Obstinacy and patience (some personal/professional sharing - long)

[WB-TrainingConsultingDevelopment]

Dear oslist,

To be able to be obstinate and patient at the same time seems to be my main learning program of the last years in development cooperation contexts in Africa.

Looking up from my laptop screen in front of me
I can see three notes fixed on the wall
One says "PATIENCE" in very big letters in my native language (GEDULD)
And then there is "Its never to late to do nothing"
(I think it was Chris who posted it from his humble Zen calender)
and Harrison's Carrie Snow citation "No day is so bad..."
helping me to stabilize the 'right' attitude within my body/spirit/soul.

Organization Development Consultants have to contribute to Organization Development
The international Cooperation Development 'machine' has to contribute to Development

If the people in this machine who contract and pay consultants don't get the impression that your contribution has impact, is effective and efficient with regard to their strong will to have control over the steps towards the objectives of Dev.Coop. they will not contract and pay you...

So it is not easy to seperate from the addiction to outcomes

Last week the top manager of my main client, after having analized the proposal to create an enlarged micro-universe of stakeholders, with a big provincial OST event for all stakeholders of the intended "systemic integrated, participative, equitative and interactive District Development" in the center of the consultancy intervention which the OD consultancy core team (1 external, that's me, and one internal advisor for District Development) had prepared decided to postpone it for another half year.

This decision was a good one I think, because the main argument was, that the urgency criteria is not really fulfilled (alias: people accept to continue suffering very easily around here), but emotionally jI was quite disappointed, because of my attachment to "a wish" which is emotionally connected to my vision of some big provincial OST event (big means here about 100-200 persons, larger events are logistically not manageable outside the capital Maputo, at least not without some very strong and not advisable external interventions).

So I continue with my private patience programm and with my acupunture interventions (i.e. opening closed channels at strategic meridians) of many little an micro OS facilitations within the Rural Area Development Program and with the OS learning activities of its nacional facilitators.

I look at my disappointment and laugh
Everything fine here with me

The maior part of the population around here DO HAVE problems:
There was a bad drought until 2000; 2000 the information about our big floods went around the media world; 2001/2002 another drought continuing until some weeks ago, then strong rainfalls and did not stop until yesterday, around March 4 the cyclone Japhet produced a lot of destruction and the day before yesterday the alert network informed us that the flood level in some areas of the country (around river Save) is 20 cm over the
water-marks of 2000. No crops at all at the machangas/little farms of many many many people in southern Africa.

Bernd
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wb-trainconsult at gmx.net 12.03.2003 at 08:25:27 (GMT/UT + 02:00)
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Bernd Weber
Organization Development Consultant
"DEVELOP YOUR CAPACITIES - MATERIALIZE YOUR VISION"
C.P. 1462, Beira, Sofala, MOZAMBIQUE
fone: +258-3-32 98 59, cellfone:+258-82-43 79 77
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