State of independence

19/5/2020

‘It’s about moving on in some way from point A, not necessarily to point B or C, but to some position beyond A.’ (Bill Rosseter)

I love Rosseter’s open definition of the fundamental goals of learning, development and education. We could argue this principle lays at the heart of leadership, coaching, training and facilitation too. After all, an axiom of Western thought is the unquestioned value of personal autonomy and agency. Applied more broadly in organisation development (OD), we can attach the same idea to teams, groups and organisations. It points towards an underlying and oft-implicit intention, trajectory and destination: from dependence towards ever-increasing independence: to stand on one’s own two feet.

And it’s not just theoretical. If, like me, you were born into a Western culture; perhaps especially into a UK proud-of-its-island-mentality culture, notice the connotations and feelings we associate with the words themselves: dependence vs independence. Dependence can sound and feel (negatively) weak, vulnerable and needy. Independence, by contrast, can sound and feel (positively) strong, resilient and resourceful. We see this language played out increasingly on the global-geopolitical stage too; with independence often being associated (desirably) with power, control and self-determination.

So, what could this look like in leadership, coaching, training and facilitation? Reg and Madge Batten, development pioneers against a backdrop of colonialism in Africa, proposed three distinctive forms of intervention that, when used well, can support a useful journey of empowerment. In paraphrase, there are things we can: (a) do for others; (b) enable others to do for themselves; and (c) leave others to do without us. Some critical questions this spectrum begs are: what is most facilitative (that is, enabling) for this person (or team, group, organisation) in this situation, at this time - and who decides?

There are further considerations too. The Battens (above) coined an important qualifying phrase, qualitative autonomy, stating: ‘We are interested not only in the fact of independence but also in its quality.’ Independence is not a values-neutral end in itself and, therefore, needs to be balanced with broader ethics and values in order to ensure holistic change. It is possible, for instance, to imagine a form of independence that is self-centric and limiting, undermining or exploitative of others; lacking any sense of altruism, mutuality-synergy or healthy interdependence; and, ultimately, self-defeating.

So, how do you work with people, teams or organisations to learn, develop and grow?
How far do you take your, and their, cultural backgrounds, beliefs and values into account?
How do you help ensure that wider people, relationships and systems are kept in view?

22 Comments

CHRIS lever link

19/5/2020 11:41:53 pm

Another excellent piece Nick. Thought provoking as always. For me there is a stage beyond independence which could be described as interdependence. As I approach senior years I reflect on a life which has achieved a bit where I delighted as an independent. Now I know that much of my present learning and growth is in intentionally giving that away to trusted others because I realize that I can’t know everything, feel everything or do everything. At last I don’t have to pretend to be everything to everyone... just be myself with all of my talents, insecurities hang ups and experiences that combined with the like from others perhaps allows us to see a greater whole. This feels more than collaboration to me. Of course I am still strong willed and want on occasions to do it my way but delight too when friends come along aside and show me a different path, approach or way of being. And if I trust them enough it is kind of liberating to let others lead. This feels more of a natural ebb and flow of things. In my work as a developer and passionate advocate of the leadership of change that is what I try and bring to my clients. Some call it system learning, I just call it being curious enough to let go

Nick Wright

20/5/2020 11:09:34 am

Thank you, Chris - and for sharing such deep and personal reflections too. You reminded me of Stephen Covey's 'maturity continuum': from dependence through independence to interdependence. I think I have traveled a similar journey in some ways, from a fairly ferocious spirit of independence (which partly stems from values embedded in my family and upbringing) to a more open flow between myself and others. I love your expression: 'I just call it being curious enough to let go.' Richard Marshall uses a great expression too, which reflects a cultural-systemic outlook and approach. Whatever happens: 'It's about you...but it's not only about you.'

Ian Henderson

20/5/2020 09:20:39 am

One of my favourite Jon and Vangelis songs. Donna Summer did a great take on it too!!!!! Seriously, great piece Nick.

Although it might depend on whether someone has a towards or away from preference?

20/5/2020 11:18:42 am

Thanks Ian. Yes, I had the Donna Summer version of that song in my head as I wrote the title for this blog...and it’s there again now! 🎶

I’m intrigued by your reflection on a preference for towards or away from. I hadn’t considered that dimension before. Can you say more, as I know you are a guru in this area?

On a related note, you may find this short piece interesting? http://www.nick-wright.com/blog/framed

Paul Santos

20/5/2020 10:56:40 am

Hello Nick. Great blog. In the poorer countries, we are less focused on independence and more on interdependence. Wealthy people believe they don't need each other. Poor people know that we do need each other. Perhaps it's the difference between material security and insecurity.

