A "difference that makes a difference"

On my way to vote...

Perhaps I'm one of the few, but Euro elections are the ones that get me out to vote...  normally, the nearest I get to voting in UK elections is to go into the booth and write "none of the above" on the voting slip, so 'spoiling my ballot'

But in Euro elections we have proportional representation and my vote (in a safe Conservative constituency) counts for something, normally my vote is utterly wasted, so the most positive thing that I can do is to make a point to the candidates...

But what about the women who campaigned and suffered to get women the vote?  I reply that we have abused their efforts with a political system that means that the votes of only a few thousand actually affect who gets in, where millions are disenfranchised because their votes are taken for granted "they've got nowhere else to go...", so elections are decided on the whims and needs of swing voters, largely middle class, reasonably prosperous... 'pebbledash' people..

I wrote a poem about the way I feel about electoral politics here

But today... I vote GREEN and hope that maybe, just maybe an extra couple of seats might mean that our arguments get to be listened to a little more.  We have not persuaded enough people to be involved in government, but we have earned the right to be heard above the greenwash din of the main, free market blinded parties.

Normal, non-party political service will return to this blog tomorrow! :-)

Improv, improving and working with colleagues

Can learning about Improv theatre help people work well and positively in organisations? Oh yes!  An increasing hero of mine is Keith Johnstone. I' m just reading his book Impro for Storytellers in it he writes of some of the things he has noticed when getting groups of actors to tell stories together (contributing one word at a time or telling each other 'what happens next'), here are just three:

people avoid taking the story forward, preferring to just describe the scene

ever been in a meeting where everyone's just telling each other what the situation is... but avoiding actually working on what to do next?

people tend to resolve dangerous or difficult scenes with one big 'solution' "with one bound our hero was free!"

every been in a meeting where managers or participants tell you the big idea that will solve everything? Ever been in a meeting where a particular strategy was proposed as providing the best way forward?

people tend to be negative with their comments

every been in meetings where 'but' is the most common work, where participants tend to knock each others' ideas?

Now, ask yourselves a question... if you work in organisations, what would you do, say, ask about... just to improve any of the above situations by, say, 10% ...

... if you come up with an idea, then you've just taken the first step on the long journey of IMPROVement!

enticing isn't it? 

Easter Saturday Meditations 4

Evening Prayer, Saturday

Psalm 46:1-3 

  God is our refuge and strength,
       an ever-present help in trouble.

  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
       and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

  though its waters roar and foam
       and the mountains quake with their surging.

Isaiah 58:6ff 

  "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
       to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke,
       to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?

  Is it not to share your food with the hungry
       and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter -
       when you see the naked, to clothe him,
       and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Romans 8: 19-21

All of creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his children. For…there was the hope that creation itself would one day be set free from its slavery to decay and would share the glorious freedom of the children of God.

Reflection

Jamie Owens wrote:

“all creation’s straining on tiptoe just to see
the sons of God come into their own”

Do you think, if the world could see it,

if we could make it so obvious,

That the world would stand on tiptoe,

in excitement,

To see the difference that we,

          The children of God,
                   the channels of His peace,
                             God’s hands and feat,
the difference that we could make to this world?

“We are living in a world of Easter Saturday

Somewhere between the death

          Of what we thought we could trust

And the birth of new hope”

Can we live a resurrection for our world?

Easter Saturday World

We are living in a world of Easter Saturday
somewhere between the death
        of what we thought we could trust
and the birth of new hope

Jon Birch is threatening to link to this blog, so I had better write something just in case someone is foolish enough to visit... I wrote a series of meditations for the Northumbria Community Easter workshop on the theme of Easter Saturday, so I shall post these over the next day or so.

I had never noticed Easter Saturday, until Maggi Dawn blogged about it a few years ago... now, I suspect that it is powerful image of the world we are currently travelling through

On Careers and being a Kohathite

I found myself in the book of Numbers today... not, I confess a book of the bible that is etched on my memory but I'm trying to read through the whole bible a few pages at a time and round about now I'm in Numbers and I read about the Kohathites.

"Very good Caroline, so what?" I hear you ask

Well, to explain, the Kohathites were a clan of the Levite tribe of Israel and they had the special task of clearing up the mess after the priests had done their bit.  Very important I'm sure but not what I'd call a great career move. And that was when it struck me... their work was chosen for them because of their birth not because of some career choice plan. How far removed we are from parts of the bible.  Could you imagine young people today accepting that their role in life was determined by their birth - no get out clause, not career progression, no professional development...

