How the Poor Bet Their Stakes
I had been fortunate enough to assist in the facilitation of a training for a large cement manufacturing corporation this past week. Aside from the fact that the training place is only an hour away from my house, I also quite ejoyed the free transportation and free food. The participants were members of the community nearest their cement plant, and their classification varied, from municipal officers to simple housewives.
The session which a colleague and I handled was on Stakeholder Analysis, where we asked the participants to do an exercise which we believed would emphasize the point of multi-stakeholdership. After randomly grouping the book to ensure that the officers and the commonfolks were mixed, we asked them to construct a tower out of simple materials which we would barter to them. Their currency? Items that can be found on their body. Jewelry, pants, skirt, shirts, blouses, underwear and yes, even their false teeth. Important items like cartolina and Manila paper were priced high, while less obvious materials like pentel pens and crayons (which you don't need to construct a paper tower) were priced low. We gave them ten minutes to barter with us and then we closed shop. Then we gave them fifteen minutes to construct their masterpiece.
The glaring fact was this, the simple folks were the ones who gave up most of their belongings as compared to those who were considered well-to-do. A school teacher gave up her false teeth. Some of the farmers in the groups were bare to their, well, bare essentials. They literally gave the shirt off their backs. On the other hand, the officers were less eager to give anything of themselves. They just sacrificed their jewelry, shoes, socks and the occasional handkerchief.
There were a lot of lessons they could have learned during that exercise, most of it on planning and illustrating the need for unity and partnerships, but the lesson for ME is this: For the dream, the poor will give almost anything. They pour all they've got into it, trusting those they consider more educated to direct their efforts. This boomerangs, of course, most of the time, especially when the "learned one" starts seeing her/himself as the leader even if she / he is ignorant of what actually needs to be done. In one group, all the old men were shivering without their shirts and shoes on, but their tower never stood up. They gave the planning part to the officer who was with them, and she was quite simply inept.
If they only empowered each other, their story might have been a different one.
The session which a colleague and I handled was on Stakeholder Analysis, where we asked the participants to do an exercise which we believed would emphasize the point of multi-stakeholdership. After randomly grouping the book to ensure that the officers and the commonfolks were mixed, we asked them to construct a tower out of simple materials which we would barter to them. Their currency? Items that can be found on their body. Jewelry, pants, skirt, shirts, blouses, underwear and yes, even their false teeth. Important items like cartolina and Manila paper were priced high, while less obvious materials like pentel pens and crayons (which you don't need to construct a paper tower) were priced low. We gave them ten minutes to barter with us and then we closed shop. Then we gave them fifteen minutes to construct their masterpiece.
The glaring fact was this, the simple folks were the ones who gave up most of their belongings as compared to those who were considered well-to-do. A school teacher gave up her false teeth. Some of the farmers in the groups were bare to their, well, bare essentials. They literally gave the shirt off their backs. On the other hand, the officers were less eager to give anything of themselves. They just sacrificed their jewelry, shoes, socks and the occasional handkerchief.
There were a lot of lessons they could have learned during that exercise, most of it on planning and illustrating the need for unity and partnerships, but the lesson for ME is this: For the dream, the poor will give almost anything. They pour all they've got into it, trusting those they consider more educated to direct their efforts. This boomerangs, of course, most of the time, especially when the "learned one" starts seeing her/himself as the leader even if she / he is ignorant of what actually needs to be done. In one group, all the old men were shivering without their shirts and shoes on, but their tower never stood up. They gave the planning part to the officer who was with them, and she was quite simply inept.
If they only empowered each other, their story might have been a different one.
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