TesseTalks – Details, episodes & analysis

Help can be very humbling. It is hard to admit I need help right here. When I see someone or something that needs help, my first response is to go help. But is that the best thing in the moment, “What kind of help is needed here”? asks Erin Randall as she notes the seismic shifts that emerged for her as she read The Super-Helper Syndrome.

Systems are greater than goals. If your goal is to be a healthy helper, what are the systems that you need to build in order to make that possible? She muses. Helpfully this compassionate guide addresses the question, how can we encourage or constructively challenge or ask others to remain healthy? How can we find ways out of unhealthy patterns of helping?

The Super-Helper Syndrome: A Survival Guide for Compassionate People authored by Jess Baker & Rod Vincent, serves up a rich meal to underpin what healthy helping looks like.

“Do all things with great love. Avoid helping as a from of rescue, there needs to be reciprocity in helping. People who are helped need to have opportunities where they feel like they can be helpful to others as well.” shares Erin Randall.

A healthy helper is one that is able to help in the way that they desire and see fit. Help has a mental and physical aspect. As a helper, your self worth does not depend upon helping people. Healthy helpers have boundaries that they hold for themselves that aren't porous and that other people are not able to run over.

They are able to sustain themselves as well as the work that they're trying to do. A crucial question is asking, “what kind of help is needed here”? An essential element is the recognition of space. Saviourism is dangerous. The person being helped needs to be treated with respect and dignity while being encouraged to be independent and enabled to move forward in a manner that is best for them.

Life changing is achieved by a map to happiness. Jane Gunn points to a compass of North, East South and East and West with a link to personal and professional values.

N in North, what we're trying to do is to say, what's going on Now? What is the immediate challenge? Essential, even if you're starting up a collaboration.

E in East stands for "Explore". Where am I with this? What am I thinking? What am I feeling? What are my own hopes and dreams? You know, we need to really understand ourselves better, and then understand each other better.

S in South, stands for "Solutions". Decide on what criteria do we make that decision? What criteria could we apply to this? Also, what values do we have? What personal values do we have? What group values do we have? How do we apply those to this thinking process? We think deeply, we question everything, we question ourselves as to see what the right way through challenging times is.

W in West stands for "Walking Forward". It's a commitment, it's an ability to leave any bad feelings from the past behind, so to draw a line in the sand. It also stands for wisdom. It's reaching that higher level of wisdom and possibly learning from yourself and from the past. What have I learned? What do I take forward with me?

Dreams can become a reality. The dream you hold is what bears fruit. Tenacity and patience can make a difference to stay with our intention. Shortlisted three times for the Championship Award , for Tesse Akpeki, it is third time lucky. She has been crowned Champion for Governance 2023 by the Chartered Governance Institute for United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.

“I would like to thank everyone who nominated me over the three opportunities to become a champion. I am so glad I can serve people and bring a measure of joy as well as competence to what matters to them” says Tesse Akpeki FCG

“Brown Girl in the Ring came from a place of desperation” says Olukemi Ogunyemi. “Though my recollections are pretty harsh, the memoirs reflect my reality. All of us were in some kind of pain. People feel judged sometimes when you ask them to change something without any understanding of why they could consider doing so. If we understand things, we are more inclined to make changes” says Olukemi”.

“All of the experiences have been a learning, a deepening understanding to myself. The painful moments are deeply painful. The pain does pass and as it passes, you can understand why it's happened. This is not about accepting it. Sometimes it's just about understanding so that you can move to the next part. Struggles are where our biggest growth comes from. Then if we choose to do so, we can share our experiences and help others. “

Stephen Sidebottom brings a refreshing take on transformations.

“ People are actually extraordinarily adaptable. The idea that people don't like change is, I think fundamentally false. What I think is true is that organizations don't like change. The construct people are asked to operate is rigid and fixed, and the mechanism for adapting and changing those constructs, whether they're social constructs or organizational constructs, are much slower than the mechanisms by which people themselves change.”

“ I'm not a big hints and tips person. My approach is often through studying how people work in an organizational context and what needs to be true to succeed.” Stephen’s experience of managing enabling functions including people, finance, legal, operations, risk and technology comes in handy. TesseTalks curiously explore various angles of Stephen’s thinking.

“I asked an audience what they are passionate about just before the pandemic. Then as well as now, they admitted running the hamster wheel so fast that they have lost complete touch as to who they are, what matters to them, and what they want for themselves in the world. When we can create workplaces where people can feel like I'm doing work that enlivens me. I'm learning, I'm growing, I'm reaching. I can feel myself growing toward my potential, that the playground of life where people really come alive and realize their potential while their organisation does business that betters the world” says Alise Cortez. 

The first part of the book “The Great Revitalization” touches on the world you find yourself in as a leader. The second part lists 21 best practices to create a workplace that is anchored by the activation of meaning and purpose. Sources of fuel include passion, inspiration and the attitudinal stance that we take whenever life throws it at whatever it's going through at us and which shapes our mindset.

How can elements make a difference? Erin Randall explains how. “Magnesium" is work each person is going to be doing towards crafting better things. Each voice is a voice of a system. What does this system need now? Ad Meliora means to better things. The catalytic question is “what do I want to create? “.

The Quest

1.What is the purpose of a system? Is it to protect or is it to create? “If we want empathy in systems, if we want that connection in people, we need to be able to stand in those and shift and to be able to listen to what the system is asking us to find.” Says Erin. 

2.What is the inner work required to do the outer work? How they want to be seen? What do you want others to notice in you? How confident are you to do the work the world requires from you? The litmus test is what are you seeing that I don't? What do you want me to hear? The answer to these questions gives us more range and more aptitude

Ray Martin, author of “ Life Without A Tie, Finding Your Path Amidst the Noise, Chaos, and Pressure to Conform “ says - “I won the Daily Telegraph Business Leader of the Year award, so I had public recognition.

So I had all the trimmings and trappings of success. But I have to say that honestly, for quite a few of those years, I wasn't feeling like I was really, truly happy. And I felt like it somehow I'd managed to end up in someone else's life. I was living a life that others expected of me and not life I truly wanted to be living.” “ I was trapped in it because it was very rewarding and very materially comfortable.

And I was kind of like not really wanting to walk out of it either, even though I wasn't happy. So when I was forced to, because my business partner, the woman I was married to, said, "I'm leaving you and I'm leaving the company". It was very sudden my father actually passed away at the same time”

Erin Randall elaborates on The Funky Monkey. Listening to Erin, the key considerations are: “Whose responsibility is it? How can I hold you accountable? What can you hold me accountable for’’? These questions can bring about alignment in our organisations in our teams and in our personal lives. Why do boundaries matter? Boundaries are essential to build and sustain healthy relationships, to make good neighbours and to act as anchor points for conversations and clarity. Erin is passionate about happy people doing happy works and brings a humble, playful and intelligent outlook to explore how the environments we create and the systems we design become places of impact and realisation of potential. Of particular importance is the difference between responsible and accountable. These differentiations bring clarity to how we want to work together, who is responsible for what and how we sit with discomfort in the system while finding a way through.