20/5/2020 11:42:39 am

Thanks Paul. I think that is a very profound and important insight. It certainly correlates with reflections from a Zimbabwean colleague, Rudo Kwaramba, who made similar observations having lived in rich Western and poorer African countries.

She also commented that it's one of the reasons why Western-imported ideas of 'development' often fail in Africa. People in the latter countries are far less likely to make changes that introduce any risks to established socio-cultural relationships and structures.

Colleagues working in other poorer countries have also noticed other challenges vis a vis personal agency and independence too; e.g. cultural 'fatalism' in Nepal; historical-embedded fear of showing initiative following Khmer Rouge atrocities in Cambodia.

('Challenge' is, of course, reflective of the perspective, beliefs and values of the person or party that considers it as such..!)

I've had the privilege of working alongside a woman activist among the poor in the Philippines whose distinctive outlook and approach is a great example of radical personal agency combined with radical interdependence: http://www.nick-wright.com/a-radical-heart.html

Richard Simpson

20/5/2020 11:45:05 am

Thanks for the post, Nick. As always, thought-provoking. The main thought it provoked was about the cultural freighting of the words 'dependence' and 'independence'. I chair a Charity in the UK which, so I tell people, uses enterprise to take women on a journey from dependence to independence. I'm also keen to add Covey's third part 'interdependence' to reflect the reintegration of their learning at a community level. Our ladies come from all kinds of backgrounds, many from other cultures. Your post has made me reflect on my assumptions around those labels and what they might mean to our ladies. Having just looked over our website again I see those words don't appear at all, which makes me think that we are aware of their cultural 'western' freighting. And of course, there is no compulsion on anyone to use our services, so if our words don't attract them they don't have to become involved.

21/5/2020 03:47:55 pm

Thanks Richard. It’s great to hear that you incorporate interdependence into your approach. Do you have any examples you could share of how you do this? As I read your note, I played with the notion of 'to take women on a journey' in light of Reg & Madge Batten's spectrum of (in shorthand) do-for, do-with and don’t do. We could ask, for instance, whose journey it is...or, what agency each party plays in the journey, including as it evolves. Does that make sense?

Richard Simpson link

21/5/2020 04:03:50 pm

Hi Nick - the most obvious answer to your question about 'interdependence' is that our ladies form their own community through coming together with my charity (their website is in the box) for a common purpose. Whilst we provide services (training etc) we are also highly sensitive to the social and personal benefits our ladies gain by simply meeting other women similar to themselves. The social impact of our work - at any level above the individual - is difficult to assess but we are working with Newcastle University Business School on a number of fronts, one of which is to measure and evaluate our social impact and help us better meet the needs of our client group. I am confident we 'do-with' our ladies. There is structure, of course there is but it's not a Procrustean bed like many Government schemes. Hope this helps.

21/5/2020 07:30:06 pm

Hi Richard. 'Procrustean bed' is new to me - I had to Google it! Yes, it sounds like you are facilitating opportunities that support the initiatives and relationships of the women themselves, rather than simply doing-for or doing-to. The question of how so evaluate social impact is a really complex one. I would love to hear more about your work with NUBS - please do keep us posted as it progresses!

Katharine

20/5/2020 09:00:42 pm

Thanks Nick
Great article, the 3 paraphrased points (a,b,c) reminded me of the importance of being with:
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9ob3BlZnVsYWN0aXZpc3RzLmNhcHRpdmF0ZS5mbS9mZWVk/episode/NTE3ZWIyMGQtM2RjNC00YjcwLWJkYmMtNzZmODRkM2JiYjQw

20/5/2020 09:28:06 pm

Thanks Katharine. Thanks for sharing the podcast link too. I like the emphasis on being-with, as distinct from necessarily, in an activist sense, doing something to or with others.

Erik Weber

21/5/2020 06:16:19 pm

Ein Beispiel: Flüchtlinge zu ihrer Unabhängigkeit im neuen Land zu verhelfen ist das Ziel. Vieles ist neu, macht Angst, ist ungewohnt und kompliziert. Der Weg zur Unabhängigkeit ist anstrengend, Rückschläge, aber auch Fortschritte werden gemeinsam erlebt. Wenn es gelungen ist, dass sie selbständig mit ihrem kulturellen Hintergrund in der neuen Kultur leben können oder immer mehr Entscheidung allein treffen können und dürfen, ist das Ziel erreicht. Aus dem Miteinander wird ein Zustand der Unabhängigkeit - für beide Seiten. Wieder neu und ungewohnt.

