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Season 2, Episode 5

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Leading in Conversation
Leading in Conversation
Leading in Conversation, Season 2, Episode 5
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Transcript

Kate: Hello, and welcome to Leading in Conversation. We are happy to have two colleagues with us today, Anthony and Heline, both from Africa, and I will let them introduce themselves in a minute. They were facilitators at an event that Nelis and I attended in November, and we really liked what they did with the facilitation to generate free, flowing conversations. So we’ve invited them to share with us and with you today. Antony and Heline, welcome.

Anthony: Thank you. Kate it’s really an honour for us to come and join you and Nelis in this part of the conversation and podcast. My name is Anthony Kamau. I am born and raised in the city of Nairobi. That’s where I am, born, raised and working in the city of Nairobi all this while. I work as a special programs coordinator within our organisation and really in a nutshell what that means is my work is to help all the countries that we work with to find innovative ways of resourcing our work, either with people or funding, and training the people that we bring on board. So once again, thank you for having me on board.

Kate: Great to have you with us. Heline.

Heline: Thank you, Kate. Thank you, Nelis. My name is Helen Kimbung, I am glad to be with you on this podcast today. I am Cameroonian, and I serve and live in Cameroon, precisely, Yaounde. My role is in human resources. So I am leading the human resources effort within our organisation here in Cameroon, which entails basically finding people who are passionate and called to be involved in the work we are doing, and then supporting them as they do their work, so that they can thrive while at it.

Kate: Brilliant. Thank you.

Nelis: Yes, thank you. And just as Kate said, we were impressed with the way they both led and organised facilitation of an event. And I’ve been impressed with both of them before, just observing their leadership and their desire to pick up new concepts, to run with them. And that sense of innovation is something that I really see in both of you. So it’s exciting to see that. And we’ll come back to that sense of innovation. So, we met together, as Kate said, to brainstorm together, to look at our strategies in Africa, and to really look at, how do we connect the strategy with the reality on the ground? And that’s what we wanted to explore with people rather than just throw things at people. Because, as we’ve said in this podcast before, that just doesn’t work. And it was really fascinating to see how Anthony and Heline tried to culturally adapt that, to make it work in the African context. So I’d love to hear some thoughts from you on what drove you in those adaptations. So what are your initial thoughts? What comes to mind when you say, okay, yes, when we took those concepts, here’s what we thought. So, what were your ideas? What did you immediately run into, like, okay, we need to make some changes here?

Anthony Kamau: Thank you. Nelis. The idea of running meetings within big organisations has always been either you pick something that is really working very well and ensure that it is implemented all across like a straight jacket. But when Heline and I and the team that we were facilitating the meeting together with, we were asked to lead this, we sort of asked ourselves, what is our audience in this meeting, and what is the goal that we are trying to achieve? And really, the goal that we are trying to achieve is to help people participate in a meeting actively, and we wanted them to feel that there is a level of inclusivity that is included. And at the same time we wanted to come out with actionable output out of the meeting. And so, yeah! So when we thought about the model of open space technology, we said, this is really great. But hey, open space technology has some few risks that we are aware of, and we wanted to mitigate those risks because you don’t want a meeting whereby, because the conversation is loosely guided, the conversations become messy, confusing and frustrating because a lot of input is coming from everywhere. And we sat down and asked, how can open space technology be an African open space technology? That’s where the conversation really started and it flowed on and on.

Heline Kimbung: Yes, and I can add that the idea of having free, flowing conversations, albeit with specific goals to achieve in mind is not a concept that is completely foreign to our context. It helped that the facilitation team was diverse, and we could really ask ourselves what works within our wider African context. We asked ourselves what would be a good, meaningful conversation with what could happen with the leaders that are gathering together at this meeting? How can we make it our own? How can they make it their own? And as we thought about that we considered typical conversations that happen within our different communities, and the whole idea of fireplace charts came up, which which we we thought, this is really typically our thing. People would gather around a fireplace or gather around a meal in the kitchen to have conversations and people who have the liberty to share what was on their mind, to build up new topics and then to let the conversation flow freely. So that’s how we got about fireplace chats.

Nelis: So is that just a name change? Or was there more to it?

Anthony: Well, it’s not just branding, really. It’s both the technique and the brands were a little bit different. So it was a hybrid system, I would say, because what we did is we took all that we love about open space technology. The idea of, you know, ensuring that participants have full control of the meeting, and the experience they have and the outcomes of that whole meeting. But the same time taking something else that we love that is so African, conversational leadership, where people just meet and then there is a specific person who is hosting a conversation, and everyone is feeling free to participate in that conversation. So yeah, good things in open space technology. So it’s not just a rebranding, but taking advantage of that and making it African, and ensuring that we have someone who is identifying, framing, hosting the conversations, the discussions, so that they mirror in a way, those conversations that are happening every day in the villages in Africa. 

Kate: That’s really interesting. I didn’t realise that, the mirroring what happens in African communities, anyway. And tell me more about the role of the host, the person who’s sort of coordinating, loosely coordinating, not controlling.

Heline: In the context of the conversations that we had, the host typically would be, or was the person who received as many people as were interested in a given topic which had been previously framed by the group, by the people, and the hosts would help allow the conversation to happen, and then frame or the host would help get the conversation going, ensure that everyone had a chance to share asking questions, by asking questions. For example, the host could ask, are there other things you would like to share? The host would also be conscious of everyone that was around that fireplace, and having chat, and then inviting voices that were a bit more silent or helping really those that were that had more ideas to also be conscious of everyone else that was together around the fireplace. And hosts also had the responsibility to see that the main takeaways from that conversation were being captured in such a way that they would be beneficial for that group afterwards, but also for the wider group, following those conversations.

Anthony: And one more thing that it’s good we mention is that typically conversations can go on and on and on and on. And it can take different tangents. And what we wanted is the host of that fireplace chart to really ensure that discussions still remain on the topic. It’s good, Africans love to talk about the weather. Africans love to talk about their family members. How is the extended family doing? All those things are good things, but given the time frame, we wanted the hosts of the conversation to also ensure that the discussions are kept on the topic, and that was one of their big roles.

Nelis: So you identified those hosts ahead of time, didn’t you? 

