Footprints on the Mountainside

I am planning to conduct some outdoor experiential learning programmes specially for couples this year. I saw a need, when I caught an angry exchange between a husband and wife there the wife accused the husband of neglecting her in favour of his friends, and the husband claimed that she just wasn’t “on the same frequency”.

This is very similar to problems we see in corporate and other training programmes, yet, there is hardly anything that targets such an important intimate relationship in terms of facilitating harmony. The more i thought on this exchange, the more I was convinced that it is definitely worthwhile to invest time in ensuring quality relationships with our spouses.

To plan for the programme, which by now was inevitable (in my mind), I decided to focus on common areas of difficulty in husband-wife relationships, so that they could allow me a framework to plan my programmes around. Here is a list of what I see as the cheif hurdles to harmoniour co-existence in couples.

1. Great expectations of an ideal: These are actually stereotypes. Their chief problem is their unrealstic nature. Those ideals are not based on the person they are applied to and therefore are often seen as accusations when lack is expressed. This includes everyday things like “You should keep the house tidy” or exotic ones like “If you loved me, you would…..” The bottom line is that we can expect something from people, but expecting from concepts is always going to create fitting problems when we attempt to apply them to real people. It would be far better to expect from a person, and be willing to make an investment of personal effort to come half way. eg. “I think that if we work together, the house can be tidied quite easily” and then proceed to walk your talk.
2. Immersion in “roles”: When people start playing and seeing the role, more than the person. When Anna becomes “my wife” more often than Anna the person. This kind of brings a certain anonymity to feelings. You may feel anything about Anna, but as your wife, this is what you think of her. The problem with this is that if you do it often enough, poor Anna has no way of knowing if you even think of her any more, or is she only a wife now? How many of us honestly make continuing efforts to keep discovering new interests and experiences our spouses collect? Do we really love some person who is now obsolete and is replaced by someone with different interests and more experience than we think?
3. Taking for granted: Small things that attracted the couple together start becoming the background music, and the search is on, for a “spark of novelty”. The whimsical nature that once charmed, is now the usual when it does something outstanding, and the ultimate carelessness when it fails. The effort to find novel details in what we find charming is often replaced by an effort to find something altogether different. Well….. common sense tells me, if I have an apple, I can look forward to its taste, its smell, some apple cider, an apple tree….. and so on. There is a problem, if I hold an apple and search for the scent of citrus, while ignoring the apple smell, because its always there.
4. Lack of creative expression: This is when efforts to convey a point stop considering it worthwhile to explore ways of communicating that will lead to maximum acceptance or an effort to make them interesting. Facts stated, and to hell with how they are perceived. What happened to the time, when you even dressed to tempt, and paid attention to everything you did and said, to please and gain acceptance. Why expect the fascination the efforts earned for you, if those efforts are now absent? It was a result of what you did. You do it again, and you’ll see the results again.
5. Insufficient communication: Very often, small irritations are not addressed until they become big issues. Small things are easier to deal with, than greater things. It is far more easy to say “Please call if you’re going to be late” than reach a position where you need to say “You never care that there is someone waiting for you at home”. It is a worthwhile initiative in terms of hurt for both. I may not realise that I am doing something that hurts you, but if you point it out and I see that it hurts you, I am unlikely to want to do it regardless of what you feel. But if I am in the habit of doing something that turns out to be something that has been hurting you for a long time, I am likely to feel left out that you didn’t feel close enough to tell me so, until you were forced by circumstances.
6. Auto-pilot: The married life becomes the launch pad for “real life”, where the married life ceases to be a significant facet of life and is simply consigned to “situation”. Well…. situation it is. However, this simplification overlooks that it is a situation you want. Overlook it often enough, and it will cease to matter. If the home is consistently considered to be a “non-happening” place of stability, it does help by making us more stable and balanced in our interactions with the world. But this source of stability also needs updates, if it is to work as planned. You cannot take a snapshot and hide behind it until eternity. For the home to truly bring that balance into our lives, we need to be alert to the stuff happening inside it. To see what is not working, to figure it out, to keep relationships fresh and involved, so that they are close by us. It is not the walls that are the home, it is the people in it and you’re one of them.
7. Independent dreams: Well… dreams are always personal, but when we fail to communicate them with our spouses, until the first concrete action is taken, they suddenly leave the spouses out of the process, and turn them into spectators. In such a situation, i would feel completely left out and considered incapable of being trusted with dreams and plans or of constructive contribution. I would have felt that I was being considered irrelevant to the core wishes of my spouse and that would definitely have hurt me and made me feel unsure of what could turn up later.
8. Acceptance of failure: We wouldn’t dream of accepting that we failed at work and meekly resign. Yet, many couples accept that they failed as a couple and contemplate divorce/seperation. No relationship worth having comes easy. To a certain extent, maybe, but if one has to go beyond that, it takes considerable skill and efforts. Accepting failure is simply admitting that you cannot get along well with someone on a close level. I fail to see how “people change” is applicable to such a great extent in explaining away this failure. Where were you when the people were changing that you couldn’t adapt to it? Professional scenarios change far more frequently, and you don’t even get to live with them. Yet, it is interest that sustains this constant adaptation, and if you cannot sustain interest in a spouse you fell in love with, it is indeed a failure - a failure to take relationships beyond the initial levels. Divorce may seem an easy option, but it doesn’t teach you anything expect “running away worked” and you run the same risk, until you learn to be careful to keep a caring eye on the relationship.
9. Greener pastures: There is a certain ease and novelty in new relationships, that seems far more attainable than sustaining a relationship. The tempting “start with a clean slate” attitude fails to take into consideration, that every relationship will progress to deeper and more difficult levels. One can constantly keep making fresh beginnings that pose less risk, but these willl also bring less stability, until they can be enriched to a certain level. Most relationships I see failing are more out of personal shortcomings than incompatibility, and these problems will haunt the person until he or she learns to deal with them.
10. The evil of compromise: Compromise is an essential aspect of life. It is easy to compromise on smaller things than take hold of ourselves firmly and make the compromises that matter. A compromise that works as a temporary patch to a lasting problem is very tempting to make, but hardly helps in the long run, while a compromise that fixes an issue well is difficult to identify and commit to, because if often brings a sense of “losing” an argument. Quick fix compromises need regular patch ups, while the more difficult ones last longer, but are difficult to make in the first place. It takes a lot of courage to resolve a difficult situation through compromise.

