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Season 2, Episode 2

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Leading in Conversation
Leading in Conversation
Season 2, Episode 2
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Transcript

Kate: Hello and welcome to episode 2 of season 2 of Leading in Conversation. It’s great to have Nelis back with me today. Hi Nelis. Why don’t you introduce our special guest for today? 

Nelis: Hi Kate, it’s good to be back and, yes, we do this together with Peter van Dingenen, a Belgian surgeon who is a friend I met in Kandern, where I live, who has worked for 20 years in Burkina Faso doing medical work, who is deeply invested in working with people, rather than for people. Maybe we’ll come back to that later. And that touches, of course, on conversational leadership. So when we started talking about this concept, he got really interested, “Okay, this is partially reflecting what I already do and partially inspiring”. Peter, tell us a little bit more about what you did in Burkina Faso, and maybe how that touches on conversational leadership? 

Peter: Thank you, Nelis and Kate, for being here. A little introduction maybe about myself. We – my wife and I – we’ve been working since ‘92 in Burkina Faso, mainly in medical missions. We’ve worked there five years, me as a nurse, and she as a chemist. And then after five years, that was 97, we went back to Belgium where I was able to finish my medical studies, that took us nine years. In 2006, by that time, we had four daughters, we went back, but my wife and I, we had this experience already in the 90s where the project we worked for was pretty much top down oriented and we just had to execute the projects that were given to us. Still, we tried to have a very participatory approach to all of this and then to end the story, in 2016 because of the studies of our children mainly, we came to Kandern where three of our daughters attended Black Forest Academy. 

Nelis: You started talking about one of those initial experiences of top-down leadership. Can you say a bit more about that and how that frustrated you and inspired you to do things differently. 

Peter: Actually, I wanted to start by saying, of course, in 92 – with Ineke – we prepared to get there and we read books and we had to do training, but I was very happy that during the first weeks of us being there I read one sentence that really stuck in my head for the rest of my life, where it said “In development work we all too often throw answers like stones to the heads of the people who never asked a question in the first place”. 

Nelis: I love that quote. Kate, what do you think?

Kate: Wow, that’s very profound. Yes, we’re answering questions that people haven’t even asked. 

Nelis: Throwing stones to people as an image of the way we often approach problems is really rich because I think that’s part of what we discuss in our podcast, isn’t it? 

Kate: It implies a distance, it implies one-sidedness. No participation, no conversation. 

Peter: Yeah, it implies also hurting people. Yes. 

Kate: Which sadly top-down leadership can often do and many kinds of leadership can. 

Nelis, So, you said that inspired you, you saw that happening. Say a bit more. 

Peter: Yes, I saw that happening. Well, one of the results of that approach is that today the project where we worked is gone. It’s just one more, big white elephant, like, we call them in Belgium: these projects that look really nice really, in the beginning, and have really nice pictures. And of course, while we were there, we were able to save thousands of children from hunger death. We were able to give information to mothers, how to prevent their children being underfed and how to grow vegetable gardens and so on. But still, it’s very sad that once the promoters of the project moved out of the project, the project just dies. 

Nelis: Because it never responded to the real question people were asking? 

Peter: Right. Well, they do ask the question, they are in pain and they see a problem but they have never been involved in defining how to get the problem solved. 

Nelis: Yes, so it’s for them rather than with them 

Peter: Right, and so one of the examples was my first project. Just a little sketch of the place we were: we were in a rural village. There was a centre for malnourished children and a small dispensary. And around that village there were five other villages and we were kind of responsible for the preventative work in those villages. These villages had been through a program sponsored by the European community to put latrines and it was like for a country wide program where they said like, “One village, one latrine”. Well it was a big latrine with many entrances. The way they approached is they funded a big hole in a place in the village at the villagers figured out, and put a big concrete slab on it and some walls. And yeah, that was it. And so the villagers were very happy with that. Thank you very much for the gift. And when we arrived there it was like six months after they had implanted these latrines in the villages. So I visited them, and saw that most of them were either already broken because of heavy rains. In some the concrete slab was so heavy that it kind of sunk, so no one dared to go on there, scared to fall in. I would not go there. And then, I saw one in particular that struck me. They had built it right next to the marketplace. You can imagine the smells. So, yeah, that was the result. I think, from a very non-participatory way of approach, of a very good idea. And so working as a medical professional of course I knew that there was  an enormous lack of hygiene in the villages, shown by the high numbers of children dying from diarrhoea and dysentery and people being very sick all the time, having intestinal problems. Of course in my agenda, the first thing I wanted to do is find a way to have better hygiene in the villages and not just by washing more your hands. And in that thought process, of course, I was new to the area, I didn’t know the language. So, how on earth am I going as a total stranger trying to convince people to build latrines, as an answer to the problem of all their children being sick, and that on top of it, without money. There wasn’t a budget for my program. 

Nelis: That sounds a little bit like often the leadership challenges many of us have: there’s no money and people aren’t excited about it. 

Peter: But then I saw it more like a challenge. I was very frustrated, of course, by seeing so many projects all across Africa, looking nice on pictures and reports. But seeing that a lot of these projects are – I like to call them big white elephants – and no one wants that. Honestly speaking, no one wants to hear that at the end, that it works out like that. So how will I do this? I think language is a very, very, very important and powerful tool to work with, but also a very dangerous one. I was blessed enough to have a local pastor who spoke both French and the local language. And as I got to know him, when I listened to him, preaching, or translating into French, I understood that he was more translating the idea, not so much the words. I was like, “Oh, that’s an interesting person”. So I got to sit down with him and I exposed him to the problem at hand, that I was responsible to help the people in the villages. And I asked him if he would be okay to translate for me, and he also knew all these people in the villages, so that was a plus. So I decided not to go with the four wheel drive truck to the villages, because when you come to a village like that, they all stare at the vehicle and they say, “Oh that guy has a lot of money. Let’s see how, you know, how you get some from that”, which is normal. I have to honestly say the only thing that I bought for that project was a bicycle so that I could get around to the villages. 

Nelis: Everything else was provided, that’s what you say. 

Peter: Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t put any money into that project. 

Nelis: So what did it take for people to do that? Because that is the conversational leadership challenge. 