Heline: Yes, we found that it would be helpful for us to identify a discussion facilitator hosts ahead of time. Because then it would give us it would help us save time. So we didn’t have to ask for volunteers on the spot and it’s to see if someone was willing or we didn’t want to have the same people, just the same people doing it over and over. We felt that identifying hosts ahead of time also gave us a chance to  invite leaders that way that way, newer or that way emerging, if you may, to participate in these important conversations by hosting. So we went ahead and identified people, emerging leaders. For the most part, and then we give them the chance to host conversations around the fireplace.

Kate King: That’s really interesting, because I didn’t realise at the time that you had chosen people beforehand. I somehow missed that in the process. So that’s an adaptation of open space technology which says, you bring the topic. And you host. Or maybe people, bring the topic and then we ask, who would like to host this conversation? I should probably add that one of the other aims of this event was to develop emerging leaders. So they were invited along. And it was seen as a development opportunity. So that’s a really good way of giving people that opportunity to try out facilitating a small group. Less threatening in that small group context. I remember the first time that happened to me at an international conference. It was terrifying, but it was a great experience. So tell us, how did the topics emerge?

Anthony: So we wanted it to be very natural. And so how we had designed the facilitation style was, we have one of our global leaders presenting something to do with the global plan. And then, after the presentation, we will solicit responses from the people, and then we get to ask them, “in your table groups just talk about what is your highlight? What are the questions that are emerging out of this?” and then we would collect all those questions and insights in a way and hand it over to the synthesis team. This is a group of guys who are really bright and analytical. They are able to see the big picture out of the messy many ideas that are coming up and then they will summarise for us quickly that these are the main topics that people are really highlighting. And voila! There came our topics, and then we asked people. Now, which topic do you want to talk about?

Kate King: And that was done amazingly quickly. I was really impressed at that because I was sitting right next to the Synthesis team’s little area with their flip chart and their posters on the table, and there was just a buzz of people scurrying around and connecting ideas. And while they were doing that there was something else happening in the room, wasn’t there? There was another session, so it wasn’t even during a break. 

Anthony: Wasn’t it? We intended, intentionally made sure that there is no gap when the synthesis team is doing their work, and we did not want it to feel mechanical. So what we did is ensure that, oh, yeah, someone else is there for 15 min taking us through another session, which feels very natural.

Kate: Yes, it worked very well.

Nelis: Yes. And I think that you touched on this with the hosts as well. And this topic did the same thing. Is you created a way that it is not the same people who always bring up topics, or who end up being the hosts of conversations, so that it really is a collective process for the whole group. And you get a diversity of voices in there, and really create a way that everyone could participate. Everyone co-owned the topic, and it wasn’t your usual, often Western people who ended up volunteering all the topics or being hosts, because I’ve seen that before, and that there is that risk. So I think you really overcame some cultural issues that way.

Heline: And just adding that even the table, the discussion host, the host had the chance to pick the topics that they wanted to host by themselves. So we didn’t just hand topics to different hosts to say, “Okay, you are hosting this discussion around this topic”, but they had the chance to choose the topic that they wanted to host the conversation around. So it allowed for them to be comfortable and to feel like they were on top of facilitating the conversations that were happening around the table.

Kate King: And two things that I noticed were, if there were a lot of people who wanted to discuss one topic, you actually split the group into two, so it was a decent size. And I think that was a really good decision, because if the group gets, too, some people automatically sort of just start to sit back and opt out. 

Heline: We had previously decided that for a good conversation to really happen within the time that was allocated. It would be helpful to have a certain number of people, and so we kept our eyes in the room, and when we saw that there was interest in one topic, and we had more than the maximum number of people going towards that group. We had numerous hosts that had already been pre identified. We just went ahead and split the group, and a different host picked up the topic so the same topic could be discussed at 2 or 3 different tables if there were more and more people that were interested in that conversation.

Kate: And I think that worked well, for another reason is that a previous event I had attended one topic really touched everyone, and there was a huge group at that table, twelve people, I think it was. And then some of the other groups just had a couple of people, 2 or 3, and it had that feeling of, I think people were like, oh, what are we missing out on that table? Why is everyone on that table? Oh, this topic is more important to people. The way you equalised the group sizes, actually, I think, had that really positive effect on the dynamic for the rest of the groups. I noticed that there weren’t any groups that just had 2 or 3 people. Actually, it spread quite evenly.

Anthony: Yeah, that was something we had not planned for. We had hoped that as people raised the topics, you know, the synthesis team, if they do a good job, how we will know is the manner in which people will be distributed in those groups. And so because sometimes you might have a synthesis team that comes up with topics and people are not gravitating towards those topics, and having people in one group might represent that that’s a topic that is of interest for most people and needs attention. But it might also indicate that the synthesis team has not really captured the individual topics that are there. So that was something that we found out as a, you know, a reward of having good synthesis team members working with you.

Kate: Now in pure open space technology, there isn’t a synthesis team. It’s actually individuals who put their hand up, and they come to the front, and they write their topic on a piece of paper and say, Who wants to join me? And using that method, you often end up with a couple tables where actually, there isn’t much interest. Only a few people go. And so you don’t have such good conversations. And I think the synthesis probably ensures that you’re bringing together several ideas around a similar topic. So there are naturally going to be more people interested in joining that group. Just a small thing that I observed, but I think it was really helpful.

Nelis: There was another element that you introduced that isn’t pure open space technology. And that is what you call clan gatherings. So can you expand a bit on that? What was the thinking behind that? And how did that work?

Anthony: When you have a team of people who are coming from about thirty-four countries, and you have operations in most of those countries, you want to ensure that at the end of the day people who are coming from the same context can come together and say, “Hey, guys, this has been a good strategy meeting that asks us what we need to do in order to serve the people that we serve”. So the clan meeting really naturally came out of that because we wanted to ensure that we give opportunities for people who are coming from the same country to just sit down together and discuss, “What are we hearing? What are our actual commitments that we are coming out of this meeting with?”. So that it’s not one of those feel good meetings you’ve come to and “Oh, yeah, we experienced this new fireplace kind of thing where ideas were coming up. But is it leading to actionable outputs that are contextual?”. So that’s why we put together the clan meetings. And the interesting thing is again we are looking at, this is Africa. Where do we find the most equalising and the most agreement of things? It’s really within the clan, because it’s where people come together and say, “Hey, we heard about this. But does it really work in our context? Does it really work in our village? Or is it just something that really happens broadly but it can’t take place in our context?”. So that explains the clan meeting.

