Activity to Develop Empathy for Partners' Perspectives on a Problem of Practice

This activity aims to develop empathy for different perspectives on a problem of practice that a partnership is addressing. It is likely to work best when there is already a focus for joint work, but when people are likely to have very different conceptions of the challenges that the partnership will face in addressing the problem of practice. These differing conceptions can arise from the fact that people occupy different roles within the same organization or because they work in different types of organizations. They can also arise from differences in individuals’ values, identities, and histories. Whatever the source, the activity is one that pushes each person to become explicit about their own conceptions of the problem to be solved and to describe the problem from different points of view.