21/5/2020 07:39:46 pm

Danke, Erik. Ich denke, das Beispiel, das Sie anbieten, ist auf so vielen verschiedenen Ebenen tiefgreifend und komplex. Wenn Flüchtlinge in eine neue und (zumindest in gewisser Weise) andere Kultur eingeführt werden, kann die Frage, wie „Unabhängigkeit“ bewahrt werden kann und was dies bedeutet, sehr schwierig sein. Wenn sie zum Beispiel kulturelle Überzeugungen oder Verhaltensweisen beibehalten möchten, die im Widerspruch zur Gastkultur stehen, was passiert dann? Was ist, wenn eine Partei (ob Flüchtlinge oder Gastgeber) durch die Ausübung ihrer Unabhängigkeit die Unabhängigkeit einer anderen Partei verletzt? Ich mag Ihre Idee, gemeinsam ein neues Gefühl der „Unabhängigkeit“ zu finden und zu schaffen. Das macht es zu einem Joint Venture und schafft dadurch eine größere Erfolgschance. Haben Sie Beispiele für ein solches Unternehmen, das Sie hier teilen könnten?

21/5/2020 09:56:00 pm

Danke für deine Antwort Nick!
Hier ist ein Beispiel mit meinen Nachbarn, die Flüchtlinge sind. Manchmal machen sie etwas das mich nervt. Ich verstehe ihr Verhalten oder ihr Tun nicht. Wenn ich sie bitte, mir alles zu erklären, kann ich sie besser verstehen. Danach erzähle ich ihnen wie wir es hier bei uns machen. So wird eine Brücke zwischen den Kulturen gebaut.

21/5/2020 10:00:15 pm

Vielen Dank für das persönliche und praktische Beispiel Erik. Ja, wenn wir neugierig auf die Überzeugungen und Werte sind, die hinter dem Verhalten einer Person oder Gruppe stehen, können wir manchmal Empathie finden und fühlen, selbst wenn die Handlungen oder Verhaltensweisen uns fremd sind. Zu diesem Thema finden Sie diesen verwandten kurzen Artikel vielleicht interessant? http://www.nick-wright.com/blog/fantasy

Steve Travis

25/5/2020 02:32:32 pm

Hi Nick. I like your blog. I had not heard of Reg and Madge Batten but they sum up what I practice and think is good practice:-) Part of this approach I’ve picked up from others (World Vision for example 'Do/Don’t do/Assure’) and part from my own trial and error experience. My simple rule has been never 'do anything for others they can do for themselves’. Of course, when applying this communities can start to wonder what you’re doing there if you’re not bringing anything to the table!

I’m not sure about independence, interdependence and dependence, if the concepts are that helpful. Communities are complicated places that outsiders can never understand. One thing for sure is power is at play. I like Gaventa’s power cube for describing the different dimensions, forms and levels of power relations. https://www.powercube.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/finding_spaces_for_change.pdf

I was chatting to some people living with HIV in Nepal, one thing they struggled with, a thing that held them back, was not so much stigma in the community about HIV but their self-stigma-how they felt and thought about themselves. Together, they were able to help each other, only a person with HIV that had changed how they saw themselves could help another person do the same. Taking a person from feel lost and despairing to place of hope and 'independence'. But it took interdependence, and a level of desperation, to get there.

This is an example of how I approach 'community development/change'. Internal stories and external stories weaving with each other. One person with HIV and told themselves a story about their condition (internal) and it took them hearing another persons story (external) to adjust their own, and to see there was another way of feeling about themselves.

It is the same with communities. All communities, teams, whatever, have a story. There are always good things and bad things. As a practitioner I can facilitate a community to tell their story. It is great to watch them discover things about themselves they had not known until they named them. And to share another communities good things stories with them. I’m aware of the subjectivity here-me choosing what is good or not good. True, enough it’s complicated and occasional shocking. For example, FGM is a good thing, clearly. Or the witch doctors remedies and excruciating pain from stage 4 cancer is better than your morphine. With both these the discussion, the debate and the change come from within in the community. The external persons role is to ask the question ‘are you sure this is right?’, and look for the change agent from within, in malnutrition practice it is called looking for the ‘positive deviant’. The family that is not suffering from malnutrition, what are they eating, what is their story.