Peter: Yes. So I went to the villages and I even said, I decided that I would behave like a total stranger. Of course, I read books and I knew what a latrine was and how to build it, and blah, blah, blah. And I know that there was a need of clean water and education for the kids and vaccination and what not, to get them to a better health situation. 

Nelis: But you acted, as if you didn’t.

Peter: As if we didn’t. So first you, when you go somewhere and that’s anywhere in the world that’s not just Africa. Anywhere also in Europe,  you go and you cannot make statements or say, this is what you need to do or not to do, you just say hi. I’m a total stranger. I’m very happy that I can be in your place. 

Kate: I think that’s a really interesting insight that you share there, Peter, because one of the things about conversational leadership is that the leader needs to take on a new role. We’ve talked about this in some of our earlier episodes last season, that, you know, the whole concept of hero leadership, the leader knows everything, the leader has the vision for the project. Conversational leadership completely flips that around and has the leader coming as a learner, as a facilitator, as a participant. And what you’re saying really demonstrates that.

Nelis: Yeah and I love how it brings that theory into a really concrete practical thing. You know some of the answers but you cannot throw them at people like stones because as soon as you do that, it hurts people and they’re not listening.

Peter: It’s counter productive and they’re not engaged anymore. And they told me about the village and I said, are there any problems you have here in this village? And pretty soon they were telling me that, yeah, the children are very sick and there’s no school and they don’t have enough water during dry season and there’s some housing problems. So, of course, they talked about a few things. And then in a second visit, we would approach these things again, these four or five main items that always show up in villages like that, and just asking questions about it, together with my pastor friend. We decided, of course, that you could try to help them to get clean water. But the first thing that would be done is to protect these waters. So we both agreed that helping people to have better hygiene would be a better approach. So when we went on these sessions we just started by asking questions. “So you told us about your children being sick all the time. That’s actually very interesting because where I come from children don’t die from, or don’t have these diseases. So, help me to understand, what’s going on”. So I took an approach where I don’t know anything. You tell me. 

Nelis: This is neat because, as Kate said earlier, that the role of you as leader was one of guiding to where they want to go, asking, helping them find solutions. Yes. So it’s the very facilitative role rather than the guy with all the answers. 

Peter: Yes, and so they told me. “Oh yes, well our children have diarrhoea all the time and I said yeah, well why?” and they said, “Well, it’s because of the food they eat”, and I said, “Oh, what’s wrong with the food?” And they would go. “Yeah, it’s the women. They don’t cover the food when it’s finished”, something like that. And then I said, “I can’t understand, why?”, and they say, “There’s flies,  and the flies sit on the food and, and our children, they play everywhere”. So they started blaming others, of course. Most of them were men, but there were some women too. And then it became awkward and they go like, “Well, at our place it’s not like your place.” “Yeah I kind of figured that, but tell me more, I really don’t understand”. And they said “Well, when you entered the village, the bushes you saw there, left, that’s where we go, if we need to go”, something like that. I said, “Oh, okay”. “Yeah, well and then the flies sit there and get on the food”. So very interestingly, they already knew a few of the basic hygienic reasons why things happen, it was not all spirits, apparently. And so it went on and on, not to go into too much detail, because such a conversation can easily take up to two hours if everyone is relaxed and everyone wants to pitch in something that he knows. And that’s interesting too because all of a sudden, someone knows something that the other one didn’t mention and they’re kind of proud to tell that to everyone. 

Nelis: I love again with your saying here, because what you’re saying is you can’t take a shortcut to the solution. No. So the conversational leadership approach is one where you’ve got to kind of go with the flow and allow time to guide you in a way. 

Kate: Yeah. And letting things emerge. At the beginning of conversation, people might not think that they know the answers, the solutions to their own problems. But the act of talking then, you know, somebody says something and that triggers something for someone else and then they build on each other. And by the end you got quite a comprehensive set of causes that have emerged because everyone had a little part of the solution perhaps. 

Nelis: But it also shows that your a role as leader in that conversation was not just one of passively listening because the normal around-the-fire conversation would not have resulted in this? Right. It was very much a guided conversation.

Kate: So you were asking leading questions and bringing in new information, such as “Where I come from our infants, our children don’t all die of these diseases”. So that was a new piece of information you were bringing into the conversation, stimulating a discussion about, well, why does it happen here? 

Peter: Yeah, there we got to the point where, yeah, I even brought in at some point where I said, is the food not good? Did God give you – because everyone over there believes in God, so everything is related to God what they do. And so I said, you know, “Did God give you a bad harvest or something or is it the food you eat? Is that the cause maybe?” They said, “No, no, it’s not that”. So they kind of really started to take on, kind of feel that there was some responsibility from their own part where they could actually… to get them where they could actually decide, “Oh maybe we could do something about it”.

Nelis: And then they were motivated. 

Peter: Yes. Yes, at some point I really asked the question, I said, “So, is there anything you could do about this situation” and in most villages I have to say there was already a few people who kind of have dug their own latrines and they were using them. Then you all of a sudden have two, three people who are very proud to explain to the others, what they did, and how that worked out for them. What was even more inspiring and interesting for me is that all of a sudden you have these people discussing what types of wood you have to use to cover the pit. And then someone even said, “Yeah, and you have to take leaves of the néré tree to put on that wood so that the termites don’t eat the wood. I could never have found that in any book, not even on Google. Google didn’t even exist back then. It’s just so amazing that all of a sudden you see a much better solution. 

Nelis: And it’s really interesting because what you’re saying is that concrete slab could not work because it was too heavy, it would sink into the ground. 

Peter: Yes, as soon as the rains began, it starts to sink.

Nelis: But the people knew how a proper latrine would work. Yes.

Kate: They already had the knowledge, the information needed there – I love that – and the external solution was doomed to failure, the concrete was just too heavy in that context with that kind of ground. That’s fascinating. 

Nelis: And that’s fascinating isn’t it, because that applies to leadership situations in any context. 

Peter: Yes. Yes. We have to be open, people have to be open, and they want to get somewhere or help people to get somewhere, you have to be open to what they know, not so much to what we know. 

Nelis: So you start building those, to make a long story short? 

