Sylvia's Journal

The piercing headache from yesterday was accompanied by severe nausea. Nothing is worse than having to throw up when you are in a dorm that does not have its own bathroom; a bathroom that says it is only for men and you are not one of those. Suffice to say I ended up sleeping an Excedrin-induced sleep till lunch and thus missed the star speakers (Tichy/Schlesinger) and workshops I had so carefully selected.

I attended an afternoon workshop with my OD counterpart from Pathfinder, a sister organization from Boston. Together with 40 other people we were led in 45 minutes through 8 experiential excercises. Good thing the last one was a relaxation exercise that took us down a stair, to our childhood beds, out of the windown, through the clouds, to the moon and back, all very relaxed, in a darkened room. It was an hour well-spent.

I walked out of two other sessions and learned later that my walking out had contributed greatly to some people’s learning; my motives the object of intense speculation. My own learning was more about connection, as it usually is, in spontaneous mini workshops, self-organized and led, outside the formal program, at a picnic bench in the sun.

A Boston harbor cruise took us out past the islands, with planes departing and arriving overhead, sailboats everywhere and a land- and seascape I am used seeing from the air as I fly in and out of Boston. The return into Boston harbor towards the well-lit skyline was spectacular; it also showed where we can save some energy.

I am the unofficial poet laureate of OBTC and so I am constantly collecting images to later turn into verse. This happens usually around midnight. Tonight is our talent show and I will be called on stage for a product that is not finished yet and constantly being re-written. This always creates a slight panic which does seem to enhance the creative process, albeit at some cost.

Today is also my session which I will be presenting with Sita scribing in the back. It was a last minute idea from Axel and Sita agreed. She may well be the draw for my session. I realized I did not make any handouts and feel somewhat underprepared.

I woke up with a piercing headache. This conference is about having your mind blown. Something like that happened last night in the opening session when I found myzelf exploring Plato’s cave with Indian gentlemen. How’s that for starters? Or maybe it is simply the thick yellow pollen that covers everything.

Yesterday we used up our allotted Board time, not planned but still all the way up to lunch. Finally there was the long awaited process check. Not always easy but quite honest and direct. We ended on a high note, waved goodbye to our outgoing members and transferred voting right to the newbies.

I left to pick up Axel in Manchester and we returned just in time for the opening reception. Word about our accident had reached some and not others and so there were some gasps and then a quick up and down scan, “What? You look just fine!” A fellow pilot drew a small Piper Cherokee on my name tag. One of my dorm mates is also a pilot. They are everywhere!

The after dinner kick off session by Bill Torbert and Joan Gallos was staged to ‘Blow our minds,’ as per the conference slogan. It did, and so now this headache.

I am trying to introduce this crowd to the notion of public note taking and, in its more advanced form, graphic facilitation. What better way than to invite Sita to scribe my session on Friday? She has agreed. It may be more of a draw because of her.

After a second long day of board deliberations we sampled another of Wellesley’s restaurants, this time Italian. Each time we are collectively eating too much and once again I returned with a doggy bag. Some of the Thai food was consumed during the night, with permission, by one of my dorm mates. Now that participants to the conference are streaming in there is no way of knowing or controlling what happens during the night. I still plan to drive home with Thai and Italian meals in the cooler on the back seat but I am not so sure about the quantities.

It is tricky to be on the board of an organization that is about organizational behavior and teaching others how to ‘behave’ organizationally in ways that are productive, affirming and satisfying. I cannot help reflect on how we behave ourselves in this organization and I see others do the same, although mostly in private. Collectively we know much about group dynamics, including safety. We have done research and published about this in theses and papers. But that is, of course, always about other peoples’ behavior. Here it is us. I have found that when my reptilian brain get involved (when my emotional buttons get pushed) stuff becomes trickier to handle. In private conversations I discover that, although we follow Robert’s Rules of Order, some people question this and other processes we use. They are inherited from the mother culture (academia), which I do not share. It is not clear to which degree they are adopted consciously or unconsciously. I have so far not dared to question this practice but am emboldened by the private revelations from others. We are all teachers and we are creating many teaching moments in our deliberations; there’s a whole bunch of them slowly dying on the floor.

Yesterday we debated long and hard about our relationship with another group that has a longstanding and rich connection to the conference. There is much emotion that colors the conversation; we ignore it. Times have changed, I hear. What I also see is that the ever increasing complexity and busy-ness of our lives diminishes tolerance and concern for the other; there simply is no time to ‘just talk and work things out the old fashioned way.’ And thus this old relationship is on the block; personal irritations are braided together with rules into hard substances that feel to me more like weapons than the tools they are intended to be. I wish I could be as perseverant as Henry Fonda about our uneasy group dynamics but I have no guts for that.

Our agenda not completed we have to meet again this morning. There is other stuff that is bubbling up, about expectations not met, causing more feelings to come to the surface. I am finding that the stronger the feelings, the more assumptions are attached about ‘the other’ who is (supposedly) causing these feelings. It takes more and more determination to keep separating assumptions from facts.

