Out of my Comfort Zone, WOOF!! 🦁

To be honest I don’t remember where I was when I received the email from the SAP Social Sabbatical team telling me that I had been selected to participate in their program next year. How could I remember it since it’s been almost a year?!

Instead I fully remember that my thinking was: “damn I did it, wow!!”. I was delighted.

Furthermore, I also remember that, after just five minutes, I said to myself: “oh my god! That’s really true!! I really did it!!! Now I really have to go!!!! How do I do it?????”

The questions that went through my mind in those few minutes were:

• How can I leave my work for a whole month?
• How can I leave my friends, my family, my plants, my beautiful dog for a whole month?
• Where will they send me and what if I don’t like the place?
• What if I don’t understand English well enough?
• What if I don’t like to my colleagues?
• What if I’m not good enough for the assignment?
• What if I don’t understand anything the customer is asking to me?
• What if I don’t like to the customer?
• What if I don’t like the local cuisine?
• What if I don’t like the local coffee?
• What if they forced me to eat pizza with pineapple?
• What if…what if…what if…

In short, as you may have understood, it was not exactly the “best 15 mins” of my life due to all the stress that I was causing myself.

Luckily, my dog 🦁 (did I already say it’s beautiful??) named Geremia came to me looking straight in the eyes and said “woof!!” (what else do you expect from a dog?!). That was exactly what I needed to hear!!

However, this is the end of the first episode of a story that began two years earlier, oh yes really. Because in order to apply for the SAP Social Sabbatical you need to be classified as a “Catalyst” and to be classified as Catalyst you need to be nominated by your manager the previous year. Therefore, my journey towards this wonderful experience starts from far away and I have to thank my manager Massimo who, more than anyone else, has always supported me with all my “innovative as well as absurd” ideas.

Participating in the SAP Social Sabbatical (“SoSa” for friends) was a wish I had for a long time, but it is not easy to participate because there are only a few places per year and (fortunately) there are many colleagues who want to participate for helping small start-ups or NGOs to improve their business processes and be able to be more effective in improving the lives of the people they support.

The main motivation that drove me to want to participate in this program was the desire to face a new “challenge” and get out of the comfort zone. But what is this blessed “comfort zone” that everyone is talking about??

According to the Oxford Dictionary: “a place or situation where one feels safe or at ease and without stress”.

For Cambridge Dictionary: “a situation in which you feel comfortable and in which your ability and determination are not being tested”.

Collins Dictionary instead defines it as: “a situation or position in which a person feels secure, comfortable, or in control”.

Different definitions of the same thing, it’s normal for people to get confused. Let me try to clarify: “a comfort zone is a familiar psychological state where people are at ease and (perceive they are) in control of their environment, experiencing low levels of anxiety and stress”.

We always try to have “the control of the situation”, we want to organize our lives at all times and predict the future, because this makes us “feel safe”. But we can’t “control” everything and this is one of the lessons I’ve learned since my arrival in Indonesia. I know that you are curious to know what else I learned?

Stereotypes are not necessarily incorrect, but they are incomplete.

Being the only Italian in the team, all the colleagues thought that I like to cook, that I’m always happy, that I like football, that I go everywhere around on a Vespa and that I think Starbuck’s coffee isn’t a real coffee: this is it the stereotype of an Italian boy.

Stereotypes are the “fastest” tool to get an idea of the person, but they are “ugly” because they are incomplete. Stereotypes do not consider all aspects of a person, a community, a country, but only some of them leaving out many others. Each person is the result of the different stories she/he has lived and will live; that’s why it is so important to not buy into a single story but try as good as possible to get a holistic picture.

p.s. actually, when I thought about what gift I could take with me to Indonesia I had no doubts, pasta!! (yes I know, sometimes I’m a perfect stereotype! =D)

To learn more about “the danger of a single story” listen Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk here https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story#t-480743

Want to help someone? Shut up and listen!

Often we want to help others, but in doing so we create even more confusion than the previous state. This happens because, instead of “listening” to others, we immediately start proposing solutions to solve problems that they haven’t told us about yet.

If you really want to help someone you don’t have to try to solve their problem according to your methodology/assumptions, but you have to listen their point of views and understand their difficulties, their needs and their possibilities in order to act on the basis of this information received. Therefore, your goal should not be to solve the specific problem, but to provide him with the tools and knowledge to ensure that he himself can solve it independently both now and in the future. A good consultant does not just solve the client’s problem, but helps the client to improve itself and to be autonomous.

But in order to be successful in our work as consultants, we need to do the hardest thing in the world: listen to others!!

To learn more about “how to help someone” listen Ernesto Sirolli’s TED Talk here https://www.ted.com/talks/ernesto_sirolli_want_to_help_someone_shut_up_and_listen

Why good leaders make you feel safe

It is often thought that a leader must be authoritarian, wrong!! A leader must be authoritative, in fact there are managers who are not leaders and leaders who are not managers. Being a leader is a recognition that comes from other people, the leader is authoritative and not authoritarian.

The difference between authoritarian and authoritative therefore lies in the value that other external people attribute to it.

But how then to be a good “leader”? The answer that Simon Sinek offers is to guarantee a “safe” and “trusted” space for its employees. This also applies as consultants, it is important that our stakeholders, as well as if they were our employees or colleagues, feel safe and trust us; only in this way will they really be able to follow our advice.

To learn more about “how to become a good leader” listen Simon Sinek’s TED Talk here https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_why_good_leaders_make_you_feel_safe

Ask the right questions from a different POW

After having learned not to trust stereotypes, having learned to listen to others and having learned to convey trust towards my stakeholders, I have also learned the importance of asking the right question. Ok, it may seem obvious, but we are often so focused on the idea we already have in mind that we avoid asking for the right information.

In my experience as a consultant I have learned “not to trust” the answers customers give me and always ask “why?”: why do you need that report? Why do you want me to put the button in the top right instead of the bottom left? Why do you want to color the window in blue? Why?? Why??? Why????

I don’t do it because I want to stress my stakeholders, but because there are often hidden needs or we often design the solution before having even analyzed the problems. Sometimes you just need to slightly change your point of view to see things we didn’t see before.

To see an example of parallel thinking read Kellogg’s story here https://www.wired.com/insights/2013/12/human-centered-design-matters/

I am grateful for this amazing opportunity of being part of this great pro-bono program and help a small company to improve their processes and strategies sharing my experience. This is exactly what I was looking for getting me out of my comfort zone, try a new experience in a foreign country, work with different colleagues, know new cultures, collaborate with different clients to which I usually work or, like my dog (did I mention it’s beautiful??) Geremia said “WOOF!!” 🦁

*The SAP Social Sabbatical Program is an award-winning portfolio of global pro-bono consulting programs that enable SAP employees to share their knowledge, skills and expertise with innovative non-profits and social enterprises all around the world. It builds upon SAP’s Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy to create equitable access to economic opportunity, education & employment, and the green economy.