A Storyteller

The saga of work environments continue.

The past week has been filled with a mix and match of different things.  Activities that allowed me to envision a future of opportunities in the creative industry and activities that kept my mind locked in the unending attempt to fix the present day toil to produce "our daily bread".

My interior resolve to keep moving along despite the tremendous heat-scorching discussions about strategy, method and beliefs continue to stretch me to my limits.  What an intellectual battle this is.  Not to mention a spiritual one.

While I attempt to remain what the Good Book says "a peacemaker" so that I may be graced with the Blessedness to be called "sons of God"  I am finding it to be such a great challenge to keep my "own peace" amidst all this.

Woven into an intricate thread of relationships, I am trying to find a better title for myself just to describe what it is that I do.  And I feel that it is important to be able to describe what I do not to earn some kind of merit from my peers but so that I will not fail to persevere in the work I pour myself into.  It is important to keep "knowing myself" and understand what I am unveiling about myself in this journey.

I realized somewhere in the middle of the week that my job description may list down technical descriptions of what I do but does not quite encompass the intangible value of the non-technical activities that find themselves inherent in my interactions with people everyday. 

Obviously, my mind is straddling between "technical definitions" and "human" ones.  This is how my writing sounds when I'm trying to cull out something less "business" sounding from an otherwise "business situation".  It's an ordeal to describe  and understand it but I continue the attempt.

I am no longer an HR practitioner.  I am no longer  an MBA student.  I am no longer a corporate planner.  Those titles do not define me now. Silently they call me a strategist but that's ironic because I often find myself fixing situations that prevented me to strategize.  So I don't think that's  me either.  But I am  surviving this environment for some reason not because of what I know how to do or who I am as a leader.  It's not also about who I know.   

I am starting to think that I am surviving this situation because of what I believe. 

When an organization is in a state of transition, the people who deal with each other day in and out start reacting to situations in a state of "panic" or "heightened sensitivity".  It is either they want to control or they badly want to let things go.  When I find myself in the middle of something like this, I don't move. I stand still.  I watch them crash against each others' weight and scratch each others' truth.  The banging of mindsets like cymbals clashing.  The unwanted striking of a gong.  They never stop.  

In this situation, I disappear.  I don't shut down.  I quiet down.  I listen to all their points of view.  I watch their faces and their expressions.  I watch them fidget and I watch them lunge forward.  I watch their bodies hide exasperation.  I sense the tension and silently pluck its strings.  

I absorb it all.  And in my mind these thoughts form themselves into stories.  And the personalities in the room become a bit more human.  And I start to wonder how these people I deal with everyday live their lives and pursue their dreams.  Maybe even wonder what kind of prayers they say at night.  

I'm not a strategist.  I'm a storyteller.  And I pray for those whose stories I will tell someday.