Peter: No, I didn’t build anything! So the other thing was, someone said, “Oh, it smells very bad to have such a thing”. I said, “Well what I could do to kind of join in the project, I could go to the capital every six weeks and I have a pickup truck so if someone wants a pipe – they figured out that you need to put a pipe in there and then it’s 2 metres high and then the bad air just flows up and no one smells it”. I said each one should pay, it was an equivalent of two dollars just for that pipe that I could buy it for them, and I said, you know, make a list of those who paid, the transportation will be for free because I’m going to the capital anyway. Something like that. Well they never showed up with a list, nor the money. So I figured that wasn’t that important to them. It was just  a part of a conversation and the thoughts they had. 

Nelis: That’s interesting. So you didn’t insist on your pipe. You basically said, they don’t think that part is important, then we’ll do it without the pipe. Yes. I love that. But they didn’t build it next to the market place.

Peter: No. And that was, so I really asked the question, “So, how do you want to build that? We just had a project here, I saw that big thing. And they said “No, no, no, that’s not the way to do it. Actually, every single family should have a latrine next to their house.

I said, “Oh, that’s an interesting idea. From what you’re saying I think that might be a very good solution”. At the end of the conversation, as soon as I saw that people said, “Hey we need to do that, we just need to do that’, I stepped out of my role actually and I said, “Hey, listen, if you build these latrines, that’s fine. If you don’t build these latrines that’s fine with me. Nothings going to change in me being a, you know, good friend to the village. But of course, you have to understand, since you said that the water you’re drinking might be infected, the next time that you offer me water to drink it will be difficult for me. I will drink it but I have to take into account that it might make me sick”. Because in Africa, as most of our listeners know, it’s very rude to refuse water that is offered, when you come to a village, that’s a cultural thing. I thank God for that idea that he put in my mind at that moment because I think that shows that cultural knowledge of where you work is important. And so you have to know the people and what is important to them. When I visited them, the first village was very interesting. That was the week of Ramadan. That meant that it was in April, it was the hottest month of the year. And so, for the next four days, they wouldn’t do anything. And I had promised them to visit them as part of my participation, just to visit them to see how the work was going, and what they were planning to do. And so, I would do that on a Friday because that’s their kind of day off. I went there on the next Friday. They didn’t work until the Tuesday. On Wednesday was Ramadan and they started digging on Thursday. And to my amazement 17 families had started digging. The most difficult thing for me was to walk for over two hours to visit each family, just to see what they were doing. But I tried to put it into more like a game where I, you know, visited and they were explaining what they were doing. And so someone who already was like over two meters deep and then I went to the next one and these young guys had just started and they were all sweating terribly and they would say, yeah here, that’s our pit. And I said, “Oh that’s interesting. I just went to your neighbours there and they already have like two meters”. And they were, “No, no, but we are just starting” Put some competition in there, just approach it not too seriously, have some fun doing that and they enjoy that and they appreciated my weekly visits just to see how the work proceeded. 

Nelis: But it’s interesting because, that again in conversation leadership, there is a significant leadership role, isn’t it? You didn’t pay for anything, you were not officially in charge of anything. These villagers were in charge of their own thing, but you had a hugely significant role in encouragement, in helping them arrive at their solution. All of that. 

Peter: That’s true. 

Nelis: That’s massive. 

Kate: I also love that you didn’t have to tell people to do anything, you facilitated the conversation.

They figured out the solution and then they implemented it. And often as leaders where we fall short is on the implementation. But if people come up with solutions themselves to their own problems, they are relevant, they are motivated to do it and they’ll make it happen. And 17 families had already started digging holes. All you had to do was go around and encourage and visit. Whereas, I think some of our efforts to implement things, perhaps, as leaders, where we haven’t involved people in developing the solutions. It’s much harder to get people, to persuade people to get on board with implementing things. 

Nelis: Also, the element of staying with people in the phase of implementation is very important. You don’t step out after facilitating the conversation. 

SPIKE

Peter: So, in the end with the five villages, we were able to have 46 new latrines built by themselves. I was thinking, how can I show my participation more tangibly? As we all know, family is very, very important in Africa. And I decided that I would do a family picture and put another little bit of competition there. And then they will all stand in front of the latrine and I’ll make a nice family picture. So you don’t see the latrine. 

Nelis: But you started off saying that you joined the organisation you were working with and you started doing all this work with the villages. And I’ve heard you talk to me before about an agricultural project you started with them as well, but then somehow it all came to a stop. It fell apart. You referred to this earlier. Because you said that was an example of top-down leadership. So what happened to contrast this beautiful picture of collaboration, conversational leadership, with the alternative. What happened? 

Peter: I can say in one sentence, I decided to go back to Europe to study medicine. I was a nurse back then. Saw a big need for medical care. And after five years, the biggest donor of the project sent a nurse to replace me. And during the three weeks’ transition, she literally said, even all the projects, income generating projects that I started like a vegetable garden, chicken farm, other things, she said, “Well, I don’t know anything about these kind of things, so we’ll stop that, and anyway, the donor will pay again 100% for the project”. Me having worked very hard to get it to 50% self-sufficiency. Yeah, after a few years, the donor retracted their funds, and the project died a slow death. 

Nelis: So that is the result of non-participation, no conversation, imposed solutions. Right. Because they’re always kind of short-term fixes. 

Peter: Yeah and I think people mean very well, but money is rarely the solution to the problem. It’s mostly counter productive. 

Nelis: That’s quite a meaningful comment, isn’t it? 

SPIKE 

Peter: After finishing these medical studies, Ineke and I, we decided to go back to Burkina Faso, now closer to the capital because we had to send our kids to school. But for us, it was very important, whatever we would be doing, it had to be participatory. We went back to help a doctor there to start a medical facility. But it became impossible for me to work at that place. I left that project and I was pretty much without a job. We happened to live in a street where like five houses down the street, there was another medical centre. One of the coworkers there came to see me and said, “Hey, why don’t you want to do some consultations at that place?”. And they said “We’d want to pay you for your job”. And that’s what they did. And thus started the money that we needed for whatever was coming next. Gradually, there was just someone who said, “Oh, you would like to do medical work and maybe hospital, maybe you need a piece of land?”. So we found a piece of land and bought that in a process. We also started to do mobile clinics in the villages in the primary schools and here again to be able to visit 250 children, in two days and do that properly, you need a lot of participation of local people. I needed the extra hands and since our children were going to the International School, we had some of them join us. And we have students join us for these medical visits. And again, in a very participatory way these students were involved in weighing the children and helping them through the visits and doing their eye tests and urine tests and so we can get a lot of information in a very short time indeed. 