Heline: Right, adding to that, while the Fireplace Chats gave everyone in the room, every leader in the room, to have conversations around topics that interest them so they could go as they wanted to, the clan meetings now gave them the chance to come back home, bring back what they’ve been hearing, be it from the fireplace chats that happened with leaders from other countries or from other contexts. They could now come back with their own immediate team, their clan, as Antony was saying. “This is what I’m hearing. This is a success story from country A. This is a challenge from country. B. How does that really apply to us?”. “What action steps can we take from these things that we’ve been hearing from others, that we would bring back home and try to contextualise it?”. So it was really a time to bring back home what leaders have been hearing from everyone else that was in the room.

Kate: Yeah, I think that was such a brilliant move from the facilitation team and achieved that cross fertilisation that we’re always looking for when we hold these international events or area events so that you may, you know you may be stuck on one particular thing in your own country. But then, when you meet with others who actually have similar challenges, and you see how they’re tackling them. You can learn something and contextualise it and apply it in your context.

Nelis: Yeah, I agree, that I loved how that worked together. And it’s this sense of inspiration and an application. So you go from inspiration to application. You go from cross fertilisation to bringing it home, like you called it. And it also has this sense of collective responsibility. It’s not just about the individuals. And I think that is one of the African cultural contexts, of course. You’ve got to co-own. It is not about me owning it, it’s about us owning that. And that’s where the clan, I think, is absolutely essential. So I really like that sense of bringing it home, of ownership as a group. And then, a sense of okay, what are we going to do with this? So how are we going to push this forward and that bridges that gap to making it actionable, that you talked about Anthony early on.

Kate: And that’s often a criticism of conversational leadership. People say, “Oh, it’s just talk. And then what do you take away at the end of it?” Well, I think if a generative process, conversational leadership is done well, it’s done exactly how you did. You actually had people make commitments at the end, and stand up and share them with the whole room, which I thought was very brave. But  it really does sort of start to cement that into reality. You’ve got to think, well, what are we going to do? And now we’re going to tell people about it, and that introduces an element of accountability as well.

Anthony: Yeah, and on top of accountability, what that ends up doing is when people know what you are committing to, they know how to support you, be it leaders who are at the area level or global level, or people who are within your context. When they hear you as the director or one of the individuals in that country saying, “This is what we are committing to”. They start thinking, “Okay, this is how I can reallocate my resources to come alongside you to help you to be successful”.

Heline: Right? And I think it was also really beneficial for leaders present that we could have those clan meetings while together, because sometimes you could say, Okay, you go into into meetings, and then you take your own notes, and you take your own ideas and you take your own possible action points, and then you go back home and try to see what to do with it or not. So being able to have those clan meetings, while together, was also really showing evidence of us wanting, wanting the leaders present to start to together with their clan see what they could do, and how they could bring it back home. So it was happening while they were still together within that atmosphere, in those meetings and not just “Okay, we went to these meetings, and we came back. And what can we remember from our notes? And what can we do?” So it was, I think, that it was also beneficial that we could have those clan meetings happening following conversations, while still in that atmosphere of those meetings.

Anthony: Yeah. And I just wanted to mention that, you know, one of the things about those commitments is, I was talking to one of the leaders just this week and I was asking him, “How are you doing with your commitments?” He said, “Oh, yeah, you know what I need to meet with my larger leadership team, apart from the people that we had invited, so that we talk more about that and see how to move forward”. And, one of the emerging leaders that he had invited was on his case, asking him, “What are we doing about these things that we talked about, or are there any plans for us to move forward? Or was it just a paper that we wrote to show, you know ,the people who are in the meeting that we are committed to something?”. And that in itself really gave me joy, because this emerging leader is a young lady who is not yet 30, but she is really looking forward to her contribution mattering in the organisation.

Kate: And that, I think, is so key. When you use a participatory process like this, people see their contribution mattering, and it energises them to continue afterwards. They were part of creating those commitments, and they want to see them developed. I think, particularly if you bring younger emerging leaders in, they’re not so consumed with the overwhelming burden of running an organisation like the senior leaders are, and maybe they have a little bit more space, a little bit more energy to be part of pushing those things forward. Love it, it’s great. So, looking back now, a month or so on, how do you feel it went overall? Is there anything you’d do differently next time? Anything you learned in the process?

Anthony: Yeah. Just recently we met together as a facilitation team, and we were drafting our report that we want to send back to our leaders and we asked ourselves, when we were thinking about the recommendation, what would we have done differently? And what will we tell our leaders, top leader, to implement differently? And obviously, one of the big things is the tension of when you want people to discuss, how much presentation do you want to do? So, striking that balance between a plenary session where someone stands and they are talking to you about a specific aspect of the global plan versus sitting down in your groups and having conversation. That balance is still one of those things that we are thinking, “Oh, yeah, we are not sure whether we got it right”. We are not sure whether we would want to go with either. So it’s one of those battles that is still going on, and still unresolved in our report.

Heline: Yeah, I can add that one lesson, or one, I wouldn’t say it is something that could have been done differently, because I believe that as we were planning those meetings, it became clear, is that when you have a mandate or when you have a responsibility to facilitate a meeting, such important meetings, and you do not really, you get to really understand what the objectives are, what your responsibilities are, it can be a challenge. I found that the leadership that gave us responsibility to  facilitate those meetings, to plan and facilitate those meetings, communicated very clearly with us, and the communication was clear, not because we had this one time clear conversation. It was clear eventually, because we, as we met with the leadership ,as we asked questions, and as they told us, painted a picture for us. It became even clearer what the responsibility was, and I think that helped a great deal. Another thing I can share is that even though the leadership had an idea of what they wanted the meetings to be like and what the goals were for the meeting, they gave us some liberty to be able to contextualise those meetings and make it ours for our context in Africa. And I think that’s really key. Because that’s why the tools that were proposed to us, we had the chance to understand a bit more, especially with Antony on our team, who had also not, just understood, rather experienced the use of other tools, particularly the open space technology tool for facilitating meetings. It was helpful that we felt that there was a degree of liberty that was given to the team to contextualise things. So for us to be able to say, Okay, how can this be meaningful in an African context. We felt that the team had communicated clearly, and we could actually do that or meet the goals that had been previously communicated to us. So let’s say, that was really really great, and it helped us a great deal.

