Karaj told me this morning that I need to get together with Ishwar and Simran and challenge Dev. I talked to Simran but Ishwar had not arrived when the opportunity presented itself with Simran and George. Karaj later informed me, as I was talking to Ishwar about it, that I had disrespected Ishwar by not including him.
Karaj gave me another chance and, together with Ishwar, Simran and Calvin, we challenged Dev that he has been fucking around for the last two months, taking up Karaj’s time and energy, and taking his attention away from his other priorities, not to mention the problems Dev has caused with Priya.
In the men’s group, we analysed Leon’s issue and missed the point that he has no choice but to go along with management, and yet he still has to find a way to agree and disagree at the same time. Our overall picture was too narrow. Had we drawn conclusions and checked them out we would have seen that our work was lacking something vital (and simple).
Leon then raised the yearly appraisal and I took control. George contributed to me by telling me to be more affirmative when rounding people up: state my intention rather than ask (permission). Even though I led, I asked for suggestions on how to go about the process and concentrated on Leon’s input (it was his agenda item) before bringing others in with their goals for 2002. I left Dev in charge when I went to wake Karaj. It was a very useful exercise for all concerned.
After the group, we discussed the ESHC appraisals; how to make the group effective; goals for the rest of the year; and a review of the weekend. Again I took control, although I was tired and wanted this over quickly. I was reminded of the words from my training officer during my engineering apprenticeship: ‘You are lazy but when things need to be done you are good‘. Both Simran and Ishwar picked up on my irritation and verbalised it. I heard them. Eventually. I took the intiative and typed the notes of the meeting for everyone to take with them. I challenged Ishwar to stop discounting himself.
Summary: felt more relaxed and contributed more effectively because of this. The learning point at the end of the day was that I need to broaden my overall picture to take everything into account.