UltimateInclusion.com, a blog from Teresa Jordan, Executive Director – I think we have all heard the story of the five blind monks who encounter an elephant and then argue on and on about how it feels. One thinks it is hard, sharp and pointy; one thinks it is fan-like and wispy; one thinks it is long and tubular; one thinks it’s like a tree trunk; another thinks it feels like a brick wall. Each monk experienced a different part of the elephant and drew very true conclusions from their part, but none could see or feel the whole elephant – nor could they conclude that it was indeed a pachyderm!
I was recently a part of a webinar at which one presenter said, “To a worm in a turnip the entire world is turnip.” Systems are vast and complex; communities are an interlinked system of citizens, interest groups, agencies, neighbourhoods, sports teams, ethnicities and challenges. Every connected part is an important piece of the elephant and makes up the whole ~ but inside each separate turnips, it is hard to see anything beyond turnip.
I guess this is why dialogue, collaboration and collective impact are so crucial to any community change conversation. We all have our areas about which we know the root causes, the contributing elements, the real fallout of past and present circumstances. The difficulty continues to be that, at some point, we have to lay aside our ‘turnip lens’ and really, deeply listen to the other perspectives and, at a very real level, accept that truth as equally as we know our own. Then, it gets even more challenging as we work to create an alliance or initiative because some decisions will grate against our part of the picture. But the only way forward is together. If we are only fashioning a solution to keep the elephants ears warm, the rest of its body remains exposed to the cold.
- Photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels.com
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