Sylvia's Journal

When the rains come pouring down we cannot hear ourselves think – we have to use the mic to get ourselves heard about the noise on the tin roof. Outside the rains come down in sheets that wash all the cars in a minute or two. And then, usually, the rain moves on and everything dries up in no time, as if nothing happened.

People here like the rains as much as we dislike them in Holland or London – rain is a life force in many parts of Africa. One of my colleagues told me, “when I arrive from the air I look down on the green mountains around the city I am so proud and happy.” I can’t imagine saying that when landing at Schiphol airport.

Today we entered into more delicate reflections about behavior of self and behavior of the bosses. Some people’s bosses are in the room and there is a slight nervousness about this dynamic and unease, understandable, to even acknowledge this dynamic – but it is the elephant in the room. And so we are treading lightly.

We did an exercise about team roles in group discussions. On purpose we had given the people who we have seen initiating a lot (initiate is one of the four roles in Kantor’s Four Player System) the role of observer. Not surprisingly they got so caught up in the conversations that it took a lot of coaxing by us to get them to actually observe. They admitted that keeping their mouths zipped up was very difficult.

I am adding some of the exercises I used to do with participants before we had a standard leadership curriculum. I had forgotten about them an am rediscovering my overflowing electronics materials library which I carry around the world in my dropbox. These exercises and think pieces are about things that are very relevant to this group: managing one’s boss, dealing with team dynamics, political thinking, public sector managers who want transformational change – what are they up against? There are many private sector gurus who are copied and whose words are put on powerpoints for audiences that can’t possibly do much with them because public sectors are different – missing control over two key resources: people and money.
We are getting good feedback from the group – their heads buzzing with ideas that explain things they took for granted. Just what we wanted.