I remember the review and application group.
It was in the second week of my first Leicester Conference, 2008. We were six in the group. Two presented the previous day: A woman from Sweden and another woman from Kuwait. That day, it was my turn, together with a man from the Netherlands. I presented some sort of mind map of the various roles I found myself in outside of the conference. The previous night I had worked into the morning hours to get it completed. There was my role as lecturer at the university, my part-time team building facilitator role, my previous HR role at a local bank, my role in a research team as well as my role in a local community project in Johannesburg. For each role I mapped out the significant authority figures involved, the tasks I were responsible for, the pressures. On this map I superimposed a map of my conference experiences until that point, complete with cross-references and colour codes. It was a masterpiece! We were sitting in a circle. The group hunched over the flipchart paper on the floor with my sticky-note mind map and arrows and colours. I spoke and pointed and explained. I wanted to show something of how much responsibility I was taking. How I was being pulled into different directions. But I also wanted them to see how good I was at this. That I got it. When I finished, I sat back in my chair, waiting for the consultant, a lovely bald man from Portugal, to speak. Ready to receive some praise for my hard work. He was sitting next to me. In silence, for a moment or two. Then, he looked straight at me, and asked: "May I ask you a question?" "Yes," I said. My heart rate picking up. "How many fathers do you have?" The question, like an arrow, pierced right through the noise and pretence. Bulls eye. "And what do you owe them?" Ouch. Another one. Deadly accurate. I looked around the room. Swallowed at the lump in my throat. A wetness in the corners of my eyes. I saw the empathy on the others' faces. Realised that they had seen exactly what the consultant saw. Somehow, that which I did not say, seeped so thoroughly through my presentation, that no-one could miss it. Except me. I had been so busy, the previous night and the years before that, trying to impress and work and satisfy, that I missed the obvious pattern running through more or less all my role-relationships: The unpleasable father-in-my-mind. Re-created. Again and again and again. In a never-ending series of attempts to finally please perfectly. What a liberation. To join the 2024 Leicester Conference, click here.
0 Comments
It is now 16 years since that fortnight in England that changed everything.
I remember arriving there, in that typical ‘not-knowing-what-I-don’t-know’ certitude. Thinking the fact that I was a psychologist put me in a better position than the business executives around for what was lying ahead. I remember having tea with a group of people, who seemed more or less my age, just before the conference started. There was a guy from Singapore, one from Denmark, a woman from Romania and one from Lithuania. We were filled with butterflies, knowing that we were about to dive into an immersion that would change us. What I didn’t know, couldn’t have known, was just how profound this change would be. It was that first Leicester experience, in 2008, that kick-started my journey into myself and onto what would become an unbelievably fulfilling career. Like any life-changing adventure, there is only one way to make it happen: Decide that you want to go. Then figure out the practicalities. This year the conference will be in August, and I will be one of the consultants, working alongside some of the people whom I met during that 2008 conference. Get the 2024 Leicester Conference brochure here. We were living in Chicago. My wife was posted to the South African Consulate there, and I had to take care of our children (aged 6, 4, and 2), finish my dissertation, and teach. Additionally, I began psychoanalysis: four years, four days a week, on the couch. One day, my son fell ill and couldn't attend school, so I had to take him with me to my session.
We know that South African society is traumatized, that trauma shatters mind and society, and that unworked trauma repeats itself over generations. We also know that trauma impedes our ability to think together rationally and therefore we know that there is no way out of our current mess if we don't simultaneously deal with our collective underlying trauma.
What we don't know, is how to do this. South Africa is in trouble. Our society is traumatised and the trauma continues. Colonization, war, Apartheid and poverty, amongst other factors, have contributed to a historical cycle of perpetual trauma. Today, violent crime, rampant corruption, gender-based violence, drug abuse and unemployment are not only some of the manifestations of this ongoing trauma but are also continuing to keep the traumatic cycle in place.
One of our local schools regularly posts a new quote on their billboard. This week it reads: "Some people look for a beautiful place. Others make a place beautiful."
This made me think of our recent family road trip on South Africa's backroads. We travelled on gravel and pot-hole-riddled tar roads through towns such as Wolmaransstad, Schweizer-Reneke, Coligny, Jan Kempdorp and Prieska and Carnarvon. Forgotten towns on their last breath. Has it always been so hard for me to transition back into my work role after the summer holidays? Or is it more difficult this year?
Of course, being in a freelance leadership consulting role usually means that one's clients need a week or so to settle back into their own roles before seeking out coaching or consultation at the start of the new year. Meaning that the main activities constituting the consulting/coaching role (making appointments, seeing clients, keeping notes) only really start in the third or fourth week of January. Until then we are thus largely bereft of our usual role-activities as a bulwark against our own anxiety. This photo was taken 10 minutes before I got a puncture in the back tyre. I had just bought the bike in Riversdale and was on my way back to Pretoria. Suddenly the bike started to move under me as if I was riding through thick sand, which I wasn't. When I stopped to check and saw that the tyre was flat, I knew: everything has just changed. There was no way I was going to go all the way to Loxton as planned - depending on how quickly I could fix the tyre, of course.
These class notes may be valuable to anyone responsible for leading complex project teams. The notes form part of the module "Project Organisation" that I teach to Masters of Project Management (MPM) students in the Engineering Faculty at the University of Pretoria. The module looks at the unconscious dynamics affecting project teams as systems within a wider systemic context. There is only one way in which one can understand anything about the teams you are part of, and that is to acknowledge that your team, like all other human systems (families, businesses, governments), is imperfect.
These class notes may be valuable to anyone responsible for leading complex project teams. The notes form part of the module "Project Organisation" that I teach to Masters of Project Management (MPM) students in the Engineering Faculty at the University of Pretoria. The module looks at the unconscious dynamics affecting project teams as systems within a wider systemic context. Introduction to Module
Managing projects is complex and requires a high degree of competence in a variety of disciplines. Although the project manager may not need to be an expert in any of the disciplines composing 'project management', he or she has to be good enough in each of them, plus be an expert in putting it all together. James Krantz* writes beautifully how important it is for leaders to have the courage to betray personal relationships and expectations when required. If you are the one in charge, you will sometimes have to make decisions that will upset some of your closest allies in order to do what is best for the team, business or country that you are leading. President Ramaphosa has started this process, but it is clear that it will not get any easier as the realisation sets in that corruption is systemic - meaning that it is impossible to root it out by only focusing on the individuals that get caught out.
A trend that I see emerging is that companies are increasingly introducing well-intended initiatives to encourage managers and staff to take care of themselves during these plagued times.
Of course, people should take breaks, manage their work/home boundaries, exercise, eat healthily, not drink too much alcohol and seek out professional counseling when their depression or anxiety is edging out of control. However, putting too much emphasis on self-care can be harmful if this is not mirrored by the organisation's own introspection and re-alignment. The only way in which we can really make sense of our teams and organisations is to view them as imperfect human systems. Not only are our current teams and organisations imperfect, but we all come from a history of belonging to and being formed by imperfect human systems.
By acknowledging this to ourselves and each other, we can stop pretending to be the perfect team or company. This means we can start becoming curious about the ways in which we are contributing to the imperfections, rather than being defensive and trying to blame others for things that go wrong. |
This blogThis blog serves as a journal of thoughts, reflections, opinions, case discussions and lecture notes that I have created as part of my work with clients, students and colleagues. Plus some stories of journeys to faraway places. Categories
All
AuthorRead more about me here. Contact me: jean@tiltinternational.com Archives
May 2024
|
Copyright Dr. Jean Henry Cooper
Contact me: jean@tiltinternational.com