Reflections on our half-day leadership workshop with the Cambia Sojourns Scholars Community.
Participants engaged in small-group discussions at their tables.
In April 2022, our four-month engagement with the Cambia Sojourns Scholars community culminated in a customized half-day, in-person Listen Like a Poet workshop in Seattle.
The workshop was a central part of the Scholars’ annual Leadership Summit. It was offered as a plenary session that included all 90 attendees, including Cambia Scholars and Advisors.
Workshop Design
We designed the workshop to be highly interactive using adult learning principles to meet the following objectives:
1
Participants will be able to describe and identify good listening, and explain the characteristics of “listening like a poet.”
2
Participants will be able to discuss and critique the quality of listening in common palliative care interactions.
3
Participants will be able to recognize common themes / emotions identified in their community (such as burnout or isolation) and respond with more self-awareness, compassion, and skill.
Questions Explored
Discussion question for a listening triad practice.
TGLP facilitators drew from the experiences and themes identified in participants’ Listener Poet sessions and Brave Conversations to further cultivate community and connection amongst the Scholars.
Through small and large-group discussions, participants explored these questions:
1
What is good listening?
2
How can Scholars learn to “listen like a poet” within their palliative care communities and apply these practices to support self-care and their teams?
3
What do the voices of the Sojourns Scholars, and the poems written by TGLP, illuminate about the challenges and opportunities for the next generation of palliative care leaders?
Additionally, Six Scholars were invited to share their poems, which covered themes ranging from leadership aspirations to stories of systemic inequities to how to heal from the collective trauma of COVID. These poems invited rich conversation and learning about listening and the palliative care experience.
Lastly, we used an interactive tool called Slido to incorporate live, anonymous contributions and feedback from participants.
Feedback & Lessons Learned
Participant feedback ranged from enthusiastic gratitude to constructive criticism. In an anonymous post-workshop survey administered by Cambia:
88%
of respondents reported that the information presented provided new ideas or information they expect to use
88%
reported that the information presented enhanced their current knowledge
Here are a few comments that were included among this anonymous feedback:
“So intensely powerful. I appreciated getting to know my colleagues so much more and so personally.”
“Absolutely loved the exercise of witness, speaker, listener. Very exciting to try on these roles in a safe space.”
We deeply value honest feedback and are continually striving to improve based on the feedback we receive. While many participants felt safe enough to fully engage in and were inspired by the workshop, not all participants had the same experience. Some feedback underscored the importance of confidentiality and boundaries in creating psychological safety when inviting people to be vulnerable with one another.
It also emphasized the reality that power and privilege show up in all our interactions, including listening and palliative care spaces. As one participant shared:
“To be truly equitable we have to question hierarchical models that exist in palliative care and practice humility. It’s not always safe for certain groups of people to openly share in our existing systems.”
We will continue to do all we can to create the conditions for equitably safe environments for everyone. We’re grateful for those who offered constructive feedback that will help us improve workshops for future participants.
Interested in a custom workshop for your conference or event?
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