Nelis: I would like to ask a more broad question. So you’ve been familiar with conversational leadership for a while. And now you have led this at this kind of level with a large group. So what are your additional learnings around conversational leadership? What works and doesn’t work, as you look back?

Anthony: conversational leadership, let me start by saying, Nelis, it’s not really

something that is foreign to the African context. That’s one of the things that I’m starting to see. Africans lead by conversations a lot. You find very easily, leaders want to identify an issue and frame it in such a way that they can invite people to speak into that issue in a clear way. So that’s one thing that has been solidified in my mind that conversational. But something that probably I learned is, it’s very easy for the leader not to participate in the conversation when conversational leadership is happening, because it sort of feels like, “Oh, I have framed the issue. Now, guys, come and talk about it, and then, when you’re done, you let me know.”. And it puts leaders as outsiders. And I think this is especially me and other people on the facilitation team. We did feel like we were outsiders to this conversation. So really we were not going to the table discussions. And probably sometimes it’s because we are following up with other things. But for the majority of the time it’s because we felt our work was to ensure that we are framing these issues and the conversations and allow people to talk. But we ourselves and other global leaders, a few who attended, sometimes I did notice, it’s like we are pulling away from those conversations and waiting for the reporting to come back. And it is something that I need to work on, and we need to work on as an organisation.

Kate: I will say, having done facilitation at other meetings before we learned about conversational leadership that just does happen if you’re a facilitator. I remember coming away from one of our international conferences, saying “I’m actually not aware of what emerged really or what happened in the sessions because I was so focused on running the sessions, the activities, the different outputs, etc.”. I didn’t really participate. And in those days I wasn’t a leader. I was just a facilitator, it didn’t really matter. But I see what you mean. If you have leaders who are part of the facilitation team, then they are missing out of being part of the process. And there’s a real challenge of being a participant facilitator. And I think we have to just be really careful about that. I also noticed that I and other global leaders were often hanging back from the group, because we were told, we committed as a group of global leaders coming that we weren’t going to dominate, that we were there to listen, to learn and to let the people on the ground really contribute and take things forward. It’s quite easy, if you come in as a global leader and you speak, nobody wants to really challenge you. They’ll just sort of nod and repeat what you’re saying. But actually we wanted to deliberately hold back, so that that may have been some of what you were seeing.

Nelis: But it’s a good challenge, because as Anthony is saying, there is a risk in that, so it’s finding that balance of really feeling you can participate without dominating and creating space and that’s very tricky, because you often fall on one side or the other. You end up dominating anyway, or you end up not really participating, and neither result is great. So that’s quite an interesting challenge. Thank you for raising that.

Anthony: To put it in the African lenses, Nelis, is what the global leaders were doing really, is to prepare a good meal for their visitors, if you may, but then they are not joining them in celebrating in that meal, you know, just putting it for them and telling them, “Hey, enjoy!” And you are not eating with us, then we are not in one spirit, if you may, we are not walking together in this. You are just inviting us to your table so that you show off and put your table there, and then you leave us. 

Kate: Wow! When you put it like that Anthony, it’s so powerful and I feel terrible. Thank you for explaining it like that. Yeah, I can see that now. We had good intentions in holding back, but actually interpreted, perhaps from an African perspective, that was negative. Definitely something for us to think about. Heline?

Heline: Yes, another thing I can share, just going back to the question Nelis asked about having co-facilitated these large meetings, and what one would say from the perspective of conversational leadership. One thing, I realised again, is that conventional leadership really can be very uncomfortable because, even though the leader or the leaders were there to frame the big issue, in reality, they do not have control of how the conversations were going to go and what the outcomes of those conversations were going to be. So that can be uncomfortable. And it’s really like being in a vulnerable place because you’re not sure, you know, what people are taking exactly what taking out of those conversations, and if it’s away from what you intended or not. But I think it is very freeing when we are able to do that, frame the bigger issue and and and let people take the conversation around that big issue, or within the scope of that big issue as they would choose, because they are thinking about how that works for them, how that applies for them, how that is a challenge for them. So I think at the end of the day, when you look at it, despite coming from a place of being uncomfortable, it can be very rewarding. Because then what comes is not what the leader is saying, “Okay, this is what has worked for for Côte d’Ivore, so bring it to Cameroon, it’s going to work. This is what has worked for Kenya. So let’s take it to Uganda, it’s going to work”. But really people are hearing, and then they are trying to bring it home by themselves. So that’s one thing I really saw that I think is powerful when conversations are facilitated in a way like what we had.

Nelis: Thank you. I really appreciate those takeaways, two massive takeaways from both of you. One is the challenge of real participation, not preparing a meal and then not participating. And, secondly, the power of letting the uncomfortable happen so that people can take it home themselves. Another quote I remember from both of you, is this sense of, conversational leadership fits in Africa. You didn’t say it exactly like that. But that observation, I think, is quite powerful. So we need to come to a close. Are there any other things that you would like to say, there’s another takeaway I want you to, or our listeners, to take home from this?

Anthony: For me, it’s just to mention that when you invite us to this podcast, of course, the assumption is that two of us really worked very hard on this. But in truth, the facilitation team was made up of a multicultural, multi-generational kind of team. And the impact that this brought was that we are having people who have a rich history and experience, and they are bringing it as part of the tools that we are using. But at the same time we are having people who are coming from diverse contexts and they are bringing it to the table. And so, in order to put together this as a success, we really needed that aspect of multicultural teams, but also multigenerational, because together we do better. And that is what Africa believes in.

Nelis: Great.

Kate: I love that there’s still space for oldies like Nelis and I.  Heline, any last thoughts from you?

Heline: That’s for sure. There is space, there is actually space for everyone, and that is very, that’s really African. It’s like cooking a good pot of soup. Usually we have all kinds of spices that go into it, and they come from all kinds of places. Some come from the ground, others come from the tree, some it’s really just the flower of the tree, some is the seed, it comes from from all kinds of places. And I think that, like Anthony was saying, what we had, we are getting a sense that it was a good pot of soup, that was prepared, and it involved the participation of everyone. Again, it’s been served. It’s a process that takes time. We usually cook for hours and hours. We usually have conversations for hours and hours. We don’t know how to really just do very quick, you know some of our quickest meals would still take an hour. So that is what we were finding with those meetings, and that is what we believe that even coming away from that, we need to continue to promote. Give it the time. Let the conversation flow, and then let’s see what we take out of it. Our hope and our desire is that we would all be able to attend the goals that have been set and just feast from this good pot of soup that we’ve been cooking, or we’ve cooked together.

