June 25 email from Ashok Panikkar '97

My dear friend,

On May 2nd, 2009 we at Meta-Culture celebrated our four year anniversary as a conflict resolution and dialogue facilitation center. In celebration, we threw ourselves a, mostly, quiet pizza party for the staff and their significant others at my house. Leading up to the party and thereafter there have been many opportunities for us to take stock of where we are and how we want to proceed as an organization.

Presuming that some of my friends and colleagues will be interested, I have tried to capture some of our reflections as well as give a state of company report. If all this seems too tedious, just skip the text and go straight to the attached pictures from our party and other sundry shots of the team. You might find more color there. If you are game for this long note, get your self a cup, mug, glass or tankard of your favorite beverage and start reading....

Given that I am almost equally interested in growing the field and fascinated by the ways in which organizations themselves develop to become healthy and innovative spaces, this rather long note will share my experiences at four levels:

1. The state of the field of conflict resolution and dialogue facilitation in India today

a. In the larger social sector

b. In the community (local) sector

c. In the corporate sector

2. The state of Meta-Culture today in terms of:

a. Projects

b. Finances

c. People

d. Our medium and long term goals

3. Our experiments in creating a healthy work culture in terms of :

a. Warmth and joy

b. Openness and transparency

c. Creativity and innovation

d. Rigorous quality

e. Accountability and quality

f. Integrity

g. Balance

4. A few of my key learnings through this journey of the past few years:

a. People

b. Growth

c. Money

d. Vision

e. Self learning

f. Diversity

g. Risk taking

1. The state of the field of conflict resolution and dialogue facilitation in India today

a. In the social sector

In general there continues to be much cynicism about the role that external third party 'neutrals' can play in complex social and political disputes. While there is greater awareness of the existence of 'conflict resolution or transformation' and these words are started to get casually bandied about, most NGOs tend to come into disputes from a human rights or activist stance and consequently with clear notions of who the victims are and who the oppressors are. This more often than not creates more polarization than less. However, we are seeing signs of change in this sector and there are senior people, often educated in the West, who are starting to see value in bringing in professional third party consultants. Some of our major projects reflect this slow but steady shift. Part of the reason we are getting access to some of these projects is because the old ways of trying to confront differences and meet one's interests through adversarial engagement and protest have not engendered sustainable results.

b. In the community sector

At the neighborhood and community level awareness about Alternative Dispute Resolution, Mediation and Dialogue is still limited. The good news is that Family Mediation within the court system is growing. While the training and approach of the lawyer mediators tends to be both evaluative and settlement-driven (very different from our approach at Meta-Culture), at least community awareness of mediation as a dispute resolution modality is increasing. Dialogue is still understood as a catch-all term for any kind of any kind of forum where people come together and talk, discuss or debate. Most of the attempts at dialogue at the community and social levels tend to either involve little more than innocuous mouthing of platitudes or degenerate into highly positional arguments with neither side listening or attempting to understand the other. Through our monthly series of public dialogues, 'Bengaluru Speaks,' we have been able to introduce to the citizens of this city an alternative way of talking about issues in the city that matters to them as well as ways to engage with each other healthily and constructively.

c. In the corporate sector

While corporations have embraced conflict resolution and negotiation training for their staff wholeheartedly, third party intervention or mediation is still seen as 'washing dirty linen in public.' There continues to be avoidance and a strong reluctance to pro-actively address disputes and conflicts within the corporation. Third party intervention in the form of family members, religious leaders and other influential and trusted authority figures have long played a part in the settlement of disputes in the Indian corporate world. Recently, no less an authority than the Supreme Court of India asked two feuding businessmen brothers, Mukesh and Anil Ambani, both of whom routinely figure amongst the top ten richest men in the world, to go to their mother, Kokilaben, and have her settle their disputes! No doubt, professional third party mediators have a long way to go before they can be seen anywhere as credible as a parents, elders, or religious leaders!