Nelis: I love what you’re saying here because that’s what I’ve observed in your stories and your work. You tend to always see the possibility to bring in people from everywhere, that sense of creating more of a movement, rather than a structure. It’s one that I think characterises a lot of what you do and from a conversational leadership approach that is actually quite interesting. You didn’t have authority, hierarchical authority over anyone in the process.

Peter: No. I never actually had a very like… an official, like director of this or that. 

Nelis: So you create through conversations, through involvement, through inspiration, kind of a movement of people who are all sharing ideas.

Peter: Yeah, I have to say that for bringing in the school, it was actually a teacher at the school that said you were doing these medical visits, so that the kids have to do some community involvement thing, so could they join you in those visits.

Peter: So that’s what happened and for years in a row I think we visited over 25,000 children in total and for years in a row these students between 13 and 18 accompanied us on all these trips, including even the children of the President and the ministers of the country. It was amazing to see how they even got involved. We didn’t get any money from their parents to do that. And again, I didn’t need that money because the kids were there and I’m sure it will influence them for the rest of their lives. What they, you know, what they saw there? I know for a fact, there’s several students that became doctors and nurses because of it. 

SPIKE 28:50

Nelis: So now you work in Germany as a surgeon and I’ve heard you refer to our podcast on conversational leadership saying, “I wish that more people in the German healthcare system would listen to this”. So what are you seeing? How does the principles we talked about, that you applied in real life in Burkina Faso,  apply in a larger organisation like a German hospital? 

Peter: Well I see often how it goes wrong because it’s done wrong. You have new young people who want to become nurses and they come on the  ward and there’s a big whiteboard with their names on it. It’s like a big plan. So they have one side and on the x axis you have the names, on the y axis, you have the 20 actions that a nurse can do to patients: you know giving pills, injections, washing whatever. And they come in and it’s their name and the all red magnetic dots, like a red light, “don’t do that”. 

Nelis: You’re not qualified yet! 

Peter: And so I see, like, three, four young people standing there and really be, you know, they’re blocked if they ask a question already, people are like,” Well, I’m busy. So wait a minute”. This is not a very great atmosphere to start learning. I would say, I would probably, if you want to use that graph, I would put all green dots and say, “You have to go with a nurse, today you’re looking and watching what they’re doing and tomorrow, you’ll start doing it yourself. By the end of the week I would like you to be able to do different things that are on there”. With adults or young people I would not start using blue and red dots. 

Nelis: So it’s a sense of telling people what they can’t do rather than exploring what they can do. 

Peter: Yes. You’ve got to be positive, I think, from the start and open, and even ask them, “Hey, have you any experience in this?” and just start from there. I remember that this is a very strong one, in this story. I even told it to a colleague yesterday. As we were going with these high school students doing these visits, they had to do the eye test, where a child has to cover an eye and then say the “E”  is like this, like that, and just test the eyes. And so, they also had to do that with very young children of five, six year olds, who just started to go to school in a rural context in Burkina Faso, and the students didn’t speak the language, so there was a huge language barrier. So they had to try to explain to these kids how to do this test properly. That’s a very difficult thing. And I remember one student just trying and trying and after half an hour she came to me and said, “Dr. Peter it’s not going to work, this child doesn’t get it”. I said “That’s fine. It’s a very young child. She’s running around, I didn’t see her run into anything. I think she sees well, it’s just very important to check it. If it doesn’t work it’s okay”. But the student who was more courageous than I, behind my back, after talking to me, she just continued to try with this child. And another, I don’t know, 15 minutes or 20 minutes later I hear her shout, “She did it, she did it, she did it!”. So the student had really succeeded in having that child understand how to do this test. And I’m sure that stays with her for the rest of her life. It will help her to grow and to try and to… 

Kate: I think what’s really lovely about that story is that the focus is on the person not the task. The chart you were talking about was… when we try to systemarise things, we try to get organised in a way that I’m sure the hospital was trying to do with the very best of intentions, you lose sight of the people. And what’s most important is the people, their experience and how to train them… and you know, just thinking about “Well, let’s frame this more positively”. Often the systems we develop to track, to systematise, work against that people element, that focusing on the individual. And I think that’s a challenge for all of us in leadership to make sure that our systems… you know, however good the motivation, that we don’t lose sight of the people.

Peter: Yes, we have to play a big role in that as the leader. Yesterday, again, at the hospital ward a young nurse came to me and there was a task to be done. And she said, “Oh, I’ve never done that and I’m not allowed to do that” and she left the room. So afterwards, I went to her and said, “Hey what if you stayed with me and you look how I do it and I promise the next time I will let you do it but I will be responsible. I will look at how we do it and help you with that”. And she just brightened up so much and for the rest of the evening at the ER, she just was there all the time asking me questions. “Hey, can I do this? And “Is that okay?”. Just we have to create this openness so that people have space to move and to explore. 

Kate: and to grow.

Nelis: I think that’s such a huge principle, isn’t it? Focus on the person, focus on their growth and their potential and guide and support that. 

Peter: Even, I said it explicitly to the villagers back then. I said, if you do that, if you think you want to make sure that they adopted the idea and not because of you. So I said, if you build the latrines, that’s fine. If you don’t, I have my latrine at home. So it’s fine, you know. And you leave people you, 

Nelis: I think you’re touching on an interesting principle here, and it’s hard as a leader, because we’re so committed to getting results that you give people freedom to say, “It’s not gonna work, I don’t want to own this”. And that’s hard because for my personality, because I want to see results, but what you’re saying is you actually get more results if you’re willing to step back. 

Peter: Yeah and not own the thing, it’s not yours. The people said “Oh we want to put your name on the hospital or we want to do this”. I said, “Please don’t, it’s your hospital, it’s not my hospital, I live somewhere else and so we have to stress it every single time, and also for our own best because otherwise we would attach our hearts to something that is not our own. See, it was painful for me to see that the first project we worked at, that it’s gone. I visited it several times and it’s like our houses is in ruins, where we lived back then. And the rest,  yeah, it’s just, it’s still a dispensary but it’s not like it was before. Yeah, I then decided that I would never attach my heart to a project or I thing but I did attach my heart to the people I met during that time. Knowing that every single interaction with them somehow helped me and them to move forward in life and the results that came out of that, I might never know. But for myself, I know and for them, I hope that was beneficial. No that I can own as a…it’s for me that’s eternal and, and not the building or whatever structure we put up. 