Enough said, I think.

Very often, when I conduct programmes for run of the mill employees in smaller businesses, a recurring dissatisfaction for employers seems to be a lack of motivation and initiative among employees. Employees on the other hand, seem to think themselves “doing what they are paid for” and feel it is unfair of employeers to be constantly applying pressure for performance. Not that anyone says it in so many words….

This mismatch of expectations and delivery mints me a fortune, yet it is such an obvious thing, that sometimes I wonder why people can’t see it.

If you buy an apple, you get to eat an apple. If you want an orange, that’s what you have to set out to buy as well. Yet, I find such a basic thing missing in practical life.

I have seen hiring scenarios, where “dependable”, “qualified” and “budget” rule. The eccentric geniuses are walked by, in favour of the “stable” guys. Paper qualifications are important, as is not spending too much. Why would someone you hire in such a scenario turn out to be a creative genius at work? If he has all the qualifications, but is willing to come cheap, surely, it doesn’t make him an equal in terms of delivery with the dream employee in your mind, who you can’t afford - of course. I fail to see where is the problem. You are eating the apples you purchased.

The truth is, that many small employers would prefer to get someone inexpensive and spend time and money grooming this person into the dream employee. I have even seen plenty of “management training” businesses do this. So many people do this all the time, that it never ceases to surprise me that this “method” is still in practice after a consistent record of unsatisfactory results. Goes to show that temptation goes beyond rational behaviour.

What happens in practice is that the work in terms of quantity as well as quality delivered by this budget employee is far less than the dream one, even if there were a ratio to be considered. That dream guy could replace three of these and still find time to skip off home early everyday. Yet, the temptation of “saving money” works each time. Now the employer is not satisfied with his apples, because they don’t taste like his favourite or

This is a memory from a long time ago. Way before I figured out the internet beyond checking mail. This is a time when I was a nomadic horsewoman in the Himalaya.
I was living in the high pastures of the Kullu valley with my herd of horses. We were in the pastures below the Hampta Pass - about a 6 hour walk from Manali. The winter had been rough, and we were just camping out in the high altitude pastures where we leave them for the summers, supplementing their diet with some grain, to help them catch on on their health a bit faster.

What a place to be in! We were camped in the meadows at Juara. Alpine meadows - the air is crisp, the water is crystal clear and flows right through the pasture. A few empty stone structures that would later become nomadic tea stalls plus camps of herb gatherers dotted the scene, with sheer black cliffs rising on both sides in stark contrast with the lush comfort of the place. A place straight from some fantasy tale. Once could believe some nature spirits living here, particularly on moonlit nights, when the scene goes black and white, with the moonlight strong enough in places to register come colour. What a life - the horses living free around me, prancing with their improving condition. Pye, my bitch, by my side and the sounds of the stream for company.

