Sharon Wakeford ‘Being Different’

19/10/2024

What a rich and rewarding, if rather exhausting, three weeks at the World Bank headquarters in Washington DC! A ‘liquorice all sorts’ of training, teambuilding with different teams, coaching, meetings, and four fabulous days with two groups of women, facilitating ‘Self as Source’: a programme I have developed that offers participants a pause on life’s (often very busy) path – to look beyond the day-to-day ‘doing’, and into how they are ‘being’ in life; to identify the story they are living in, and its impact on their thoughts, feelings, bodies, and action; and to explore possibilities for strengthening or rescripting aspects of their story.

What a gift it was to be with these wonderful and exceptionally hardworking women, many of whom said they had never had this amount of time to focus simply on themselves. To be in a space of deep listening, self-disclosure, and care; and to help them recognise the source they were for themselves, and for each other.

And after the intensity of all that my three weeks in America’s capital have been, I leave, as my dear friend Evelyn puts it: “totally empty and completely full”, and ready to swap the sound of city sirens for the sea.

29/09/2024

29/09/2024

What an awesome week at the ITC-ILO in Italy! It is always a privilege to present training on behalf of the International Labour Organisation, whether ‘in-country’, or at the ILO’s International Training Centre in Turin (ITC-ILO). The ITC’s slogan is: ‘A World in One Campus’, and certainly our group of 15 nationalities, from a range of organisational backgrounds, saw the slogan in action.
Beyond this diversity, what made this ‘Negotiation Skills for Effective Collective Bargaining’ group extra special, was that it comprised students of a Masters of Industrial Relations, a programme offered by the ILO in conjunction with the University of Turin, and ‘regular’ participants who represent governments, employers and trade unions in labour and employment negotiations.
What a rich week of questions and contributions, of sharing of the stories of who we are, what we do, and how we do it, in our different countries and contexts.
And of course, not just work, but play, inside and outside of the work, in the wonder that is human connection.

18/12/2023

Strong relationships, and especially those in challenging and complex contexts don’t just happen, they take hard work, honesty, and conscious pauses for thought – to reflect on what’s working and what could be working better to enable a more constructive or effective relationship. So, when thinking about facilitating a two-day relationship-building process between the management of three mining operations and their two partnering trade unions, I would hope for some fun as a ‘by-product’, while engaging in the more serious work of assessing the health of the current relationship; identifying the elements of an ideal relationship; and working to bridge any gaps between the current and the future.

However, in this instance, my facilitator’s brief in fact gave particular emphasis to the parties’ need for fun activities to be built into the process, because they saw this as a key element of enhancing their relationship, and because previous processes that had been strongly ‘classroom oriented’, had not brought key people in the management-union relationship closer together.

So, what this meant for me – not just my ‘usual’ dancing, singing, and play, dotted about through the days, but ‘team building’ activities the client wanted to be ‘on the agenda’. Not that the nature of the activities was disclosed up front, but only revealed in the moment – activities that included assembling or improvising items on an eclectic scavenger hunt list, and developing a choreographed rap song with a minimum of two verses and a chorus, and which included all seven of the elements the participants identified as being the critical elements of an ideal union-management relationship. Creativity, collaboration, and some healthy competition, that culminated in an assessment of a different kind of performance, for the two Senior General Mine Managers, who attended the late afternoon session on the first day, to show support and hear feedback from the first day of the process; and who judged the three teams on their scavenged items, songs, and dance steps.

At the conclusion of two very hot days in the far Northern Cape, the process ended with a list of agreed actions to be implemented to support the relationship going forward; and, from the participants, an expression of gratitude for doing things in a less formal way, and the opportunity this provided in allowing people to build connection, that would also contribute to building a stronger and more effective relationship into the future.

Thank-you Conflict Dynamics for entrusting this work to me, and offering this kind of process to clients that can help them to take off in the right direction!

16/10/2023

Grateful for the opportunity of facilitating negotiations between Management and Staff representatives of an organisation within the United Nations. A process that held various layers of complexity, contextually and substantively; and that after 4 ‘online months’, and 3 ‘in-person’ days in Geneva, culminated in an agreement. The pictures: the awe inspiring Palais des Nations, and my equally inspiring co-facilitator and friend in this process, Ebrahim Patelia.

10/10/2023

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder’, and certainly that applies not only to people, but place. And so it was, after a 4-year (Covid and ‘online’) absence, with great fondness, that I returned to the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organisation (ITC ILO), in Turin, Italy. To be in a training room with real-life and very lively participants from nine countries; and to be, not only in the theory and application of theory to practice, but also, in the stories of negotiation across different countries, cultures, and contexts. So good for head and heart, to be learning together in this rich and diverse community, and surrounded by the breath and beauty of Turin in autumn. To two of the ‘corner pieces’ who supported me and this ‘Negotiation Skills for Effective Collective Bargaining’ training, Elton Di Tommazi Maciel and Alessadra Gamna, a big thank-you!

20/04/2023

As a member of the World Bank Group’s (WBG) Mediation Services, I have previously travelled in 2019 and in 2022 to Washington DC, the Bank’s headquarters, to attend Mediation Services retreats – gatherings of the mediation team that comprises about 16 Regional mediators based around the world, and 4 US based, and members of the Core Team, based at HQ in DC. While coming together in-person in this ‘family’, is always very special, my most recent trip to Washington DC, in March of this year, held a different kind of specialness – one that comes with not simply attending, but facilitating processes of shared learning, exploration, and discovery.

