In this follow up to our episode with Lye Yen Kai, we gathered some of us from the Common Ground team to continue the valuable conversation on creating awareness, safety and well-being at work. 

We keep it real with some practical sharings about what are some of our own actual practices in the team. We share insights from our own journey of creating safety, supporting each other’s well-being and respecting differences while we find common ground with each other.

About the Finding Common Ground Podcast
Deep-dive conversations with change-makers and bridge-builders about how any of us can begin creating the change we long to see.

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The pandemic has made mental well-being part of our public conversation. But we may still underestimate how our modern workplace has a huge impact on our well-being and is therefore a strategic intervention point for more of us to give and receive the support we need to feel more seen, secure - and whole.

How can more of us colleagues, managers and leaders help create safer and healthier workplaces in the system? What can we do to create more awareness, safety and well-being for each other at work?

Meet Lye Yen Kai: a facilitator, coach, trainer and Organisational Development consultant with a big heart for supporting young people and the eco-system of adults and organisations who care for them. We talk about the practical things all of us in the workplace can do to facilitate more self-awareness, psychological safety and mental well-being in our teams and organisations.

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About Lye Yen Kai

Lye Yen Kai is the co-founder & director of Pivotal, a training and coaching organisation as well as Advancing, an organisational development consultancy. His personal passion is to find new ways to empower the middle tier youth of Singapore and develop the capacities of organisations who are part of the youths’ support system.

Yen Kai is a Practitioner, Facilitator, Individual & Team Coach and OD Consultant with more than 15 years of experience working with youths, education institution, corporates and government bodies. He specialises in using Experiential Learning, Teambuilding and Process Facilitation to support Strategic Retreat, Team Development, Focus Group Discussion and Public Engagement sessions.

Get in touch with Lye Yen Kai

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About the Finding Common Ground Podcast
Deep-dive conversations with change-makers and bridge-builders about how any of us can begin creating the change we long to see.

Get in touch with Common Ground

• Website
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• Facebook
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How can depth and lightness offer people a surprisingly safe space to reveal different parts of themselves? 

I close Season 1 by talking with Azrin, line producer of this podcast series, Lead of Strategic Communications at Common Ground and a creative in her own right. We share our reflections from Season 1 and our hopes for Season 2 of this podcast series.

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About the Finding Common Ground Podcast
Deep-dive conversations with change-makers and bridge-builders about how any of us can begin creating the change we long to see.

Get in touch with Common Ground

• Website
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• LinkedIn
• Youtube

Should academics stand apart or stand together with the rest of us? How can political civility and intellectual humility make us more resilient as a people?

Meet Dr. Walid Jumblatt Abdullah: academic and host of the popular Teh Tarik with Walid Instagram TV series. We talk about how everything is political and how our honest disagreement can build more common ground than hollow harmony.

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About Dr. Walid J. Abdullah
Dr. Walid Jumblatt Abdullah is an Assistant Professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He works on state-Islam relations and has published in journals such as Democratization, International Political Science Review, Government and Opposition, Journal of Church and State and more. He is also the founder and host of the popular Teh Tarik with Walid, an Instagram TV series featuring informal interviews on sociopolitical issues in Singapore.

Get in touch with Dr. Walid J. Abdullah

• Instagram

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About the Finding Common Ground Podcast
Deep-dive conversations with change-makers and bridge-builders about how any of us can begin creating the change we long to see.

Get in touch with Common Ground

• Website
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• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Youtube

How does growing up as a digital native impact your comfort with social media, activism and political conversations?

Meet Nur and Anna: Gen Z co-founders of Lepak Conversations. We talk about how they navigate politicised conversations with Boomers, pushback on their use of “Woke Words” and the meaning that can be found in activism.

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About Nur & Anna
Nur and Anna are two 24-year-old Singaporeans, who co-founded Lepak Conversations, an online group that uses social media to encourage respectful conversations on issues affecting the Malay/Muslim community in Singapore. Together, they have helped their community wade into contentious issues such as whether Muslim women could wear their tudung to work in certain professions, to misogyny and sexual violence.

Get in touch with Lepak Conversations

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• LinkedIn

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About the Finding Common Ground Podcast
Deep-dive conversations with change-makers and bridge-builders about how any of us can begin creating the change we long to see.

Get in touch with Common Ground

• Website
• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Youtube

Why must we see ourselves as creative? How does the act of creating help us expand our sense of self and our circles of impact?

Meet Hong Khai Seng: UX designer and founding director of Studio Dojo. We talk about how creativity helps us live, lead, evolve and expand our sense of self and community. 

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About Hong Khai Seng
Khai Seng is founder and director of Studio Dojo, a trans-disciplinary strategy, design and innovation practice that helps leaders, organisations and communities build their capacity to be more creative, courageous and purposeful, so that together we can do more good for the worlds we live in.

Khai Seng has helped to design large-scale digital systems, facilitated many workshops and training programmes for C-suite executives and working professionals to drive cultural change within organisations around design and innovation. He was formerly the Head of Singapore for Foolproof, a UK-based experience design agency.

