The (premature) tribulations of an uninitiated but aspiring mid-wife

Yesterday was the last-but-one meeting of our Appreciative Inquiry work group. The idea was that over the last few months a group of 12 people had been busy running about the organisation having conversations with people about such things as: "... a time when you feel you were really able to contribute to bringing about change...", or "... what you like best about the organisation and why"... and so on. Before the meeting I was, admittedly, a little bit nervous. What would I find? What would people have gathered? How many surveys would have been carried out? How representative would they be? Would the material be really useful? How on earth would we analyse and then present the output of a gigantic stack of interviews?

It is at this point that I humbly acknowledged that there is a great deal about the way I have handled this work over the course of the last few months that I would do very differently if given the chance. Easy to mumble this to myself in retrospect, of course - but that doesn't make it any less present right now. I would have tried to be more organised, sending out letters informing people what was going on instead of relying on word of mouth. I would have printed out lists of names for each of the people in my team to interview and tried to set fortnightly targets to avoid the last minute rush. I might even have explained the entire concept a little differently... But then it's not as though I hadn't thought about all these things... I just didn't do them... and I did have my reasons too...

So, before heading off to my meeting, I prepared what I considered to be a clever little meeting-plan that I thought might just do the trick. After going through the formalities (basically checking that at least 25% of the organisation had been conversed with) I would give a spiel in which I re-explained the purpose of all these conversations from a slightly different vantage point - one that I felt would gear people up to dig through their experiences, accept diversity and complexity and move, pretty rapidly, towards getting us some provocative propositions. After this (and making sure that I didn't drone on for more than 5-10 minutes), people would split into groups and start sharing, verbally, their experiences from the conversations, at four levels:

First, sharing of the stories, experiences or perspectives from the conversations that were most inspiring, most powerful. Second, identifying the various themes that seemed to be surfacing again and again. Third, culling out underlying values and principles that these pinnacles were founded on. Fourth, selecting quotes that communicated some of these complex ideas in very few words. And I got to spend this time sitting in silence. Then a break for lunch. Then the sharing.

The sharing is when things started getting really interesting (for me). The first part proceeded quite smoothly as the first group shared its points. There was a little discussion - mostly for the purpose of clarification - and I was primarily occupied with note-taking (which I did quite thoroughly thank you very much!). The second group then got busy with its sharing. This time, people were a little bit more eager to pipe up and share some of their own views in this context... Perhaps the sitting and listening during the first group's presentation had made them feel itchy?

Up until then, things had proceeded smoothly, there was only minor evidence of tension or emotional strain. Now, however, things got a little different as the discussion started to acquire a direction, tone and life of its own. It appeared that somehow, the discussion had got latched onto a personal issue of one of the group members. It was not long before the platform had started turning into a space for people to vent their frustration. For some reason I only seem to have managed to realise what was happening until it was a little late. The droning of the construction work going on outside was certainly not of much help!

Eventually, I managed to get us out of our ugly little rut by explaining that the issue was not getting neglected since the underlying positive principle had been duly noted by me and that we were running out of time a little and couldn't possible handle dealing with every individual worker's issues during the annual camp since (simple maths: we have 250 staff and three hours)... This led to a little bit of thinking and I got some good support from one of the most senior staff member present who explained that what we were doing could be looked at rather as (a) finding out what's best; and (b) giving suggestions of how what isn't best could become best... rather than simply pretending that everything is ok. It seemed to work. There was a pause.

I then shared a lesson I had once learned - it was about apologising. Apologies have secured me a great deal of internal peace when deep inside I have been furious. I think I have asked for apologies from just about (though not absolutely) everyone that I have entered into some kind of a conflict with. My asking for apologies is as much about me forgiving them as it is about me wanting them to forgive me... somehow asking for apologies entails a kind of general spiritual release on all sides and makes life much more bearable - certainly a great deal easier than having an ego throbbing in my chest, throat and brain and brutally suffocating what little of the divine might exist within me! There was a silence. Then I mentioned that sometimes tears would come to my eyes when I asked for apologies. There was more silence. Someone said what I had been thinking: "that's because you have to deal with your ego." There was some more silence.

I broke the silence. I wondered immediately afterwards if that was a mistake. Silences can be very good. Especially the meaningful ones. They can be better than words, I believe. But I ended it and we moved on with our work. It was getting late in the evening and some people had a long way to travel home and we were really running out of time. So we finished off with some formalities. A core team was formed to assist me in figuring out how we would get all the material that had come out into a meaningful presentation... and then I went home.

At the end of it all, later that evening, I found myself thinking. I imagined the proceedings of the camp,: groups of people sitting in circles and discussing Seva Mandir's burning issues; sharing perspectives; listening to and learning from each other; coming up with ways of creating a new organisational reality based on the emerging visions... It was really like a dream (the one I've been having for the last three years or so) - to early to say come true - but definitely imminent.

But how would I facilitate it? There would be at least 12 groups of as any as 20 people each. There is no way that I could be everywhere at once. What if someone starts ranting or getting upset? What if a cascade of grievances start to emerge? How could I get the genie back into the lamp? And then a whole load of other questions started emerging: what if management doesn't back our findings (this has been a latent, hanging around kind of a fear)? Do we have the right kind of data? Will they be picking holes in our methods? Will they challenge our 'objectivity' or question that we are not a representative sample of the oragnisation? Will they say that we have just been fed nonsense or been conned by simple, self-interested people in the organisation?

And that's the point where I wondered whether I hadn't chewed off more than I can swallow. I set myself up for something really rather big. I can imagine that for some management consultants this seems like a splash in a baby's paddling pool... but to me, this feels very much like the deep end. As I try not to drown in the multiple other commitments that I have - the organisation's annual report - things related to Delwara - I will need to pray for balance, strength and courage. There is a whole new world out there, waiting to be born. I feel like I am the mid-wife, about to conduct my first delivery, with no formal training, with no clear mentor - only concerned family members watching. And it's not just any old baby: it might just be the next messiah!

Now that is food for thought! I need to get myself ready!