Weltanschauung and the Autobiography

WELTANSCHAUUNG AND THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Transforming the Jesuit Business School Experience

Through Sharing Personal Stories

Hartley McGrath Albers School of Business and Economics Seattle University 901 12th Avenue Seattle, WA 98122 USA [email protected]

William L. Weis Albers School of Business and Economics Seattle University 901 12th Avenue Seattle, WA 98122 USA [email protected]

Our proposal for presenting at the CJBE conference in Omaha is supported by a fully-developed paper (that paper is included after this proposal section). However, our plan for the session presentation will limit the discussion to a summary of our paper, history and highlights of the Autobiography Exercise, and a concise summarization of the benefits to our business school culture from this exercise. Below we are including the Abstract from the paper along with the

Key Words. After spending approximately 20 minutes sharing what we propose above (sum- maries of the paper, the Autobiography Exercise, and the outcomes) we plan to move the session toward an open discussion starting with the discussion questions posed below. In order to

1 achieve active engagement with the attendees, we plan to begin these discussions in small groups

(depending on the size of the attendance) and then bring the whole group together for an overall synthesis of the material. The proposed discussion questions follow the Abstract and Key Words presented below.

Abstract

Sharing personal stories among a small group of student colleagues involves multiple acts of courage, of trusting, and of being vulnerable and transparent. These are difficult stretches for our students, but the effort creates a transformative experience that changes how students see themselves, how they see their colleagues, and how they see the world (weltanschauung). For our university this sharing, via a structured autobiography exercise, has helped us create a business school culture, as well as broader campus culture, that is more socially aware, more empathic, more understanding, more civil and more humane. In addition, the program incorporates the reflective traditions of the Ignatian Examen, thereby offering a vehicle for connecting participants to our Jesuit heritage.

Key Words: weltanschauung, autobiography, resiliency, campus culture, retention, personal narrative, Ignatian Examen

Sample Discussion Questions

1. The sharing of personal stories (the Autobiography Exercise) permanently changes the participants’ weltanschauung, particularly with respect to how they see other people in their lives. What would you expect that change to look like?

2 2. After spending a day sharing stories with a small group, the participants share the expec- tation that they will never see other people again in the same way, that they will resist “simplify- ing” people as an expediency for “getting on with” the daily challenges of life. What do you suppose they mean by this? Do you regularly “simplify” people and make them one-dimensional in order to get on with the challenges of your life?

3. The unavoidable bombardment of “first impressions,” followed by the reinforcing effects of confirmatory bias, lead us inexorably toward a world view (weltanschauung) that sees individuals as much less than they really are – less complicated, less challenged by life, less thoughtful and understanding, etc. Can you imagine how sharing autobiographies with a small group would alter this trajectory toward misunderstanding and perhaps even toward prejudices?

4. After the day-long autobiography exercise participants proclaim, in one way or another, that they will never see others in the same way – not the grocery store check-out clerk, not the barista at the coffee shop, not the person walking by on the street, not the driver cutting lanes, etc. “I have no idea what is going on with the ‘others’ in my life, and no idea what they have been through.” Can you resonate with this revelation?

5. Can you comment on the opportunities for applying the guidelines and spirit of the Igna- tian Examen to this reflective experience?

Note: The full paper follows starting on page 5.

3 4 WELTANSCHAUUNG AND THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Transforming the Jesuit Business School Experience

Hartley McGrath Albers School of Business and Economics Seattle University 901 12th Avenue Seattle, WA 98122 USA [email protected]

William L. Weis Albers School of Business and Economics Seattle University 901 12th Avenue Seattle, WA 98122 USA [email protected]

WELTANSCHAUUNG AND THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

5 Transforming the Jesuit Business School Experience

Hartley McGrath and William Weis

ABSTRACT

Sharing personal stories among a small group of student colleagues involves multiple

acts of courage, of trusting, and of being vulnerable and transparent. These are difficult

stretches for our students, but the effort creates a transformative experience that changes

how students see themselves, how they see their colleagues, and how they see the world

(weltanschauung). For our university this sharing, via a structured autobiography exer-

cise, has helped us create a campus culture that is more socially aware, more empathic,

more understanding, more civil and more humane. In addition, the program incorpo-

rates the reflective traditions of the Ignatian Examen, thereby offering a vehicle for con-

necting participants to our Jesuit heritage.

