Sylvia's Journal

That Obama was in town we found out from our internet news sources when we got back home after a long day. We could have suspected that something was afoot when the acting minister excused herself, at the dinner she hosted for us, right after the soup. She met indeed the man who she admires so much.

We also could have known something was going on from the continuous droning overhead. It sounded like the low rumble of distant thunder. These were the helicopters and airships to protect our president. Rumor had it that even Karzai did not find out until 10 minutes before he arrived that his US counterpart was about to knock on his door.

Entirely oblivious to all of this we all got up early again and left for the Intercon with a car load full of people, so I got to ride in the back. We are squeezing meetings in before, during and after the health retreat, every unprogrammed hour is used. We started with a strategy meeting about the leadership and management development program. Our in-house leadership specialist (who I count among my own success indicators) presented, using our own challenge model, our mission, long and short term results, some data on what is currently happening, challenges, obstacles and how we propose to move forward.

Some good ideas came out of the meeting: focusing more on academic and training institutions to get the management and leadership development added to the pre-service curriculum so that health professionals start their career knowing how to manage and lead rather than fumbling their way through.

Another idea is the creation of a public health leadership institute as a private entity that can serve the needs of Afghanistan long after our and similar US government-funded projects are gone. It is an exciting prospect that we ought to start working on now. It would be a real legacy.

In the meantime I continue to use every chance I can to model how you can deal in a polite way with people, especially the most senior ministry staff or distinguished external guests, when they are using the plenary session in improper ways. There is a degree of passivity, or maybe it is fear, that allows moves from participants that derail the carefully crafted group-genius processes that we are trying to pilot.

I have a few allies and it is wonderful to see them thinking along with me. They recognize the power of structure for ensuring true participation rather than the pseudo participation that usually goes by the name of ‘questions and answers.’

Some of the sessions went better than imagined, some a little less but at the end of the day people were pleased to have been heard and I was pleased that everyone knew a little more than they did at the beginning of the day, at least those who had listened to others rather than themselves.

There were a few glitches here and there and awkward surprises that threatened our carefully designed program, like a last minute presentation added by someone who no one could say no to. I hate these because I appear the only one willing to go to battle to preserve our design. But then, when I do, there often turns out to be a solution that is elegant and acceptable to all. I think I got such a solution during the dinner we hosted for the senior ministry staff. Whether I really did we will find out tomorrow. I do like living on the edge.