As I write that, of course I'm reminded that the great majority of the world are condemned by poverty or oppression to live out one particular role.  But that's part of my point, I suspect that most of the people reading this post would see being consigned to one particular role because of their birth to be an oppression, to be a negative, to be something wrong.  But the Kohathites were called to be the clearer-uppers, whilst other clans were called to be the carriers of tent fabric or tent poles.  This wasn't a negative thing this was just their place within the economy of God's people.

Today, we all have careers.  They may not be very exciting careers, in personal hygiene, social or healthcare but no matter how lowly, we are encouraged to see our work as a part of a career, and to seek opportunities for training, developing and bettering ourselves.  We are to seek progression, moving up the ladder, achieving ambitions, fulfilment.

The Kohathites, on the other hand, just had their place within the economy of God's people, they cleared up after the priests. I guess they were 'paid' for their work, maybe some of them became leaders of clearing teams. Might they have had shifts? "Oh good grief, it's Eleazar on duty tonight; he always makes more of a mess with the sacrificial lambs than his father does"...

and a question starts to wrestle it's way to the front of my mind

if the economy of God's people is based on people being in their place, and doing their work because of their calling (and not because of some desire for bettering themselves and progressing their careers) might we occasionally damage the church when we go about developing our careers?

Castaways

My friend Jim spent a few years on the Island of Contro Lesautres, which is just off the coast of Francophone West Africa.  On this Island lived two tribes who were in continual conflict with each other.  The Askaz lived in the hill country to the north whilst the Gettas lived to the south of the central swamps.  For, quite possibly, millennia these two tribes had been separated by the geography of the island and had developed quite differently.  Only the advent of modern transport systems had brought them into contact in a way that had led to the current conflict. Jim, an anthropologist, went there on a research project.

The Askash culture was formal and ceremonial; relationships were governed by polite requests.  Jim had had to learn the strict Askash social etiquette of Request in order to be able to understand and be understood.  The Gettas, on the other hand, were more straight forward. There was no hiding of feelings or intent behind formality or apparent civility.  They just took what they could, it was accepted that those who were weaker had less and a lower place in the pecking order.  Mitigating this 'law of the Jungle', Jim told me, were unwritten responsibilities of the strong to provide for the weak. This did not mean any form of equality but families were very strong and looked after each other; gangs were bound by strict, perhaps frightening, codes of sharing.

The problems arose from the two tribes' total incomprehension of the other's way of life.  To the Gettas, Askash ways were elitist and arrogant. "They look down on us" said one Getta gang-boss to Jim and the Askaz were appalled by the aggressive, almost perpetually angry ways of the Getta gangs.  Jim, perhaps because he was English, tended to find the Askaz easier to work with. He told me that there had been times when he was scared and intimidated by in-your-face ways of the Gettas.  There was not subtlety to the Gettas, they just demanded or took. There were no explanations, no reasons given, no attempt at persuasion. If they didn't get what they wanted first time, they would just push and push until they got their way or sensed that they had lost.  There was no compromise with Gettas and, especially when gangs were involved, a conflict could escalate quickly as other gang members crowded around. Talk was not so much about meaning as about volume and intensity.  On more than one occasion, Jim told of fearful screaming riots over quite trivial issues. If you stood your ground and refused to give in, then you had to be prepared to fight, but if you held your ground and your 'opponent' gave in first then you had won.

Much of the conflict between the two tribes centred over the one thing they had in common; the pursuit of control.  For both tribes, to be able to control others was what counted as leadership.  The Askaz achieved control by persuasion and intrigue; the Gettas by assertion and aggression.  Jim found this shared pursuit of control thoroughly unattractive in both tribes.  Following the end of colonial rule, the two tribes (of about equal size) had struggled for control of the unified island nation.  It was not a pretty or safe place to live, Jim told me.  Control switched between the two tribes, perhaps the Askaz (with better connections to the wealth of the ex colonial power) had longer on top but this made the struggle all the more bitter.  The two tribes could find no way of connecting with each other, they could find no way of understanding each other and gradually the mutual contempt, hatred and fear increased.

Strangely, as an aside, both tribes spoke in awe of a semi-mythical race that had once lived in the central lowlands and who had managed to live at peace with both tribes.  These people were called the Gheevas. They had died out, nobody knew exactly when or how.  Both the Askaz and the Gettas told stories of Gheevan grace and generosity and claimed to be the inheritors of the Gheevas' beauty and majesty.  The Askaz talked about how they were peaceful and made no forceful demands upon others whilst the Gettas pointed to their sharing, close community and open honesty.

