Changing the Playing Field

Picture credit: Megan Menegay from Unsplash

Everyone loves the fruit of the harvest, but not everyone wants to engage in (the often tough) work/mahi that precedes the harvest. 

It's the same with collaborations and partnerships.

Folk love to be part of the success story and partake of the collective fruit that comes forth from the generosity, strength and courage of often a few courageous champions who lead the way. But successful collaborations and partnerships only happen because someone was prepared to get uncomfortable  and put in the hard mahi for  collective benefit. 

I've been revisiting Brene Brown's the Gifts of Imperfection and this quote struck me today
"...symptomatic of our cultural fears. We don't want to get uncomfortable. We want a  quick and dirty how to list for happiness."

I think this is true for many things - we we do not want to get uncomfortable and we often avoid conflict at all costs - we just want a quick (and dirty!) how to list for achieving an expressed outcome or desire. Complex opportunities need space and time for inquiry and exploration. We frequently observe that experts disagree (as demonstrated through COVID and across the NZ Three Waters discussions).

This got me thinking about three particular areas that are interwoven into the facilitation of complex collaboration workshops that are often uncomfortable and infrequently talked about openly:

• Power Dynamics (this can manifest in a large variety of ways) 
• Grief and Loss (spoken or unspoken, understood or not) 
• Messy Spaces (e.g. working with people you don't necessarily like or agree with) 

Any you want to add to this list? 

​Keen to explore these through the week. Watch this space...