Rwanda Diary

Training Day #2, Part 2: Preparation to Build a Coalition

The bad news is that it’s taking me much longer to upload the remaining blog entries since I've returned home than I ever would have imagined.

The good news is that as a result of the extra time, I’m able to think much more deliberately about what happened in Rwanda and not just rush through the process.

So, I’ll continue…

After lunch on the second day of training, we got down to the business of how to build coalitions. I explained that there isn’t just one kind, but rather a continuum of collaboration:

• Networking – when you (or your organization) exchange information in order to help each other do a better job.

• Coordination — when you (or your organization) modify your activities so that, together, you can provide better services for your stakeholders.

• Cooperation – when you (or your organization) not only share information and make adjustments in services, but when you share resources to help each other do a better job.

• Collaboration – when you do the above and also help each other expand or enhance their capacities to do their jobs.

• Multisector Collaboration or Coalition – where private, public and not-for-profit organizations from different parts of the community form a partnership to solve systemic problems in a community.

We discussed each of these levels of working together in some detail. Finding that the consensus was to build the most complex, and complete, type of association, I cautioned the group that a successful coalition allows its members to move from the lowest level of participation to the highest, going through all of the degrees of involvement with each other. I wasn’t getting this point across the way I wanted, so I sketched a diagram showing an example of multiple levels of involvement and then drew the best route through the levels. There was a little more recognition, but then I thought of a way to illustrate this using some of their own, albeit painful, history:

“You can’t drag people into reconciliation until they’re ready to move through the steps.”

Immediately, this diagram made complete sense to them. They lit up and started talking animatedly with each other. Zienabo Hamisi, our Muslim participant, said that she was so very happy with this diagram. And then Donatira Mukasekuru, explained further:

"This diagram is the answer to a question that I always have. I am always with leaders from all churches. One time I was so sorrowful, but no one could understand it. But now my sorrow has been taken away by this diagram. I used to hear various faith teachings and even the National Committee of Unity and Reconciliation all say, ‘If you do not forgive, you will not be forgiven. You will be destroyed and you will not enter the Kingdom of God.’ Is the Kingdom of God all theirs? This teaching is the best part of the seminar, worth all of our time here. We in Rwanda are invited to live together again. But if I don’t forgive my neighbor [an offender], he might harm me. So we make it seem as though we have forgiven, but not inside of us. Churches and organizations are now even bribing people to forgive, giving goats to widows to forgive offenders. Thank you for this diagram. Yesterday, you were our teacher. Today, and forever, you are now my sister.”

It was the greatest gift I could have received.

I next moved the group into the final sections of this day's training with a paper tearing exercise.

I handed out blank sheets of paper and asked everyone to once again close their eyes. I then ran them through a series of simple folding and tearing steps and then asked them to open their eyes AND their papers.

To their surprise, there wasn’t a single paper that was the same! It seems that we had broken through a barrier because without having to explain very much, we got into a very lively discussion about equity perspective – that no two people exactly share the same worldview, and what the implications of that are when trying to build a coalition.

The rest of the afternoon was spent defining more concepts, drawing more diagrams to illustrate them, and in more vigorous discussions.

By the end of this day, they began taking a closer look at who was in the room and how their diverse identities would affect the ways in which they would assemble their group. Their vision had been sharpened, while, at the same time, they had become more open to each other.

Training Day #2, Part 1: Collaborative Leadership and Some Fun Exercises

I’ve been eating breakfast on the balcony of the hotel’s restaurant every day (always the same – very flat omelet, toast, coffee with powdered milk, and fresh fruit), and on this second day of training (May 20th) I spread out my materials for the training on the table while I ate. Time to pare down. As usual, I had too much material for the available time. I separated what I needed to teach from what I could send on to the group later via e-mail, and off I went, back to the Quaker Peace House for our second full day together.

By the time I arrived, the group had already begun to trickle in. The mood among the participants was much less guarded and more joyous. They had bonded and were feeling their cohesiveness, as one of them explained to me, and were raring to go. Rather than beginning with some sort of didactic instruction, which I always find the least appealing kind of lesson, both to teach and to receive, I decided to start the group off with another hands-on exercise that I call “Finding Alignment.” I explained that one of the greatest challenges in any coalition is getting everyone (individually and collectively) to move in the same or desired direction. I further explained that moving in the same direction doesn’t mean in lock step, nor does it deprive anyone of his or her individuality.

I asked everyone to stand and extend their arms to give each of them a comfortable working space. Then I asked them to close their eyes, and then slowly turn in a circle until directed to stop. I waited for about three turns around, enough to get everyone disoriented, then called, “Stop! But keep your eyes closed!” At that point, they were all facing different directions. I then asked them to extend their right arms and point in the direction they believed to be north. Of course, not only were they facing in all directions, but also they were then pointing in all directions!