2. The state of Meta-Culture today in terms of:

a. Projects

We have had a very momentous year in terms of diversifying our projects and revenue stream. The economic down turn hit us like it did everybody else. Our training contracts dried up and where once we had at least 12-14 training days a month by early this year it had come down to 2-4. Thankfully our two-pronged strategy of targeting the social and corporate sectors paid off and we were able to acquire large consulting projects in the social sector that more than offset the slump in corporate expenditure.

In August of 2008 we were contacted by the Consensus Building Institute and the World Bank's dispute resolution mechanism to partner with them in helping educate CSOs (civil sector organizations) about non-adversarial dispute resolution mechanisms. We organized and helped facilitate workshops with their team from Washington DC in three cities in India in April/May 2009. We strongly expect that this will be an ongoing relationship and that we will be involved in further outreach to CSOs. In time, as the complaints come into the system, we hope also to be addressing complaints and grievances from communities affected by WB-funded projects.

In March of 2009 we were commissioned by a very large and reputed international aid agency to do a conflict assessment in the district of Kandhamal in the Eastern State of Orissa where there were violent riots between Hindus and Christians in August 2008. Three members of our team spent two weeks interviewing a wide range of affected parties, many of whose houses were burned and who now live in refugee camps. We also met with key stakeholders including the Christian clergy, the members of moderate and extreme Hindu groups, local and state politicians and NGO activists. We hope to have the assessment and recommendations completed by mid-July and a series of dispute resolution and peace building efforts starting by early September.

In May 2009 we were contacted by a group of influential Indians who are concerned about the deteriorating security environment both within the country as well as in the regional neighborhood. They intend to bring together a group of diverse stake holders from various sectors of society to engage in a National Security Dialogue. Meta-Culture has been asked to facilitate these conversations.

Despite the economic downturn, even as our IT clients reduced their spending on external training, we were able to expand our corporate client base. We did this by conducting some fairly extensive outreach and by increasing our corporate facilitation and consulting services. However, given the corporate sector's relative lack of knowledge of the field of conflict resolution, we still have a long way to go to educate them about how conflict resolution professionals can add value to their business relationships.

At the community level, our non-profit work continues to gain momentum. We continue to make inroads into the Family and Community Mediation arena by taking on private mediation cases and training a cadre of community mediators. We are preparing for our second Inter-Religious Dialogue, this time between Hindus and Muslims, which will take place over 5 sessions in July and August. Our monthly public dialogue, Bengaluru Speaks, is celebrating its one-year anniversary in July of this year. Finally, we have institutionalized the Peer Mediation Program at the reputed Baldwin Girls High School and have trained almost 40 student mediators over the past two years.

b. Finances

The good news is that despite the downturn our turnover increased, albeit at a lower rate than in previous years. It is certainly tempting to think about how much better things would have been if companies had not cut down on their training budgets! The new financial year has already seen a marked increase in corporate training spending and this is good augury. Meanwhile we hope to continue to bring on large consulting projects.

c. People

Our greatest growth has been in terms of people. Over the last one year we have brought on two senior consultants: Navin Parekh, from Ottowa, Canada, who has almost 4 decades of experience joined us as a mediator, trainer and management consultant in January. Michael McCormick, from Portland, Oregon, who is another senior mediator and conflict resolution professional will be joining us in mid-July. We also recently hired Malini Bhattacharjee, who has an MPhil. from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), as an Associate Researcher. Beth Fascitelli, who joined us in January 2008, has become senior manager and head of consulting and has grown to be one of our mainstays. Mihika Tewari, who has a degree in history from McGill University, spent six months as an intern here and has now joined us as a full-time staffer. By late July we will bring on board two more people, Jo Ann Rodriguez, who has an MA in conflict resolution from the University of Bradford, UK, and Melissa Famula, who has a Masters from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins.

