Community is sharing minds
She is a symphonic, feminine power. She is authentic, sharp, and instinctive. I've never known power like this. She's everything you're imagining right now and more, more, more. Italian founder and president, Cristiana Panicco, has something(s) I've never experienced in any professional leader I have known, read about, or studied. She is one of my greatest inspirations.
Born and raised in the northern Italian capital city of Turin, or Torino, at 18 years old, Cristiana left home to study and explore the world even though she could've easily inherited a position within her successful family business. She studied languages as a way to learn more about the world. She's lived in many countries like England and Germany. At some point love brought her back home to Italy and she began to plant roots here in Sorrento, while raising her two children with her husband.
Inspired by the enchanting Mediterranean Sea, the passionate sense of southern Italian life, the food, history, and the people, she knew she wanted to create some kind of cultural learning community to help inspire creativity and innovation in others and the world. In 1996, from the ground up, Cristiana founded Sant’Anna Institute. Back then it was a small international language school with humble beginnings. “I started to go around to the local tourists, would you like to add some Italian classes? In the meantime we created our website,” said Cristiana.
30 years later, Sant'Anna Institute is a thriving study abroad mecca for thousands of American students. Cristiana and members of her esteemed administration have secured partnerships with more than 50 American universities like the University of Michigan and Ohio State University, and in 2017, I collaborated with her to create a program for my St. Bonaventure University students.
Cristiana's ideas and community theories are imaginative, eloquent and entirely progressive. She describes community as, “sharing minds.” In Cristiana's creatively curated community, freedom and difference are beautifully celebrated. Her ideas infer that she despises taboos and judgment.
COMMUNITY IS SENSES
Cristiana's core concept of community clearly stems from her love of culture. The core component to understanding various communities, in her theory, begins with allowing your senses to come to life. In so many words, Cristiana said that when we are with people and in different environments, we must become aware of our sensations to more clearly understand that particular community and its dynamics. She went on to describe that this is how we naturally assimilate in community. We must first “listen.”
It's a beautiful reminder that community and senses go hand-in-hand. It's the truth about the human exchange. We instinctively are sensing all the time but are we in tune with what we feel, especially when it comes to our reactions? Are we truly listening to ourselves? Research suggests the answer is no. In phase one of the AMC 3 C's Mindful Communication Model™, Consciousness, Communication, Community, our research suggests a widespread consciousness depletion means that we must intentionally practice awareness to more clearly read our senses when generating community. It starts with the individual.
COMMUNITY IS FLAVOR
While Cristiana is the thriving definition of female independence, she's done a helluva job sensing who to surround herself with. She's built a leadership council of brilliant people to help her innovate at Sant'Anna. Some of her colleagues feel like family to me.
“Community is everything. Here at school I created a community. A community of good people, who share the same dream as I have. We can't live on our own. Everything has a different flavor if done with someone else. Community is not a number. It's the quality of time you spend with this one person or a thousand people. Otherwise it's just individuals together. It doesn't mean that you are similar to this person, or that you agree with this person on everything. It's to be and share with this person, or people, or yourself,” said Cristiana.
I love the use of the word flavor here. She reveals in this quote that listening to ideas and opinions, different from our own, is the “spice of life” that brings a unique flavor. As business communicators, how willing are we to allow for a different “flavor” from our own?
Our conversation led us to a candid discussion about communication for Italians v. Americans. “Community is sharing. I can disagree with you, but I still like you, and you're sharing with me. Actually it's even better to be with people that you disagree with. If they agree with you, it's so boring,” said Cristiana.
“Tell me that you disagree, tell me that you don't like it. Tell me honestly, what you think. I think this is a very big difference between Italians and Americans,” said Cristiana.
She's right. Especially after the recent shooting of former president and U.S. presidential candidate Donald J. Trump. There's a massive lack of community in the United States. People in the U.S. tell me all the time that they fear speaking their minds when it comes to politics. Then there are the emotionally unintelligent people who communicate their messages with hatred and malice. I warn members of the “We the People” to start showing some decorum. It seems we have forgotten that the entire world watches and relies on us. You should hear how foreigners view our communication patterns and messaging, as a United States.
COMMUNITY IS FOR THE SAKE OF BEAUTY
Cristiana manages to communicate things elegantly and simply. After all, this is the Italian way. “Spending time with other people for community, just for the sake of beauty,” said Cristiana.
The Italian people I know and have observed for years intentionally make time or allow time to guide them. They don't always take control of the clock. This allows for the “beauty” that Cristiana references. This allowance for time generates the beauty in her genuine human exchanges.
“Spending time with even people that you just met in a cafe and talk about beauty, life. This particular time in my life, time is important. I want to slow down. Time flies too fast. I am trying to slow down and just take more time to sip coffee. A good achievement would be, Monday it took me one minute to sip the coffee and now I've been sipping it in four minutes. That means that I have enjoyed living more of my life. That's also considering how you spend time with community,” said Cristiana.
In closing, I wish you spontaneous conversation this week with strangers. I wish that you exchange about the beauty of life and that you sense the flavor it brings to your mind, heart and community.
Cristiana, you are a Mediterranean treasure. It is my gift to know you. Thank you for leading with strength and resilience. Thank you for welcoming me into your warrior community. Grazie, mia bellissima amica.
Reach out to Cristiana here. Also, hear from other members of the AMC Quest for Community series featuring, Mario Di Girolamo and Fabiola Fasulo.
Our AMC 3 C's Mindful Communication Model™, Consciousness, Communication, Community, is an innovative, research-based model that changes the professional development playing field. At AMC we're normalizing consciousness in professional society and encouraging mindfulness so that we can implement effective communication practices that foster longevity in business communities over time.
As mentioned here, AMC is on a mission to explore the dynamics of authentic Italian community to start a profound movement within international corporate company cultures. Stay with me on this summer-long journey. For example, if these newsletters spark good conversations among your teams - write to me and tell me how it resonated!
Grazie mille a tutti. Arrivederci!
Mindfully Speaking,
Anna Michele Bulszewicz
Founder, Anna Michele Communications