How harnessing the power of empathy leads to successful and inspiring collaboration
Developing a new appreciation for trust from cross-sector exchange
by Caroline Blight with contributing editors Daniela Kreimer & Romina Carrillo
At a certain level, it can be hard to step outside the corporate bubble — but the rewards in doing so are great. From understanding new ways of thinking to discovering qualities that will enhance your role, and focusing on priorities which will uplift those around you. Working in a completely different environment within a social entrepreneur is an experience that companies may find inspirational, valuable, and impactful.
In partnership with Ashoka, the largest network of system-changing social entrepreneurs worldwide, Boehringer Ingelheim has been offering this opportunity to colleagues with great success, through the Ashoka program Executive in Residence, which connects these social innovators with business leaders in win-win collaborations.
In case of Boehringer Ingelheim executive Giorgio Gatti and NGO founder and Ashoka Fellow Dixon Chibanda, trust was a huge takeaway and will inform their work and private lives going forward.
While both Giorgio and Dixon already displayed this quality working collaboratively and in their individual working worlds, they’ve felt the impact of recognizing the quality in themselves and in their teams since settling back into their daily lives.
Stepping into a life-changing experience
The Executive in Residence initiative is an individually tailored opportunity where a Boehringer Ingelheim executive takes part in a placement with an Ashoka Fellow. These Fellows are tackling health care issues in innovative ways, often in under-resourced situations. Boehringer Ingelheim employees work alongside these impactful social entrepreneurs, overcoming challenges and offering their experience while trying new ways of working and growing their skillset too.
When Giorgio Gatti, Director of IT Data Insights & Advanced Modeling at Boehringer Ingelheim, signed up to offer his skillset and enthusiasm, he had no idea who he would be working with. As soon as he was introduced to Dixon Chibanda, founder of growing NGO Friendship Bench, he felt they were a good match.
“On our initial call we got to know each other and began to understand each other’s aspirations — within 20 minutes I was fascinated with the mission of this NGO. What really triggered me was the purpose and the reason behind Friendship Bench,” Gatti explains. “We decided to invest time in each other and try to learn from each other.”
Dixon admits that Gatti was the first executive he’d spoken to in the matching process step of the program and immediately knew they would work well together. “I had a list of at least six people that I was supposed to talk through from different organisations — Giorgio happened to be the first person so I never got to speak to them!” he smiles. The pair were ‘match made’ by Ashoka after both submitting questionnaires. “I’m happy we didn’t check everyone else because it’s worked out so well with Giorgio.”
Friendship Bench began in Zimbabwe as a unique concept seeking to help with depression and anxiety — in a country that has only 12 psychiatrists. The organization trains grandmothers and older women who often have a background in healthcare to become beacons of mental health support. These women sit on Friendship Benches, which are often located near health care facilities such as clinics and community hospitals. There, the trained volunteers speak with those struggling with their mental health.
These women are able to provide guidance and help in culturally appropriate ways and have an incredibly high success rate in improving outcomes for those they meet. The concept is now being rolled out globally and can be found in five countries, and Friendship Bench has the commitment to train more ‘grandmothers.’ The organization also wants to provide more opportunities for peer-led support groups for those who have sat on the Friendship Bench, in order to continue the program’s benefits.
Immersing in the project
With Giorgio based in Italy leading a team spread across the world and Dixon working between Zimbabwe and London, remote interactions and mentoring were necessary. But the pair still met in person numerous times, including a visit to Zimbabwe for Giorgio that really informed his work and made the experience even more meaningful.
Giorgio says it was moving to see how effective Friendship Bench was, and the visit inspired him to consider additional ways to have a more significant impact. In fact, he was so enthused that he went beyond the brief. “Officially, I was helping to build digital solutions for their project as I’m a computer science engineer,” he says. “I like technology but I’m a creative guy and enjoy looking and thinking outside the box, so I try to go beyond technology when I can. The assignment developed into something broader after a few months.”
Working in a different capacity with a totally different business structure can be confronting and uncomfortable. Certainly, Giorgio had plenty of moments where he was outside his comfort zone but focusing on certain qualities helped.
“I believe empathy is a must in building a relationship,” he says. “I am an empathetic person and I really went in with empathy and listened, that was also my approach when I joined the team virtually and a couple of months later when I travelled to Zimbabwe. I met some patients and grandmothers and my approach was again to try to connect with them and apply deep listening and empathise.”
The visit highlighted a key takeaway for Giorgio which has been useful as he returned to his original job at Boehringer Ingelheim. “Dealing with uncertainty was something I learned to cope with — trusting people was for me the successful way to really overcome that,” he explains. At Boehringer Ingelheim, Giorgio is supporting communities within the company that allow those doing similar roles to meet, support one another, and share best practices.
And the learnings he gained from participating in the Executive in Residence program have shown up in his private life, too. “The reason I fell in love with this NGO was the power of purpose. It proves that whenever people are challenged by something, the magic can happen,” he says. “It’s amazing what humans can do in our organisation or private life if triggered by purpose.”
Passion in purpose
Going forward, Giorgio hopes he can carry on working with Dixon in some capacity, as he is keen to support Friendship Bench and see the organisation grow and develop its important work.
“I’m still mentoring some of the IT people, guys who would like to upskill and I coached the team to deliver the platform they have had trouble finishing,” says Giorgio. “I’m also supporting them to scale up the business outside Africa.”
And Dixon is thrilled that in some way their relationship could continue. “Giorgio has just been amazing, he’s been so committed and we couldn’t have asked for a better person to have worked with,” he says.
“Our team would really love to take this all the way to the end with him, particularly the digital portal which we introduced recently. Giorgio bought into the story of Friendship Bench in a very big way — I think he is one of our best advocates and really knows how to articulate our vision and what we’re trying to achieve. He understands what’s happening on the ground which makes a huge difference,” Dixon reflects.
Powerful takeaways from meaningful collaboration
From Dixon’s point of view, the partnership has certainly been a huge success. “I thought it would take us at least another five years to get to where we are now,” he explains. “We now have a platform which is functional and can be used globally.”
But more than delivering one piece of the puzzle for Friendship Bench, working with Giorgio has changed the way they operate going forward. “He has really changed the way my team thinks,” Dixon continues. “We need to be agile, to need to iterate fast — fail fast, go back to the drawing board, fail fast and learn from that again. Previously, we’d wait for a product to be perfect but with Giorgio we’ve learned we can take certain elements into the field and if they don’t work, we can still use that as a learning experience. And he has made work fun!”
Just as Giorgio has harnessed the power of trust and found it to be a quality expressed more in his life following the partnership, Dixon also had to trust Giorgio with the organization he had founded and nurtured. But combined with the lessons learned from launching the digital platform, Dixon has found a new confidence. “For me as the leader, I believe more in my team’s ability to develop in-house tech solutions,” he says.
And Dixon admits trusting Giorgio and welcoming him quickly into the team was easy: “When Giorgio came to see Zimbabwe he didn’t come with any pre-conceived notions or expectations,” he explains. “He was prepared to immerse himself, to travel to remote rural villages where your average Westerner would not want to go. He felt equally at home in that rural setting as he felt at our Friendship Bench hub in a modern, well-equipped building. He interacted well with everyone at every level, kindness is in his spirit.”
There’s no doubt the partnership has proved beneficial and transformative for both Giorgio and Dixon in their professional and personal lives, and they encourage others to seize the benefits of these cross-sector collaborations.