Nelis: I love that image and that festive sense, the sense of it being a meal, a real gathering, the multicultural aspect of that. It’s actually fun to see how you guys also made that physically a reality. I mean the multicoloured cloth, the African sort of decoration, all of that. Going into that room you had that sense of we’re gonna have this time of festivity together, conversation, a good part of soup, basically.

Kate: I love that. I’m now going to think of conversational leadership as that pot of soup bubbling away for hours while people mill around the fire talking, celebrating, being together. It’s really moving away from the task focus that those of us from the West are often guilty of and to the relationship, the process. I love it. Thank you, Heline, for that image. That’s it. I think that’s a very generative image. And we’ve talked about that in previous podcasts. So we’ll see where we can take that in future. Thank you both. This has been an awesome podcast, really enjoyed hearing your really unique perspective on conversational leadership. And I think there’s a lot for us to take away and chew over there.

Anthony: Thank you very much for inviting us. Yeah, we appreciate the time and we hope that you know, learners, listeners, are learning, and we ourselves are learning through these conversations. Really, thank you.

Kate: Thanks.

Heline: Thank you.

Kate: Thank you to our listeners for joining us again. As always, I’ll say, head over to leadinginconversation.net if you have any comments, thoughts, questions to share as a result of listening to this podcast. Thank you everyone. See you next time, bye-bye.

Season 2, episode 4

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Leading in Conversation
Leading in Conversation
Season 2, episode 4
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Transcript

Kate: Hello and welcome back to Leading in Conversation, and also a very Happy New Year to you. We’re kicking off our first podcast of this new year 2024, with a special guest, our colleague, Andreas Ernst. Welcome, Andreas!

Andreas: Thank you, Kate. Good to see you.

Nelis: We’re excited to have you here. We have touched base from time to time from many years back to very recently in a hotel, but there’s also years that we don’t see each other. So it’s good to have you here. But our guests don’t know you, so why don’t you share a little bit of your background and what you do, where you’re from, etc.

Andreas: Thank you. Yeah. My name is Andreas Ernst. I’m an MK, for those who might have heard that term. It means missionary kid, which means, basically, I’m confused, lost my identity. No, it just means it takes a bit of a while to explain my identity. But I was born in Cameroon, grew up there, with parents who were involved in language development work. I’m currently working with SIL in media training, coordinating media training. And, yeah, I love what we do in media today in SIL, and I’m glad I have a chance here to talk to you two about what this conversational leadership look like might, what conversational leadership looks like in the context of community development. 

Kate: So Nelis referred to a hotel. We actually met up with Andreas and his wife for dinner in a hotel in Budapest, when we were there a couple of months ago, weeks ago, our leadership team was there, and we touched on the subject of conversational leadership. And Andreas’ eyes lit up. He was like, “Oh, I’d love to talk to you some more about that.”. So we said, “Well, how about you do it and we record it for our podcast?”. So thank you for being a willing victim! So tell me, Andreas, how did you first hear about conversational leadership or get interested in it?

Andreas: I think the first time I actually heard that particular term used was probably during one of our SIL Leadership training events. We have this foundational course that you both know and are part of building and teaching, and it’s called 4 Pillars. And during this time leadership was talked about a lot in terms of how you can bring different cultures together. How do you work in cross cultural settings, and especially the need for that sort of leadership style to be very inclusive and and very much based on conversations and dialogue. And that’s something I’ve always been fascinated with and loved. So it attracted me. And also, just because of the way I grew up living in different cultures, I’ve often found that I’ve had to sort of be a chameleon, adapting to cultures and always asking lots of questions to gain trust, to bridge, I found myself sometimes between African cultures and Western cultures. And I’ve seen that’s actually something that gives trust and safety so that you can work together more easily with other people. So when I studied literacy program development, I got very interested in all the participatory methods. And yeah, so that’s where my passion comes from.

Nelis: I find it interesting what you’re saying here, Andreas, because you, at the start you said being a missionary kid means I’m basically confused. You said, that’s part of my identity. And then you took it right into this conversational leadership concept about listening, about being in between cultures, about not always being sure building bridges. It’s kind of fascinating. You’re bringing your identity into actually this topic. Am I reading that correctly?

Andreas: Yeah, and you know, for me it’s been an ongoing battle in my life to know, who am I? I have always found myself between different sort of cultures. So you know my parents, you know  they’re from a Western background but serving in Africa for over many years. But then me having been born there and growing up, going out with my friends and setting traps, and hunting with slingshots, and fishing in the rivers, and playing soccer, and learning the culture that the way you live as a community of children. And then the uncles and aunts you have in an African village – it takes a village to raise a child, as they say. So I always had all these different cultures around me. I realised there are these clashes between different world views, and I often found myself in between, because I could kind of sense the differences in expectations. I remember one particular moment when I actually decided not to join a group on a trip, because I was embarrassed.

Because I felt like you know, I’m not sure how this is going to come across. And that’s just because I was immature, didn’t really know how to handle those differences. But yeah, it’s that clash of different cultures and worldviews where people are doing the best they can to communicate. And yet I’ve always felt there is that need from both, from whatever side one comes from, culturally speaking to find a meeting ground somewhere, also in terms of how decisions are being made. In terms of verbalising expectations, and not assuming too much. So I think that’s where my interest comes from all the way back to my roots.

Kate: Obviously, you said, you’re interested in how we can use conversational leadership in community development. And you’ll have a natural inroad there from your childhood, growing up in an African village culture that will probably, I assume, make it easier for you to have those conversations and culturally appropriate ways in Cameroon because you grew up in that context?

Andreas: In some ways, yes, I have had the privilege of growing up with those different cultures. The other side of it though, too, is that because I can switch, I sometimes don’t behave the way people expect me to behave. So, just to give an example, somebody might think I have a certain mindset and I come to a project and just because of the colour of my skin they might think “Well, this guy’s gonna throw money at things just the way the other person did before them or somebody else, or some other organisation has been doing so let’s expect them to do that”. And that has a big – I would say – almost negative impact on how community development can be developed.

Kate: That’s a really interesting point about the expectations that are there even before you arrive in a given context to start a conversation. You’re up against people’s expectations of you, based on your culture, the colour of your skin, etc. They will make assumptions about you.