Key Words: weltanschauung, autobiography, resiliency, campus culture, retention, personal narrative, Ignatian Examen

Sharing on the Trail

6 We were walking together on a trail connecting the valley village of Kastelruth and the ski village of Compatsch in the Seiser Alm, under the peaks of the Schlern, an imposing massif in the Italian Dolomites of the Südtirol. The assignment was simple. Each of us would have 30 to

40 minutes to extemporaneously share our life story with the other, with added time for interrup- tions and questions from the listener. Halfway along the two-hour hike to Compatsch we would switch roles of listener and story teller. The activity was part of a five-day course in Leading with Emotional Intelligence, and, as it turned out, the maiden voyage for a program that is now in its 15th consecutive year (2017), and that inaugurated a new course that is currently in its 36th iter- ation on our Seattle campus.

The group participating in this first trip to the Dolomites comprised only 14 MBA students (our recent groups have exceeded 40 participants) and two program instructors. Given this small group size, the instructors chose to participate with the graduate students in this autobiography-sharing trek. I (Weis) was one of the instructors and was paired up with an aerospace en- gineer in her early thirties. I agreed to share my story first, having no idea how the activity would unfold – yes, we had created and framed an exercise that neither of the instructors had yet participated in (there always has to be a first time!).

I knew, at least on the surface and in my head, that my life’s path had been bumpy. I in- tended to run through the basic facts of my personal story pretty dispassionately, answer any clarifying questions, and then become a good listener for my student. Within the first ten minutes I was struggling to complete sentences, and soon would find my voice getting stuck in the middle of words. My student stopped hiking and asked me to sit down facing her. Then she waited for me to continue, with a clear body language that said “I’m not going anywhere.”

7 I learned many things in the half hour that followed. I realized that I had never heard my voice telling my story out loud, and that hearing me say something is completely different from just thinking it. I learned that hearing me say what was true gives it a reality that mere thinking keeps in the abstract. I also learned that saying out loud that which had heretofore been “un- speakable” was not only possible and “speak-able,” but that doing so lifted a cloud of self-imposed isolation – or perhaps better to say “culture-imposed” isolation – that was both liberating and life-giving. And, finally, I learned that listeners lean in to the truth, rather than run from it.

I’m glad I took this risk on our first-ever course in emotional intelligence (EQ), because it helped me to understand the visceral power of the autobiography that we would see unfold in course after course over the next 14 years. It also informed our subsequent selection of course activities and ultimately expanded the autobiography exercise from its initial extemporaneous sharing between two people on a hiking trail in Italy. The autobiography exercise today starts with students writing their life stories in condensed, four-page (single-spaced) documents, and culminates in a full-day (six to eight hour) activity involving intimate sharing among from five to seven of their class colleagues.

Learning Objectives

With over 45 iterations of Leading with Emotional Intelligence in our history today, the learning objectives of the autobiography exercise have evolved from what we have observed from the activity’s impact over those years. Most of our current learning objectives were beyond our expectations when we started this activity, and have been responsible for our expanding the scope of the exercise. Those objectives now include:

8 1. To explore the role that key people and key events have had on one’s growth and devel- opment.

2. To experience the visceral impact of sharing one’s personal story with others, an experience that enlightens in ways that are always unpredictable, yet always impactful.

3. To broaden one’s weltanschauung (world view) through becoming aware of the shared challenges that make up the human experience.

4. To experience the gifts of understanding, acceptance and empathy that pervade the autobiography sharing space.

5. To bring to the relationships among students, faculty and academic advisers the empathy, curiosity, acceptance and caring that ultimately transforms the education experience.

Innovative Aspects of the Program

Oral history and personal narrative are not necessarily new or innovative instruments for learning about ourselves and others, but they must be considered at least unusual in the curriculum of a graduate business school. Furthermore, our experience with delivering this program to graduate students from myriad academic disciplines supports the argument of novelty at least across our university, where we are serving graduate students from every school on campus: Al- bers School of Business and Economics, School of Law, College of Education, School of Theol- ogy and Ministry, College of Science and Engineering, and the College of Arts and Sciences.

Here are the key, and we believe innovative, elements of the autobiography exercise:

1. A common assignment to write a condensed, four-page autobiography highlighting the pivotal people and events that have shaped the formation of each student.i

9 2. A sharing of the written autobiographies with members of a “coaching group” (fellow students in peer-coaching relationships) comprising from five to seven student colleagues.

3. An oral sharing of autobiographies with members of one’s “T Group” (a training group configuration used in our EQ training)ii comprising from five to seven student colleagues, to be done over a seven to eight hour period during the first day of a three-day residential retreat.iii

4. A one to two hour meeting with each participant’s coaching group to facilitate follow-up questions from peer coaches who have read their coaches’ stories but have not shared those stories orally.iv

Discussion of Outcomes and Implications for Future Practice

Expanding one’s weltanschauung was not an initial goal for our autobiography exercise.

