This article was published in the August edition of the Kununurra Sun.
Two and a half years ago, Trav Fitch started making the trip up to the Kimberley for what he thought would be a fairly standard run of leadership workshops. He was wrong within about ten minutes of the first room.
What struck him most was the honesty in the room. "I'm noticing people in the Kimberley don't do fake enthusiasm well, and I mean that as a high compliment," said Trav. "When people around the table named what wasn't working, they said it straight, including when they didn't like something I was bringing! That directness, for me, is where the best work begins."
Trav's in town monthly, working alongside a range of organisations doing extraordinary things in the background of everyday life here, including OVAHS, Wunan, Waringarri and the Parks and Wildlife Service, as well as up in Kalumburu.
Mary Baird, CEO of OVAHS, put it plainly when she reflected on where her team started. "OVAHS struggled with workplace culture," she said. "A clear contributing factor was the leadership maturity of the management team, and not having the tools to effectively manage their teams." What surprised her was how much difference developing greater self-awareness and learning how to have the hard yarn could make. "OVAHS workplace environment is at an all-time high."
At Wunan, the shape of the work was different again. Staff there often carry heavy loads, supporting people through some of life's hardest moments, and that can take a toll that can sometimes be missed. Prue Jenkins, Wunan's CEO, described what shifted for her staff this way: "Travis has a rare ability to create safe spaces for difficult, in-depth conversations, drawing people out, getting them to reflect honestly on their own wellbeing and think seriously about how to safeguard it. That shift in how staff support one another is genuine and lasting."
On the surface, these are two different organisations, with different sets of pressures. But underneath both, Trav sees the same foundation: we are shaped by the stories we tell ourselves. About what a good leader is supposed to look like. About whether it's safe to say the hard thing out loud. About whether change is even possible here.
Trav doesn't claim a tidy formula for people learning how to test and even rewrite those stories. What he's learned, especially watching people in the Kimberley do it, is that it starts with people feeling safe enough, and being willing enough, to be honest about where they're actually at, rather than where they think they or others should be. In some cases it's also about acknowledging the first drafts we've created about what someone else is or isn't doing, while staying open to consider a different possibility.
The relational, operational and even financial cost of not noticing the stories we are running, and how they may be fuelling conflict, driving communication breakdowns, and working against the important task of building effective teams, is too great.
Learn more about Trav's bridge-building yarns, conflict mediation and leadership development work at clearstory.co, or give him a call on 0433 130 237 for a chat.