Jim used to captivate me with stories of these three tribes. The myths of the Gheevas, in particular, intrigued me.  "How?" I asked.  Jim just shrugged his shoulders.  "Do you think that the Askaz and the Gettas will ever be able to heal their differences?" I would ask.  Jim always shook his head sadly, "No, I don't think so."

Growth

There were once four young friends; Polly Python, Roger Rhino, Elinor Elephant and Harry Hippo.  They were very young and quite different but they managed to find games to play that they all enjoyed and they talked and talked about what it would be like when they grew into adults.  Then one day it was time for them all to join the 'Growth Club', "Now we shall find out the answer to our questions" they agreed.

And, sure enough, they started to grow.  Roger, Elinor and Harry grew tall and round with strong, sturdy legs. Polly got longer.  Roger, Elinor and Harry were concerned about Polly.  She didn't seem to be growing in the 'right' way.  They looked at each other and, of course, they were different in some ways but what seemed pretty obvious was that growing involved getting tall and round and having sturdy legs.  Polly was doing none of these things.  Polly wasn't growing.

Initially, being friends, they all encouraged Polly but as time went on and Polly got a bit longer but not tall, round or with sturdy legs.  It seemed to the others that she wasn't trying hard enough.  Polly, knew what her friends were thinking and she so wanted to grow tall and round with sturdy legs, just like the others but she only got a bit longer. 

As time went by; Roger, Elinor and Harry found other growers like themselves, some (like Gerry) were even taller whilst others, like Wally, were even rounder, although it has to be said that few had quite as sturdy legs as the threesome.  Roger, Elinor and Harry could really respect and learn growth from growers like Gerry and Wally.  These were animals who could lead them, teach them.  These were animals to imitate.  And as good growers they also tended to avoid the less good growers. It was a case of keeping in with the A-team, so that they didn't pick up bad habits.  Polly, as far as they could see, was not growing. She wasn't getting tall and she was really a very sorry thin, sort of round and as for her legs? Well...

Polly noticed what was happening, and was sad to begin with but then she thought "Well I am growing longer!" But the others in the "Growth Club" only saw that she hadn't grown tall, she hadn't grown fat and round and she hadn't grown sturdy legs.  She wasn't growing in any recognisable way. And, as the growth counsellors said, "If you're not growing you're sliding backwards".  The threesome stopped talking with Polly and Polly stopped talking with them.

Her sadness turned to anger "I am growing... longer! Can't you see it?" After a while, she started to find the growth club a lonely place, a disapproving place.  She found that the growth club was going out into the plains so that they could grow and so that the trees didn't get in the way. Polly liked trees, she could curl around trees. The Growth club were suspicious of trees, which, as they pointed out were full of small animals and birds - not the right place at all for a growing member of the Growth Club.  It wasn't that Polly stopped going to the Growth Club, just that they tended to be in different places to where she was spending her time.

One day, Roger, Elinor and Harry were chatting, remembering the old days and their friendship with Polly.  They reflected sadly about their lost friend, commented (sadly) about how she just hadn't grown like them and how, she wasn't even coming to Growth Club any more.  If you don't grow, you'll slide backwards they agreed sadly. Polly had backslidden, but then... what would you expect of a snake?

Learning to become a manager or just better at...

I've noticed recently that nearly all my posts since I restarted blogging have been about church and spiritual matters.  So I thought that it was time to ramble on about some other matters that matter to me.

I've just won some money to fund a small research project looking at how people learn in their professional careers, especially within organisations. Too often, it seems to me we offer people something called 'management development' which really means that we try to teach them some ideas about being a manager and about what the business world is like.  There are several problems with this approach.  First, we really don't know what makes a good manager - we kind of know one when we meet one but then we meet another who is totally different.  It's very difficult to work out what the key principles are, even if there are any!  Secondly, fewer and fewer people are in what conventionally were called management roles - we have 'flattened' organisations and, increasingly, we are in teams, often with very flexible boundaries.  As an example, I don't know who my boss is.  Jane is my Centre Head, but most of my teaching is done in Mike's undergraduate programme,  I work closely with Mark (head of taught programmes and interested in practice based learning) and then there's Pam who heads the Centre of Teaching Excellence for whom I'm doing this research project.  OK, so Jane is notionally my line manager but it really isn't that simple.  I suspect that many readers will be in similar situations. Finally, the vast majority of management development and business programmes assume Free Market Economics as the basis for business behaviour.  Do we really want to promote that? Is teaching it one of the ways we create the myth that 'markets' really exist and "that's just the way it is"? 

So the question comes, how can we help people at work who want to do their job better or want to do a different job?  Well that's the basis of my research.  I've been working with managers and professionals in a coaching or mentoring type way for about 8 years now and I've noticed that there are three areas that affect how they can improve what they do.