Yet it has proven, over time, to be an unintended benefit that eclipses in importance the other purposeful intentions that we set out to accomplish with the activity. We believe the reason for this impact draws from an aspect of human nature that we all can relate to: the need to simplify other human beings in order to get on with the daily challenges of life.

We unconsciously and unintentionally simplify people. We do so as an expediency to get on with life. In a morbid extreme of this survival reflex, we “objectify” and thereby dehumanize our enemies in war, often using vulgar, untoward language that we respectfully will not replicate in this discussion. We do this so that our combatants are able to get on with the business of war

– get on with the killing of other human beings.

In our routine lives we simplify people in much more benign ways. We call the driver in the next car lane a “stupid moron” (we hope out of earshot) with no intention to hurt him. We may pass hundreds of people each day, walking down the hallways at work, the sidewalks of the

10 city, and the aisle ways of the grocery store. In order to go about the routines of life we conve- niently see humans in our daily pathways as one-dimensional beings, sometimes as one-dimensional nuisances – if we bother to see them at all. We may work in the same office with the same colleagues for decades without knowing much more than their names and what part of town they live in – if we even know these facts.

There is no shame in this convenience. Reducing multi-faceted humans to mental stick figures allows us to get from home to work, from one meeting to another, from one task to another, from one deadline to another. The problem isn’t that we do this. It enables us to get on with addressing the needs, wants and commitments of our personal lives. The problem is that the over-simplification of humanity -- the making one-dimensional that which is complex and multi- dimensional -- permits the narrowing of our weltanschauung in ways that can breed apathy, greed, prejudice, indifference, and, in the worst scenario, bigotry and hatred. Or, in less dramatic fashion, it enables unconsciousness.

What good is a change of weltanschauung that illuminates all human beings as the complex organisms that they are? What are the benefits of having a post-autobiography-sharing per- spective on humanity?

Today, as we sit in work meetings, or in T Groups, or in social gatherings, we can see everyone in our vision as full and complex, giving up shallow stories of their simplicity and in- significance. From this change evolves respect for human dignity. From this change an education major sees an MBA student as having an unknown but rich personal history, and not as being a clone of Gordon Gekko (the wretchedly greedy antihero in the movie Wall Street). From this view we see the driver who just cut in front of our car as someone we know nothing about – not nearly enough to believe that hateful story that is brewing in our minds. From this view we

11 cannot pretend to know anything of importance about anyone just because he or she is a law student, or a religious fundamentalist, or a native of Saudi Arabia, or a flamboyant dresser, or quiet, or brooding, or bald.

After the autobiography exercise our students see everyone differently. They stop believ- ing in their “stories” about people, even when they cannot stop having those stories. They stop pretending to know very much about the people sitting around them, and stop pretending that they are one-dimensional. Without knowing any of the details, they now see the check-out clerk at the grocery as someone with a full, complicated, and challenging life. Without knowing more, they see the barista at the coffee shop as someone who faces challenges, perhaps greater than their own. Without knowing what is really true, they see the loud-mouthed student in our EQ class as struggling with obstacles that they can only imagine.

Participants in our autobiography activity report that they see their class colleagues in ways that they never could have imagined when they left for the retreat that morning. Without exception, in one way or another, participants begin to doubt their first impressions, doubt their stories, and begin to see and acknowledge the confirmatory biases that take their thoughts so inexorably from first impression to damnation, and so far away from truly knowing the people who occupy their lives.

The autobiography exercise changes people’s weltanschauung permanently. This is not just the conclusion of students fresh from the experience. That conclusion is supported by the dozens of former students who have chosen to repeat our EQ course, and who report that their view of the world was altered in substantive and durable ways from their first experience with the autobiography exercise. And it is supported by the numerous former EQ students who have helped deliver future sections of our EQ course over the years, many bringing their impressive

12 skill sets in T Group facilitation and coaching to multiple iterations of the course, over many years. The autobiography exercise, more than any other activity in the EQ training milieu, changes how we see the world, how we see our co-workers, how we see our friends, and how we see the people with whom we have random encounters in our daily lives.

Transforming Campus Life through Story Sharing

We incorporate this powerful autobiography experience into a broader curriculum for teaching emotional intelligence to graduate students. The activity, however, offers even more potential as a stand-alone, focused “in take” experience for all students beginning their academic careers at our -- or your – university. We believe that a structured day of personal story-sharing could be the most impactful element of a formal orientation schedule, even as a substitute for a more labor-intensive and less-impactful experience designed to smooth the transition from home to university.

