Corporate Study
Change the way you see yourself and the world around you
This is a quantitative analysis of the recurrence of words/phrases in the answers to questionnaires. Each participant is attributed a code composed of two letters and two numbers that you might see next to quotes.
The data analysis was conducted by Margaux Péharpré who had no contact with the participants and did not take part in the questionnaire process.
Participants included 101 students, 71 executives, 34 young international talents and 43 NA (no answer given).
2 main areas of impact:Better relationships & Understanding ourselves
1. Relationships: a different way to relate
An open exchange such as the Duo is in itself the construction of a new relationship.
Its form and newness are also likely to influence the participant’s relationships, both current and future ones.
“I would use it again not only to understand more about others, but to make them feel at ease, create an environment of trust and make them feel important and listened to”
“mutually trustful and honest. We connected very well and were both well prepared and willing to listen and share.
Best relationship possible”
“We developed a trust relationship, a true and sincere exchange.”
Learn to open up to a stranger
An exchange is by essence a two-way around relationship. Oxford dictionary defines it as “an act of giving one thing and receiving another in return”. The only thing a conversation partner can do in the relationship is to act on his.her side, to adapt him.herself.
Hence the first step for an authentic relationship is to open ourselves to the other. The particular context of the duo helps this opening to the other. But the real step each participant has to achieve for the Duo to be a true exchange is to get rid of his.her mask. Accepting to show yourself that way launches a virtuous circle.
Discover the other for who s.he is
The Duo brings us a new way of thinking about how we present ourselves when exchanging with others. It also offers us the possibility to change the way we see them. The Duo creates the environment to be able to learn to open not only in showing who we are but also in accepting who the other is. If you open to your conversation partner, s.he will feel more incline to open in exchange.
Accessing who the other truly is, is essential for the leader, for him.her to be able to support the creation of the team and the fulfillment of each team member. But for that to be possible, the leader must open his.her senses to the other and be attentive to what s.he sends him.her. S.he also must work on him.herself to learn to leave the space open for the other to be who s.he truly is. Being open like that is likely to help the participant not only accept but also enjoy differences, which is essential for a leader a s.he builds from them.
Establish new types of relations
The Duo proposes a new kind of exchange which develops acceptance and thirst towards differences and offers the opportunity for participants to take down the mask, it is thus the first step for the development of new type of relationships.
The relational leader found his.her leadership on relationships. S.he thus has to go beyond “classical” relationships where everyone hides behind a 10 m tall wall and develops new kinds of relationships. The Duo gives participants the opportunity to experience this type of different relationship.
2. Discovery of self: understanding ourselves through the exchange
Clearly from the feedbacks – answering questionnaires as well as open comments – the Savoir-Relier experience has had major impact on the participants. It is interesting to notice that 20% of comments mentioning “interest for other” as the outcome of the duo also mentioned themselves and how they discovered themselves. Discovery of self and others are indeed deeply linked as we will see in this part.
We all are deeply influenced by the relationships we develop. A. Seer and S.M. Chopin highlight that “social exchange not only requires transaction partners to be identified to each other, but further serves as a mechanism for identity development, maintenance and evolution”.
Not only do we have to have a distinct, “identified” identity for the exchange to happen; but also this same exchange will lead to our “identity development”.
Discover yourself
There are no specific characteristics a good relational leader should fulfil. Leadership is unique to everyone, we don’t lead with settled frameworks. On the contrary, we lead with who we are. Thus, we should know who we are to lead efficiently.
Participant EA58 insists that s.he loved the Savoir-Relier seminar because: “You understand that each person has their unique, individual obstacles on their leadership journey”.
Pierson broadens this question: to be able to relate with others, “we should start by living related to ourselves and our psychical reality.”
Build your identity
Such deep thoughts on ourselves make possible the exchange between the two partners. But it also goes deeper, it makes us ready and able to welcome the other’s perspective and build on it. Self-awareness improves the effectiveness of the exchange and in return the exchange helps develop self-awareness by dragging us outside of the circle of self-reflection.
An open and honest exchange does not only help better understand the other, it is also a way to both discover and build our identity.
First, by truly explaining who we are we gain the possibility to affirm our self and our identity. But exchanges may have a much deeper impact on us as, to a great extent, they participate in building our identity by impacting the way we think and reflect. Furthermore the other may also play the role of Narcissus’s river and send us a different image of ourselves; we may discover ourselves in the mirror that is the other.
Understand your own world
I develop my self-awareness, learn to understand myself better in the eyes of others. Each relationship is different and each is able to bring me such new self-understanding. I realize this is a never-ending process. I will never be able to totally know myself nor the other, I will always have things to learn and discover.
One of the participants stated “Thus, we need to accept not knowing everything, not being able to technically control everything, to foresee everything and live with this deprivation not as a worrying empty space but as a space to be inhabited to act and invent.”
Indeed, not only each relationship impacts my self-awareness and knowledge, they also influence how I see the world.
Participants have to open for the Duo to be a real exchange. Opening is accepting the other for who s.he is, it is showing ourselves, accepting to be touched and moved by the conversation. It is also accepting the other’s perspective on the world and letting it question your own perspective. Be aware of the fact that the world we live in is only our world and not the world. “We don’t see the world as it is but as we are”, Kant.