Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/a-manner-of-speaking/5023596/
Fourteen strangers. Five days. How does it happen? How does a small group of virtual strangers become a family in such a short time? What are the enabling factors — what structures, motivations, strategies contribute to the alchemy?
Asia-Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood (ARNEC) lived such a transformation. Seven new Global Leaders who had never met together before — Temesia Tuicaumia, Torika Delailoa, Jackie Bennett, Jessica Staines, Siva Prasad Behera, Savy Lach, and Shabreen Nazmeen Nisha, with Sheldon Shaeffer, GL Regional Coordinator and Mark Elliott, GL Program Director with Patti Smith and previous cohort Global Leaders Karma Gayleg and Analesi Tuicaumia and Roger and I — met for the first time face to face in a typical hotel meeting room on a simmering Monday morning. Fourteen strangers. By Friday we had shared expertise, family stories, dreams, meals, adventures, laughter, and tears. By Friday there was a palpable connection that enabled impassioned questions and supportive responses; we could see our future together.
So what were the elements for transformation?
Being Welcomed into the Story
As leaders in the World Forum, those of us with WF history established, through our contributions and ways of being, an environment that focused on our values — children, ...