We believe this because the most difficult and confounding challenges facing new students are social and psychological, not academic. We may hesitate to admit this, because we often see ourselves as ill-equipped if not helpless to address these kinds of personal challenges.

But this does not remove them from being the key factors in academic failure and attrition. And they should be acknowledged: self-doubt, insecurity, low self-esteem, low self-acceptance, isolation, alienation, loneliness, awkwardness, self-doubt, being “not enough,” self-consciousness, fearful of personal disclosure.

One day of intimate story-sharing can change the weltanschauung of every new student and do so in ways that augur for a smoother life transition and even for a “new start” in their growth as young adults. Based on what we see every term in our graduate students, we can pre-

13 dict a transformation in new undergraduates that directly counter-vails many of the social and psychological issues that hamper their early adjustment to lives as adult students – issues that are best addressed earlier rather than later, and that create a positive weltanschauung that can change the course of their lives, as college students and beyond.

Here is what that one day of sharing can produce in terms of personal awareness and weltanschauung, distilled from our 14 years of observation:

1. I am enough. Today, yesterday, on the day I was born, and on the day I depart.

2. My student colleagues are like me. They also have faced adversity. They also have been knocked down. And we are all capable and resilient.

3. Not one of my new student colleagues is simple. And not one is living the perfect life.

4. When people know who I am, they lean toward me. They accept me. They do not run from who I really am.

5. The people I pass on the campus pathways, whether students, faculty, staff, or visitors, are complex individuals who face life challenges that I can only, at best, imagine.

6. I can be transparent with who I am. I can live in the truth – both within and without.

7. No matter what happens, I am okay. I am enough. This merits repetition in this list.

8. I am curious about and interested in my campus colleagues – and provide a safe space for them to share their truths.

9. I will never really know what my friends and class colleagues are going through – or have gone through. This will not block the bombardment of first impressions I may have about them, or mute the confirmatory biases that support and reinforce those stories. But from now on,

I will not believe that my stories are true.

14 10. I am liberated by sharing myself, liberated by being myself, and liberated by accepting myself – by shedding my adversarial relationship with the truth.

The Autobiography as a Window to the Ignatian Examenv

Over 400 years ago St. Ignatius framed a twice-daily practice designed to “cultivate an awareness of God’s presence in one’s lived experience” and offering a “framework for discerning how to expand our capacity to love and detach from that which makes us less than fully alive.”vi

We see the autobiography exercise – the transparent sharing of personal stories – as a po- tent vehicle for applying the spirit of the Ignatian Examen to a rich exploration of one’s personal life, as well as to a poignant contemplation of life in general, and to the formation of our weltanschauung (world view).

Using specifically the Examen’s categories of Consolation and Desolation, we offer the following structure and questions to frame a deeper examination of our life’s pivotal elements

(key events, people, transformational moments, etc.). We suggest that group members utilize these queries to help their colleagues reflect more deeply on the stories they have shared.

Review your Life with Gratitude

Consolation

What in my life felt energizing, hopeful, life-giving, centering?

Where was I filled with gratitude?

When did I give and receive the most love?

How have I been fully able to attune to the present moment?

Desolation

15 Where in my life did I feel anxious, hurried, drained, disturbed, fearful or empty?

What made me feel less than fully alive or less than grateful?

When did I have the least sense of belonging to myself or others?

When was I distracted from what’s most important to me?

Pay Attention to your Emotions

“One of St. Ignatius’s great insights was that we detect the presence of God in the awareness of our emotions. Ignatius himself was often moved to tears. Anxiety, apprehension, joy, unease – all of these are invitations for us to explore our interior life, not in judgement, but as a way of noticing where we might be called to attend more fully to the needs of your body, mind and spirit.”vii

Choose one Aspect of your Life upon which to Reflect more Deeply

Reflect upon one aspect of your life that seems particularly significant and formative. It may be a consolation to savor or a desolation to explore with curiosity. As you reflect, perhaps a meditation or intention arrives from within – a desire to cultivate more of what is most life-giving, or a desire to let go of that which holds you back from fully embodying the graces of your life.

Small Group Reflection Guidelines

Finally, we offer the following guidelines to T Groups and Coaching Groups to help them create an appropriate space of safety, caring and curiosity – and to set a tone that honors and dig- nifies the words they are about to share.

16 1. In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius encourage spiritual directors to “put the best inter- pretation possible” on the words of the other, to give one another the benefit of doubt and to re- frain from judgement while seeking understanding.