My nearly two working weeks involved leading multiple learning sessions on a range of topics that focused on developing/enhancing awareness and skills for staff in key areas that impact on both individual and team effectiveness and well-being. It also involved a ‘Bonus session’ for staff that focused more on the ‘self’ than skills; an exploration session with members of the WBG’s Integrity Vice-Presidency; and facilitating a retreat for a Budgeting and Strategic Planning unit.

My WBG work, because of the geographical spread of offices, countries, and people, is typically online (even before Covid), so what an absolute treat it was, in addition to hosting virtual sessions, to also be working in-person – to be in a room with fully present people, to connect at a human level, to be in the wonder of what gets generated in the collective space, both content-wise and energetically. And, extra special for me, that sessions were not only directed at purpose and outcomes in ‘doing’, but ventured into the territory of meaning and ‘being’, through inviting Bank staff members into spaces of exploration and discovery beyond their ‘usual’, in ways outside of the typical approaches and methods of learning – to step beyond more traditional knowledge and to draw on ancient wisdom, as a resource in providing possibilities for different observations, insights and action.

Furthermore, to bring to the wonderfully multicultural soup that is the Bank, some South African sounds, and steps, into the mix of singing, stillness, and a slowing down that supports a deeper level of connection to the stories of self and others.

The unconventional book-end to this assignment, my report back on the training to my fellow mediators at our latest Mediation Services Quarterly meeting – feedback that began with the words “Once upon a time…” and told the tale of the training.

20/12/2022

A good end, (or close to ending), of my working year, an Outreach Mission to the World Bank’s Mozambique and Madagascar country offices. Being a mediator in the largely virtual environment, due to the Bank’s broad geographical spread of offices and staff, as well as the increased online ‘everything’ during Covid and the high level of online as the way of doing, how wonderful it was to travel across wide bodies of water and be in rooms with warm bodies! To hear different accents, to dip into different cultures, to be receptive ears to staff ‘on the ground’ – to listen to the stories of the good, the valued, and the challenging aspects of working for the Bank; and to be able to share with staff about the all-important conflict and dispute resolution services provided to all staff and managers through the Bank’s Internal Justice Service, of which Mediation Services, is a part. Also, to be available to staff for one-on-one confidential consultations; to participate in many small group discussions; and to lead several training sessions.

Apart from the gift of literally, being able to meet people where they were in their Country Offices (albeit some online), and the simple joy of being able to travel and be in different places (something absolutely not taken for granted post-Covid), a real specialness of this trip, was being ‘on a mission’ with two World Bank colleagues, one from the Ombuds Office, and the other from Ethics & Business Conduct – both of which form an integral part of the IJS and partner services. Two highly skilled and experienced professionals from whom I learned a lot and with whom I shared a great many busy, complementary, and companionable hours being the ‘Three Musketeers’ in our 10 days together. As I said to begin, a good way to draw the year to a close, with a strong sense of being in smaller and larger community, and being closely connected to what is usually at a greater distance.

In the last picture, my fellow Musketeers - Caroline Wanyonyi, of the three World Bank Ombuds, and Philip Caine, Senior Ethics Officer.

27/05/2021

One of the wonders of doing work for the International Labour Organisation (ILO), is meeting people from countries and cultures, far and wide, and about whom you might know very little, but through even a two hour online session, you get to build community and connection, and develop a little bit of insight into worlds and ways of being, that are both different and similar to one’s own. In today’s session I presented for the ILO, which forms part of an Online Conciliation and Mediation of Labour Disputes course, it was a delight to learn and laugh with participants from the Bahamas, Colombia, Cook Islands, Georgia, Indonesia, Malaysia, St Kitts-Nevis, as well as from a number of international organisations. And talk about a commitment to learning – participating with energy and enthusiasm, despite it being 6am in the Bahamas or 12pm in the Cook Islands!

26/04/2021

What an experience to conduct online training on Conciliation and Mediation of Labour Disputes for Judges of the First Instance Federal courts of Ethiopia. The training forms part of steps being taken in these courts to support the resolution of labour, family, and commercial disputes through conciliation and mediation, as an alternative to litigation. Over two weeks, I worked with two groups of judges and assistant judges to build their understanding of the conciliation process and their skills to conciliate labour disputes.

A helpful idea when looking at the building competence of conciliators and mediators, is that of the 3Ps – People, Problem, Process – the three key aspects that conciliators and mediators need to manage. Equally, delivering this training, required careful and creative management of the 3Ps. Probably the most stretching piece of the Ps, was building meaningful human connection remotely from my office in Johannesburg via a big screen to the judges sitting together, masked and socially distanced, in a conference room in Addis Ababa, while navigating intermittent connectivity, power, and sound issues. Little by little, we built connection, laughed, and learned together. And, for those who know of my habit of doing a bit of dancing in training, you might wonder did we dance? Indeed, we did – obviously not as good as the ‘real thing’, together in the same room, but you do what you can.

Not only was I very grateful for the story that ultimately emerged – a story of what we managed to do with what we had, from where we were, but grateful for all the opportunity to stretch and be stretched by this project.

27/08/2020

So often in the months of lockdown, life has felt surreal. Yet today, what felt even more surreal, was to put on trousers, a collared shirt, and leather shoes, climb into my car and drive 40 minutes, conduct an in person mediation, and return home nine hours after leaving.

09/05/2020

In the busyness and complexity of this time, would you value the opportunity to pause and reflect on how you are 'being' and 'doing’ in life? If so, this online programme I am offering, starting next week, might be something for you. There are a couple of places available, and if you are interested in registering, please contact me asap.