Nelis: I love that. 

Kate: Yeah. I think that’s a really good note to end on actually, thank you Peter. It’s been fascinating, hearing your stories of conversational leadership in practice and kind of figuring it out as you went along, not knowing that there was a concept called conversational leadership, but just sensing what needed to happen in that context for the benefit of the people. And also, thank you for the reminder of making it all about the people, and their growth, not our goals. I think that’s really critical. 

Nelis: thank you, Peter.

Peter: Thank you too. 

Kate: As usual, the show notes and the transcript are going to be on the website. If you have any comments or thoughts in responses to what Peter’s shared, please do go along to leadinginconversation.net. Let us know what you think. Thank you for listening! 

Episode 8

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Leading in Conversation
Leading in Conversation
Episode 8
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Transcript

Kate: I’m really excited that we have some guests with us today to talk about conversational leadership from other cultural perspectives. Nelis, why don’t you introduce our guests? 

Nelis: Yes, I’m excited too. These are people – Albert and Meera – that I met on a training course for leaders. I’m excited to hear their perspectives. As you said, Kate, from a cultural perspective, it’s so easy to get sucked into the assumptions that things work the way they work in the West and we’re just a small minority in the world. So we really want to hear what it looks like from an Asian perspective. So, why don’t you first introduce, well, have you guys introduce yourselves? Ladies first, so Meera, give us a little bit of who you are and where you come from. 

Meera: Thank you. So, yes, my name is Meera and I met Nelis on a program that we’re doing together, a study program that we’re doing together. So I am based in South East Asia. That’s where I come from. Growing up in a country that was multicultural and multi-religious, very comfortable with polarities. I have friends and family members from different faiths, and also different people groups. So it’s not unusual for me. And I have worked, my background is corporate reputation management and crisis communication. So I worked with multinational corporations, being the consultant to CEOs and their top teams. And I work with clients from different cultural backgrounds: Europeans, Australia, New Zealand, Koreans, Japanese, and learning how relationships work differently. And how do you manage that with different clients from different backgrounds? And then I served in-faith based organisations, currently my third faith-based organisation. And again it was always working very closely with the leaders, the founders, the directors, and consulting with them and journeying with them in terms of taking the work forward in different countries across different cultures. And I thrive in working in diversity, I love that. It’s what gives me life. Love people and love being on the ground with people. Especially passionate about working with young people from the global south because I believe they are the future of the church and the country. So that’s me. 

Nelis: Great, good to hear that, and there’s lots of hooks for further conversation aren’t there? Albert and where do you come from, what do you do? 

Albert: My name is Albert. I am from Hong Kong. Actually I have kind of over 40 years of work experience and currently for almost 20 years I’ve been heading a mission organisation in Hong Kong and focusing on the least reached people. My role is the General Secretary or Executive Director, but I have to say compared to many other places, although I’m staying in Hong Kong, I still consider myself not so multicultural because of the composition of people in Hong Kong. Although we do have a lot of international exposures, a lot of international colleagues, and we do work sometimes with Indonesians, we do work sometimes with Malaysians and Taiwanese and South East Asians and also some Westerners but not so much compared to other parts of South East Asia like Singapore or Malaysia. But I’m a keen learner. I am really eager to learn from all sorts of cultures and all sorts of people so that I can really work better with them.

Nelis: Great, thank you. That’s quite a rich variety of backgrounds, isn’t it, Kate? My first question to both of you is, you’ve listened to our podcast, you’ve probably done some reading, you’ve been exposed to this in this leadership training we were all at. To what extent does conversational leadership resonate with you, to what extent is that something that you’re familiar with? 

Albert: Well, maybe let me say something first, because I’m the most ignorant. My background is more in engineering. I’ve been in the University for over 20 years, teaching computer science. So, I’m more inclined to engineering type of things. So, when I first encountered this leadership as conversational leadership it really shocked me. I really doubted, I have to say. Can it really work? It seems to me that is more kind of empowering process through the conversation, instead of giving out direction or instruction from the leader. The leader try to converse and try to empower. It’s kind of mixing up some coaching questions, good coaching questions, a good kind of conversation that brings up the potential of the of the conversants, the one who converses with.

Nelis: That’s exactly one of the key elements in, in, in this approach, of course, there’s more to it than that. But yeah, that’s a core aspect. Yeah. And we will come back to this later as we talk about how would that work, or how does that work in your context? Meera to what extent do you feel comfortable with this topic? Have you encountered this, have you practised it? 

Meera: I think conversation is a subset of communication. So I come from a communication background and I know the power of communication to shape perceptions and to shift perceptions as well. And one subset of communication is conversation. So if I look at my corporate background, conversation was part of what we used to encourage leaders to do, especially when you’re taking an organisation through difficult change. Organisational change, merger and acquisition. How do you handle the uncertainty that your staff feel or your people feel? How would you journey with them? So, yes, there can be written communication. There can be recorded communication, but conversation is as well to allow for question and answer, for each direction and engagement. So coming from that background, and then moving into faith-based organisations. The first organisation I served with, were looking for an organisational shift, just because they’re coming close to half a century mark and they had done many things and were doing many things. But how do they streamline their communication so that people understand them better and know whether they are aligned to that organisation’s values and goals? So again we used a conversation. I basically journeyed with the top leaders of the organisation, because change is a very difficult subject and especially if you are exploring change at a 50 year mark where people are very comfortable with the way things are done. It’s very difficult. Are you moving against the tide? And so one of the approaches was I encouraged them to look at the leaders around the world where each one had relationships and to go down to the ground and just spend time with them in conversation, explaining the “why” we’re doing the change. And how does that involve them and then to allow them to speak into that process as well so that there is some sense of ownership, that this is not just imposed on me, but I’m also invested in it. And conversation was the main tool that we used before you go down the typical route of having a large meeting, doing a presentation and getting people to vote for it. So it was something that was never done before and when it was put to a vote, for the first time in the history of the organisation, they got a 99 percent vote for the change. That’s the power of conversation. Of course, I did ask, “Who’s that 1%?”! But, you know…

Nelis: Yes, and that sense of informal conversations, that ties very closely with that we’ve been discussing and discovering as being incredibly powerful. 

