There are some of us who find yoga to be a transformative, relaxing way of being and others who struggle through, gamely trying to be quiet as we topple over, wobble or lie flat and inactive hoping the instructor doesn’t notice. I belong to the latter while hoping to reach the former. I keep striving, and falling. One day I’ll make the pose, it was not today.
While contemplating trying to get my nose closer to my toe, my mind wanders off to my latest insight. In my line of work, change is planned with methodical precision. Depending on the change methodology being used, there are tools and techniques for every stage of the process. This structure always reassures the client; it makes change seem linear, manageable, controlled. It can be charted and measured, tweaked and adapted, recorded and reported. It will all work out the way it says on the plan.
However, reality is, change is messy. Unless you’re discussing system or technical change requiring no human intervention, this happens once in a blue moon; most of the time, change involving living breathing humans is rarely controlled and structured no matter what the charts and spreadsheets tell you. So change managers learn to be flexible and adaptable; managing client expectations with swan like serenity as their brain and feet run nineteen to the dozen with possibilities, interventions and persuasions to get the change programme back on track.
Living in Barbados is akin to managing constant change. Ironic when culturally the local people seem so change adverse. As expats here we make plans, only to change them given the time it takes to travel, or the heat intensity of the sun, or the need to be flexible to accommodate others, or the changing weather, or that someone has had another bright idea. Dinner party plans can be thrown as not all the ingredients needed are available that day/week, or football or exercise classes cancelled because the players or instructor have other things to do. The internet goes down so work needs to be rearranged, the water doesn’t run as somehow where we live has problems with water supply. The queue for the bank is so long, plans to run other errands are put off to the following day. In Barbados, being flexible is a prerequisite to a peaceful existence with the ability to not stress and worry when plans change at the last-minute.
This type of living is not for everyone and some visitors struggle with the lack of structure or the inability to stick with and execute a plan hatched the night before but changed by morning circumstances.
I get it. I used to love putting structure around every aspect of my life. My mental wardrobe was full of neatly stacked boxes, compartmentalised, organised, indexed and never to be messed up. Correspondingly I spent my energy trying to manage and stretch time to suit. Today, as the Bajan way of being dripplingly seeps into my daily activities, my attitude is also changing; I am way more open to compromise, to taking the time to properly listen without expressing my inner view. Today I have time for discussion, for genuine enquiry and curiousity to emerge. This approach has the benefits I used to talk about but rarely do; building deeper trust and mutual respect, learning differently about others and their perspectives. Flexing and being adaptive to circumstances of today, putting the building blocks of trust in the bank for next week or month or year.
This insight deepens my change practice. For delivery of any successful people-change programme requires the upfront analysis and planning time to be split 70/30. 70% of time is on relationship building, observing , enquiring, deeply listening, activities which are way beyond the talking and the words on the wall. 30% of our energy is on structure change; the charts and maps and “as is” / “to-be” process analysis. Splitting our time investment this way means that change delivery time is quicker and output more useful and productive. And that the process of adapting through change is not feared or hidden from view but is instead welcomed as a demonstration of engagement and ownership.
As our staycation plans change once more, I’m realising that my feelings of disappointment and irritation and anger and frustration are just minuscule moments in time. What matters is the bedrock of friendship and relationship remains intact. Connection, care and love are worth way more than getting worked up about how and what we do today.
The siege of Aleppo means these Mothers don’t know from day to day, hours to hour, if their children will survive. Will they die from a shell strike from somewhere and someone unknown, or from a sniper’s bullet from a fighter hiding out in this atrocity of a city? Perhaps they will go more slowly, in a hospital which has no drugs or supplies to stop their piercing pain, their blood from flowing, their screams of agony. Or maybe death will come from malnutrition as no food has been allowed to get into the city for months and months. These Mothers, like all Mothers the world over, fret about the basics. “Is my child safe and secure?” “Does my child have food and water to survive?” “Can I provide for my child?” As any psychologist will tell you, without these basics, what we know, or think we know, counts for nothing. We are reduced to our elemental selves. Humanity and human are two different concepts when our backs are so far to the wall we are leaving our shadows imprinted in the brickwork.