Business Day Monday 10 October 2011: Speaking through other people's voices

A Cape company’s image-rich methodology succeeds in helping internationally, writes Barbara Folscher.

MANY years ago, when I was a community worker on farms in the Western Cape, I realised how often emotional baggage keeps people from growing. I asked a farm worker what she was good at. She said: ‘Nee, ek het ’n binne-knou — I’ve been gnawed inside. I’m good for nothing. I have vine hands and a vine head.’

 "I realised I had to find a methodology that would make it safe for people to open up about their pain and hopes. Only then would they be able to grow and see potential in new places."

 For almost two decades, Alinda Nortje has worked passionately to create programmes to help companies and people heal and move through change. As the daughter of a famous surgeon and an altruistic mother, she grew up believing she had to be the change she wanted to see in the world. "My earliest prayers were for people sleeping under bridges," she laughs. "My earliest organisational efforts were to hold concerts to raise money for people sleeping under bridges. This passion to bring about change, to bring healing and hope, has come a long way."

 Nortje is now the executive chairwoman of the Somerset West-based human development company, Free To Grow. The image-rich methodology that had its roots among farm workers has been developed to train more than 60000 people in 800 organisations in 17 countries. "We believe in the French proverb, ‘Change is a door that can only be opened from the inside’.

"We use images and stories because they are simple, but profound. They cut through cultures and education levels. They give people a common language. For instance, a CEO with a PhD and a semiliterate driver can both express themselves meaningfully when they look at an image of two intertwined trees, the tree of work and the tree of life. What is the relationship between these two trees? What would happen if the tree of work is taken away? What are the implications for your life at this stage? This methodology ensures we can go deep enough and start with people’s individual journeys.

 "For effective change, people must be ready on a number of levels: they must believe in themselves, take ownership of challenges and see opportunities for doing things differently."

 The latest praise for Nortje and her team comes from the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) in Vietnam, which Free To Grow helped through a painful down-scaling process.

 Unicef’s representative in Vietnam, Lotta Sylwander, said Free To Grow’s sensitive approach was effective in a multicultural situation that was laden with insecurity and negative emotions.

 Nortje says her company faced a specific challenge in Vietnam: "In the Asian context it is culturally not accepted to open up. At first, people sat with folded arms, sceptical and unengaged. One man pointed at the veins in his arms and said, ‘We have a culture of silence in our bloodstream.’"

As is often the case during a downsizing or change in management process, there was a strong "them and us" divide between Unicef management and staff. Many staff members already knew they were being retrenched or had to go through stringent retraining and testing to remain with the organisation.

 "Many of the staff initially told us we were wasting our time. But we were inspired by the trust created as people moved through our programme. It was incredibly stirring to see people become courageous and share their feelings of pain and betrayal; to see the managers truly listen and acknowledge what they heard, and become passionate about finding solutions. The shared reality that opened up between management and staff enabled both parties to take responsibility for the process as individuals and as a team."

 Sylwander says the company brought about healing because it did not take short cuts. "We came together as we have never done before. To me, the most moving moment was at the end, when a staff member, who had been with Unicef for 18 years and whose post was to be abolished, stepped forward. With tears in her eyes she shared that she felt proud to say she had been part of Unicef; whereas before she felt all those years had been wasted, she now felt her contribution had been honoured and that she was ready to move on."

 While touching people on an emotional level is important, Nortje emphasises that only half the task is done through work of the heart. "I am very grateful to have received a holistic vision from my parents: the ‘beautiful heart’ that my mother represents so strongly (even today as she still goes around, at an advanced age, touching the lives of every single person she meets) and the ‘beautiful mind’, the intellectual rigour that my father represents.

"When I was growing and I arrived home from Jan van Riebeeck School with 90% , my father would wonder — albeit kindly — what happened to the other 10% . Perhaps it is this striving for that elusive 10% that helps Free To Grow continue to improve. We put a tremendous amount of thought and research into the design of our programmes to make sure they do not only help heal people, but deliver practical and ongoing results companies can measure."

Nortje also attributes Free To Grow’s success to the passion of the organisation’s facilitators and the intense level of engagement with clients. "We work with small groups of between 12 and 20 people at a time. The approach and material we develop for each client is unique because each situation is different. For Unicef, we used Vietnamese images and spent weeks researching Vietnamese proverbs and stories . But most of all, we work with empathy and passion for people. To us it is not a job, it’s who we are."

 Nortje’s own journey has been shaped by powerful inner shifts brought about by external change. One of the clearest of these turning points occurred four years after she had begun developing the programme using the stories of farm workers. "When I started presenting the programme, I was stunned by the impact it had and by the positive feedback from managers, who saw dramatic and visible change in the attitude and behaviour of people in their teams.

 "Then — my voice disappeared, right in the middle of presenting a session. For three months, I could not speak; my vocal chords were damaged. My life mission suddenly vanished in front of my eyes. My mother, watching this, simply said: ‘ Then you will have to speak through the voices of other people.’ At first I struggled with this — it was far removed from my initial vision of personally being a channel for growth. But then it started to make sense . I had to close the door to the joy and immense satisfaction of presenting the training myself. But I could open a door to reaching hundreds of people a day in several countries through our facilitators. Instead of being the channel, I could create a channel for others to impact many more people."