Kate: With listening as an essential part of conversations. 

Meera: Definitely.

Nelis: Albert, as we’re talking about this, you said that this is as an engineer quite new to you. Have you had some experiences anyway where you have used this empowering conversational approach? 

Albert: Yes, actually my leadership is kind of like an evolving leadership because from my academic background and engineering background, I used to jump to problem solving. As an engineer we always look into the problem and then we try to produce solutions. I’m kind of trained to do that. But in terms of conversational and interactive type leading people, we are co-creating the solution through dialogue, through interactions. I’m picking up over the years and actually for the Asian like myself and maybe Meeera we found that most of the solutions is through mealtime discussions, kind of informal, And then we come up with something very brilliant. I love it. That’s why people always looked up to me for having meals. People having meals together because in the Asian context they used to expect the leader to treat them. So always have a good treat then you can have a good solution or something, good answers. So I’m still learning about it but that made me broke sometimes! 

Nelis: Interesting. So conversational leadership is quite costly financially for you. Because you’ve got to invite them to meals.

Albert: That’s right.

Kate: But I love that. I think conversation happens more easily around a table, around a meal, for many reasons. I’d love to explore that sometime, the relationship between food and the nature of the time we spend together and conversation and  what can come out of these conversations differently to if you’re in a boardroom context or a work context.

Albert: Yeah, I’m already quite non-Asian. Because to the Asian context is more kind of directional leadership. But my wife, kind of co-working with me and she’s the co-leader of the organisation and she insisted we have to have it kind of like interactive, conversational, and she’s more a counsellor background. So she asked me, she forced me, actually to treat the people and then put it in a very comfortable environment, instead of you know, having a formal table, discussed things and that. We used to have all these mealtimes first and then after that, you know, during the meeting it’s very straightforward outcomes. 

Nelis: So Meera, do you recognise… I heard Albert say two key things. One is, normally Asian culture is quite directional but if you get together around meals there is space for the more informal way of leadership. Are they things that you recognize?

Meera: It’s true that with Asian cultures – and I’ve worked in East Africa teams as well –  and so it’s true that for them it’s more hierarchical. If you’re a leader, then you speak, and we’re supposed to carry that task however we may feel about it. But I think for me – if Albert mentions about informal conversations about meals – for me in my experience, to be able to have effective conversations where it’s not just me speaking but also having them speak into it, it first requires me taking time to get to know my people. And relationship is very key. So in the teams that I… at one point in the second organisation that I was working with, I was working in ten cross cultural settings all at the same time. What I used to do when I used to go to these places I would say, can I stay with you? And so I stayed with my team members and their family, eat with them, sleep with them, their families, get to know their life stories. And then I share my life story and after that we can talk about matters concerning work. I would say well you know from where I come from, in this situation, this would be how I would advise anyone to approach it and then I would say to them, but then again, how would you take this and apply it to your cultural context. So, I would say, I know the strategy, but I don’t know your culture. And so, how would you bring both of those together? But before I could get to the stage to talk about that, really, it was relationship-building first. Allowing them to get to know me, to know my heart, where I’m coming from, that I’m there for them, and I’m there with them, and then for me to listen to their story and understand their context. So when sometimes, there is resistance, because I understand their context I understand where the heart of the resistance is, and then I can work with that. So, I think relationship building is very, very key. So you have to invest that time. That means you can’t just get down to business once you get there, that usually is not taken very well. You know, arriving, at some place and then just getting down to business. Because it almost makes them feel like we are a means to an end, but if you take the time to get to know them as people, and you’re interested in them and in their families and then as part of it, can we journey together on the work front? It totally shifts attitudes and people are just more open to engage and to speak into it. 

Albert: It took me years to learn it because as an engineer background person I’m used to pressing a button and get solutions. But dealing with people, relation always go first. We have to relate first. I learn, it takes some years for me to really learn it. And people, said I’m getting more mellow now, more than 20, if you work with me 20 years ago, you find me kind of you know, go straight, get the solution, get things done and very quickly, but relation always not the priority. But now, as I’m getting older, I found, you know, build a relation is number one. And then we can then work together and and yeah, I’m learning it now.

Meera: And it’s also very different with different generations. Probably our generation and the generation before a different style probably worked, but with the younger generations, with the youth, I’m realising who, regardless if they came from Global South, if they are people, young people raised in poor communities and slums, they are quite astute and they are quite exposed, thanks to technology and smartphones. They are people who want to be able to speak into, want to be able to contribute. They ask questions and I welcome questions and some questions are very difficult and sometimes I do say to them, actually, that’s a really good question, I don’t have the answer,  but you must keep calling us out, as in us meaning guests who come into your country and are working with, you need to call us out. You need to ask us questions, hard questions, and whatever you observe, you’re not clear, please,  feel free to come and ask me. The millennial,the youth are completely different and I think relationship engagement, conversation is very, very key for them. And even if, like I said, they came from slums and poor communities they do have this belief in them, “We know our people and our context better”. And I think that is something that we need to learn to tackle.

Nelis: It’s fascinating how much of this is universal because when you talked about the importance of relationships, I think that is true in most any culture. It expresses itself differently whether you’re in a western culture, in the Global South, Asia, I think there is something to that in every culture. So it’s fascinating. 

Kate: Although I think in Western cultures there is an assumption that you can just go in and start talking work straight away. There isn’t that background, there isn’t that expectation that you get to… I think things do go a lot better if you do get to know the whole person and we want to do that. But it’s, I think it’s not a natural behaviour for us. I think we need to learn that too. And I think what you’re saying about what’s universal is the next generation – the Millennials, the Zs – there’s more commonality because they are digital natives. They have grown up with a very different environment to us, that is shaping them. 

…

Nelis: It’s interesting, both of you mentioned something around. Okay, Albert, you said, I’ve become more mellow. Meera you talk about, sometimes I just have to say, “I don’t know”. In a hierarchical culture that is kind of hard because people expect – I suspect – that you have the answers, that you give clear direction and if you don’t, it may be seen as weakness. How do you deal with that, in that cross-cultural context? 

