Talk from the side walk
A couple of things have happened other the past few days that have set me to thinking about inspiration and freedom and otherness … First, we were supposed to have a master coaching group meeting in one of the villages outside Plymouth but the snow made it impossible. At least that was the dominant conversation which we all bought into! So we had a conference call instead; which was good. Very good in fact. On the call one of us, Mary, said she felt she was at her best as a manager and leader in her business when her attention was off herself and she was only thinking about others. That’s been called servant leadership by a few people including Max de Pree in his wonderful book Leadership is an Art. De Pree describes leadership as “… more a condition of the heart than a set of things to do …” My friend Sally repeated this to me when we met at a 50th birthday party the following night and said that Mary’s words were what inspired her to come out that night in the snow, when she really would have preferred to stay at home.
And I have been wondering about this. Is it enough just to be in or of service to others? Is that it? Lilla Watson, who is an Australian Aboriginal activist and visual artist, is credited as saying “if you have come to help me, then you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” Sure, helping isn’t a great metaphor, it implies someone is helpless or needs help; as a coaching or leadership mentality that is definitely a waste of time. But Watson seems, at least to me, to be saying something else in between her words. Don’t come to help me, or even to empower me. Don’t talk about supporting me because that still implies a deficiency on my side of the street. I don’t want you to offer to be alongside me, that presumptuous. Recognise that who you are is me, we are connected; know that your liberation is inextricably bound up with mine; only then you can come as a true partner. We are equals in our exploration. We are both on the journey together. I on mine, you on yours. Neither of us can travel any further without each other. Service is not about serving another, it is about serving life. It is an affirmation of living, an affirmation I can only make when I am truly in relationship with others. Its deepest roots are the essence of our moral imagination; reminding us that our responsibility is to and for the whole, which is only expressed through action
Martin Buber called this the I-thou relationship.
The kind of liberation Watson is referring to is not about abundance, or wealth, or career, or goals – all the stuff coaching so often gets trapped into talking about; probably not even about political freedom, which God knows is important, but is about liberating spirit. That’s inspiration. Breathing together. As leaders and coaches we must avoid the pitfall of being pulled back to the known and familiar problem-saturated story. Our job in the partnership is to hold the bigger context and to hold the hope for both of us.
Next; at the party I found myself in an intense conversation with Sally’s partner, Massimo, about the conference call and vision … Massimo has done a lot of work over the years in personal transformation and coaching. He runs a data base business specialising in providing services for small to medium size companies in the voluntary and community sector. Part of the conversation was about the struggle to grow a business. As we talked I asked Massimo what the purpose of his data bases is. He replied that it is to make his clients’ organisations more effective.
I like to learn about leadership from everywhere and my favourite book is the Conference of the Birds – the Story of Peter Brook in Africa. It is the true account of an expedition through the Sahara Desert taken by the renowned director Peter Brook and a company of actors searching for a new form of theatre, for the universal language. Brook says the moment you arrive anywhere you limit the distance you could have travelled. I like that and since I don’t really like to settle for obvious boundaries I incorporated the idea into my coaching practice. So I asked Massimo if that was satisfying.
“No”, said Massimo
“Why not?”
“It’s not transformational”
“It’s not transformational or it’s too small scale”
“Both”
“So what does it mean if your customers are more effective; what difference does that make?
After a moment of thought he told me “basically it frees people up to do more.”
I said, “If my mum who is 84, wants to get a volunteer to take her to the hospital, does your data base make it easier for her?”
“Yes” he said.
“Do the people in your company know that?”
“Well, we get feedback from the organisations we work with and I tell the guys that, but I don’t think we know what difference we are making for mums”
“If you knew that?”
“We might find out we are transforming lives.”
“Ah ha” we both said
That’s it for now. Watch out for more talk from the side walk.
mo
Please feel free to circulate this news letter. My only request is that you credit me as the author and don’t plagiarise, filch, steal, usurp or appropriate this as your own
I can be contacted on mo@mocohen.com
Talk from the side walk is the newsletter of Mo Cohen. Mo is a writer, coach, speaker and peacebuilder.
