A Pathway to Employment: The Sensory Journey

Employment can single handedly create a major improvement on well-being by pulling people out of poverty and providing a sense of fulfillment. This is part one of my sensory journey across the field of employment equity. In this section I write about what I learnt about myself and the major forces at play.

Part 1: A Pathway to Employment: The Sensory Journey

Part 2: They’re made to believe they don’t have worth

Part 3: Well, racism definitely plays a part

Part 4: Until every working woman is given her due.

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I’m working on an online course called u.Lab: Leading from the Emerging Future, run by the Presencing Institute. I signed up because I knew a few other people were doing it and I needed something to do. Admittedly, I am doing a terrible job of completing the modules, but that’s the problem with auditing a free online course - there’s no pressure on me to finish it and I can always do it again next year.

Despite my lack of forethought in entering the online course, I do think it was ultimately a good decision. The course content strikes at all my deficiencies. It forces me to listen deeply to other people, ask meaningful questions and analyse my inner self. It makes me severely uncomfortable.

One of the assignments was to do a Sensory Journey. What’s this right brained nonsense, you might be thinking. That was my first reaction too. The assignment instructed me to go out and spend some time in a new place, ask deep dive questions and listen. That’s really all I had to do. I figured that at the very least I’d meet new people, and so I did it.

This was also an opportunity for me to whip out the things I learnt from my previous colleague Dr Victoria Kearney’s lunchbag session on Strategic Questioning. I could try my hand at using open ended questions and practice a few new skills.

For the Sensory Journey, I arranged to spend a few hours at Best Buddies Illinois with the staff in their office. I’ve written up what I’ve learnt about Best Buddies in Part 2. And because I also spent some time that day with some other employment equity organisations, I’ve also written a little about them too.

Part of the assignment is to do a debrief, which I will proceed to do so here on this page.

What was most surprising or unexpected?

A few things surprised me.

One was how willing people were to answer my (somewhat invasive) questions and go really deeply into their answers. I was expecting some push back, but they were really happy to set aside time and attention and give in depth responses. Maybe it was because I was asking them about things they were really passionate about.

I felt like I received different kinds of responses based on the person’s level of seniority in the organisation. Senior executive level staff spoke in terms of statistics and strategic growth. Lower level staff spoke about personal connections they had to their organisation’s mission and their clients. I am working off an extremely small sample size so I cannot stand strongly behind my hypothesis, but it’s something I will continue to collect data on in the future.

Another thing that surprised me was the body language in one conversation I had that day. The other person’s body language was really closed when we were talking about other things at the beginning. Several questions in, the other person’s arms and legs unfolded and they became more animated and open. Two of the questions I asked fit into the following categories:

• Empowering questions - “allowing someone to take what is already in their head and develop it further”

• Taboo questions - “asking the unaskable because they challenge the values and assumptions on which something is based”

What touched me?

I was really touched by the personal connections people had to the work they did and their personal and professional missions. Everyone felt really strongly about what they did and that came across in their verbal responses, but also in their facial expressions and their behaviour.

After one conversation, one person said that I was doing a really good job at active listening because I was asking follow up questions and making connections to related things. Another person thanked me for taking an interest in their organisation’s mission. That made me feel happy.

If the social field of employment equity were a living being, what would it look and feel like?

It would look like a doctor who is a disabled refugee, meticulously doing brain surgery on an entire ward of patients, one by one. She would have fantastic bedside manners because her difficult upbringing and her experiences inside prison enable her to empathise with her patients.

If that being could develop, what would it want to morph into next?

The doctor would want to retire and spend her days painting flowers. She’d feel comfortable in her retirement, safe in the knowledge that she had been succeeded by an entire cohort of diverse, intelligent and committed brain surgeons.

What is the generative source that allows this social field to develop and thrive?

This field thrives on human empathy and generosity. It requires people to recognise their own privileges and access to human rights and to have a desire to share these same privileges and rights with others.

What limiting factors prevent this field from developing further?

Even though it is tempting to say that it’s the lack of money to fund initiatives, it’s probably the lack of empathy and lack of willingness to interact with people who are different from us that makes those initiatives needed in the first place.

What ideas does this experience spark for possible prototyping initiatives that you may want to take on?

I feel like I need to understand more about the employment field before I can suggest prototyping initiatives. But I wonder if there could be something targeting hiring managers and executives who are curious about equitable employment but are feeling apprehensive.

Moving in and out of this field, what did you notice about yourself?

I noticed that I stopped listening when I got hungry!