Meera: I think interestingly, for me to be able to say, “I don’t know” or to be comfortable in saying, “Can you tell me how you would apply this in your context?” actually that was the thing that brought the barriers down. That was the thing that shifted this whole attitude of hierarchical because then I was saying, “I know this much, but I don’t know everything. What you know, can you bring to the table and can we make it work together?”. That shifted this whole hierarchical stuff. There is still respect in terms of me as a leader but I think they saw me as someone where it was a safe space for them to bring their ideas or bring their concerns, or their doubts and questions. But if I was not comfortable in saying, “I don’t know” or if I’m not comfortable in being vulnerable, in some instances, then that would maintain the hierarchical mode. If I felt like I needed to hold it all together and keep it all together and have all the answers that would just perpetuate that cycle of hierarchical leadership.

Albert:  Well from my experiences Hong Kong, compared to other Asian culture, is relatively less hierarchical, but still we do have some hierarchy but from my experience, well I’m kind of dating back 20 years ago when I first started as the executive director. At that time I’m kind of always the one who provides the final result, the final solution and I’m the one who has the solution for everything. But now as time goes, I started to be kind of more conversational or more interactive in a way that as I grow in life experience, I really want to develop people instead of I’m the one to provide a solution. So, people comment that I’m “not so Asian” in many ways because I used to tell them that this is something I don’t know. This is something I really don’t know, but I can help you to quickly make it work, to make it done, or something like that. So I see the change or kind of evolving, you know, an evolution in my leadership, from kind of very directive to kind of more interaction, interactional and then maybe so-called conversational type and bringing people, more into the scene that they can lead themselves rather than looking up to me to have something. So my organisation is getting more and more and more people they can do on themselves and without really always coming back to me for instructions. Asian culture tends to have the subordinate always come up to you for instruction but now my organisation is set, at least from my Hong Kong organisations, my staff, they don’t quite really need to come to me often for the solution because they can have the solutions and we just have kind of conversation and discussion and that’s it. And then I let them continue to make the decision and get work sense. And so I’m getting better, now, in terms of, my life is a bit more easier. 

Nelis: That’s fascinating.

Albert: In Asian context, to be a  leader is very tough because people look up to you as kind of the king. You know, if you are in Korea or somewhere, you know you are the final problem solver, you can do everything. But now I’m not that person you know, I always tell my staff. I’m not that person you know, no need to come up to me for that. 

Kate: And how do they handle that when their cultural assumptions about you, and how you will lead, bump up against what they meet in you?

Albert:  Oh, it’s a cultural cultivation – it’s spent more than five years for me to cultivate that kind of culture that they don’t need to come to me for solution. Okay. It takes time. Every time they come to me for solution, then I come back to them asking questions, and they do that in a kind of like coaching. Gradually, they find that “Well, I can do that, you know, I don’t really need to come to Albert for that, you know. So getting more friends-type working environment rather than superior-subordinate type environment. 

Nelis: Have people started to respect you more because of that or less? 

Albert: My experience is they love me more. I can tell because they actually, they come to me saying that, you know, if I were with you 15 years ago, I can tell you were so aloof and though I didn’t say anything, immediately they said you are arrogant. I say, is that true? You know, I’m not that arrogant but they said you know you look like you are arrogant. They come back to me and say that, you have some big changes over the years. Thank God for that. I look more like their father now than their superior, or a boss. 

Nelis: That’s fascinating and your comment about how it takes time to grow that is really insightful. 

Meera: I think I found your question, Nelis, very interesting as you asked, “Do they still respect you?”. I think you know different cultures have different definition of respect or expectation of respect. So the way I am with my team members, they still sometimes call me “Yes. Ma’am” or “Yes, boss” and we would laugh, but there is that respect? Being comfortable to say, “I don’t know” or being comfortable to be vulnerable, did not in any way cause them to disrespect me or lower the respect. It seems to have just brought the respect to a higher level. On one level it made us seem both as peers in the sense that they lack certain resources or certain gifts. But then I was telling them, “Well, I also lack certain resources and certain gifts, but if we pool it together, then you know, then we are richer for it and we’re more whole as a team, but I do have that years of knowledge and experience that you don’t, and I’m bringing it to the table as an offering”. So it didn’t in any way lower the respect. I think it sort of increased. Albert said a key word. He said “love”. And I remember when I was leaving one of the teams, in their  farewell message to me, they said to me, we had many guest workers who came to our country and said that they came to our country because they loved us. But we did hear them say something about us and our culture that was negative. Or they kept saying “We are here because we sacrifice”. And they said to me, you never said you came here because you loved us. You never said, you came here out of sacrifice. But we know that you love us because we saw it in your words and we saw it in your actions. And you gave us space to grow. And those locals or those nationals are now in leadership, and that relationship continues even though I’m no longer in that organisation, they still make sure they send me messages to say, “Well, I just am on this foreign trip, you know, for a training program. Thank you for all that you did. I never thought I could be here, but I’m getting this chance because of what you did for me”. Or sometimes they still reach out to me and say, “Well, I have this issue and I’m trying to navigate it. This is the way I think I should go. What do you think?” So, they still allow me to speak into and continue as their mentor. Yeah, so it didn’t in any way lower the respect, it heightened and it also deepened the relationship. In a way, we’re both journeying together. We’re both discovering and learning. I might be a few steps ahead of you on certain matters. But on other aspects you could be ahead of me. So it was a mutuality. 

Kate: Thanks Meera, that’s really interesting as it takes me on to my next question for you both, which is, you’ve both obviously had a lot of experience in developing younger leaders. What would be your advice for Asian leaders, younger leaders, who are looking at conversational leadership and are a bit hesitant and are thinking. Will this work in my culture? How will this go down with people? What advice would you have for them? 

