Bringing Empathy to M.A.D Summit 2020 — A Tribeless Case Study
How we created opportunities for empathy and connection at one of Malaysia’s largest gatherings of young changemakers
The first thing we saw was the people. Pouring out of cars, crowding around social enterprise booths, frolicking on the grass around life-size print-outs of the Sustainable Development Goals, getting their temperatures checked (a thoughtful measure taken for COVID-19)…
Despite the epidemic scare, people were still masking up and showing up.
It was an encouraging start to our day at one of Malaysia’s largest gathering of young changemakers — M.A.D Summit 2020.
M.A.D Summit is an annual conference co-organized by Leaderonomics and HELP International School, bringing together hundreds of students who are “making a difference” (M.A.D) in their communities. Ranging from the ages of 12 to 19, these enterprising youths create, pitch, and even get their social impact projects funded at this conference.
It was inspiring just to be there. 💛
Having started my own social impact journey at 19, I understood the value of having like-minded peers. It was my community that kept me going when the going (inevitably) got tough.
But it was also that much harder to develop meaningful connections at a conference of this size — unless you were extroverted, had lots of friends, or were given explicit opportunities to do so.
When The Tribeless Team was invited to be a part of the summit, we gave ourselves a challenge:
Could we create spaces that were intimate, welcoming and human, at a 3,000-person conference?
We put our heads together, and designed opportunities for empathy and connection into our booth and workshop experiences.
Read on to hear about the stories and insights that emerged ✨
Our Booth
Booths can be overwhelming, impersonal, icky-salesy experiences. I’m so grateful to my team for making sure ours didn’t end up that way!
We were given a table booth at the canteen. It was hot, humid, and crowded, but we did our best to make it feel homey:
- Laying out our Empathy Box cards for people to try,
- Bringing a pretty tablecloth for that #aesthetic feel, and
- Packing ‘mini’ Empathy Boxes, so students could afford it!
Throughout the day, this little display attracted over 50 people — and we tried to make sure all of them walked away with something: whether it was a great conversation, a feeling of connection, or simply the experience of being seen and heard.
One of my most memorable conversations was with an international school teacher. He was making the rounds at the booths, and he wandered over.
“How does this work?” he asked, peering at The Empathy Box.
Instead of launching into my usual spiel, I gestured to the cards, and said:
“Why don’t I show you?”
I gestured to the 10+ words we curated. He chose ‘Belonging’.
I said, “Now, share about why you chose that word — and then I’ll empathize with you using these cards.”
I didn’t expect him to open up, but he went into a personal story about the school he’s in.
“My previous school had a very toxic culture, so I left,” he said. “At my new school, I feel like I belong. I want to create a culture of care — so that everyone else can feel the same way.”
By the time we were done, he was pumping my hand and promising to bring his kids to attend our workshop later that day. (Which he did! But that’s a story for another section 😉)
We’re so grateful our booth could offer folks the chance to take a break, get real and check in with themselves… in the middle of a bustling conference!
Our Parents Workshop
We were originally slated to run two workshops for students… but Sim had a stroke of inspiration and asked the Leaderonomics team if we could allocate one of those sessions for parents instead, and they said yes! 🙌
That’s how we ended up with a full-house workshop with 20 excited, hungry (literally) parents, who had skipped lunch (!) to learn about empathy — and how it could help them better connect with their children.
We only had an hour with these parents, so I cut straight to the chase:
“I always found it hard to connect with my traditionally ‘Asian’ parents. When I moved to the U.S. for university, I had a mental health breakdown… But I couldn’t bring myself to open up to them, for fear of what they’d say.”
A few knowing nods. Pain-stricken eyes. I had hit a chord.
“Today, I run Tribeless, a company that teaches empathy as a skill. This is what I’ve learned: As children, all we want from our parents is for you to empathize with us. To listen, to see things from our perspective, and to share your own stories in return.”
We proceeded to introduce the five Empathy Box cards they’d be using in the workshop. To illustrate ‘Offer An Alternate Perspective’, I shared:
“Last August, I opened up to my mom about my anxieties around an upcoming product launch.
