Beacons of Business - 36

[Guest guest]

Sairam Sisters and Brothers,

We will continue with Andrè L. Delbecq, D.B.A., Director - Institute for

Spirituality and Organisation Leadership, J. Thomas and Kathleen L. McCarthy

University Professor, Santa Clara University, Alameda, CA, USA.

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"Returning to my own effort, I began to conceive how to apply meditative

discipline as an intervention in situations associated with leadership. For

example, early in my spiritual journey, I was co-ordinating an international

meeting with academics. We were involved in the leadership of an organisation

that was going through a very difficult time of transition. There were some

people who had been with the organisation for many years and were very

concerned about maintaining important aspects of the culture that had been part

of their history. But there were new members who were searching for the

integration of new technology and perspectives from their generation. The

organisation was also getting larger and needed to become much more

professionalised and systematised. All of these elements came together around

restructuring the governance of the organisation. People were passionate

regarding both the past and hopes for the future. The meeting became more and

more tense.

Based on my experience with the Contemplative Mind in Society Fellowship, I

suggested the group enter into silence, and simply be with the meta-goals they

held in common, letting go of all preferences regarding means. Now I have spent

my whole life as a group facilitator, and thought of myself as a skilled

negotiator. I am very good at dealing with intellectual challenges and moving

toward innovation. But here, for the first time, I did something that I had

never done in my life: I facilitated silence. After 5 minutes of silence, I

asked the group to reflect out loud regarding the noble purpose of the

organisation, what we really wanted the organisation to achieve for others

seven generations from now. I then asked them to return again into silence.

This time I asked them to reflect on the question: "What are the gifts of each

person sitting at this table that we need to remind ourselves of?" After this

period of silence I asked everyone to go for a silent walking meditation in the

garden. Only then did we come back together to address the problems.

When we returned we had an electric sense of having stood at the edge of a

terribly destructive confrontation - one that could have immobilised the

organisation for a decade. This destructive confrontation was avoided because

we went into silence. Such an intervention would have never occurred to me

prior to the deepening of my spiritual journey and the Contemplative Practice

Fellowship. It was a very different leadership intervention for me."

© Global Dharma Center 2004

http://www.globaldharma.org