Sylvia's Journal

We wrapped up the work and it was crowned with the delivery, hot from the institute press, of an official brochure announcing the workshop to the world. It was not quite perfect but it was more than ‘good enough for now’ – my motto on these trips. It can even be distributed to anyone talking about leadership at the big African Health Workforce conference in Kampala next week.

We talked about the next steps, which is the detailed session planning for the actual workshop next November. My co-facilitator will be a Tanzanian of Indian descent, a real gentle-man with whom I look forward to work. I suggested we use Google Documents, a virtual workspace, to fill in the details of the course as the weeks and months go by, suggest experiential activities, share readings, etc. To show how Google Docs works I downloaded a 3-minute You Tube video on it and showed it to my colleagues. Watching the little movie in the company of my African colleagues made me utterly aware of how American it was, in language, tone and style. They picked up things I had not paid attention to. It reminded me of a film about malaria control that was tested on a group of villagers. Knowing a lot about chickens, they focused their attention entirely on the unknown breed of chickens that happened to be running in the background while the film focused on the drainage of standing water. They missed the part about drainage. We see what we are looking for (or are familiar with). I know I do; I see group dynamics and organizational behavior everywhere!

I hung around for a meeting with the marketing people in the afternoon but they never showed up. I was surprised that no one called them or went to find out what happened to our meeting. There was a sense of fatalism and some anger (we are more senior, we have a foreigner with us, how impolite!) but also a sense of acceptance that this is how things are. I learned a long time ago to take my cues from my counterparts and used the waiting time to explore possible activities for next year, write my report and take advantage of a dependable internet connection. And of course I always love hearing the commentaries each group makes about the other, in private only. This is how I learn much about organizational dynamics and about the (perceived) characteristics of various identity groups: some validated by my own observations, but much comes from (unsolicited) editorials made by others.

A course about trade policy finished yesterday at about the time that we had given up on the marketing people. They celebrated the course’s completion outdoors at the entrance of the institute with many varieties of hard and not so hard liquor, snacks and endless picture-taking with multiple digital cameras. I was invited to pose for the pictures as well, as if I had been in the course with them for 4 weeks. I just imagined the Bangla woman telling her husband, “Here, look at these pictures of the people in the course” and him saying, “Who is she, that white lady?” “Oh she is just some random person who showed up for drinks…” I actually had gotten to know some of these folks from our lunches in the dining hall. The participants were giddy with the excitement of having completed something significant and going home. I know that feeling so well.

My colleague Lucas drove me back to the hotel after I said my goodbyes to the rest of the team and then I packed for my departure. I pulled out my books about coaching and executive leadership for my next assignment, an executive coaching one. Although I have done much informal coaching of senior execs, I really haven’t done any such thing formally called by the name of executive coaching. So this will be a somewhat new experience, hence the books.