“Don’t draw borders but break them” is what we have heard from our leaders very often. However, before one can decide whether to break, jump or push the boundaries, the fundamental challenge is to understand the boundaries both physical and mental.
The physical boundaries are the geographical boundaries separating one space from another even when these spaces are connected in terms of culture, ethnicity, language etc. There was a need to draw a line so that the people, cultures, kingdoms can have a space to own and to identify with it.
It is amazing that we do not realize that these political borders have become our own prisons. We wanted to define our territory, but these territories have now become more powerful than the people defining them. Since there is a boundary, it needs to be protected. And this is what is happening around us now. People are fighting against people to defend their territory. Therefore, it is high time now to speak about the need for obliterating the boundaries and not just physical but also mental.
Mental boundaries are the ones that we have created psychologically using our own anger, hatred, jealousy, bias, arrogance, superiority complex, ego, etc. Our efforts are directed by these psychological barriers most of the times. And then we wonder why there is so much depression, why so much loneliness, why so much sorrow.
We are the most prosperous generation with the most sophisticated gadgets available in the market but least satisfied with who we are. What more do we need to be content?
The recent times have made one thing perfectly clear to us that besides every other basic need that we have, the need to socialize, to interact is equally critical. It is significant to highlight that no matter how successful an individual is, they will need someone else also, if not for anything else than at least to share the success story.
So why not stop building boundaries and start including people?
Being inclusive independent of any limitations: gender, cultural, geographical, language and the list goes on. The pandemic has already taught us how to shift gears when the road gets bumpy. It has taught us that we can share space across borders and be creative. We can add value by bringing people far and beyond to common platform and make it work for all. That too for minimal cost. It took Pandemic to teach us that our social environment around us is made up of not just our family and friends, but also our neighbors, our colleagues, our storekeepers, our gym instructors, our street vendors everyone. They are part of our life, and they are included in our daily life because when we were forced to exclude them, we missed them so much.
We realized that willingly or unwillingly we are included in each other's lives. Then why not make it a conscious inclusion?
And of course, it took a pandemic to teach us that, simple things make us happy, the things that we take for granted.
Come join me to explore the basic simple things that we can say and do in our daily life that may help build bridges from people to friends, from friends to family and from handshake to heart!
Let’s dissolve the boundaries together!
The session will have the participants introspect on questions like :
What are limits?
What do we mean by borders?
What type of borders exist?
How are they created?
How do they limit us?
Why is there a need to expand?
How do we expand ?
- Pushing the boundaries
- Dissolving the boundaries
- Jumping the boundaries
What are the risks?
Why should we take the risks?
How do we overcome mental boundaries?
- Revisiting the growth mind set
- Comfort zone
- Fear zone
- Growth zone
- Finding time for yourself
- Pursuing hobby
- Yoga
- Meditation
How do we overcome physical boundaries?
- Utilizing technology: webex, teams
- Finding the right resources
- Frequent connects via team events
- Be accessible via gestures, language
The globe is shrinking
We must learn to adapt to people to situations.
Pandemic has already done most of the work by stressing the fact that boundaries exist.
We will fall sick despite A class medical facilities and we may not be able to do whatever you want even when we have all the money to spend.
Share stories: I will share mine from pandemic when my father passed away in India and I was in Germany and could not travel as I have German passport and Indian skies were sealed for citizens of Germany as the country was among the top risk areas back then.
It also taught us how to make physical boundaries irrelevant:
- The team events online
- The conferences online
- The concerts
This clearly indicates that as long as we recognize our limitations and have a will to overcome them , there is no stopping.
We can embrace anyone and anything with right attitude!
Let’s identify our own boundaries and limitations so that we can go beyond them.
How do we do that? How do we overcome the limitations and dissolve the borders?
Some of the best approaches recommended by psychologists are :
- Reflect, recognize and respond
- It is important to reflect upon the situation or emotion, recognize the limitation and respond to it carefully separating the reality from the perception because what we perceive is not always real.
- Communicate, collaborate and co exist
- Beware of conscious bias.
- Respect and acknowledge different holidays in your team for people with different cultures. Encourage unity in diversity.
- Be empathetic.
- Build trust and psychological safe place instilling a sense of belonging
- Celebrate success, wins and learnings
- Invest in your learning. Acknowledge failure and use them as lessons for growth.
- Push yourself out of the comfort zone.
- Exercise, sleep and eat healthy.
We will have some exercise to calm or introspect.
Participants will have opportunity to share the stories about how well we dissolved the barriers at our work place to a greater extent because we wanted to and how this willingness can shape our future with inclusion of all. Breaking the boundaries however consciously and willingly, using the right communication tools, is the key learning outcome of this session.
I have spoken at the Regional Scrum Gathering Egypt earlier this year in March. https://www.linkedin.com/company/regional-scrum-gathering-rsg-egypt-2022/
My topic was Agile versus frAgile. It was an interactive session with QA round at the end.
