Step into someone else's shoes

Last year we had a big internal event at Tchibo Hamburg called Sustainability in Dialogue, where we invited our colleagues to learn about our sustainability initiatives. One part was giving an overview on our main Tchibo sustainability topics. In a World Café style they got to know our approach on diverse subjects, including a glimpse of what WE is about. 

To build on that we organized a WE exhibition in January, explaining the program and sharing stories from our factories. WE is very unique and we believe that it is easier to understand how WE works by actually experiencing it. So, that is why Tianne Groeneveld and I facilitated a WE session for our colleagues in which they could participate in a Power Walk. The Power Walk is a group exercise where people take on a role that is different than their usual one, to actually step into someone else’s shoes and experience what it feels like to be powerful or powerless based on their occupation, gender, age, education level and so on.

We did the session with fifteen Tchibo colleagues from different departments. After a check-in sitting in a circle, we gave them different roles, varying from board member to head of sales, IT-manager, junior marketeer and so on. And then we voiced out work-related statements like:

‘When I don’t feel well, I just simply don’t go to work’.

‘I can file a complaint at work without having to worry about retaliation.’

And: ‘If I want to, I can take a vacation of more than three weeks’.

Then – starting from one line – they took a step forward whenever they agreed to the statement. If not, they stayed where they stood. At the end people were spread all over the room.

We then discussed how it had made them feel and how much they had been aware of the power structures. Our colleagues got the chance to experience a WE session in person, the way it would have been done within a factory. It was interesting to reflect with them on power differences in a work environment and how WE methods can help to create an open atmosphere to discuss difficult subjects.

There’s a lot that we have learned in connection to WE – from facilitation to Human System Dynamics to complexity training – that we also bring into practice within Tchibo. We always look at what can be helpful and could be applied to achieve our goals together with our colleagues. We organise regular internal activities for our colleagues to learn more about sustainability as well as WE sessions to experience different methods and new perspectives. There are colleagues who join whenever they can and there are also new people participating. We got the feedback that people were proud to work for a company that takes such an innovative way to engage with people in supply chains and thus create long-lasting changes.