A superhero crack team of perspective givers

This week I’ve been diving deep into the evaluation of a project called Giving Voice to Child Domestic Workers (of which the film on this blog is part).  As the ‘evaluator’ for the project I was writing the evaluation report for the best part of the week and found that I was getting annoyed by petty things that hadn’t gone as perfectly as I’d have liked.  I organised a meeting to discuss the report with the ‘UK team’ – which consists of Jonathan (my partner in Children Unite), Audrey and Mariela from Anti-Slavery International.  As soon as they walked through the door we were laughing and joking and eager to discuss the nitty-gritty of the report.  And I realised that my petty annoyances were just that – petty, not worth mentioning. 

I finalised the report today in a very different mood. I had been given some perspective on the project by my team mates and just by meeting up with the team again I was reminded of how smooth and successful, inspiring and enjoyable this project has been.  I trust my team's judgement and their views because, all along, we have been honest about how our feelings are affecting our work…and this has allowed us to build our team through trust.

I learned this process through working with Living Lens earlier on in the project. Rose and Keren at Living Lens are not afraid to talk about ‘love’ in the working environment!  Not soppy romantic love (eeuuww as my children would say!) but a ‘loving’ way of working that is honest and open and builds trust.  I’ve been trying to work in the same way ever since (but it’s harder than it sounds!).

So, in a spirit of ‘loving’ this morning I decided to add an ‘acknowledgement’ section to the report where I thanked various people on behalf of the UK team.  However, it was not long before I realised the pendulum had swung too far in the opposite direction, I was again diving deep but this time into a kind of ‘nostalgia’ for the project - writing reams of flowery acknowledgements to every person involved! 

Just thinking about how my team-mates would laugh at this and take the ‘mickey’ out of me put a stop to it.  I reduced the paragraphs down to a sentence each!   When you’re working on your own it’s all too easy to get carried away and lost in your own world view. I’m sure Jonathan, Audrey and Mariela don’t see themselves as a ‘superhero crack team of perspective givers’ but this week, for me, they have been just that!  (Thanks guys!)