6. Empathy walk

This practice was developed by MIT's Ed Schein. Ed has shaped the field of organizational culture, learning and leadership over the past 50 years.

To develop empathy for someone very different from yourself
To develop your skill in establishing a relationship across a significant boundary Procedure:
Spend some time exploring (thinking and researching) what kind of person would live in a world that is most different from the one you are in—a person that may be very different from you. Be creative, let your imagination run.
Having decided what kind of person to look for, figure out how you could actually find and meet such a person in the next week in your city or neighborhood.
Make contact with this person and go meet them.
Plan to spend several hours getting to know the person you picked and try to get into that person’s world enough to get a feel for what it would be like to be in that person’s world. How you go about this, what you say to the person, what kind of time you actually spend, etc. is all up to you. There are no rules or guidelines. Be creative. The idea here is to get away from your computer, go out into the world, and practice empathy, relationship building, and deep listening with someone
You can do the empathy walk on your own. Or, if you are participating in a hub or taking the u.lab course with friends or colleagues, the two of you can go together to meet this person.
When you are finished, write a short reflective journaling entry on what you learned. See the next section for specific instructions on journaling.

6. Empathy Walk