Nelis: Yeah, but I think that’s also one of the strengths you bring. You’re more aware of your assumptions and your worldview than somebody who hasn’t been in multiple cultures at the same time. And I think what you’re saying and I resonate with that is, so much of conversation and conversational leadership depends on unearthing assumptions, unearthing expectations. Otherwise you talk at a surface level, but you never get to the real issues. So from my perspective, you do have a leg up there and I think it’s one of the reasons you’re so interested in it because it helps you bridge those different sort of realities. So can you say a little bit more about how you’re practically doing that? So when you are in those kinds of contexts, how do you bridge gaps and expectations? How do you help people understand one another?

Andreas: Well, I guess through trial and error. It’s making a lot of mistakes in learning from them. Yeah, I mean, I’ve been involved in a couple of different community-owned projects. And I’ve come sort of to the conclusion that it’s a lot to do with just taking the time. You know I do have some Swiss blood in me, being half Swiss, and having been professionally working in Switzerland as well and also the kind of organisational structures, and planning, impact planning and what not that we do typically in organisations can kind of make us be focused on intermediate goals and short-term goals that we need to measure. So I have also been involved in development projects like that where I’ve probably tried to move ahead a bit more quickly than I should have. But one thing I’ve just learned is just how precious it is to be on the ground. Just to give an example, I was working in an area in Cameroon where we had a very clear task given by the organisation, which was to promote literacy to promote the use of mother tongue in the local churches and we were even as people on the ground, being fed very specific things that we were supposed to be doing and even there already the conversational leadership between us who were on the ground and the higher up leaders of the organisation wasn’t always running smoothly. There was sort of the idea that you were being told what to do, because others knew what that community needed, because they had researched it and planned the project. But then, as I was working on the ground, I realised that the felt needs of the community were very different. And if we were going to achieve anything in that community because they were so closely such a close community, and everything was controlled by the sort of traditional leaders, we were needing to get some trust from the leadership, from the local traditional chiefs. So that, for example, even the Muslim community there would not really accept what we were doing, would not accept us, would not understand the reason why we were there without that. And so I would just regularly go and visit the chief. He would invite me to come and just chat with him because he was lonely, you know, he felt that me as an expat, I was sort of approachable and safe, so he would just want to have long conversations about his religious beliefs, and so on. And then, with the trust that came over time, he started asking me to go. He said, “Okay, it’s all very nice what you’re doing, and I’m supporting. But can you help us find water? That’s the biggest problem we have”. So he took me up to the mountain with all his advisers, and we went up there several times, and then we started looking into partners who might be able to drill a hole. Get that water flowing back down to the village. And it was through that conversation that we gained the trust, and then, later on, we were able to start a reading centre in that village, and he made a decree that the different schools, the different religious communities, that everybody should contribute a certain number of bricks. And even the schoolchildren were making bricks for us to build the building. He gave us land for it. And actually today that project might become a radio station. I think, for me, it was a lot about having conversations, so that we know what people want, and so that people know that we have good intentions, that we care, that we are flexible, we’re serving. And then out of that grew what became a reading centre. And again, our plan had been to say, “Okay, let’s have some books and reading materials available for the youth there”, because a lot of kids were studying at secondary level. But then, when the project evolved, it actually became a reading centre for kids who came and they had solar energy in the evening, so they could do their homework, they have all the books available there. That was not planned. That was how it evolved. And then, I still remember when the chief reached out to me and said, “I’d like to thank you, because this year we got the best results of all the schools in the area thanks to the solar system and the centre that we had built”. 

Nelis: It’s fascinating what you’re touching on. One is taking time. And I think that we have touched on that in other podcasts as well, the importance of taking the time. The importance of building trust. And flexibility. And I think that last point of, just, it’s going to evolve into something different from what you expect is, I think, a key part of conversational leadership. We talk about this whole uncertainty, and you can’t plan it all out and it’s kind of exciting to see how you very practically do that at the local level, and what the results then are. That’s encouraging.

Kate: So my question is, how much were the people in the community involved in coming up with the solutions and what was needed? You said at one point that the chief made a decree. That’s not what we consider conversational leadership but we’re dealing with very different cultures here.

Andreas: I think that the fact that the chief made that decree was not to say that there wasn’t a need for us to have lots of meetings, so we had very regular meetings and we made sure we chose kind of a neutral place and we we kept sending invitations to the Muslim community, different church communities, different political leaders, and they’d show up, and there’d be lots of plastic chairs out, and and then also for me, it was very important that right from the start, when we were leading these meetings, I wasn’t the one always talking, so I had by that time I identified some local Christians that I trusted in, with whom you know I had been sharing the idea. They had already inspired the idea through what they saw as the need. And so it became our kind of vision to explore. And then, as we invited these communities, we kept having to have meetings because it wasn’t just about what the chief had decreed, but it was  to help people understand what this might look like, what are the practical needs? And then there was the eternal hunger for people to know who is going to own this? Generally, people want to know, who’s going to own this? Who has the power in the end?  That’s how people understood, you know what it might look like. And they also felt like we were building into what they were saying, the concerns they had. So, for example, we built a committee of people who were going to manage the construction site itself and we made sure that every community had a representative in that structure and so forth.

Nelis: I love what you said about the ownership question. We haven’t explored that deeply in this podcast, but I think it’s on the minds of a lot of people when actually, decisions are made, who owns it in the end? Do I have a real say, or is it just show? Is it just a sense of, yeah, we talked to you but in the end the decision is actually somewhere else. That sense of real ownership, I think, is a core point. And I see how that worked in the community and how you created symbols around that, that it’s not just what you do. It’s also putting some flag in the ground, basically saying, “Well, we’ve got a representative on the committee that won’t guarantee that real ownership, but it’s a symbol of it”. And I think that those are helpful concepts to keep in mind.