Khai Seng has also helped grow the UX community in Singapore through organising the UXSG conferences and meetup groups.

Get in touch with Studio Dojo

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About the Finding Common Ground Podcast
Deep-dive conversations with change-makers and bridge-builders about how any of us can begin creating the change we long to see.

Get in touch with Common Ground

• Website
• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Youtube

How do the boundaries and boxes that define our work also confine our work? Why is it worthwhile to question our assumptions?

Meet Lim Jingzhou: Gen Z community worker and co-founder of the Cassia Resettlement Team. We explore the differences between social/community work and what it really means for us to take a loving, empowering approach to community concerns.

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About Lim Jingzhou
Lim Jingzhou is a community worker who co-founded the Cassia Resettlement Team, which serves the needs and supports the resettlement of the elderly residents from Dakota to Cassia. 

In his few years on the ground, he has already worked with residents affected by involuntary public housing relocation, low-income communities, seniors, ex-offenders, differently-abled individuals, individuals with physical and/or mental health conditions, individuals seeking end-of-life care and support as well as homeless individuals.

He was part of the legislative support team to ex-Nominated Member of Parliament Anthea Ong, helping to advocate for mental health in Budget 2020. He was also part of the team who supported the first nationwide street count in 2019 and 2021 to better understand the issue of homelessness in Singapore. During the pandemic, he supported the efforts at the Mind The Gap Fund, to provide financial assistance to those affected by COVID-19. He also supported Engineering Good's Computers Against Covid project, making digital inclusion a reality by supporting low-income families' digital access needs. 

Get in touch with Lim Jingzhou

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About the Finding Common Ground Podcast
Deep-dive conversations with change-makers and bridge-builders about how any of us can begin creating the change we long to see.

Get in touch with Common Ground

• Website
• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Youtube

Can we honour the difficult, uncomfortable parts of ourselves? How would that affect the way we honour people who we see as difficult and uncomfortable?

Meet Khee Shihui: a part of Common Ground’s founding team, community facilitator and dear friend. We talk about accepting our wounds, acknowledging our wisdoms and tending kindly to those healing from trauma.

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About Khee Shihui
Khee Shihui is on sabbatical right now, after 16 years in diverse roles across government, international development, corporate social responsibility and social impact. She feels most alive at the confluence of the arts, community engagement, public service innovation and people development work. As part of Common Ground's founding team, she is grateful to have had the opportunity to develop Common Ground from concept to reality. 

During her stint at Common Ground, drawing from ontological coaching, community building and organisation development practices, she explored ways to facilitate personal empowerment, prototype solutions for urban challenges,* and co-founded ground up efforts to address needs that surfaced during the COVID-19 pandemic.** She is most inspired when collective efforts spark sustained transformation in people and communities, and hopes to continue journeying with others as she seeks her own in rest.

*Common Ground x Studio Dojo Youth Mental Health Research, Good Design Research Initiative – Designing Practices for Better Mental Health & Well-being at Workplaces, the inaugural Creating Narratives for Change Programme and Festival in 2021 and initiatives spanning across topics of interfaith engagement, poverty and inequality and community integration.

**Good Food for Community served nearly 81,000 meals across 5 months to 28 communities and fundraised about $196,000 in 2020.

Get in touch with Khee Shihui

• Instagram

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About the Finding Common Ground Podcast
Deep-dive conversations with change-makers and bridge-builders about how any of us can begin creating the change we long to see.

Get in touch with Common Ground

• Website
• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Youtube

What is Grief? How can we hold a safe space for pain and loss? Meet Joan and Gracie, Grief Recovery Specialists and Directors of Whispering Hope Singapore. We talk about the meaning of grief and simple, kind ways we can support the grieving process - be it our own or others.

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About Joan Swee and Gracie Mak
Joan Swee and Gracie Mak are Grief Recovery Specialists and Directors of Whispering Hope Singapore, an organisation with an aim to help Singaporeans learn to recover from life losses.

Get in touch with Whispering Hope

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About the Finding Common Ground Podcast
Deep-dive conversations with change-makers and bridge-builders about how any of us can begin creating the change we long to see.

Get in touch with Common Ground

• Website
• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Youtube

What is the Self? How can we help people bring their best selves to work?

Meet Aaron Maniam: civil servant, poet, interfaith facilitator - and leader. We talk about appreciating our multi-hyphenated identity and how to support people’s need to integrate their personal and professional lives.

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About Aaron Maniam
Aaron Maniam is currently the Deputy Secretary for Industry and Information, Ministry of Communications and Information of Singapore. He has served in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Trade & Industry, the Public Service Division and Civil Service College; and was previously Founding Head of the Center for Strategic Futures under the Prime Minister’s Office. 

He is also a published poet with two collections of poetry, a trained facilitator of inter-religious and inter-ethnic dialogue, and co-founder of The Birthday Collective.

Get in touch with Aaron Maniam

• LinkedIn

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About the Finding Common Ground Podcast
Deep-dive conversations with change-makers and bridge-builders about how any of us can begin creating the change we long to see.

Get in touch with Common Ground

• Website
• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Youtube