It’s times like this when we see that hard work pays off and things are not as bad as they seem.
In 2019, I learned the art of holding space. My mentors thought I could host. I’m not referring to the role I was assigned to at almost every school event in high school. This is the kind where a person stands in the middle of a circle and creates a container, a space where other people in the room can be truly themselves and have a real conversation.
In the last year, I took on projects that catapulted me into the crosshairs of organizational chaos. In the process, I willingly took upon myself the challenge of harnessing tensions in an organization. Tensions after all are a good sign of a healthy organization. What one does with them sets apart the thriving organizations from the weak ones.
The thing with holding space and hosting is that there is no map to help you navigate the conversation. It’s a lot like improv! While the science comes in the internal preparation — taking stock of emerging techniques, learning from the experiences of others, mindfulness, reflection, and journaling; the art of hosting is in listening, in finding patterns, and drawing up a map as you go. This makes tensions a welcome and expected guest in the process of holding space. It takes preparation, humility, curiosity, thinking on your feet. It also means throwing the desire to be right and to look smart out the window. You can’t listen well if your ego is sharing the bandwidth.
We can learn a thing or two from the stoics on how to shush the ego: welcome the possibility of learning from failure, and accept that you don’t know everything. It won’t be that bad. I learned to compile my anti-portfolio — the times I looked or sounded stupid — and to spend some time laughing and cringing as necessary.
In the last year, I outdid my 2019 self. I attended more coaching sessions and championed the coaching program of our organization. I modeled the kind of person I would like to work with and strived to be the leader I wish I had. I asked more questions, held space more than I wished I had, and took on projects nobody dared to take on. I have to admit that there were days I felt foolish to have dared myself to do more, but it’s days like this when I feel I have made the right choice to advocate for others and for myself.
Today, we’re closing out the virtual choir project we spent hours on. We had a series of real conversations on organizational culture. People chose to speak from a place of authenticity, checked in with their stories and what matters to them, and marshaled up the courage to share their idea of a future that was big enough to include everyone in the organization and our stakeholders. It felt so good to be young and brave and to do it for the sake of collective growth and becoming. We haven’t traveled as much as we would have wanted. The organizational climate is still far from the one we are imagining and wishing for. But it is one that we are shaping patiently and slowly, one real conversation at a time.