I had planned to go rowing before picking up Axel but I am beginning to sense that this may not be in the stars. Meditative exercise would be good for all of us.

Yesterday, between meeting and eating I had some free time to work my mailbox and then study the conference program. It was amazed to see that my session is listed right after a session about what we can learn about decision making from an aircraft accident investigation. It is a simulation, not the real thing. Even if I had wanted to go to that session I cannot because it happens at the same time as mine.

A day of sitting for hours on end, and eating too much, is not good for my body. I am hurting all over and the dorm room set up does not help. My room is in the basement and the carpet feels damp when I take off my shoes. Large ants, the size of African termites, traverse the room and halls. Even though I know they carry a message of patience, both Susan and I have crushed a few. We just don’t want half inch ants crawling into our bed (or pants).

Right outside our dorm is a giant globe, referred to as the Babson Globe. It is several stories high. Our dorm is called Coleman Map and I am beginning to understand the map thing. The Coleman map was constructed in the 1920s and was the largest relief map in the country, 45 by 65 feet with the map’s curvature corresponding exactly to the earth’s curvature. It was created from 1216 blocks, each representing 1 degree latitude and 1 degree longitude, fitted together meticulously.

A picture on one of the marker at the base of the globe shows long rows of people sitting at high desks doing this painstaking work. From a balcony above, at the time, you could see the same as an astronaut would see at 700 miles above the earth. Remember, this was 1926. The rocket’s eye view allowed people to understand how geography shaped transportation routes and the growth of cities and regions. The map became an important tool for primary school teachers who took their classes to see it. Currently the map is in pieces in a basement of Babson and no longer visible to the public. The giant globe is not quite as useful because you can’t see the whole landscape; it is also disappointing because it no longer rotates as it used to in the 50s when it was considered a ‘tourist attraction and media wonder.’ Now it just hangs there with Africa always looking the same way. I also has become rather shabby; the North Pole is covered with tree pollen and bird poop. The only educational thing about it now is that is shows abundantly clear how the earth needs to be kept clean or else. Other than that it is an eye sore.

We conducted our board meetings with relative discipline, partially because we have a very disciplined president and partially because we would like to complete our business in two days rather than three. That would allow me to go for a row on the Charles before heading back home to pick up Axel for the start of the conference. He will be my room mate. I have re-arranged our dorm room to make it look more like a master bedroom. It does take some imagination but that is what this conference is all about.

At the end of the day we met with the students and faculty participating in the annual pre-conference Doctoral Institute; an interesting group of people including some great and well known organization, leadership and management gurus from the abundant local pool of such people whose material I use in my own teaching practice or who are part of this society.

We ended our day in a local Thai restaurant; a sister restaurant to the one near the old MSH office in Newton Corner. The menu had not changed in 10 years and brought back many memories of both happy and sad times at MSH. The manager pulled out all the stops to make us order way more food than we could possibly consume. I scooped all the leftovers in Chinese take out containers, filling two bags with enough for several complete Thai meals that I will deliver to the girls on Wednesday. Everything is temporarily parked in a dorm fridge till then.

Susan and I settled into our dorm rooms for the next week. It seems we are the only ones in Coleman Hall, an immense two-winged and three-storied building. Most everyone else from our group is in the executive conference center on the other side of the campus or another dorm down the hill. We are doing this on the cheap. After we settled in it was time to do some hunting, the kind of hunting that famous chain hotels never want you to do: for the women’s bathroom, (we couldn’t find any, only men’s), electrical outlets (there are few), a way to get what sounded like a fire alarm (but was not) turned off and sheets (only Susan’s got them). If you get to be a student here all this would be entirely normal.

I am prepared for this sort of bare-bones living arrangement. I have assembled a survival kit over the years based on going to OBTC for nearly 20 years, that include inflatable clothes hangers and four small clips that keeps the sheets from sliding off the plastic mattrass. As it turned out I did not need them; my linen packet from Peoples Linen Rental contained a fitted sheet. Nevertheless, it is comforting to know that I have a car outside and can escape anytime I want, like a safety blanket left by the edge of my bed. Susan does not have that option since her home is in Alaska.

Yesterday was entirely framed by my going away to Wellesley for the week; the size of my luggage was the only thing that gave away that I was not going far. Everything else was just as if I was going on an overseas trip: taking care of to-do’s that cannot wait; the presents for people I will be meeting and preparing for both Board work and my session on Friday.

It was a hot, hazy and humid day. We have lunged from spring into August weather and both plants and human were wilting. I rooted around in the asparagus bed looking for signs of life from the aspargus crowns we planted three weeks ago. I found only two baby asparagus tips coming up; a sad result considering that we planted 12 crowns. It seems that some creature is as interested in the asparagus as we are. It left a trail of small holes and bits and pieces of severed asparagus roots.