Andreas: And one thing we felt that we talked a lot about during those meetings with the different communities was not just about who might do what and how we could share the load. But also what types of people are needed. You know, people, sometimes, they might say, “We need an imam, we need somebody religiously positioned to have power”. Or they might say, “Well, we need people with MA degrees”, or politically favoured people and that sort of thing. So it was also talking about, are we sure we want this? What would it look like? What are the ups and downs of these types of people and then defining together…that was very interesting. What should be the moral characteristic that we’re looking for in these people? And also that conversation actually ensured that people were trusting each other more because they were realising, “Okay, we are making consensus on this. You know, the Catholics are not saying the Pope has to be in charge, or it’s the Pope’s”. I mean, that’s exaggerated. But you know, it was kind of becoming clear that we want to keep it at a humble level, where we want people that we trust, that are serving, so that afterwards we don’t start accusing each other of abusing power, or trying to benefit personally or as a separate community from the project. And yeah, so it was that moral side of it that we could have a conversation about with everybody. So that was interesting as well.

Kate: Dialogue is such a key thing when you are bringing together different faith communities, isn’t it because you have to spend a long time talking to build the trust, to make sure you’re all on the same page. And it’s great to see that demonstrated in your project.

Andreas:  I think for me also, one thing that I struggled with at times was to just say, “Okay, I don’t wanna be the one leading it. I can be there to assist. I can bring in a lot as a neutral person, but the local people are facilitating that conversation”. You know, sometimes you wonder, okay, why didn’t they also ask this other thing? Or why did they push back so hard on this thing? Or you know, sometimes you wish people had a bit more experience in long term exposure to this sort of conversational type leadership. But you don’t, or you can’t always assume that people have that. And yet they can learn it through the process. And then to say, okay, that is in itself a goal worth pursuing. And it doesn’t mean one has to jump in. But it’s also something they learn, and also to realise that people tend to belong to one community or another. No matter, you know, how much they want to bring in consensus, and they will be seen through the eyes of what group they belong to. They may not have the sort of neutral sense of trust directed towards them from other communities simply because they are being categorised. And so when they speak, they also have to make sure they represent that particular, those particular roots that they’re representing. And I think to be honest, I think that’s where we, as you know, neutral facilitators from the outside, do have a role. I do think that you know any development agency organisation has a huge moral responsibility to be involved in community development and conversational change simply because we have on our side managed to be a little bit more neutral if we will accept it and work with that. I’ve heard it said that we Westerners shouldn’t be involved in community development because we don’t know the culture. We don’t really know what’s going on and over the years I’ve seen that I’m not sure it’s always true. I’ve seen some Westerners that are very good at knowing the local culture, very good at asking questions, at bringing consensus and also some local facilitators who are maybe using a model of  leading change that is very top down, even though culturally acceptable. And that doesn’t always work simply. So it doesn’t work just because they are from that community or may know the community. So anyway. But I don’t know. That’s something I actually would love to hear what you two think about, too.

Kate: Yeah, I think we definitely have a role. I mean someone coming in from the outside to a situation where there’s a lot of vested interest, and you want the whole system represented in the project. You want to know that you’re hearing the views of different communities, different sub-communities within the bigger project community. That we can perhaps bring that neutrality that is helpful sometimes. Nelis, you’ve worked in Cameroon specifically, any thoughts on this.

Nelis: Yeah, I think you’re right. I mean, there is that possibility. And I love the way you put it as almost a moral responsibility. But it’s also very tempting to forget that the real ownership lies with the people themselves, because you so easily as a development person with relative power, relative money, sort of take on the Savior complex. And secondly, I was really convicted myself that it is very easy to see how other people should solve their problems. Because you don’t know the nuances of it. So you don’t see how hard it actually is. So, as an outsider, you always think that the problems of somebody else should be easy to solve. But you know how difficult your own are. Well, if we come with that humility, and really recognizing the ownership of the local, to really recognize the complexity and and often really good reasons why it wasn’t solved up to this point. Then you can, I think, have a valuable role as an outsider, whether that’s coming from the West or from within the wider culture, or whatever. But there’s a commitment to humility and listening, and not taking up the ownership or taking it away from the people, I think, is going to be key in that. And interestingly enough, that I think is, it applies actually to wider conversational leadership conversations in general. So I see a beautiful sort of overlap with what we talked about in other contexts.

Kate: I don’t know if you listen to the podcast we did with Peter Van Dingenen? I loved how Peter described the way he went into the villages, and kind of acted a bit dumb and just asked questions. So what do you mean? And tell me about this. He went with the assumption, they have all the information needed to solve the problem, and in this case it was latrines, installing latrines. The one installed by an NGO just kind of collapsed and wasn’t appropriate, and he was there to try and help solve the latrine problem. But he just went in asking questions and kind of playing a little bit dumb. Like, “You tell me how this works”. That’s connected to what Nelis is saying about humility, not going in with all the answers. You have to hold back as a facilitator, even if you might have more information, if you want a solution to emerge from the people, from the community, they have to be the ones to bring the solution, to bring the answers.

Andreas: Yeah, I really like that reminder also. The fact that the way that people might sometimes expect somebody who’s a facilitator to act in a certain way can also kind of create that idea in ourselves that we think, oh, we are, we do have some answers. And oh, these people are expecting a solution. Particularly in some African context where you know it’s the elite, or it’s the person who is well positioned financially, or whatever politically, or from the outside. Typically there is a certain expectation that they come in, and they solve the problem as a sort of Messiah. And so it’s not just being very much aware of what we don’t know when asking those questions, but also when people respond or interact with you as if you are that sort of person to say, Okay, this is a trap. I am very basic here. I don’t really know what’s happening, and I am allowed to ask questions that make people think, even though I know that what they would probably answer would bring it back to me again. And so it’s that sort of that sense of playing dumb that can sometimes break up the notion that people have that they can’t do anything, or they don’t really know, or that they shouldn’t be talking because somebody else should be talking. Even asking specific people that are not used to being asked can be one way of breaking that up and bringing that wise input from a particular person or other, and nobody can tell you. Hey? Why did you ask that woman to say something when the village chief is present because you’re just a naive Western white man, so…

Kate: You can use that to your advantage at times. I recently did some coaching training, coaching not to become a coach, but to help me become a better supervisor. And I was really struck by the emphasis on shifting away from yourself. It’s not about you. Even the information you want to find out about, that’s not really what it’s about. It’s all about the person you’re supervising or coaching their agency, their ability to do things themselves. You shouldn’t be telling them, you shouldn’t even be asking leading questions that take them to the conclusion you want them to reach. Really challenging for me, actually. And there’s a whole sense of sort of emptying out of yourself when you are entering into a facilitational role like this. You’ve got to leave yourself and your preferences and ideas at the door. Now it’s different if you’re a participant facilitator, which we often are in work situations, you know we are part of the solution as well. But if you’re coming just as a facilitator to a community, and actually you won’t be living in the community and living with the solution that is developed, you’ve always got to empty yourself and to give the community agency to come up with the answers themselves, the solutions. Yeah. I thought that was really challenging for me, actually.

