Knowing Others

Distinguished UNC professor William Purkey often told an apocryphal story about Michelangelo when he was creating perhaps his most famous sculpture, David. The story goes that a small boy watched the artist in his studio, day after day, creating the magnificent design from a large piece of rock. As Michelangelo was putting the finishing touches on his statuesque David, the boy asks, “How did you know he was in there?” One of the messages is that education is not about what we put in, but rather what we bring out. Not what we tell others, but rather what we uncover and discover about them. Not what we see, but rather the time we take to really know someone else.

Thanks to the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio, earlier this month, I got to hear author and New York Times columnist David Brooks speak in SE Ohio about his soon to be released new book, “How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.“ He observed that the “one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen— to accurately know a person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.” He talked that night about the importance of accompaniment, likening a good relationship to that of a piano player bringing out the best in someone’s singing. He emphasized the importance of being a loud listener and practicing presence more than ever. Let people know you are there in content and emotion.

I often ask graduate students in my nonprofit leadership class, “what problem do you want to solve?” For the first time ever this semester in my brainstorming activity, I had several students mention loneliness. Current social surveys reveal from a number of sources why students listed this as a challenge. The percentage of Americans suffering from depression is rapidly rising and Gallup’s famed poll question, “On a scale of 1-10, are you living your best life?” confirms the bottom of the scale is growing. If anger, sadness, and unhappiness were stocks, this would be a good time to buy. Great Britain, in acknowledgement of the problem, became the first country in the world to create a loneliness reduction strategy.

People disagree about the root of the problem. Some blame the prevalence of social media. For others, it’s our cultural differences, or politics. What is hard to disagree with is the negative impact of not knowing each other and what the lack of community is really costing all of us. Community is, as Brooks suggests, really a system of relationships and getting to know each other deeply. Life is hard and letting people know you are there matters. Leadership begins individually and perhaps our best leadership moment is to resolve that we will get to know others more deeply. Ask more questions. Pay more attention to others. Look for strengths. You don’t have to look for suffering because if you live long enough, it will find you. And you certainly appreciate others when suffering finds you.

Where I lived in SE Ohio, when people returned from the mall, adults usually would not ask what did you buy but rather, who did you see? Perhaps a small start to real leadership might begin with not just seeing each other but committing ourselves to knowing each other. I now understand why people often say they should have been grandparents first. Because you rely less on telling and more on listening to grandchildren. You don’t sweat the small stuff, you are there joyfully in their lives, and really get to know them without judgement. Not a bad recipe for others in our lives.