help, please

Julie Smith jsmith at mosquitonet.com
Sat Nov 15 12:17:15 PST 2003


Greetings ~

It's amazing how life keeps supporting whatever lesson we're working on.
This morning I received this message from a colleague who participated
in one of my earliest OST's with a handful of tribal council folks from
several villages:

I was wondering if you might be interested in the possiblity of doing
some "Team Building" type training out in the villages.  I haven't
thought through how the training would go, that would sort of be up to
you.  But I was thinking that something like "team building" would be a
very positive thing for some of the tribal councils that I work with.

I discussed this possiblity with my co-workers and they were all very
supportive of the idea.

If you think that you might be interested in this type of thing, then
maybe we could meet and talk more about the details to see if it is
possible.

Let me know what you think :)

When I started reflecting on our first experience together, I remembered
that this had been a very difficult OST.  The theme had something to do
with conflict resolution.  I did the opening and then "got out of the
way" so they could self-organize and learn from and with each other.  I
really believe in the power of all that stuff.  But the energy was flat.
Things just didn't move.  People seemed to simply be rehashing what had
already been hashed through before.  No fresh insights to speak of.
They clearly wanted that spark of new insight and inspiration, but it
just wasn't happening.  After a few hours of talking, they wanted more
help from me in understanding how they might do things differently.
They very clearly and directly asked for more help from me.   I resisted
participation, and expressed confidence in their ability to find the
answers they needed from within themselves and within the group.  They
resisted my resistance.  In the end, I talked with them a bit about what
it means to collaborate, to engage in mutual problem-solving that relies
on and respects the input of everyone.  We talked about how
collaboration changes the dynamics of human interaction, and how that
approach might help.  But it felt like too little, too late.  Overall, I
felt out of sync with OST, and out of sync with them.  It wasn't one of
my brightest moments.

And now that I think about how it FELT when they asked for my help, I
realize I didn't have that sense of them asking me as an expert to solve
their problems for them.  It didn't have that us-them quality about it.
Rather, it felt very real and authentic, like they were asking me as
another human being to share my knowledge and insight to help them find
their way out of desperate situations.  (The situation in many places in
Alaska is truly desperate.  And tragic.  Things are so unbalanced in
some areas that suicide rates, especially for young Native Alaska men,
are among the highest anywhere in the world.  And that doesn't count the
countless "accidents" that result in injury or death.  Many communities
are very small, perhaps several hundred people, so the impact of each
person on the community as a whole is magnified.  Everything and
everyone deeply matters.  And in addition to whatever else is happening,
the community is typically engaged in deep grieving over many kinds of
losses from the recent and distant past.)

And so I wonder what ideas any of you might have about how to approach
this request.   I'm interested in thoughts about OST and also other
approaches that might come to mind.   I appreciate any and all ideas ~

Julie







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