The next instruction was this: “With your arms still extended and pointing, open your eyes and slowly move in the direction in which your arms are pointing, and just keep moving until you can’t move anymore.” There was a lot of laughing, bumping into each other, encountering chairs and other obstacles, and so on. When they could move no further, I asked them to take their seats again so we could talk about what had just happened.

When I asked them what they had just experienced, they were not unlike all of the other groups of people with whom I had used this exercise. They talked at first about getting dizzy when turning around, feeling a little silly, finding it funny that so many people were pointing in so many different directions. Then their answers started getting more serious and they dug deeper into how they felt about what had just happened. “I bumped into someone and I changed my direction.” “I pushed right by them.” I didn’t know where to go so I stood still and let people go around me.” “I watched where most people were going and just followed them.” We talked about what they learned about themselves and the forces that act on each of us, forces that are invisible to us but that drive our actions, reactions, and behaviors. In the absence of clarity (where IS north?), these forces determine our responses. The idea behind this exercise is to get to know these forces before we act.

So, I asked, if there’s so much potential “misalignment” in just this simple exercise, is there any hope for more complex situations, such as forming an interfaith coalition? What if we could create a giant magnet (that word took more than a little interpretation!) that would draw all of these individuals, each with his or her own position, toward a common direction. Then, I pointed out, we’d have the best of both worlds – individuals contributing in their own way but with everyone moving in the same direction.

That magnet is the right kind of leadership – the type that allows power with rather than power over – called collaborative leadership.

The next exercise, I said, would show more about that and would build on what they just learned about themselves during the “Finding Alignment” exercise.

I brought everyone outside the seminar room to a bare spot on the grounds of the compound and asked for 10 to 12 volunteers who thought they were collaborative leaders. I then took two pieces of rope (which I had brought with me – I can’t imagine what a customs officer would have thought looking through my
luggage…Legos, rope, crayons, string…) and laid them out on the ground in two large intersecting triangles that formed a star, making sure that everyone could see what I was doing. When I was certain that all of the volunteers understood what they, then were to do – repeat this task of making a star pattern exactly as it was – I handed the ropes to two of them, but added an additional requirement: they had to do this task with their eyes closed! And anyone who opened their eyes would be tapped on the shoulder and removed from the exercise by those who were watching. Then I yelled, “Go!”
The scrambling was hilarious!

One person, Cecile Niramana, took charge and started directing the action.

But unlike the dozens of times I’ve done this in the past, everyone acquiesced!
It still took some time for the group to get anything that vaguely resembled a star put together, but they did a better job than many groups. They actually got the triangles to intersect
(as opposed to some groups who ended up with triangles several feet – or yards! – apart), and I was
amused to point out that they
were VERY special and talented because their star, in truth, looked like an outline of the continent of Africa!

Once back inside, the debriefing was fascinating. Here is a sampling of what they shared:

It was very interesting to lead intellectually blind people.

When the leader, herself, was blind, there were some people she couldn’t work with.

I was willing to help the leader but I didn’t get the chance because the leader was always telling people what to do.

I was willing to participate, but the opportunity was not given to me.

When I asked why he had to wait until someone gave him the opportunity to lead, that brought up a very interesting discussion of the history of leadership in Rwanda, how people had been conditioned by it (the invisible forces that determine our behaviors as shown in the previous exercise) and how this passive behavior had to change country-wide if they were to grow and move forward.

I explained that there had been a study by one of our leading foundations in the United States (the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) that identified a number of critical skills and capacities that collaborative leaders needed to have:

They are:

1. Assessing the environment for collaboration (understanding the context for change before you act)

2. Creating clarity -- visioning and mobilizing (defining shared values and engaging people in positive action)

3. Building trust and creating safety (creating safe places for developing shared purpose and action)

4. Sharing power and influence (developing th4e synergy of people,organizations and communities to accomplish common goals)

5. Developing people (mentoring and coaching; committing to bringing out the best in others and realizing people are your key assets)

6. Self-reflection (being aware of and understanding your values, attitudes and behaviors as they relate to your own leadership style and their impact on others.

Each of these elements, I explained, is key to the collaborative process. They are not mutually exclusive but support eacgh other and provide a comprehensive picture of the essential skills of a collaborative leader.
So, I said, here’s the real question:

Do you want to establish leadership as empire (dividing and conquering), or
leadership as community (coming together and sharing)?

You can guess what their answer was.

And then we broke for lunch.