A School Reunion

I have just attended my first school reunion, something I have studiously ignored for a number of years. My fear was it would be a contest to see who had made the best of their life and those that hadn’t wouldn’t participate.

In the event those fears were unfounded and I had a very pleasant evening catching up with people I have not seen since our teenage years. It was nothing grand – a spacious private venue, a bar, and a table of buffet food. Much of the buffet was left untouched and the bar staff were underemployed. People were far more interested in catching up and reconnecting.

As I approached the venue – a couple of people stared at me strangely. They were trying to relate the ‘me now’ to the one they remembered all those years ago. I couldn’t place them, so I stared harder. A nickname was mentioned and suddenly it came back to me. Within minutes I was remembering them as they are today not the photo image I remembered as they were then. And amazingly the events, the jokes, the scrapes we were in came back by association. And I suddenly remembered more names.

I went in and as I moved around the room reconnecting, the thing that hit me most was that it was the facial expressions, the mannerisms, the nervous laughter that had remained most unchanged. The body had aged but the spirit of the person was no different.

At the end of the evening there were a few people whose name I knew and remembered but the person was not the same as the one I remembered from way back.

It struck me that knowledge is like this. Once we learn and know something then it is a photo image and it is real and even though time has moved on, and the world has moved on, we are stuck with the frozen image of that knowledge. And by association we assume all related knowledge remains the same. Sometimes it takes a ‘reunion’ to reframe that knowledge, and there will be some that is so etched in our brain that we cannot let go of the knowledge that was. When we stop learning, stop being receptive, then we risk being stuck with outdated knowledge that is not relevant.

Someone shared a simple example of this at a recent meeting at Henley KM Forum.

Which of these two lines is longer?

<—————————————>

or                                        >——————————————<

It’s a familiar trick and we respond automatically ‘They are both the same.’

But they are not. It is a different context and actually they lower line is longer. Because knowledge is familiar we shouldn’t stop seeing it afresh.

It was great to see everyone again!

Changing the way of working from expert to facilitator

I was in the District of Karnataka, India recently working with a group of local NGOs (Myrada and MSK) and we were learning from each other. Together we visited 3 villages close to Bellary with whom the NGOs had a good working relationship. The NGOs were providing information and education about the Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) – How it is spread, how to avoid it and how to deal with it etc.

Sharing & Learning

We were encouraging them to try a different way of working. Over the previous 3 days we had visited each of the three villages to listen and learn what the issues and concerns were and what they were already doing to respond. On the fourth day we brought together representatives from the 3 villages, village elders, young women and young men to share their experiences in their own villages. This was something that hadn’t happened before. Indeed the different groups had not discussed it together in their own villages before this week.

We mixed people up and got them to tackle different issues in small groups of about 10 people. They were sat in circles on the floor of the village hut where we were meeting. A local NGO person was assigned to each group. The discussion was in the local Kanada language, so I could not follow the discussion. I watched instead the interactions within the circles. In one group it was apparent that the conversation was between one of the group and the NGO person, and then another of the group and the NGO person. The NGO person was providing the answers. I intervened. Through an interpreter I explained the role of the NGO person was not to educate and provide the answers but to encourage the group to share their own responses and experiences. It wasn’t working and the third time I intervened it was to physically remove the NGO rep from the circle. I got her to stand with me on the other side of the hall and watch. The circle closed up and the conversation restarted. Suddenly the dynamics changed completely – the conversation flowed across and back around the circle, first in one direction, and then another. People who had so far made no contribution were making their voice heard. It became animated, there was laughter and everyone shared and learned.

The NGO persons eyes lit up – the light bulb went on – now she got what I had been trying to explain! She went back and joined the circle as a listener – and learned things she had not heard before.