Instead of giving me advice or brushing off my concerns, as she usually did, she said:
‘When we reopened our family business back in 2008, I was so scared. We’d invested millions in it. What if no one showed up? But it all turned out fine,’ she smiled. ‘You will be fine, too.’
I was shocked. My mom had never been this candid before.
By sharing her own perspective — my mom had helped me reframe my situation… and feel less alone.”
The rest of the workshop went off without a hitch:
Parents were sharing, listening and empathizing with one another. Laughter and stories filled the room. By the time 2PM rolled around, everyone was so engrossed in conversation; they’d almost forgotten about the next session!
As they shared their final takeaways, the one that stood out most was:
“Parenting can be a lonely journey, but today, I learned we share so many of the same challenges. There’s so much we can gain by connecting with one another.”
Indeed, there is. Thank you for spending your hour learning about empathy (and each other!) with us. 🙏💛
Our Students Workshop
A little less than an hour after our Parents Workshop, we were welcoming 10 students, 1 teacher (from the booth!) and 1 Leaderonomics staff into our classroom for the Students Workshop.
It was decidedly different teaching Empathy to younger learners. We took advantage of the intimate group size to open with a more Socratic style of questioning — “what is empathy”, “what does it look like to you”, and most importantly, “why are you here?”.
Their answers ranged from ‘it sounded fun’, to ‘making new friends!’ — so needless to say, we immediately started mixing the groups up. 😂
In our new groups, we dove deeper into the concept of empathy. We explored the difference between empathy and sympathy, debated on whether empathy is innate or learned, and discussed about how we each prefer to receive empathy.
“There are two ways to empathize with someone, especially if they’re feeling down,” I shared, holding up our first two Response Cards.
“Show Some Love is the first card in the sequence for a reason. Showing love is about letting people know you care by appreciating their honesty and acknowledging what they said.
Then, after you’ve shown your appreciation, then you move on to Help Me Understand.
This card is about asking curious questions to understand their situation better.
By saying the words ‘help me understand’, you’re letting them know you’re here to listen — nothing more.”
After the explanation, they practiced sharing and listening using Show Some Love and Help Me Understand in their break-out groups.
It was a powerful session — the students were moved by the opportunity to share so openly and candidly with strangers. There were tears, laughs, and even group hugs.
Some quotes from the Closing Circle in the end:
”I’ve never had the chance to speak for 5 minutes without interruption, ever. It felt AMAZING.”
“I normally try to be positive and outgoing, but I learned there is power in being quiet and listening.”
“I’ve had this issue weighing on my heart for months. It was such like a relief to finally talk about it with new friends!”
Thank you guys for choosing to attend our little Empathy Workshop (when there were much cooler Snapchat and BJJ sessions going on). You rock! 🤗
The cherry on the cake?
Our babies won!
Mindspace placed Top 10 in the PitchOut Competition. They walked away with a RM1K cash prize (to the embarrassing screams of Sim. She even left our workshop halfway to watch them in the finals! 😂).
To give some context:
Last September, I was invited to speak at HELP International School under the auspices of “Project Purpose”, their A-Levels extracurricular program for gaining real-world experience via social impact projects.
We decided to do them one better, and conducted a Tribeless Conversation for the entire A-Levels class of 70 students! ✌
The students loved it…
And a few loved it so much that they started Mindspace, a peer support project on improving student mental health in public schools.
Mindspace reached out to us to receive training for their project, and we’ve been working with them ever since. We couldn’t be prouder of them! 🎉
On a final note, thank you to the Leaderonomics and HELP International School teams for having us be a part of this incredible movement.
Until next time!
Much love,
Sim, Gwen & Shawn
The Tribeless Team
Gwen Yi is the founder of Tribeless, a training and consulting company that creates safe spaces for people to learn and practice empathy skills. This was published in See The Human First, Tribeless’s official Medium publication.
Special thanks to Gabriel Gan.