The days were pretty idle. Feeding the horses a couple of times a day was no pain - they used to come happily enough for the treat. Beyond that…. not much to do. Cooking, enjoying the paradise I was living in, early to bed, early to rise. Perhaps an occasional visit to Sethan - the last village on this route, and the only fully Buddhist village in the entire Kullu valley, where my god-family lived. A timeless idyll.

Occupation came in an unexpected way. A gaddi camp was passing by, planning to camp a little higher than the pasture we were in. I recognised the shepherd, and invited him for a cup of tea. When he saw me, he decided to camp near our camp itself.

Over a cup of tea, I realized why.

A filly of his, had been attacked by a bear a week ago, and had been hurt badly. Originally, believing that she would die anyway, he hadn’t taken her to a vet. But she hadn’t yet died. She was in a bad way, with her wounds infected, and was struggling to keep up with the moving camp, to follow her mother. This was creating a problem, as the mare used to keep waiting for her, and slowing the caravan.

I had already gained a solid reputation as an animal lover, and my animals were often a point of interet for local livestock owners for the glowing condition I used to maintain them in. Plus, I was gaining a reputation as an enthusiastic “unofficial vet” from the knowledge of animal medicine I used to gather for the well-being of my horses in a land where vets were not easily available, and often very far from the place of need.

He wanted me to take a look at the filly and see if there was any hope for her, as well as see if she could be put down, if there wasn’t. I refused flat out to put her down, as I am not of the opinion that animals should be killed when they are fighting to recover. Plus I lacked the kind of knowledge and equipment it would take to put her down. I agreed to take a look and see what I could do for her.

We went out into the pasture and unloaded his horses to set up camp and then look for the filly. She was in a bad way. She was sleeping, exhausted at the end of the pasture without even coming to join the herd, once she saw that they had halted.

We got her up and brought her up to my tent and tied her in front of it. I started to take a good look at her and see what it was that I was up against.

She was a beautiful, black filly. Three months old, lovely conformation - she would have made a fine mare when she grew up, if she survived this scenario. Her rump and neck was covered with deep gashes from the bear’s claws, and a week of neglect had allowed infection to settle in. Most of the gashes had developed pus, and a couple had maggots in them. My whole being recoiled at the thought of having to clean up this mess.

If I had to save this filly, I had to do it, no matter how repulsive it was. I felt a surge of anger at the shepherd for neglecting her treatment like that, and vented my fury in choice words, yelling at him and his wife for being callous to the very animals that made their livelihood possible.

The filly stood there shivering from the early morning air and her exhaustion.

I made the couple promise to rest in the pasture for at least a week, before I would touch the filly - it was pointless to begin something, if it wouldn’t be sustained. As an incentive, I praised the quality of the filly, and asserted that she would become a very valuable animal and bring him good money and work very well, if she was helped to recover. This seemed to strike a note of interest.

I had some anitbiotic injections in my animal first-aid kit. I gave her a shot. She hardly noticed. Then I knew, that I had to get over my nausea and actually deal with those wounds, and took a look at my medical supplies. They were minimal. The anti-septic I had, would hardly deal with half the wounds she had before running out. The same with the creams. Now what? I shoved the supplies back into my sack, and kept only the bottle of phenyl. The rest would have to be home remidies (which was what I preferred in any case).

I made a strong solution of tea in a huge pot and used that to clean the wounds. Yes, I just plunged in, and cleaned them all thoroughly, pus, maggots and all, till the flesh showed clean. Some of the deeper wounds still harboured maggots - of that, I was sure, so I used some gauze soaked in phenyle on them to dress them. On the rest, I applied a light film of honey and stuffed them full with crushed garlic.

All done, I walked away from the tent area and puked.

The evening saw a repeat performance. On the next day, the maggot wounds were clean too, and they received the honey and garlic treatment, and by that evening, some of the lighter cuts had begun to heal, and the filly was acting more interested in life, and giving me trouble to catch for treatment But she seemed to understand that I was trying to help, so she flinched and nudged with her nose, if it hurt, but never tried to kick at me or hurt me in any way.

After that, I taught the couple how to do what I was doing, and told them that they would have to repeat this till ALL the wounds were healed, and that the filly could probably begin walking in a day or two.

They seemed to have got the point, and the two days were uneventful - so to say (not counting one of my fillies who seemed to be jealous of all the attention this one was getting)

The time was up, and the gaddi camp moved on, and the filly became another memory, until a few years later, when I ran across the same gaddi again. There was a beautiful mare in his herd - the one I had treated. I recognised her instantly and was happy for her. The couple put camp once more, to spend some time with me, and that evening, I was invited to a special dinner, where they thanked me with tears in their eyes for saving their beautiful mare.