Late in the afternoon when the weather began to turn and become more pleasant Amy and Larry arrived from a Harvard reunion. We couldn’t help but talk about retirement. It is suddenly happening all around us; what a concept! For us the word is not even visible on the far edges of the horizon.

It was hard to extract myself from Lobster Cove and the lobster caesar salad that Axel was preparing for dinner. Driving inland into downtown Manchester and then to the highways the temperature always goes up a few notches. The airco in the car is broken and I had forgotten what it was like to drive ‘au naturel.’ When we lived in Senegal we never had airco; not in our car, not in our house, and not in the office. Only the people who worked for USAID or foreign embassies lived, drove and worked in cool places. We considered it normal to have clothes sticking to our skin and papers blown around by fans or open windows.

There is this thing about normal. When everything becomes normal again you realize that you don’t like some normals. Like the multi-tasking and juggling that is normal at my work; or the old car without a normal functioning airco; or the summer racing by much too fast as it normally does. Last August we were both very anxious to get back to normal, as if it was some sort of steady state. Having arrived on this side of normal we discover it comes in many variations, with some we could live without.

I picked up Ken, one of our newly elected board members, who flew in from Kentucky at Logan airport; our colleagues from Ohio did not make it in due to a canceled flight (normal?). They missed our first activity which is our traditional Sunday dinner. Everyone else was there, flown in from Alaska, New Zealand, Iowa, Southern California, South Carolina, or by car from Western and Eastern Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. It is an entirely social affair, clearing the decks for two days of hard work starting tomorrow morning. It was wonderful to see everyone again after nearly 8 months. The last time we were together, in October, I was walking with a cane, limping slowly at the end of the line, requiring all my attention and energy to keep up. Now I am normal again, clothes sticking to my skin and papers flying out of the car window and all.

Today is Sita’s twenty-seventh birthday (and also Morsi’s) and I am about 45 miles away from her. We have a family tradition that I cannot partake in and I am counting on Axel to do the honors: the chair of the birthday girl will be decorated with flowers. I suspect it will be covered with violet asters, yellow and orange calendula, pink and dark red snap dragons, a lonely white phlox, the daisy-like feverfew and red and orange nasturtiums. At this late time in the season there is still so much in bloom in our garden. And as for the edibles, since the frost has not yet come, we are still harvesting green beans, tomatoes, tomatilloes, Swiss chard and New Zealand spinach. These would look nice on the chair as well, I think.

In my thoughts I am up in the wet garden with my shears; and then inside, armed with the scotch tape, trying to attach the reluctant wet flowers to the wooden spindles of the chair. This part of the tradition came from my childhood. The other part developed somewhere along the way when the girls were still little: a collection of little animal tchochkes are collected from everywhere in the house and arranged around the breakfast plate, all looking in the direction of the birthday girl and sitting on and around the presents laid out on the table.

I am sad to miss this because next year I am sure she will be in her own house or apartment some ways off. On the other hand, given the time she usually gets up, the flowers might all be dead by the time she shows up, having lost their stamina, blooming inside scotchtape since 6 AM.

The imagination is a wonderful thing, and just writing this and seeing the scene in my mind makes me feel good and part of the event this morning. This is how we can be in many places at once.

Yesterday was wonderful and exhausting (again). We met from 8:30 till 6:00 with a few short breaks. We slugged through a long agenda; some very exciting, some tedious. At times I tuned out when the talk was about things that relate too much to the US world of academic management education. But most is very relevant to what we do out in the developing world. I wish I could get some of our partners that are academic institutions in Kenya and Tanzania hooked into this network of wonderful people and terrific resources. I have tried but not been very successful. I have new energy that is partially fueled by my roommate Maria who is from New Zealand and whose life is dedicated to re-balance the way native people are considered in the decision making processes of the dominant populations.

I have moved a good length out of my cocoon yesterday and will be out there for another full day. It has been easy because everyone is so very caring, careful, concerned and solicitous. I did OK, even though we were all sitting on a non-ergonomically designed chairs. I held a heat pack to my shoulder, sometimes wound it around my foot and alternated the heat now and then with an icepack that I will probably forget tonight and leave in the freezer of the kitchenette adjacent to our meeting room. At one point I squeezed myself down on the floor between occupied and unoccupied chairs with a rolled-up blanket under my spine, as directed by our masseuse/yoga teacher Abi. It was very effective. I should do this more often.

At the end of our day of deliberations we walked back to our sleeping quarters; I chose to join the walkers rather than being driven; but now I walk slowly, at the end of the pack instead of in my usual forerunner position. Maria hobbles a bit too. She also broke her foot some time ago. Later, we drove to a wonderful restaurant in Natick (Naked Fish) for a delicious dinner and great conversation that covered the entire range of human experience. I had myself driven in my own car. It is nice when there are drivers around. Like two old ladies, Maria and I have swollen feet by the time we get back to our rooms.