'Mind the gap. Build a Bridge'

Building Awareness. Mindfully showing up for others.

Hello, Dear Reader! Thank you for spending some of your precious time with me.

Welcome to our new Carer Mentor community members!

I’m Victoria. You can read why I’m publishing Carer Mentor here: Who Started Carer Mentor and Why?

In short, after a career climbing the corporate ladder and 18 relocations across 10 countries, I made a head-heart-gut-aligned decision to help my Mum care for my Dad. He had a litany of health issues that were destabilised by a major hospitalisation in 2015: congestive heart failure and rheumatoid arthritis were compounded with a diagnosis of vascular dementia and then bladder cancer.

I stepped away from work for a year, returned for six months, and then resigned from the ‘big’ corporate job in 2017 (Belgium has medical leave as part of their employment law¹). Dad passed in January 2020. Shortly after his funeral, we moved to another rollercoaster— treatment of two separate primary cancers for Mum.

Today, we count our blessings and greatly appreciate monotony, small moments, and SLEEP. As every cancer patient and caregiver knows, you never really leave or get out of the ‘cancer’ rollercoaster, especially on targeted therapy.

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Imagine a purple text that signifies movement, like ‘walking’, and a solid straight text style that represents ‘Your Why’. Below, a small red heart with two small naked footprints inside it symbolises the journey we're all on.

This Walking Your Why article focuses on how we can think beyond ourselves.

Self-awareness and self-development are perhaps more comfortable to focus on because we can exert agency and control on how we approach our personal growth.

When we interact with others and try to be understood, it’s messier, outside our control, and much less predictable. However, we can choose how we want to show up for others and interact. By defining our intentions, we’re more mindfully choosing how we want to be seen and received.

It may sound obvious, but do we give enough time to decipher others' context and personal reference points?

Interacting and being with others is a species activity and part of our shared humanity, but are we building bridges or expecting the other person to align with our way of thinking?

What default assumptions and expectations are we holding?

Personal biases, social conditioning, and emotional perception.

We each have biases and social conditioning. Some we know, others are unconscious parts we’ve absorbed as knowledge over time. These can easily play out in our actions, especially when rushing into thought-less action.

The more space and time we can give our brain’s executive functioning to kick in, the more thought-full and mindful we can be. We can pinpoint facts, search for context, and even ask ourselves or others curious, open questions.

Prof Lisa Feldman Barretts’ work² opened my mind and eyes to the ‘Matrix-ness’ of our world. (Keanu Reeves The Matrix movie ref) and social constructs.

Here are three articles I wrote highlighting Professor Feldman Barrett’s work.

• ‘Emotion Perception’ 'How do we construct emotions?' 3 videos by Professor Lisa Feldman Barrett. (Part 1). Important messages are worth repeating

Why is understanding the true nature of emotion so important? And why is it important to distinguish it from Emotion perception?

The science of emotion started with human experience it feels like emotions happen to you that you react to something that something in the world triggers a little circuit inside your brain but the true nature and complexity of emotion is much more fascinating than our own experience lets on.

Under the hood, emotions are not built into your brain from birth. They are built by your brain in specific situations from a set of basic ingredients.

You have a predicting brain, a body that causes you to feel affect, and a set of shared ‘Concepts’ that are absorbed into your brain as it develops throughout your lifetime.

• 'What influences Brain predictions?' and how can we build better predictions? Solving for unpredictability as a caregiver. (Part 3)

• 'What is social reality?' What social constructs frame our lives and influence us? (Part 5)

‘Mind the gap’ Checklist 1. Prompts I’ve found meaningful for me.

• Am I the architect of my own experience or defaulting to others?

• What is the basis for my assumptions?

• Am I judging based on feelings (emotion perception) or evidence-based facts?

• Am I anchoring to my values? What and why?

• Or, am I abdicating responsibility to someone or something else?

Cultural Awareness of others

It’s one thing to improve ourselves—our self-awareness, self-development, and growth—but humans are hard-wired for connection and belonging, so we need to figure out how to connect with others.

Expanding our understanding of others is as essential as developing our self-awareness—a lifelong journey!

Now that the world has become smaller in terms of communication and connection, thanks to tech innovations, travel, and migration, we have more contact with people we may perceive as different. There is no right or wrong. In the end, we are ALL different, and so we’re all the same. Perhaps it’s better just to think of ‘others’ as anyone who’s not yourself!

This way, we’re not focused on differences. Instead, we’re curiously learning how to connect better with others.

‘Mind the gap’ Checklist 2. What are the intentions of our communication

• How can we communicate for the benefit of others rather than for my voice to be heard or to have a visible presence?

• How can we help someone receive the message in the best way so that the receiver can understand it? Or are we trying to hammer our message and hope it gets across?

• Are we communicating and connecting to prove something or to share something?

Two experts whose research and publications offer solid base-reference points to build your cultural awareness and understanding.

• Geert Hofstede³ and his Cultural Dimension’s Theory (Published 1980, based on surveys in the 1960s and 1970s)

• Erin Meyer⁴ , who wrote ‘The Culture Map’ (Published 2014)

The insights are built in different socioeconomic eras when cultural dynamics, infrastructure and social policies were different.

It’s always worthwhile checking the source, data referenced and its context!

What is Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory?

Here’s a link to the Mindtools Article about Hofstede’s work: Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Understanding Different Countries

Psychologist Dr. Geert Hofstede published his cultural dimensions model at the end of the 1970s, based on a decade of research. Since then, it's become an internationally recognized standard for understanding cultural differences.

