- Human Connection
- Empathy
- Compassion
- Mindfulness
- Kindness
- Expeditionary fitness
- Resilience
- Conflict resolution
How do we deepen our connection with others? This may be one of the most important questions for individuals, groups, and all of humanity. For it is our ability to connect with others that leads to an enriched life. At the relationship, team, or organization level, the ability to connect deeply with others is at the foundation of any form of successful process or outcome.
Dr. Schmidt has been on a journey to understand the power of human connection across a vast frontier of peoples who would, on the surface, seem to have little in common. This ranges from athletes performing in extreme environments, to astronauts, to warfighters, to monks and mystics, to gangs, and across many walks of life. This includes his work with indigenous peoples of the Lakota, Cuna, Emberá, Q’ero, Māori, Blackfoot, Lummi, Seneca, Kwakiutl, Kwakwaka’wakw, Navajo, Hopi, Maya, Ojibwe, and other nations. While these people (and groups) differ in so many ways, they all share the same fundamental needs. This understanding of what we share is at the foundation of all human connection.
During his years doing human performance work with the Rwandan National Cycling Team, Dr. Schmidt worked with young Hutu and Tutsi men, including one Tutsi man who lost 60 family members on his mothers side alone in the Rwandan genocide. The lessons of how these young Hutu and Tutsi men (and their once opposing factions) rose from the ashes of the genocide to find a common purpose in cycling shows the power of shared values and human connection in moving people beyond differences into thriving collaboration. To wit, one of these men, Adrien Niyonshuti, rose all the way from these ashes to compete in the Olympic Games in 2012 and 2016. During a racing event in Africa’s Ivory Coast (then a conflict zone), the Ivory Coast riders approached our Rwandan team and told them that, seeing their success, they now have hope that the conflict in the Ivory Coast will one day end. This too is the power of human connection, when we can look in the mirror of those who have found a path out of suffering and see hope in how our own journey might unfold.
Over a ten-year period, Dr. Schmidt trained in empathy-centered conflict resolution, mediation, and the principles of team cohesion under the late Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, the creator of Nonviolent Communication. Rosenberg was considered among the world’s innovators in developing collaborative systems and in preventing/resolving conflict — methods honed in extreme and war-torn conflict zones, such as Rwanda, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Congo, Iraq, and South Africa, as well as with organizations in need of fostering better collaboration between their people (a language of peace that lowers conflict). In truth, these methods were fundamentally about deepening our capacity for connection with other people and finding a greater capacity for empathy.
Dr. Schmidt realized that these methods were well suited to individuals, teams, units, and groups that operated in extreme, remote, or isolated environments. They also prevailed in circumstances of considerable hardship. In all such cases, the limiting factor to success is often the manner in which individuals can emotionally thrive and how such dynamics impact groups. Dr. Schmidt has evolved these methods to support individuals in extreme or challenging performance environments, to build strong cohesive teams, to facilitate collaboration, and to facilitate recovery after challenging or tragic experiences.
For individuals, the implementation of this approach can be life changing, as it results in a greater sense of clarity, a sense of peacefulness, a greater capacity to hear others, a greater capacity to love, an expanded capacity for deep empathy, and a greater capacity to recognize the humanity in others. This capability naturally leads to strategies that are more heavily based on the principle of shared needs, which leads to true collaboration rather than compromise. This language of ’empathy’ and ‘needs’ can become the foundational strength of individuals and the glue that binds strong teams together.
When people are asked why they leave organizations, 65% say ‘because of a bad manager.’ When CEOs were asked what they sought most in their personal development as leaders, almost 50% said, ‘better conflict resolution skills.’ No matter the complexity of an organization, industry, or mission, their thriving comes down to their people. Dr. Schmidt’s work is to honor the powerful force of human connection that binds people together, and the importance of individual and shared purpose. In competitive, extreme, hostile, or survival environments, the force and depth of these human connections becomes even more critical. And the skills to achieve them, essential.
Our Expedition Team at the Continental Divide in the Panama Jungle; Geoversity Life-Changers Expedition: From the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Coast of Panama, Dr. Michael A Schmidt, Sovaris Aerospace