And the journey goes on...

Well, today, I'm sitting on the other side of the mountain. The annual camp is over. It was brief. Very brief indeed! And there was less space for dialogue than I might have liked. But the dialogue we did have was, for the most part, pointing in the right direction. In line with the framework that we've been using, there were three main components on the agenda - (1) strategies; (2) structure and (3) culture.

Each of these sessions started with a presentation and was followed by an open discussion (except for the the values one due to time constraints) and a panel.

For strategy, an organisational level perspective was given - highlighting the cross-cutting social issues that Seva Mandir sees itself as struggling with: an absence of trusteeship and too much spectatorship and complicity - issues as relevant internally as externally. It was made clear that Seva Mandir's concern lies with society more than it does with the government: for Seva Mandir, the government is a part of society. It then went on to flesh out the key strategies that Seva Mandir would be pursuing across different program areas to address these.

The structure presentation was made by some consultants and focused on the question of where Seva Mandir wanted to apply more of its 'energy' (a catch all for everything from manpower and resources to capacity, power and attention). While the model (based on ...) was rather confusing because of its ambiguities, abstraction and technical jargon (that people couldn't easily relate to Seva Mandir), it did play the important function of generating dialogue - largely with the intention of seeking clarity.

The culture presentation was based on the appreciative inquiry (AI) that we have been working on over the course of the last few months. This involved an incredibly brief section explaining AI followed by a presentation of 8 core values backed up by quotes from the appreciative conversations we had over the last few months within Seva Mandir and ended with six provocative propositions based out on these core values.

Based on these, the following sub-themes emerged as subjects to be taken forwards in group discussions: (1) how does change take place (and what is our role in this); (2) what are the desired roles and linkages between Seva Mandir, the community, the panchayat and the government; (3) what are the strengths, weaknesses and suggested improvements to the organisation's structure; (4) where do we stand in terms of living up to the organisation's values, what causes us to fail or live up to them, and what can we do to further cultivate our values within the organisation?

Four groups of up to 20 people participated in the discussions on strategy, structure and culture for not quite enough time. However, the basic sense of what mattered emerged in each of the discussions and presentations were prepared on each topic for the following morning. The need for continued, more extended and deeper dialogue on all issues - especially on structure and culture - came up as very important concerns.

The event wrapped up with thought-provoking ideas from Rajni Bakshi that helped to situate Seva Mandir's efforts within the international context - putting a special emphasis on environmental issues, broader economic development issues, consumerism, communication, dialogue and the need to cultivate spaces and individuals who can help to bring about a broader based social change.

All in all it went quite well. There is no doubt in my mind that we could have benefitted from more and longer conversations - possibly in smaller groups and with more of an explicit action focus built in - i.e. a kind of "this is what we're going to do" rather than a "these are things that we could do"... But the sense of a commitment to doing some of these things is present nonetheless.

This revealed itself the following day when a large body of staff gathered at Seva Mandir to celebrate the founder's birthday and do shramdan (cleaning of the office). At the end of this, there was a good discussion amongst members of the Seva Mandir community on such issues as maintaining cleanliness, how to become more environmentally friendly (someone was commissioned to lead this process), ensuring that suitable facilities (from hygienic water coolers to motor-cycles) were available for the staff and also discussing problems associated with delays in the purchasing system that held up getting work done. All-in-all a promising start for round 2 (of what exactly?)...

Now, it would seem, the focus of efforts will be on operationalising the kinds of changes that we have been talking about - helping people change their patterns of behaviour and relationships, develop more empowering organisational systems and ensure regular and open dialogue on values and structure, etc. This is long-term stuff...

In the meanwhile, I will need to get busy with looking at how to put together the organisation's 6th Comprehensive Plan document which means another round of discussions, thinking about targets, indicators and budgets and fleshing out strategies wherever this may be required... Back down to the dirty work!