Gayathri T.C. has spent almost four years with us and is now applying to universities and for scholarships to study for an advanced degree in conflict resolution in the US or elsewhere. Rachel Burks hums along as our client relations manager and has been here for more than two and a half years. Kaori Suzuki, our incredibly valuable associate, is leaving us after two years to join her husband in Chennai. She will be sorely missed. Rafael Tyszblat has gone back to his home, Paris, after three great years here. He continues to be associated with us as a consultant. Lily, our adminstrative assistant, got married last week and is fairly glowing and Mugilan, our ever-reliable driver, continues to be our MVP. Sam continues to take good care of us and is, as ever, a cheerful and reliable face around the office.

Our internship and volunteer programs have brought to Meta-Culture some really talented people from around the world. In the past year we have had people from Germany, Jamaica, France, Scotland, and the US, not to mention talented young Indian professionals who have spent between 3-6 months working with us. Amongst them are Heather Gilmartin and Silvana Zepeda from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, Stacy Ann Lee, who is a Masters candidate in the School of International Relations, Conflict Analysis and Peace Building at the Institute of Political Science in Lille, France, John Francis Abraham who has a MSW from Christ College and Ameya Kilara who has just graduated from the prestigious National Law School of India, Bangalore.

Finally we hired a Head of Administration, Rahul Pande, who has an MBA from the Management Development Institute of Singapore. With these changes we are in the process of streamlining our business development and client management teams.

d. Our medium and long term goals

In February 2009 we organized our first-ever company-wide offsite strategic planning retreat. The retreat helped us develop clarity around who we are as an organization, the kind of culture we are trying to create, and where we want to be. The vision, simply stated, is to change the culture of discourse in the country from an adversarial one to one that is non-adversarial. The retreat also put in place a larger vision that we are now translating into a concrete framework for growth. To that end we hope to focus over the next 18 months on continuing to build our core team and bringing in professionals from around the world who wish to join in the adventure of creating Meta-Culture. By early 2011 we intend to open our second office, either in a major city in India or in another Southeast Asian country.

While until mid-2008 training accounted for almost 60-70 % of our income, of late the pendulum has swung the other way. Due to businesses tightening budgets over the last six months as well as a couple of large social sector projects coming our way, our consulting revenues now account for almost 80% of our revenue. Yet even as I write this the signs of business revival are there and inquiries for corporate training are increasing. We believe that an ideal revenue mix would be roughly 70% consulting and 30% training.

3. Our experiments in creating a healthy culture in terms of :

a. Warmth and joy

Given that most of us who do this work tend to live and breathe it and are also (unwittingly) in danger of becoming workaholics, it makes sense to work in a happy place. To do that we continue to try and find ways to bring light and fun into the workplace. Whether through our check-ins and ice breakers at the 9:00 am morning meetings, the steady stream of birthday celebrations during the year, the office parties we throw, or even the fun Lunch and Learn sessions that happen on a weekly basis, we make a conscious effort to create a fun work environment. And yet, like all work environments there are moments of panic, pressure and even pain--deadlines, difficult clients, staffing troubles, moody colleagues and the like. Sometimes the cause of the pain is my own frustrated reaction to inefficiency, ineptness or lack of consideration. Thankfully, when that happens more often than not we find a way to talk about it and move on. Until it happens again :)

Happiness in the work place, I am finding, has to be worked at and requires more than the occasional celebration. It has at least four parts: 1. The larger culture has to be welcoming, light and respectful. 2. The organization has to have clear and easy-to-implement grievance redressal processes that allow for airing out and clearing up (overt and covert) disputes. 3. We need to ensure that the processes and systems in place--be they financial, administrative, project management or HR--are not creating stress points that can adversely affect the emotional well-being of the team. 4. All supervisors, project managers or people in responsible positions have to find a way to be happy in themselves--because at the end of the day their mood is the most influential and infectious in the office.

b. Openness and transparency

Meta-Culture has always striven to be very transparent about its decision-making processes. To the extent possible, decisions are taken collectively and while they are not always entirely consensual, they are almost always collaborative. Late last year there was a minor crisis that came out of a breakdown in relations between me and another team member and threatened to create a serious rift within the team. After some thought I took the step of addressing it in a full team meeting. While this was one of the more painful things I have had to do, the effect was almost magical. It completely cleared the air. If anything the camaraderie within the team and, I believe, their trust in me were stronger after the meeting.