Meera: For me and my experience of the younger nationals that I served, that was how I did it, conversational leadership and they have taken on that. And it seems to be working well, from what I’m hearing back from them. I think, because it allows their team members who are all nationals, to feel like they have some value to contribute. That it’s not just to receive instructions that they can speak into it as well. If you’re asking that question as to whether conversational leadership among young Asian leaders is a tough goal, I think not not. Not in the circles that I’ve been in, the circles I’m still engaged with, that seems to be the modus operandi today. I don’t know about other circles, I can only speak for myself, but that seems to be the way because they have experienced that from me, they’ve experienced that from other guest workers in our team and so they feel empowered by it and they are practising it, and it’s really producing positive results. And what conversational leadership does in these circles is that it allows people to thrive and grow and you are in a way equipping the next generation or you’re equipping your team members to step into leadership positions, to empower them, to give them a sense of “I can do it too. There is something of me and from me that is of value that can really help the whole team to flourish, a whole organisation to flourish”. So, it is an indirect way of equipping future leaders, it’s an indirect way of empowering people, and I think it’s also a way of making sure that as you work together or as you lead, you still respect and keep each person’s dignity because you’re allowed to engage in the process and speak into them. 

Albert: Yeah, if you allow me to say something, I think there are several “Cs” we can consider. Well, I think as leaders normally we have to do something and although we show our vulnerability, although we show we are not omniscient in everything but still, we need to demonstrate to them we are hard-working and competent in certain areas. And this is the first C. The second C I would like to advise the leaders is that no matter what we have to show our care. Care for our colleagues, in our conversation, in our actions. And another thing is that I would like to recommend is to always show them that when they have problems, although you don’t know the answers, you would like to co-work with them. Co-working with them. I’m always there to help. I’m always there to assist. So the several Cs: show them you are are not a leader just doing your dumb leading, you do have the competency but at the same time, you do care. And at the same time, you are co-working with them and you are already co-creating things. And I think that would be helpful. 

Meera: I think I’ve also learned like Albert. I mean, my leadership style has changed because coming from the corporate culture, it was always about performance. Performance trumps people. But I think, you know, over the years I’ve learned that people first, performance second. People trump performance. Also in terms of what are your values as a leader? And my value is to ensure that the people that I’m leading will grow and flourish and thrive. I don’t see myself as a leader forever. When I go into a leadership position, my aim is to work myself out of it. And that the team that I’m leading will then step into my role. And I think that really having that sort of a value, conversational leadership just falls into place naturally, because that’s one of the ways of allowing people to speak into the process, to be invested, to engage, to participate. And that’s the only way you’ll grow into that role of being leaders. And then I can walk out and be happy to hand it over to them. So, that value, I think is really, really important. And I think you’ll always have a place in their life, as it has been with my team members who are now in leadership. We still engage because there’s a relationship. I continue to be their mentor, not on the books, not on paper, but I continue to journey with them in life. And I’ve seen them as singles, now they are married with one kid, and I continue to journey as their companion and their confidante and their mentor. And I think to me, that is what is most precious. I think leadership is not just in a formal role, but leadership takes many different aspects. 

Nelis: Absolutely. And I love that. Because leadership is too often confused with just titles but actually it’s something quite different. Yeah, I love how you both say, it’s so much part of the shaping of the next generation of leaders. In order to do that, you need to empower. You need to give space, you need to help them come up with solutions themselves, etc. It does, as you said, Meera, fall into place naturally. I want to do one or two last things. There is one question I’m asking myself: in the specific Asian cultures and I’m using plural because I realise it’s very tempting to talk about Asia, but Asia is incredibly diverse in itself. But with that caveat, what do you see as key cultural opportunities that young leaders, people who want to use conversational leadership, can take advantage of in their cultural context? That actually makes it easier rather than harder? 

Albert: In the Asian culture, the hierarchy is so strong and conversational leadership actually urges the leader to listen. If you ask me, I would strongly recommend or encourage Asian leaders, take time to listen, and conversational leadership is kind of urging them to listen rather than keep giving commands, giving out instructions. Try to listen. Listen with your heart. I can tell a story about some Asian leaders. Although they allow the subordinate to speak, but after all, the so-called allowing the subordinate to speak out and say something, and then the leader said “I’m still the King and that’s my solution, that’s my instruction, do it!”. So it’s not truly conversational leadership. So that the whole point is, if you ask me to advise on Asian leaders, with that strong hierarchy type mentality, we have to be humble and listen. I think listening is the key. 

Meera: I think you’re right, Nelis. Asian cultures are very diverse, even in a country like India, there’s so many diverse cultures in just one country. But if you ask about opportunities for conversational leadership, if we go back to our culture, in every Asian culture, if you go down to the family unit, wisdom is passed down orally through stories and faith-based stories, mythologies. And yet, the stories that are told when wisdom is embedded in it, it doesn’t have the conclusion. It’s always open ended. And so children and young people are basically invited to do critical thinking, and to find the way themselves. So, in a way conversational leadership has been happening for centuries, even in family units. And I think there is an opportunity there because with especially the current generation they want to be able to speak into it, they want to be able to engage and contribute, but I think conversational leadership still gives you that route of sharing some wisdom, some experience and yet not giving the conclusion, or the resolution, making it open-ended and then helping them to engage. So, there, definitely it’s not foreign, it actually has been happening. But I think at a certain point of history, I think when colonisation happened, then that shift happened, where the top down, the hierarchy, where you’re told exactly to the final point, this is exactly what needs to be done. But before colonisation it was always, yes, you have the leader and there is a communal discussion and there is wisdom that’s passed down and yet it’s open-ended because everybody needs to do some amount of critical thinking. So in a way, it’s kind of going back. It’s not foreign, it’s not new, it’s going back. It’s sort of like the circle of life. So there’s definitely opportunity, and it definitely fits with the youth, with our current youth in the Asian culture. I think even the African culture. I am so inspired and encouraged by some of the ideas I get from them. And I agree with Albert that as a leader we need to listen because by listening we get the more fuller context but also by listening we are also learning and we are also being shaped by it. We are also growing. I think one of the most important value that a leader needs to hold on is, no matter how high the leadership rank that you sit on, you have to constantly remain in a learning culture and once that is known, I think you encourage that culture in your team and in your organisation, that will be an organisational culture that is vibrant, full of ideas, always, very quick to respond to shifts. And that is sort of the culture I think a leader needs to create.

Nelis: Thank you. I think that is a good way to end. I wouldn’t know any better final words. So with that I think we can close. 

Kate: Thank you both. It’s been fascinating. So many lessons for leaders from any culture. I’ll certainly be going back and listening to this and making notes. It’s been great to have you here, sharing your wisdom, your experience over many years. Thank you both. And as usual to our listeners, if you would like to join in the conversation at all, please head over to leadinginconversation.net and leave your comments and thoughts there.