Kindness & Gratefulness Always Win
The past four weeks have been a wonderful learning experience and provided endless opportunities to be grateful. I recently participated in SAP’s Social Sabbatical program and was assigned in Shenzhen, China. With no idea about the city, I packed my bags with everything I need but expectations. I’d rather fly without any hopes or any set picture in mind on what I’ll experience so I can fully immerse myself with the environment & get to know the culture better.
Week 1
We started the week by getting introduced to the other participants. We are 12 folks coming from 8 different countries with most coming from Europe. We had a strong start as a team since we had couple of pre-work calls and even started to communicate via WeChat. We actually even had to create a team name before going to China — we agreed on calling ourselves, the Sunshine Team! What I find most interesting is despite differences in culture, the team got along really well and you can feel everyone’s sincerity to get to know one another. We also met Zhen and Yuying, they are from Pyxera Global and they talked about the program, facilitated some team exercises, shared what should be our expectations and also walked us around the surroundings of our residence so we know where to eat, get cash and buy daily necessities. (I know this is week 1 — but Zhen and Yuying have been very instrumental the whole 4 weeks — learning the culture, helping us understand our clients better and just by being their helpful selves).
The next day, we got to meet our client. While I have been in recruitment for a while, I do not have any experience on dealing with external clients; I usually interact with SAP employees as my customers. It is something new yet it felt familiar — understanding customers’ needs no matter what field it is — would need similar things like patience and empathy.
Our client’s organization is an educational institution for philanthropy. They have several programs that target different audiences: from those that are founders of charity organizations; to project managers of philanthropic organizations; to even the general public or those with strong interest in philanthropy. We are assigned to work on their online education platform which targets the last group — those with interest in philanthropy and the general public. My familiarity with Open Online Courses is limited to Coursera and EdX — I see their value because you can learn from the comfort of your home and they have variety of lessons; what makes our client unique is their topics are focused on their expertise and not very usual for people to research on or to search for.
We spent the entire week getting to know the staff members and the nature of the business. It is a pretty small team, they have 5 members but they have an online platform of over 190 online courses and have over 20,000 users to manage. One thing I’m sure of is that they have strong human resources to make the business run under a small team. They need our support to help create a sustainable business model so they can continue to create social impact through education of philanthropy.
From my original assumption that the topics will be too limited — I learned that philanthropy covers a wide array of topics. Since China is deeply rooted on this concept, learning the culture alone is part of the scope of the online courses. I learned that studying social innovation and different social issues is also a part of their mission. At this time, I felt that there are lots of opportunities waiting for them in the field. While the topic is still not as wide as what you study in school — the organization’s advantage is the current shift in mindset of the society; now everyone is willing to learn and everyone would like to live sustainably.
Ended the week by going to the Karaoke — 3 hours is not enough for 12 people. The team had so much fun singing songs from different countries and different generations. Week 1 was such a blast!
Week 2
As the following week came in, we continue to make progress by discovering more details about our client. We also learned this week the value of hard work in Chinese culture, how our client works beyond what is expected to deliver courses to the people.
There are three of us assigned to this client, my two other colleagues are top performers as well in their line of work & we all have skills that will be relevant in creating the deliverables for the client; Karina is from Germany and Cristian is from France. What I like most about our team is we discuss and bring to the table whatever is on our minds. We do not agree on all things everytime which makes it a better learning experience — because to be able to clearly understand their point you have to exercise empathy and you have to really listen. Often times people will just agree on things just to get the job done, but this week taught me the value of speaking up and honoring others’ thoughts and feelings including yourself.
By the end of week 2, I felt that Sunshine Team was really the appropriate name for the group. Everyone is so energetic and while the day is for work and dedicated for our client; we spent dinners together to get to know each other better and try out different food experiences in China. We always try to make it work to be in a place where our vegetarian colleagues can be happy too — I love the balance of the team and how everyone is so considerate.