There are many examples. Village savings and credit groups, you could say the practice was developed and refined by CARE International but village ‘tontines’ in Africa existed long before CARE even existed as an organisation. The success of a village savings and credit groups is they are actually an internal story refined by an external story. So they wove together nicely.

Before now I’ve taken the UN Convention on Child Rights into a community and said another community in a place called New York came up with these. I wondered what you think about them? What do you like about them, not like about them? how are they different to your own ways of doing things (policies) here? Perhaps, they say we have to hit our children to discipline them. I ask 'Why do you think this community in New York thinks differently? Why might they think there is a different way? Is there a different way? It would be unusual not to find a ‘positive deviant’ in the group that say they think it is wrong to hit their children. So the discussion goes on, so the change goes on. I do not own that change. I can only listen to and tell stories. Change or not is up to them. I can only hope the Kingdom of God prevails. It is what I like about Jasmin in your previous blogs, she brings a Jesus story to what she does and how she does it to those she meets. She says ‘here’s a different story, a different way, I like it, I think it’s a good way, the only way’.

So Bill Rosseter is a genius in summing it up as 'It’s about moving on in some way from point A, not necessarily to point B or C, but to some position beyond A.’ (Bill Rosseter)

25/5/2020 06:38:36 pm

Thank you, Steve. Wow - and thank you for sharing such depth of insight and experience in the community development arena. I had flashbacks to working in community development in the UK many years ago now. I remember discovering that issues on the agenda for many local people were often quite different to those imagined by (or important to) statutory authorities 'for' those communities.

I notice too how many resonances there are in the underlying principles and approaches you described with other facilitative and developmental fields of practice; e.g. leadership, coaching, organisation development etc. My own background in community development has certainly influenced profoundly my own beliefs and practice in those arenas.

The idea of introducing different ideas and stories, then facilitating a process of grappling critically with them, reminded me of Hegel's dialectical principles. It's different to, say, reflection and reasoning within a closed group that can become self-reinforcing, collusive or overly-influenced by the perceived and actual power figures within the group. By contrast, introducing alternatives from outside, or 'outsiders', creates the possibility of discovery, of something new.

I liked your description of 'positive deviant'. It reminded me of Jasmin, whom you mentioned, in a short piece I wrote at the weekend: Radical: http://www.nick-wright.com/radical.html. Jasmin's t-shirt with its emblazoned message: 'Well-behaved women rarely make history', which reflects so well her outlook and stance in the world, speaks so powerfully to that positive spirit of dissent within her own community.

I haven't heard of Gaventa's power cube before so I'll definitely have a look at that. Thank you for providing the link. I will spend some time now reflecting on your thoughts and experiences. Thank you again for sharing in such great depth. Much appreciated.

Wilf Marshall

30/5/2020 12:31:02 pm

Interesting piece, Nick, particularly as the debate about the true role and responsibilities of the L&D function spreads further. One of my concerns is that is that too many in L&D see their role as predominantly at the a) part of The Battens continuum. It can be an easier place to operate, particularly in the face of demands (real or perceived) to develop people.

30/5/2020 12:37:10 pm

Thanks Wilf. Yes, I share a similar concern when I hear L&D and related professions describe themselves simply as 'service providers' in organisations. You may find a couple of related pieces on that theme interesting, aimed at broadening perspective, diversifying approaches and increasing the scope for adding value:

http://www.nick-wright.com/the-partnership-business.html
http://www.nick-wright.com/a-partnership-approach.html

30/5/2020 01:36:35 pm

Nick, I believe there is a 'service role' for L & D.

A particular goal of mine is to get individuals to accept and be held accountable for their own professional development. Often job descriptions ask managers to develop their teams, but they never ask the individual to develop him/her self.

In these situations, there is a service role for L & D in ensuring individuals can access appropriate learning i.e. relevant to their needs (now and future), good learning (not teaching) and good value (foreseeable RoI), and developing the organization's capability as well as the individual's.

This is not a passive role. It is fundamental to organizational development and performance. And it is certainly not just a delivery role. It is professional development at its best.

30/5/2020 01:41:44 pm

Hi Wilf. Yes, indeed. I worked with one organisation, World Vision, that had a very strong emphasis on individuals (and teams) taking responsibility for their own personal and professional development. This was regarded as a core element of 'personal leadership'. The organisation would then partner with individuals (and, where appropriate teams) in relation to their development where there was a coincidence of interests. It was a very powerful cultural model that reinforced qualities such as agency, responsibility, passion, partnership, contribution and impact.