Debrief activity and questions

1. Please begin by sharing with each other or writing down (if you are on your own), a few of the messages from the video that stayed with you. What ideas stuck? Which ideas made more sense for you, or somehow struck a chord?

2. Consider now the role you possess, and the perks or privileges that come with that role. For instance,

• Can you come and go from the office as you please without having to explain yourself?
• Can you arrive late to meetings without the need to provide an explanation?
• Can you gain access to entertainment or special events because of your role?
• Do you travel for work and therefore see other parts of the world?
• Can you gain access to travel lounges when you fly?
• Do you have someone organise your calendar or make appointments for you?
• Does your role provide you a car?
• Are you paid handsomely for your time?

Use the list above to help you to make a list of the benefits and perks that come with your role, AND BE APPRECIATIVE! That’s right, just enjoy appreciating each privilege you possess.

3. Begin now to reflect on how you may sometimes use the privileges brought to you by your role to meet your own needs in preference to the needs of the organisation. For example, consider the following three questions,

• what rules might you sometimes bend because you are senior and others are unlikely to call you on it?
• are you sometimes insensitive about the perks or privileges you have, forgetting that others may not have those same benefits?
• do you sometimes have those more junior than you do personal tasks for you?

Search your memory for moments when you may have been experienced as indulgent or entitled. Review those moments, be grateful that you can learn from them, and clarify a new intent and action to avoid this misuse of power in the future.

4. As a means of safeguarding against indulgence and building a more judicious approach, let’s do the exercise described in the last few minutes of the video. Take a moment now to consider the “noble goal” of the role you currently fill. Think beyond the timelines you are working towards, or the budgets you manage. What is the bigger, deeper and more wholesome intent embedded in your role? Find a way to express that noble role in a way that inspires you. In doing so, remind yourself your work has a magnificent intention.

Write down that noble goal now.
Is there anyone with whom you can communicate that noble goal? Write down that name and plan when you can share it with them.

Do this exercise knowing that reflecting in this way can help you bypass the misuse of power that is indulgence.