Find Your Why: a practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team pdfdrive com

CONVERSATION 1: THE HUMAN DIFFERENCE
(
20 MINUTES)
Tell specific stories of when you have felt most proud to work for
this organization.
(This isn’t about money or other metrics; it’s about what you have given, not what you’ve received.
Tell stories that capture what this organization stands for at its best.)
If a movement is to have an impact it
must belong to those who join it not just
those who lead it.
FACILITATOR TIP
You can choose to replace the word “organization” with “team,” “group,” “division” or whatever
noun is appropriate. But the phrasing should not be otherwise modified. We’ve written it this way
for good reason. We’re not looking for the organization’s financial accomplishments here. We’re
looking for something more human, something more meaningful that elicits an emotion.
Before the teams start to discuss their responses to conversation 1, provide the following
guidelines:
Each team’s task is to write down, on its flip chart, a sentence or phrase that will help team
members recall their stories later.
Generalizations are no good. You want stories about specific people and specific moments. The
more specific, the better. “I’m proud of the quality of the work we do” is too general. “I was so
proud the night I met a woman at a holiday party and she told me that her child’s life had been
saved by a cancer drug we developed. I don’t even work in that division, but it reminded me of
the importance of our work” is better because it’s more specific and emotional.
The outcome described in the stories can be big or small, affecting thousands of people or just
one person. The important thing is for the story to cause a visceral, emotional response in the
person telling it.

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Teams should come up with as many quality stories as they can (at least three) within the
allotted time.