They Play with New Ideas

If we want to improve the way we work then it's probably not going to help that much if we just try harder - we've been doing that for ages and it really doesn't work.  So if we want to improve, then we're going to have to look for new ideas about how to do our work.  And once we've found some new ideas we're going to have to evaluate their worth to our work context and then test if they're making any difference when we put them into practice.

So, in my project I'm going to be exploring ways of engaging with new ideas; how we find them, how we relate them to our work and how we reject or choose the ideas we'll try out in our work.

They inquire constantly

into what's going on and whether their actions are making a difference.  We need to ask questions about what our work context is like and what difference new actions are making.  And we need to be thoughtful about how we ask those questions. There are loads of 'research methods' out there that can be very helpful.

So, in my project I'll be exploring which inquiry methods are useful and doable (not many of us have time to do a full survey before the next meeting!).  I'll be exploring with some colleagues how we can make serious inquiry a part of our daily lives.

They attend to moment-by-moment relations

This has been one of the big emphases of managers who have worked with me in projects. They have found that noticing, or more deliberately attending to, how relations create futures makes a difference to their effectiveness.  Central to this has been a realisation by those managers that relations are negotiated. I'm afraid that the Jean-Luc Picard (Star Trek) school of management "Make it so" just doesn't work.  Our instructions, guidance and suggestions contribute to what others do but don't complete it.

So, I'm going to be exploring how we can act in a ways that notice what's happening in moment-by-moment relations, notice ways of acting that give more space rather than less to colleagues and look for ways that we influence, but also are influenced, towards improved performance.

******

well that's the project, loads of questions to ponder. As much as confidences allow, I'll post about what I'm learning over the next few months.

Two Teenagers

This last week in Britain the news has been dominated by two teenage lads.

Both were in 'gangs' and both, it seems likely, were messing around with drugs.  For one this ended up with some of his friends being expelled from school and him getting punished. For the other lad it ended with him getting shot.

The first lad has gone on to turn his life around and achieve significant influence.  The second lad died.

The first lad may well become Prime Minister of Britain.  We'll never know what the second lad might have achieved.

Today in church, we sang a song that ended with the reprise of praise to God: "You rescued me".  I thought of those two young men.

and we were informed of next week's service about Jonah.  How this was a man who ran away from what God called him to do.  And I thought about those two lads and wondered what it would have taken to rescue the second lad...

Today in church, we sang a song that ended with the reprise of praise to God: "You rescued me".  I thought of those two young men.

... and as I thought about God rescuing and thought about that second lad and so many like him I felt helpless, "What can I do?" I'm a middle aged, middle class university teacher who hasn't a clue about what life's like for people like that second lad.  It would be patronising for me to say that I have any answer

Today in church, we sang a song that ended with the reprise of praise to God: "You rescued me".  I thought of those two young men. 

How can God rescue without our hands, feet, hearts and voices?

and I'm just wondering if Jonah felt as helpless as me when he ran away to Tarshish

There is no 'I' in managing

I am, hopefully, heading off to a conference in September called "The Art of Management".  My plan is to read some of my poetry and before that to write some poetry!

Those of you who've suffered my blog for most of the year will be aware that I have a somewhat 'different' approach to management. In particular I dislike what I call the subject-object relations of most management theories where it is assumed that there  is some, special person who is able to manage the rest of us.  If I manage you then you are left passive, dependent upon me to get you to do anything.  I don't think that equates to what I find in the 'real' world, nor do I think that it fits with a Christian worldview.  So, can we find alternative ways of thinking about managing?  Writing about/around/through a topic in poetry allows me to play with ideas, let poetic forms (such as rhythm, rhyme or metre etc.) take my writing away from what I first thought about.  Poetry provides a new vantage point from which to explore ideas.

Anyway, as I start putting a collection together, I thought that I'd share them with you and ask for your responses.  I'm less worried about whether they're good poems (I rarely write good poems, some good lines but few good poems) but do they give you a surprise as you think about what management might mean?

Here's the first one (It's a first draft, loads of revisions and word-twiddles to come)

There is no 'I' in managing

There is no 'I' in managing
I'm too dependent on you around.
For all I do will make no sense
until you or others make the grade

There is not 'I' in managing
no I that I can find
in a moment's talk
    or action made.
Only two or three or more
who make what's what
2 or 3 who make the grade.

There is not 'I' in managing
I tried to act but was ignored
and so the plans and goals
that I had framed
came to nought,
ceased to exist
and so I never made the grade.