We have tried not to duck unpleasant things and try to ensure that neither posturing, politicking nor political correctness take hold within the culture. New staff sometimes find this difficult and there have been at least two people over the past four years who have left because this environment did not tolerate their propensity to avoid conflict and engage in passive-aggressive behavior.

c. Creativity and innovation

Given that we have defined our work in the broadest terms, we are constantly looking for ways to increase our footprint in the larger space of conflict resolution and dialogue facilitation. Our problem lies not so much in finding what to do as it does in selecting between many great options. Of course all these ideas come at a price--there are times when the staff complain about the sheer number of ideas thrown at them. On more than one occasion they have told me point blank that I was not to come up with any more ideas for the rest of the week/month.

Jokes apart, one of the ways we try to foster individual and group creativity is by giving teams the autonomy to both define the problem themselves and design the path that would best help them find the best solutions. There are two challenges in terms of creativity. The first: some of the younger members with graduate degrees in the field tend to be purists and come with strong ideological stances that make it difficult for them to be flexible when addressing complex issues. The second: senior staff, including me, often have to step in the middle of these younger members' exploration and, for reasons of expediency and in the interest of meeting deadlines, 'guide' their thinking and problem solving process. As a result, the creative quotient of the team is spotty. Much more needs to be done to nurture creativity across the board.

Apart from the normal tools such as brainstorming and SCAMPER we are constantly trying to create different ways of stimulating creativity in-house. In September we are bringing in a theater consultant to help us explore how we can use movement and drama to assist in conflict resolution work.

d. Accountability and quality

This is one of our continuing challenges. Given that our diversity is rather extraordinary, staff who come to Meta-Culture often have different notions of what quality is and what constitutes excellence. This is particularly true of people who come from some of the 'elite' schools and others who have had less privileged educations. Work ethic, working styles and attention to detail vary. This poses problems in terms of expectations and much energy goes towards trying to build a common vocabulary and alignment about standards. Still, things are far better than in our first years, when I had to battle it out with young graduates of Indian colleges who saw nothing wrong in taking long personal calls during meetings and routinely showing up fifteen minutes late. Our challenge, as always, lies in creating a culture that is both rigorous, with high standards, and also warm and nurturing.

e. Integrity

There are things that we, on reflection, could have done better. There are people we could have possibly avoiding alienating. There were times we could have demonstrated more patience and less indignation. And yet I believe we have tried to act as far as possible with transparency, empathy, and accordance to the Kantian idea of the categorical imperative.

f. Work Life Balance

Over the first couple of years we fell into the habit of keeping long hours. It became routine for people to work late into the evening, which was having an adverse effect on the health and well-being of some of the staff. Hence, while admiring their dedication we had to institute a strict 6:30 pm lights-out policy that could only be waived by the concerned project manager. The interesting thing is that productivity has improved !!.

4. A few of my key learnings through this process:

a. People

Creating a great team is way tougher than getting projects or even turning a profit. No matter how well you articulate what the culture of the organization is and what your expectations are, misunderstandings will follow. As the saying goes, "nothing is so simple that it cannot be misunderstood." More time will and should be spent on building relationships and ensuring that key messages are understood and acted upon. Even if everything is done right, stuff happens and people get upset, leave abruptly or, strangely, even love you. There are so many imponderables. Teams are finely-tuned, hypersensitive organisms and if you have the sniffles they could all come down with pneumonia.

