“It’s the humanity of the connection,” she said. I was talking to Esther Mark on a zoom call. She had just finished the new playground building course that we had designed for the non-profit organization play360, and she was giving us some final feedback.
When I evolved from my work at the community organization that I founded, Entreamigos, and moved on to the vast unknown of what is next, I wasn’t sure what it would look like or how I could somehow package all that I learned into a new job or a new contribution to the world. It was clear to me that I had much to offer and incredibly unclear how to do so. In those often difficult and disheartening years of transition, I worked really hard to identify my hard skills, those ones that LinkedIn asks you to list, others evaluate and they fill up a resume and would somehow land me a job. Twice I walked away from a job interview or a job rejection with the nagging thought, “Really Nicole, you had to talk about love?” I was once reminded in a well intentioned, off handed comment, “it’s all just a little too hippy dippy” – a colleague was referring to my proposed approach to a group meeting. Needless to say, entering into the “real world” of business from the soft space of Entreamigos was not easy. My hard skills were evident, but it was the softer ones that I felt most committed to. Feeling bruised and a little desperate, I noticed that I became more careful with my language, more selective of how I expressed my thoughts, (note to self, saying “love” in a business meeting is highly unusual). I censored my passion on the sleeve approach to be a bit more reserved and cautious.
It turned out that my next venture into business came in the form of consultancies through connections and relationships, not LinkedIn, a recruiter, or an open call for applicants. One of those opportunities was to support a committed and passionate founder as he worked to transition his organization to new leadership and in a new more sustainable direction. We had been connected by mutual friends, it was an easy in. I sent my resume, we had a conversation on the zoom and I was offered the job in the next week. The job was about hard skills. He and the current Executive Director needed a plan to adapt their labor intensive, cost intensive and personal commitment intensive work building playgrounds in the global south in a way that conserved the important lessons, great intentions and years of acquired experience and knowledge while at the same time, freeing them both from the responsibility. They needed an actionable strategy and plan and someone to lead that transition. They wanted it all to continue but they didn’t want to have to be the one doing it. Having just evolved from my own organization, I understood the sentiment and the urgency.
But it was evident that what they also needed was to preserve the spirit of their work, they were committed and passionate about the people. Their approach had been an on-the-ground, person to person engagement and although this approach was exhausting and no longer possible, what to replace it with wasn’t clear either. My job was to figure out how to preserve the personal essence, while developing an efficient strategy to streamline and make cost efficient the delivery of the information and the construction of more playgrounds. Although an imperfect solution, it was decided that the best strategy was to try to convert all of their experience into an online course. Figuring out how to keep people at the center, was the challenge that I found most intriguing.
Esther Mark is the second “playmaker” to complete the course that we designed. Since she was one of our first participants we had reached out to welcome her and answer any questions. A day prior to that initial phone call I had lost my passport while traveling in Morocco. Since I had to travel again in a few short days, I would need to process an emergency passport at the consulate and so when it came time for the call with Esther, I was sitting on a bus heading to the passport office that was hours away. I considered canceling but it was too close to the day of the call and besides, I was frustrated with myself that all of this stress and wasted money had to happen because I couldn’t hold onto a little blue book, probably the most important item I owned. Taking a call on a bus was the perfect satisfaction for my inner critic, “you get what you deserve, Nicole.” Virginia, the program manager for play360 was also on the call as we interviewed Esther and asked her about her intentions for playground building and how she thought it might make a difference. She was smart, capable and reflective. She talked about the non-profit that she already managed, how she could get caught up in the happiness of the kids or the emotion of the moment and how they called her “Mama Esther,” she said this with the biggest smile. She was everything that we would want in a playmaker and already much more. I snapped a screenshot to remember the moment. I hung up from the call feeling grateful she had found us and buoyed by her commitment and her spirit. I softened towards myself and gave myself permission to not have to suffer through the next 12 hours of public transportation and new passport acquisition. I was doing good work in the world, it’s okay if I don’t always have it all together.
And today, a few months later, I was once again on a call with Esther and Virginia. Esther had finished our course and we were meeting about the next steps to actually build the playground. In particular, we asked her for feedback as we worked to improve it for the 74 others who were also now in the course and making their way through. “Can you tell me what really worked for you, and something that would make the course better?” She was thorough in her feedback; direct, positive, thoughtful and confident in sharing many good things and some spaces where we could make things more clear, easier to manage or more professional. Not everyone can feel confident enough to offer real feedback and most especially when the next phase of the conversation was about receiving funding for her project.
As we were finishing the conversation we asked her for any last thoughts, “You know, I’m just really touched by the humanity of it all – the way that you spoke to me from the beginning, like you really were interested in me. When I got sick and stopped progressing through the course and Virginia responded to me directly, “its okay, your health has to come first,” I felt like I wasn’t just another number to get through the course, like you cared and there was this real part of me that wanted to do my best because of that. I committed to finishing the course and to do it well because I knew that you were always right there for me and I wanted to hold up my side.”
In another month or two, I am sure that Esther will accomplish building her playground. But what I recognize even more everyday is that there is no substitute, no matter how well designed, for personal connection. Every one one of us are human, equally amazing as fallible, striving and needing to be seen. Esther’s positive enthusiasm brightened my day and silenced my critic for an entire 12 hour bus ride. Virginia’s kind words created a bond of appreciation that pulled Esther to complete the course. We need each other. Maybe the challenge isn’t designing out the personal connection for efficiency or effectiveness, maybe the actual challenge is how to better design it in.