2. The person speaking shares from her own experience, trusting that her story and insights are welcomed by the group.

3. The diversity of the perspectives and backgrounds of this group are special gifts. Al- though we have much in common, let us be honest about the differences in our experiences and see our distinctiveness as an opportunity to learn and grow from one another.

4. As the speaker shares, the “hearers” listen generously without the need to respond, fix, save, or give advice. The listeners hold in confidence what is shared.

5. After each person has had a chance to speak, the conversation opens up and all are welcomed to notice commonalities and differences in the group’s experiences and to take the questions deeper.viii

In Conclusion

For Seattle University, the growing cadres of students who have shared in this experience bring a more civil and more humane discourse to campus life. They bring a spirit of empathy, of tolerance, of acceptance, of understanding – and, notably, of not knowing and not embracing stories and prejudices. This new weltanschauung informs how they see and interact with everyone they encounter on campus, not just with those who have been through our autobiography immer- sion. And this is making our campus culture, little by little, in the words of our university mis- sion, a more “just and humane world.”

17 For all of these reasons, we offer this schema for a day-long reflection experience as a po- tentially transformative addition to undergraduate orientation programming. We believe it could not only prepare new students for an effective start to their academic careers, but also may offer a path toward a deeper and fuller life beyond college – to a weltanschauung that is more expan- sive, more enlightened, and more life-giving. Please don’t hesitate to ask for our assistance should you want to experiment with this transformative exercise.

Endnotes

18 i Here are the formal specifications of the autobiography exercise: Autobiography Assignment One critical component of developing emotional intelligence involves the ability to increase awareness of how our cultural and family backgrounds impact our current relationships. Our personal histories will often have a significant impact on when or with whom we become stuck in relationships, or become “hijacked” and ineffective in personal encounters, and can serve as a window into deeper understanding of self and increased emotional intelligence. As such, we would like you to compose a brief autobiography that identifies key events and key people in your life that have served to shape how you currently interact in relationships and social/workplace encounters. In essence, we would like you to write your “story” as it informs your current levels of EQ. Your autobiography should be no more that 3-4 pages in length (single spaced). ii The T Group was originally conceived by the National Training Laboratories in 1947. It was enjoyed resurgent popularity in recent years as an experiential training intervention to create more transparent communication within organizations. iii The oral sharing of autobiographies is framed with the following instructions to students: Please carry a written copy of your autobiography with you for today’s experience. You will share your autobiography with the members of your T Group. Most people read what they have written, stopping occasionally to answer question from their T Group colleagues. You are free to add or delete parts of your story at will, and paraphrase from your actual written text. You share only what you choose to share. The activity begins with a 10 to 20 minute hike, which will be resumed throughout the day. Your sharing group will stop periodically, and one student will share his/her autobiography out loud with the group. Writing your own autobiography is a powerful experience. Hearing other students' stories is also powerful. However, the act of reading your own autobiography out loud may evoke particularly strong emotions in you. Be prepared. Take up to 40 minutes per person for reading and answering questions. Between readings the T Group will hike for approximately 15 minutes before stopping and listening to another member’s autobiography. Separate each reading and question- ing period (each approximately 40 minutes) with 15 minute hikes. iv See section on “The Autobiography as a Window to the Ignatian Examen” for a frame for this discussion that embraces the approach to reflection developed over 400 years ago by St. Ignatius of Loyola. v We use the Spanish noun for “test” (Examen) in reference to the twice-daily reflective period that St. Ignatius expected of his followers. The Examen was presented in Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises, published first in Latin in 1548. However, St. Ignatius’s original manuscripts were written in Spanish, from which the Spiritual Exercises was translated into Latin. vi Our colleague, Jen Tilghman-Havens, Associate Director of the Center for Jesuit Education at Seattle University, has been instrumental in helping us incorporate Ignatian teaching traditions throughout our business school curricula. She regular helps deliver the campus “Arrupe Seminars” which have informed many of our approaches to teaching and especially to formal reflection. Much of our framing for both the Autobiography Exercise, as well as for the debriefing and reflection that follows that experience, owe their structure to Jen’s counsel and assistance. vii This passage was taken verbatim from a working paper prepared by Jen Tilghman-Havens to give guidance and encour- agement to include examination of emotions in group and personal reflection. She adapted her advice directly from St. Ig- natius’s explanation of his Examen exercise. viii These group reflection guidelines were adapted from the Circle of Trust Quaker approach and the Canadian Jesuits’ “Communal Apostolic Discernment: A Toolkit,” by Jen Tilghman-Havens in February 2017.