One very key learning of mine has been that organizations grow not just when they acquire new projects, money and people. They also grow when the 'not so right' people leave. The past year started with the very propitious discovery that some serious changes had to be wrought to help us move forward. The first was letting go of a senior staff person. This was a hard decision to make because we had once been friends and despite struggling for almost 18 months had not managed to make the transition to a collegial, employer/employee relationship. More damagingly, his work style, ethic and disposition, we discovered, were wholly inimical to the kind of organization and culture we valued and were trying to create. It is important that we try to bring in the ‘right’ people, whose values, skills, styles of functioning and commitment make them a good fit.

b. Growth

Growth is good, because we need to establish critical mass in order to make the kind of difference we would like to in the field. To get buy-in, internally, for growth, everybody in the team must know it is for the whole organization's benefit, not just the promoters or the management. Growth rarely happens if one is timid. Growth is not the same as ambition or greed. We need to be very clear why we wish to grow. While all growth is not sustainable, success and good health can be if we practice good skills, maintain good systems and are able to continuously ask ourselves the hard questions. Going back to first principles: Why am I doing this? Is this what I want to do at this time in my life? Would I rather go fishing or sit at home and read a book?

Also, sometimes growth is attained by sitting still, reflecting on where we are at and helping consolidate what we have.

c. Money

Money makes so many things easier. It is the ultimate facilitator. I tried hating money, it doesn't work. I haven't tried loving it yet. Something in my bones prevents me from getting too intimate with it. But I respect it and would certainly like more so that we can pay folks better and build a strong, sustainable and scalable organization, (not to mention be able to buy better computers).

While to date we have sustained ourselves completely through fee-for-service work, we have realized that we need to start doing some serious development work though fund-raising, seeking sponsorships and partnerships, and building up a corpus fund.

g. Vision

When the training budgets of corporations dried up we survived because we had unwittingly de-risked from the get-go by simultaneously focusing on corporate training and social sector consulting--despite advice from well-meaning and wise advisors who felt that we were spreading ourselves too thin. What saved us in 2009 was the spurt in social sector consulting. If there is one thing I believe we have gotten right, it is our vision. The mission is a clear and yet a bit of a moving target: When one area of work dries up or seems difficult to crack we are flexible enough to focus on another. While we are not married to any one modality, the larger vision of changing the culture of discourse (making it non-adversarial and collaborative) is clear. We have never wavered from it.

e. Self learning

My own learning has been both exhilarating and painful. Our successes have sometimes both surprised and chastened me while our failures have prompted serious introspection. I have personally had to not only be more flexible in my leadership and conflict styles but also deal with some of my own most glaring weaknesses (such as a hair-trigger temper and lack of patience). At the same time the work we have done and where we are now have reaffirmed for me the fact that this is what I should be doing at this time in my life. I suspect this is true of many of my colleagues too.

f. Diversity

At any given point of time, in a team of 12-20 staff we usually have at least 5-7 different nationalities. This diversity adds a lot to the perspectives and philosophies that float around the office and makes for some spirited conversations! It also spurs innovation and gives our clients the opportunity to take advantage of multiple perspectives.

g. Risk taking

Risk taking requires equal measures of courage and foolhardiness. There are few completely calculated risks. For something to qualify as a risk it must come with some measure of potential loss. If you care enough (about someone you love, or something you believe in, or work that you do...) you have to go for broke. We are going after our vision with everything we have, conscious that as the Bhagavat Gita says, "we have the right to the work but not the rewards thereof." In pursuit of something both larger than us and extraordinarily worthwhile, risk becomes relative and costs and consequences more bearable.

Forgive me the long and unsolicited note. This has been a very enriching experience for us at Meta-Culture; given your interest in the field and your friendship I thought you might enjoy reading about our experiences. Needless to say, I would love to have your response or feedback. I look forward to hearing from you.

Warm regards,

Ashok



--
Ashok Panikkar
Executive Director
Meta-Culture
Center for Conflict Transformation and Dialogue
No - 12, 2nd floor, 1st Main, Lazar Layout
Fraser Town, Bangalore - 560005
Phone: 91-80 4152 4785
Email: ashokpanikkar@meta-culture.in
Web- Corporate: http://www.meta-culture.in
Web- Non-Profit: http://www.meta-culture.org