Their animals also looked better cared for, since the last time. I was happy, that things had worked out well, and that they had developed some love and concern for the living factors in their “business”

I am not posting as frequently as I had imagined when I started this blog. I need to change that.

Currently, I’m working on a series of programmes for the students of the five ACESs (Atomic Energy Central School) for the children of the employees of the BARC (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre) in association with Outdoor Education Training Services. They wanted to introduce outbound experiences among their children rather than the usual picnics to parks and predictable destinations.

For these programmes, OETS had already done a series of one-day programmes with an experience of rappelling and a nature trail for the 9th and 10th classes. When we decided to continue the series, we thought of replacing the nature trail (their complex is very green and has abundant wildlife) with something more “relevant”.

I had been toying with the idea of introducing experiential learning as a mode of development among schools for quite some time and had even done some programmes with schools and colleges, but this group was to be students from the 6th to the 8th classes, so I wanted to keep things from getting “too deep” while ensuring a productive experience as well.

So far, it seems to be going well. The students are enthusiastic and perceptive. What is even more interesting is the interactions with the teachers that accompany them. Experiential learning as a method to actively encourage development of thoughts and motivation among students was an unfamiliar concept, and they were used to didactic education or the learning through imparted information, rather than through personal discovery.

Our focus is “performance” considering that students today are under constant pressure to perform in all aspects of their lives. They feel stressed, but there is little choice beyond defining priorities and shouldering their responsibilities as well as they can. This only increases as they grow up.

I found it very encouraging that the students and teachers alike were very interested in the processes and activities, and discussions often spanned breaks, with new insights flowing. One teacher was pleasantly surprised to see her less-than-hardworking class discover the importance of practice through seeing the changes it brought to their performance in a game.

Another was encouraged to see that gender issues were addressed quite bluntly, when they hampered performance. The students were in the mode of exploring the secrets behind performance and the elements that helped or hindered. As she put it, “They don”t need to be completely comfortable, but at least they need to understand that barriers to communication between the sexes in class were not required, as there was nothing in their lives as students that they couldn’t share with others in the class” We seem to have made good progress on that front with some of the classes.

Another teacher insisted that teachers training programmes based on experiential learning would go a long way to empowering Indian teachers struggling to manage students from the new generation, as they sought the fine balances between discipline and opression; guidance and influence; and teacher and confidant.

At the moment, I’m taking each day as it comes, as each batch of students is different. But I see a new awareness among the students and teachers about learning itself. I hope this grows

Recently, on a corporate management training programme, our gorup had the opportunity to explore issues related with inclusion and exclusion and its relation with conformity.

We were conducting a programme for a team of senior executives who were competent on a professional level, and the chief stated objective was to encourage innovation, entrepreneurship and individual performance. The organization was planning incentives and rewards for the high performers, and the group was largely unexcited by the plans.

Group discussions and exploratory conversations led us to realize that the group did not truly believe that the organization wanted them to assert their personal authority and that if they did so, they would be harmed in some way. On the other hand, there was no shortage of leadership, risk taking, creativity and competencies. Just this strange ceiling which was very difficult to define.

Further explorations and analysis of data from team building activities indicated instances we could inquire about and we finally realized that, while the rewards highlighted the outstanding performers, those who were hard workers, but lacked exceptional talent, were unaffected by them. Worse, they also were to some extent demotivated by the high targets that were required to achieve them, and actually lost interest in the whole thing, including the inclination to push their performance to greater heights.

An intense discussion between the “seniors” and this team followed, where the team expressed feelings of being unappreciated and their resentment at being aimed toward the highest possible target within the group. Most of them would not be able to achieve that, and hence they weren’t even trying. The ones capable of achievement were not interested, because they perceived it as a possible cause for being excluded by the others. It was a strange situation where most of the people in the team were stuck at one point - they wanted appreciation and acknowledgment, and they wanted to be accepted regardless of their strengths and failures.

The “seniors” on their part were not aware that this was a problem and they had missed out the group dynamics in this team completely. It was difficult to reach a point of compromise and move ahead of blame games and see what could be done.

Outstanding employees are rare, and the majority of an organization comprises of mediocre professionals that are pretty much similar to anywhere else. We saw the need to encourage individuals, at their level, and came up with options of less extravagant, but easily achievable rewards and a system of letting employees choose their targets in unusual situations. Needless to say, each employee, now was interested in making efforts towards a goal, that they knew they could achieve with the right efforts.

What a do about nothing - and this is probably one of the most common situations in organizations in one form or the other.