The
October 14th-20th EAP Provincial Council Meeting in Nairobi was preceded by a
two-days workshop. The workshop was about Process Oriented Leadership and
Organisational Transformation. It was animated by Fr. Yago Abeledo,
M. Afr. from Lavigerie Formation House – Jinja. The participants were the
twelve provincial council members.
We
began the workshop reflecting on the following challenging invitation of Pope
Francis: “Pastoral Ministry in a Missionary key seeks to abandon the complacent
attitude that says: ‘We have always done it this way.’ I invite every one to be
bold and creative in this task of re-thinking the goals, structures, style and
methods of evangelisation in their respective communities.” [Pope Francis, The
Joy of the Gospel, No. 33]
The
themes of the workshop included; the meaning of process, process thinking,
process oriented attitudes [such as; looking at reality with a beginner’s
mind, readiness for unpredicability, non-judgemental attitude, concerned with
the overall process, non-dualistic thinking, meaning not “either-or” but
“both-and”!, etc.], emotional intelligence [the ability to process meaningfully
the emotional information that comes from our bodies all the time!] and the
introduction of a holistic model for conflict transformation called ‘the
Butterfly Model’. This model invites us to explore the relationship between
different levels of conflict (personal, communitarian, organizational and
social), how is connected with the past and the strategy to reach a desired
future. We worked together look ing at our EAP reality through this holistic
framework. We could name hot issues and motivational forces present at EAP. We
payed special attention to repressed emotional forces that drive our behaviour
if kept unnoticed and unnamed. The goal was to access information that often
stays marginalised.
We
also explored another process-oriented group dynamic called “Group Process”,
the members of the Provincial Council got involved in a spontaneous debate
where role flexibility was encouraged. The debriefing of the experience was
revealing. An inspirational video of Sister Joan Chittester, OSB, on “God and the evolutionary mind” invited us to reflect on questions such as: What are the
current Failures in the EAP? How are we dealing with them? How are we
Co-creating with God in the EAP? What are some of Process Oriented Attitudes in
the EAP? What is Preventing us for having Process Attitudes?
In sum, the workshop was interactive and readily enaging. And – M. Afr. being
“faster learners”, some of the workshops group dynamics and analysis and
discussion tools were employed during the PC meeting that followed the
workshop. A word of gratitude to Fr. Yago for introducing the participants to
all these different ways of analysis and group dynamics.
One
could arguably say that this workshop was a “training of trainers”
exercise. The participants did not only use the insights during the PC
meeting. They will carry them along to be utilised in their communities
and pastoral places.
Paddy Nuwe-Agabah, M.Afr.
