Culture Change

Funny old day today. Had a really nice group of nine on the change programme - included two women for the first time, it's a very male dominated organization. All was going well until the feedback element of an exercise when one table (all male) decided that it was appropriate to say that a difficulty they faced was the behaviour of women at a certain time of the month - although they described it in less elegant terms. Everyone was taken by surprise (including the lead facilitator, who was too stunned to take immediate action) and I was particularly shocked that my colleague on that table hadn't prevented what was said from being said, if you see what I mean.

One of the women on my table was especially upset by the comment and, when we went into the next exercise, left me in no doubt as to her feelings. She was particularly concerned that an external facilitator had been on that other table and hadn't, seemingly, done anything to prevent a sexist discussion from taking place. I decided that I ought to discuss the issue with said colleague and discovered that they had been aware of the discussion but, because it reflected, in their view, the current culture of the organization they let it go. They also said that their job as a facilitator is not to prevent conversations taking place nor to prevent groups feeding back what they want to feedback. I have a fundamental philosophical problem with this approach because I agree with Esther Cameron in "Facilitation Made Easy" that a facilitator's job is to remain in control without being overpowering.

Learning point from all this? (Oh, and by the way, the lead did deal with the issue later by pointing out that we are focusing on changing behaviours to help the organization move forward,
and that managers in the organization need to model appropriate behaviours at all times). Well, you never know people as well as you think you do and, even when you've been around a long time and think you've encountered most situations in a facilitated environment, something can still come along and bite you. Essentially, as the heading picture (taken at the Airport Hotel, Freetown, Sierra Leone) shows, it's still a jungle out there and there's a long, long way to go.