Andreas: Yeah, I think that is very true. It’s so challenging to make sure we empty ourselves. And I think it’s particularly difficult, too, because we in some sense, to build a change or to bring innovation there are things that maybe an outsider brings in, in terms of the know-how or advocacy, that can take root, that people may not know about. So in some ways you have to know what it is you offer and be very clear about it. But by doing that right away you also influence how much responsibility or expectations, how many expectations come your way in terms of what you’re going to be doing. So I think that’s also a really very big challenge. And if I compare, for example, this project I talked about earlier, where something came out of it that was quite shaped by the different participants in terms of location, the books that were available, and so forth. With when you want to maybe start a radio project. Again, you might know who could be technical partners, financial partners. What sort of process is needed to have the licensing from the government? You may be in a position to be an advocate for a project like that, and, or to find other local people who can do that. And so giving that information, but doing it in a way that the people receiving it own it, that you say, “Okay, this is what you could do or do you have more questions?” but being courageous enough to own what it is that we really can bring to the table, and also what we can’t and constantly renegotiating, re-clarifying that. And the other thing I find very difficult is just to refrain from intervening when something doesn’t move forward. To just say, “Okay, this meeting last time, this last meeting didn’t take place, or they haven’t yet collected this amount of money that we had decided we would collect” and then just wait on it, even if it takes a couple of months. So that people see, okay, this is really not going anywhere if we don’t do anything, and to be okay with that. And I think long-term it does pay off. 

Kate: The problem is, if you play to heavy-handed a role when you leave, inevitably, as the ex-pat, what’s going to happen? The aim is for a sustainable product, a sustainable library, or whatever it is that you’re building. And if, if you are too involved, then things may not last beyond your presence, but also what’s produced may be something that works for you as a Westerner, but doesn’t work in the local context. Therefore it’s not sustainable in the long run, either.

Nelis: And that needs to be balanced with still wanting to see change. And actually, people looking to you to help bring that change from both sides, actually from the agency that sent you and from the community. And so I think that’s the art, isn’t it? There isn’t a recipe as such. It’s knowing when to keep pushing, and when to really step back and just wait. And really allowing that ownership to be real, but still play your role. I think that comes back to the question we always ask ourselves: so in conversational leadership, how do you play the role of leader well enough? Because there is a leadership aspect for this. And so I find it’s fascinating to keep wrestling with that. I think that’s what we all need to do to learn that.

Andreas: Yeah. And just to give an example, recently, I realised that sometimes you’re kind of stuck between two worlds. Recently we started a radio project and this partner gave us the whole studio equipment, the antenna and everything and we got the licence from the government. The community worked really hard. They mobilised funding for a lot of the aspects of the work. And then, because of safety reasons they were still afraid of starting the broadcasting and it was just delaying and delaying, and they had also outsourced some of the practical work on the antenna to somebody. And then there was a kind of a dispute with the technician and what not. And now that the partner wrote to me and said, “Well, if you guys are not broadcasting very soon, we think we might need to take away the whole station and send it somewhere else”. And you know I kind of diplomatically tried to write back to them, say, “Well, thank you for your patience. It’s taken more time than we maybe we were planning for. But you know…”. So I just realise there’s also that side of realising that you’re not just communicating to the community, you’re also protecting them, and being okay with that.

Andreas: And also, I think sometimes, as Western ministries, we realise how much ownership is important. And we even, for that, we have a plan. We say, “Okay, we’re, gonna spend 5 years or or 2 years or 3 years on this. And after that we’re gonna, that’s it. No more. Nothing. We’re not gonna help”. But during that intense time we may be intervening in a way that creates dependency on us because we’re trying to speed things up. And so I think it’s also bravely considering, what does it mean, actually, to own something locally by the community? And at what point can we say, “Okay, we’re done”. And how do we discern what role we have in the future? And I think that, too, it should lead us to really integrate everybody from the start. But maybe not be too systematic about the way we time and define what it means to not be involved anymore. 

Kate: I think learning to become more comfortable with uncertainty and not knowing is a big part of conversational leadership. You can’t control everything. You can’t plan everything. You may start reality. You may start a conversation or a process, thinking you’re heading in one direction, but then, if the real issue emerges, you may want to go in another direction. And sometimes it’s quite hard as leaders involved in conversational leadership, to let go of that outcome you had in mind and actually go with the other solution that’s proposed. Nelis any thoughts around this?

Nelis: Yeah, I’m just thinking, that’s hard, because you’re always driven by the reality that solutions are expected, your finances depend on success. If you don’t deliver the project is probably gonna stop or fall apart just like you described. So it is that fine line between flexibility, listening, letting the real issue emerge, but not losing sight of the outcomes that together you aim for, or the direction you’ve set, and that is such a tricky interplay. And doing that well, I think we constantly need to challenge each other on that: “Hey, guys, we need to be more flexible” or “Wait a second. Are we losing track of our objectives here? Are we letting ourselves be sidetracked too far?” And it’s that interplay that I think we need each other to hold each other accountable to that. In practice, Kate. I see you and I actually do that in our work as we go, as we lead, in our leadership team. Sometimes we say, “Well, you’re saying that, but is this still the right thing? Is this truly conversational? Have we asked the right people or….”.

Kate: Or have we slipped back…

Nelis: into “top down”, yeah? 

Nelis: I think we can start to wrap this up. What I really loved about this back and forth is, is around ownership and flexibility, and then holding each other accountable to that. And as we started wrestling around that, I think that is something we can take forward and actually think about in our work with communities, but also in any kind of leadership role: Am I taking on too much ownership? Am I emptying myself out enough? Am I listening enough? Am I interested in the other rather than in my goals only? So I think that is something that I’m going to take away from this conversation is a really helpful concept to move forward.

Kate: Thank you. Nelis. Thank you, Andreas. It’s been good to have you with us. And let’s keep talking, keep thinking about these things. That’s all from us today, and, as always, do hop over to leadinginconversation.net, if you want to comment, ask questions, or even just look at the transcript or the show notes. That’s all for today. Thank you. Bye.

Nelis: Thank you. Bye, bye.

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.