci, co-founder at Navalent, and Ludmila N. Praslova, a professor at Vanguard University of Southern California, explore the idea of moral injury at workplaces. They define moral injury as “a trauma response to witnessing or participating in workplace behaviours that contradict one’s moral beliefs in high-stakes situations.” These transgressions could be committed by others or by individuals themselves. There are many ways to tackle this, and one of them is what they term “soul care”.
They write:
“Moral injury has been described as ‘the wounding of the soul.’ Healing the soul requires a particular kind of attention. Unlike the self-care often associated with pampering oneself, indulgences don’t quite reach the soul.
“One of the greatest releases of emotional pain comes from a vulnerable, honest conversation with a trusted professional. A coach, therapist, or other mental health professional trained in dealing with trauma responses can help guide you through an exploration of the pain you’re feeling. If access to professional help is difficult, at least consider journaling a detailed account of your struggle.
“One executive Ron coached while she was on sabbatical talked vulnerably about her abusive boss and the harsh treatment she gave to her team in turn. The mixture of guilt and shame, resentment, and fear that her career could never be fulfilling again had her emotionally paralysed and withdrawn. Carefully parsing out each aspect of her pain led to creating a plan to reassess her personal values, make amends with those she’d harmed, and work through forgiveness of herself, her boss, and the culture that enabled so much harm. It was a safely guided process that bolstered her courage to be truthful with herself. She even uncovered the origins of her own story that made her vulnerable to such an environment. Restoration isn’t a quick process, but if you want to leave behind the remnants of moral injury, you’ll need to commit to making the process a priority.”
Dig deeper
Don’t drink and work
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Warm regards,
Team Founding Fuel
