THE DISCIPLINING EFFECT OF WORKSHOPS

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I only encountered workshops when I started working already. At least the term “workshops.” It’s really just small discussion sessions that are usually facilitated. There are rules set, questions answered, and flows pre-agreed. Workshops actually become most interesting when the backgrounds of the participants are very varied and contrasting and so ideas brought to the table for discussion are so different. The discussion becomes so lively and debates are heated. These are the workshops I’d like to attend. These are the workshops where you can learn new things.

At first, the naïve me hated the people who start the debates and who I’d so easily reduce to stupid people only because they think differently. I hated even starting conversations with them. I’d get frustrated with them not sharing my opinion on the issues. That is the whole point of the ‘dialogue’ (if you like) – to see different perspectives to the problem and perhaps find solutions that are out-of-the-box. But hey, if I talked to ‘like-minded’ people only, why not just talk to myself then and save the effort, time, and money of participating in workshops that would seem like monologues anyway. So then, I realized the importance of diversity of opinions, perspectives, and ideas.

But as workshops are designed, the different ideas, opinions, and perspectives get actually managed and processed a certain way – the way the designers would wish them to flow. The interesting observation I make when these workshops are held is that people start out so differently… different languages and terminologies even. At the end of that 3-day workshop, people use the same terms, language and come up with the same ideas. I wonder how that all happened. It’s the grand design. Yes folks, workshops are scheming efforts to discipline ‘development actors’ to think a certain way and to arrive at solutions that have already been pre-determined. Yes, yes, and yes… we are all used to fulfill that process of consultation and participation that will ‘legitimize’ the technical assistance/advice that is then disposed of.

So before we even congratulate ourselves for a job well done at workshops, examine the process. Was I converted to think just like everyone else (the mainstream)? And don’t be ashamed to bring out so openly your agenda in the workshop. As a participant, you don’t come empty-handed. You are there to convert and not be converted. The process (and the rules) can either work to your favor or against you… understand how you can make use of it for your very objective. Yes folks, workshops are ways to process ideas and the idea that could be yours if you so work it.

So, if workshops are meant to discipline then make sure, you are the driver of that disciplining exercise. Drive the idea to your agenda. Do not be driven. The process is only as good as the driver. Whoever drives it takes the idea to the promise land.