Hofstede studied people who worked for IBM in more than 50 countries. Initially, he identified four dimensions that could distinguish one culture from another. Later, he added fifth and sixth dimensions, in cooperation with Drs Michael H. Bond and Michael Minkov. These are:

1. Power Distance Index (high versus low).

2. Individualism Versus Collectivism.

3. Masculinity Versus Femininity.

4. Uncertainty Avoidance Index (high versus low).

5. Long- Versus Short-Term Orientation.

6. Indulgence Versus Restraint.

Note: in the original version of the book "Long- Versus Short-Term Orientation" was described as "Pragmatic Versus Normative."

‘Mind the Gap’ Checklist 3: 20th century Cultural awareness

• Are we staying curious and informed about different cultures?

• Are we aware of how they compare relative to each other?

The Culture Map: a Framework of Cultural Context by Erin Meyer

This is a great summary of her work by THNK School of Leadership (Aug 21, 2021)

Here is a good summary of the transcript on the YouTube site

I highly recommend her book. Clicking on the image will take you to my affiliate Bookshop site.

Book Cover Image of ‘The Culture Map’ By Erin Meyer. Different coloured head profiles of different sizes representing diversity, in a world map pattern.

Erin Meyers work has helped me to orient my communication and team dynamics towards the needs of the individual. Everybody is unique, and no one likes sweeping generalisations or stereotypes, but here’s an example of cultural awareness in action.

Erin Presenting to the Valiant Group on Low vs High Context Cultures. (May 23, 2014)

Just under 4 minutes, it’s worth watching!

‘Mind the Gap’ Checklist 4: Your Audience

• Are you really being understood? Do you understand your audience?

• Are you more low context (explicit) communication-culture or high context (implicit)?

• Low context cultures present: Tell you what I’m going to tell you, then I tell you, then I tell you what I’ve told you.

• High context cultures assume a much greater, shared context. It’s multilayered and more implicit in it’s communication. There are higher expectations that the receiver uses all their senses to understand the meaning of what’s being communicated.

• Where and who is your audience when you’re connecting (in text, phone, zoom, in person)?

The Pyramid structure of organisations will be replaced by the Tree

This is one of my favourite snapshot concepts of organisational development and behaviour.

Nordic Business Forum on Linkedin Erin Meyer at Oslo Business Forum 2021 (1 minute 46 seconds)

Watch out for

• 0.20 timestamp: The future of organisations, the pyramid is going to be replaced

• 0.30 timestamp. when she’s highlighting the future of a ‘Tree’ like decision making structure that enables Flexibility, Agility and attracts Top Talent.

‘Mind the Gap’ Checklist 5: Your ability to inspire and empower decision making where it matters

• Are you enabling and empowering or are you creating a bottleneck and centralised decision making?

• How are you inspiring innovation?

  Summary

Walking our why is not only about how we get clear about what matters; our values. For me, it’s also about how we choose to show up for others—our intentions.

I would recommend considering how your actions, your communication and those you are connecting with are receiving your connection, your energy and your expectations (high or low context).

You may be wondering how this applies in my caregiver context. In short, the same way I adapted my messages in presentations, I adapt my words and style with all the different people I interface with. Doctors, admin, pharmacies, charities, caregivers, my loved ones, older generation family, younger generation family (English, Chinese), my close friends (German, Swiss, English, American, French, Scottish) through the vascular dementia of my father, through the pain of chemo infusions with my Mum.

Every connection, I have to find a different bridge. A way of communicating that helps me to meet them where THEY are, so that I’m understood in their context.

Often, I have to move more steps forward than the other person to close the gap.

This is what EVERY caregiver goes through, and explains another piece of their exhaustion and frustration, trying to be understood. Pivot, shift, step. the never ending dance to adapt is not exactly a calm waltz.

For me, I can put my corporate management and leadership training to good use. However, even with training, the pressure and burden of being the one pivoting all the time can drive me crazy. Imagine what it’s like when you have no training, going through a health crisis of a loved one and have to interface with numerous people and systems.

I count our blessings and have immense gratitude for the strong bridges that we’ve built with oncologists, specialist liaison nurses, medics over time. We’re also clear who our go-to tradesmen are! This is not just about identifying your go-to friends.

In fact, some friends who say ‘just call me and I’ll be there’, may not be the hands on support they claim to be. Some early bridges could have landmines underneath them!

Where are your gaps? Can you start finding or building a bridge?

I hope I can help you, enable yourself with more tools to find or build your own bridges, or team up with others in your community to make those bridges work!

Together, we can be heard. Together we can be understood and make things happen.

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More importantly I hope you will recommend Carer Mentor to other readers, so that the resources I’m sharing can reach those who need it.

P.S. The Carer Mentor Collaboration goes live soon

1. Leave to support or care for a family member

• Under labor law in Belgium, every employee has the right to either fully suspend the performance of their employment contract or reduce their working hours to care for a family member facing a severe illness.

• Employees can cease their work commitments for a maximum period of 12 months per patient.

• Each of these breaks must be taken for at least one month and a maximum of three months at a time.

2. Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, is among the top 0.1% most cited scientists in the world for her revolutionary research in psychology and neuroscience. She is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University. She also holds appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, where she is Chief Science Officer for the Center for Law, Brain & Behavior.

Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain, by Lisa Feldman Barrett, 2021.

How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, by Lisa Feldman Barrett, 2017.

Dr. Barrett has published over 275 peer-reviewed, scientific papers appearing in Science, Nature Neuroscience, and other top journals in psychology and cognitive neuroscience, as well as six academic volumes published by Guilford Press. She writes regularly about science in the popular press, including The New York Times, The Guardian, Scientific American (see full list).

3. Geert Hofstede

4. Erin Meyer is the author of The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business and co-author with Reed Hastings of No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention. She is also a professor at INSEAD, one of the world's leading international business schools. Her work has appeared in Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, and Forbes.com. In 2023, Erin was selected by the Thinkers50 as one of the fifty most influential business thinkers in the world.