Week 3
Two more weeks left and everyone have the same goal to make an impact to the client and have a deliverable that would truly help their organization. What I like most about our client is they recognize that something needs to be done; I have been in situations when people do not acknowledge that there are weaknesses and feel that they should just keep on maintaining the status quo. This week, the three of us started working on the final deliverables, we came up with multiple suggestions but narrowed down what will be feasible with the current resources of the organization. We also did some research to benchmark them with similar organizations globally so the suggestions we propose have better basis and for them to have an awareness on the global situation.
This week, you can feel the pressure — not driven by the client but by ourselves. We would like to definitely give back by creating a sustainable business model for the client. This week has been filled with researching, analyzing and trying to see the big picture if the suggestion will fit the equation. I have learned a lot about philanthropic organizations this week — their business models and their marketing campaigns. It is interesting to me how I can apply what I know about recruitment marketing and branding to their organization. How my knowledge of the Chinese recruiting landscape can apply to this situation.
This weekend, the Sunshine team went to Guilin, China. The weather has been unpredicatable this week so we are not sure on what to expect. The skies were not very clear in Guilin but it’s not raining. This weekend made me love this team more and more — several firsts for me — they helped me to try to learn how to bike (still in progress); first time to ride a motorcycle so I can still join the cycling fun; and first time to reach the top of the hill. While I am always conscious of being a burden to them since I am not fit and active at all; they have been very supportive and encouraging. I would not have done all these things if they have not made me feel that anything is possible. We really had a great experience this week and it will always be memorable for me. We even met an old lady on top of the hill and she was very warm and excited to speak with us. We even took a polaroid photo with her that she can put on her diary (she has collection of coins from travelers all over the world and some polaroids too).
The Final Week
We had to share our deliverables by Wednesday to the client; final presentation to the rest of the cohort is Friday but the detailed one should be done earlier. We only had 2.5 days to finish it and there are still changes at this time, there are still things we need to add, things we think will make an impact. But we have to stay focused, after all I am sure we did our best; our main goal as a team is to ensure the business will run because we believed in its purpose. We see the value of educating philanthropy — how our client can lead the market in propagating information on Chinese traditions and on how they can transform and professionalize the philanthropy sector.
I often think that volunteering should involve your hands getting dirty or working directly with the elders or with the kids. The Social Sabbatical taught me how I can help on a different scale — how my business skills can make a difference to organizations who creates the direct impact to this people.
The client appreciated our deliverable; they have shared with us their initial plans on how will they implement the ideas we presented. There is nothing more worth it than hearing those words from them. We told them we will get in touch with them after the sabbatical to help if they have questions. We told them they could still connect with us via WeChat if they have questions.
Aside from the client and my two other SAP colleagues; our two project assistants really have made amazing contributions to the team. Huiyan and Miaojia were there not only to translate for us but to share their insights as university students and also their take on what the Chinese market would want. They worked really hard to ensure that the context of our presentation does not change even when translated to Chinese text. They have high quality standards which makes me feel comfortable that the translated version of our deliverables will serve its purpose to the client. They made us really proud how they can contribute at a young age; the director of the organization even told her staff to hire them after graduation if they are interested.
Come our last day together as a team, I watched and listen intently to the other teams as they present their deliverables and experience. I’m really amazed and proud of the Sunshine Team. Everyone’s dedication shine through the final day and you can hear how grateful the organizations are with the teams’ contributions.
We all hope that we truly can help them with the solutions we come up with. Truly, the Social Sabbatical experience has changed our lives in one way or another. We came here with the idea to help; but the program has helped us in ways we did not expect. Being away for a month in your normal job has taught me that kindness will always be your best weapon. As long as you have the best intention for people, it will translate with your actions and the other person will always see it through. And one should always be grateful, while there are tough days if one can still see why he or she should be grateful, he or she can definitely get up and survive. We all have fast paced lives that we forget to stop and appreciate the little things — a smile from a colleague, someone listening to what you are saying, or even the blue sky — if we start to notice these things, for sure we will all have better perspective on life and will always find ways to spread kindness and gratefulness.
