I am just back from a week-long Learning Journey my colleague Shubhangi and I organised for a group of 10 very senior health-care professionals from the US who are on a Futures Task Force ... it was intensive, immersive and really very rewarding. It's been a Learning Journey for all of us - we formed a community of open minds and hearts, in our journey to shared understanding, and we learned so much from each other as a result.
The objective was to immerse them into a culture and people that provide such a wide range of healing traditions, and to understand models, not just in healthcare but otherwise too, that are serving a diverse population of more than a billion people in India. Some of the areas we covered:
- base-of-the-pyramid and top-of-the-pyramid models
- community projects in slums and rural areas - health, education, microfinance, govt and non-govt - the concept of self-help groups and decentralized bottom-up projects that empower women and other communities to understand and solve their own problems given societal pressures
- holistic approaches to healthcare
- innovations in telemedicine and ICT
- healthcare immersions at several levels - urban elite including medical tourism, urban poor, rural areas
- culture, religion and history
- immersions, conversations and screenings of films which let us view notions of Indian-ness and of a global India through different lenses: business, politics, society, culture, economics, environment, time, space ...
- deep dives into villages and slums
- Indian healing traditions
- conversations around pop culture, including Bollywood
- youth and technology - the leapfrog generation perspective
- social media which is being used for collective action
It was really exciting, although fairly exhausting on the organizing of content and logistics for a group this size. Our greatest challenge was to balance real immersion and free-flowing conversations with more formal content; to get them to experience as much of the real India as they could within a week, in all the dizzying contradictions it presents - and not one side of the coin that is often presented in Western media - that of urban India shining.
In Shubhangi's own words, which I echo fully:
"I think I experienced such 'dizzying contrasts', met so many wonderful people, listened to experts in different fields and soooo much more in those 7 days that I'm still quite overwhelmed and it will take time to come to grips with everything I learned."
I know our clients feel the same. Most of all, we had a lot of fun, and we were really blessed to have a group with us that was so open to all experiences, so humble, despite being CEO's of several hospitals in the developed world, and who didn't wince once when we got them to have a meal cooked by villagers or walk through the narrow alleys of Dharavi slum, or sit on bumpy cycle-rickshaws in Chandni Chowk.
Somehow I felt there was a soul connection with those they touched during the week - one of collective hope and renewal that is so empowering and essential for action. It's difficult to articulate - how can one explain that warm smile right from the heart, that respect and humbleness they showed and which was returned everytime in full and more, from their hosts in India who were so gracious and open and honest in sharing parts of their lives with them. Blowing all our stereotypes about divides and differences to bits! Images that stay in my mind are of the group chatting with villagers - despite language barriers - of children giving them big hugs while sending them off as if they were old friends! Thank you to my Clients and to all the folks from India who shared with each other so freely and openly. [Pic: one of Shubhangi's many wonderful pictures at Flickr].
It's been fantastic too and such a privilege to have worked with Nicole-Anne Boyer of Adaptive Edge, a friend from my Worldchanging days who is really the Learning Journey expert [pdf file] and is leading this project. I loved the way she let us loose and yet micro-managed the project when required! We learnt so much about the processes, and most of all about the presence of mind and the heart that's required in the balancing of provocation with gentle guidance, of surprise within a tightly scheduled itinerary, of energy with silent presence, of taking them to the edge of chaos and guiding them back gently, of experiencing groundedness with visions of the future. Thank you Nicole for trusting in us, and allowing us this immense experience together with you.
Thank you too Shubhangi, my colleague at Explore Research and Consultancy, and good friend over the last 12 years, for her quiet support and amazing patience with me when I was losing it, for all the work running up to the Learning Journey and during it, taking care that the content was just right, for plodding through all the planning, for the warmth and guidance she displayed towards our visitors - always with a smile on her face, and without once showing any annoyance at me even when I was at my bossy best!!
What a journey! I should be tired, but I feel such energy and hope. I've done several modules of immersions and deep dives and learning journeys as part of qualitative research and ethnography projects before - this was the first time we did such a comprehensive one - with just the one objective. I am now convinced that this is the one of the most powerful ways of getting groups out of their comfort zones and into really deep reflections in reframing value, innovation and when considering their own future in a very real and human way. It's something we have to do more often, even at Mosoci - its so good for the soul!
Will put up pictures and images from this in later posts - well over a thousand pictures taken by the group thru the week.
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