How do you create space for multiple perspectives? Some ideas from Jaipur

A meeting between the state government and the people in Jaipur demonstrates how a little thought to the format of a meeting can make a significant difference

Arun Maira

Note: In his essay Listening to them—and shaping our future together, published a year ago, Arun Maira wrote: “…inequality has been increasing in the ‘Flat World’. Combined with inequality is a smouldering sense of unfairness, and an impression that those who have do not even care about those left behind…. There seem to be a million mutinies now….

“The people are speaking. Are we listening? It is high time we listen to people not like us and examine concepts that have become embedded in our minds about governance of societies and economies."

In the following extract from his latest book, Maira illustrates the value of creating a safe space where people can speak up and listen to each other. And shape solutions to complex problems together.

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There are always three sides to every story: your side, the other side, and the truth.

—Robert Evans

‘If you are not with us, you must be against us,’ President George W. Bush declared after 9/11, compelling people to declare whose side they were on. All the labour union leaders sat on one side of the big table at the meeting in Mumbai, and all the employers sat on the other side. This physical division made it easier to know which side they were on. We generally assume that everyone sitting on the same side of a legislative chamber or the same side of a table should have the same views. If someone we assumed was on our side supports what the other side is advocating, we are surprised. ‘We thought you were on our side!’ we say. Where we sit is expected to indicate where we stand in a debate. To make people’s loyalties clear, it is customary in many legislative chambers to make people sit on opposing sides. People who change their minds and betray our side must cross the floor and sit on the other side.

A meeting with a difference to discuss the future of India was held in Jaipur in February 2005. Its purpose was to provide an opportunity for leaders and emerging leaders from many walks of life in India to pause and reflect together on what they could do to enable desirable changes in the country. The meeting was unlike other meetings and seminars on the future of India. Three significant differences in its format facilitated deeper reflection on the future and present condition of the country amongst the hundred or so people who assembled together.

Firstly, the participants were very diverse. There was diversity of vocation—businessmen, politicians, bureaucrats, farmers, teachers, leaders of NGOs, students, journalists, homemakers, diplomats, and others. There was also diversity of age—from teenaged school students to retired cabinet secretaries in their seventies, and a healthy gender ratio—an equal number of men and women. The diversity of participants enabled many perspectives of the reality of India to be combined for all to understand the whole truth.

Second, the meeting was conducted in an open space in the gardens of the Rambagh Palace Hotel. The hotel created an informal, open amphitheatre for plenary sessions when all the participants were together. There were several groups of chairs spread out under the trees for smaller, parallel meetings. There were neither tables nor chairs in the amphitheatre. Layers of wooden platforms were set up in a horse-shoe format, with mattresses and cushions strewn on them. Participants could sit wherever they wanted.

Too many meetings are designed and conducted as meetings amongst positions and not meetings amongst people. People with higher positions must sit higher. People with the same positions on an issue must sit together. The settings of the meetings reinforce positions. They strengthen views of people as stereotypes. Moreover, they nestle people within their societal and ideological boxes from which they are expected to speak.

When Ms Vasundhara Raje, the Chief Minister of Rajasthan, came to the opening session of the meeting, she saw the diverse people—young and old, rich and poor (wealthy women in silk saris and farmers in white cotton dhotis), seniors and juniors—seated together on the mattresses. The organizers had placed a chair for her in the front. But she walked past it, climbed onto a platform, and settled down on a mattress amongst the people.

The third difference between the Jaipur meeting and conventional meetings was in the design of the meeting. It was designed as a dialogue amongst participants, rather than as a series of monologues that many meetings tend to be. There was no assigned time for speeches, nor any designated speakers, except for the brief introductions in the opening session about the purpose of the meeting and principles for its successful conduct.

Three principles were laid down for the meeting:

  • The difficult and seemingly intractable problems in India, whether poor governance or endemic corruption, require collaboration amongst people from many walks of life. They cannot be solved by government, business, or civic society alone. Therefore, pointing fingers at others for failing to solve the problems does not help much. In fact, we have to identify and accept our own responsibilities, because ‘if we are not part of the problem, we cannot be part of the solution.’
  • In the meeting, all people will be equals and will get equal opportunities to express themselves and be heard, whether they are a young student or a senior bureaucrat, because we can all learn from the benefit of insights from other perspectives.
  • The primary orientation of every participant in the meeting must be to listen and to learn, and not try yet again to convince (with arguments that are stuck in our heads and that we repeat in multiple forums).

No doubt, the open setting made a big difference to the quality of the meeting. The principles for the conduct of the meeting, which the participants asked me, as their facilitator, to apply firmly, made an even bigger difference. Everyone got an equal opportunity to speak, whether a student, homemaker, farmer or a chief minister. Just as in a computer, in which the configuration of the hardware and the design of the software give the computer its capability to convert data to decisions, the design of the setting and the process enables a meeting to combine ideas of diverse people into agreements.

In the concluding plenary session in the amphitheatre, one of the participants, Ms Lata Vaidyanathan, the principal of a Delhi school, requested permission to read a poem she had composed to express her feelings about the meeting. She stepped into the open space before the participants and recited this:

I wandered and wondered

Like a lonely bird in the sky

With none but the clouds to encounter

When a gentle tapping breeze

Turned me around

 

I saw a flock of birds come

Who seemed to say

If we move together

The clouds will help us to sail

For there are rainbows in the yonder

For all of us to hail

 

We have sighted our target

And need to decide that

If we move together

Nothing is hard to get

 

Let each one be special

But knit our strengths around

For we want a country

That’s first on the count.

The design of the physical settings of meetings—the hardware—can have a tremendous impact on the quality of meetings. Conveners of meetings must pay more attention to the settings to achieve their desired outcomes. In addition to the hardware, the software of meetings—processes for dialogue and deliberation—enable deeper listening thereby improving outcomes of conversations and meetings.

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(Excerpted from Listening for Well-being: Conversations with People Not Like Us by Arun Maira with permission from the publisher, Rupa Publications.)

About the author

Arun Maira
Arun Maira

Former Chairman, BCG India &

Member, Planning Commission

Former Member, Planning Commission of India
Former Chairman, Boston Consulting Group, India
Chairman, HelpAge International

Any discussion on policy, the future of India, and indeed the world, is enriched with Arun Maira’s views, and not just because he was a member of the Planning Commission of India for five years till June 2014. Arun is one of those rare people who have held leadership positions in both, the private as well as the public sector, bringing a unique perspective on how civil society, the government, and the private sector can work more closely to improve the world for everyone. He has led three rounds of participative and comprehensive scenario building for the future of India: in 1999 (with the Confederation of Indian Industry), 2005 (with the World Economic Forum), and 2011 (with the Planning Commission).

In his career spanning five decades, Arun has led several organisations, including the Boston Consulting Group in India, where he was chairman for eight years till 2008. He was also the chairman of Axis Bank Foundation and Save the Children, India. He was a board member of the India Brand Equity Foundation, the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, and the UN Global Compact, and WWF India.

In the early part of his career, he spent 25 years in the Tata group at various important positions. He was also a member of the Board of Tata Motors (then called TELCO). After leaving the Tatas, Arun joined Arthur D Little Inc (ADL), the international management consultancy, in the US, where he advised companies across sectors and geographies on their growth strategies and handling transformational change.

Recognising his astute understanding of both macro as well as micro policy issues, Arun has been involved in several government committees and organisations, including the National Innovation Council. He has been on the board of several companies as well as educational institutions and has chaired several national committees of the Confederation of Indian Industries.

In 2009, Arun was appointed as a member of the Planning Commission (now replaced by the NITI Aayog), which is led by the Prime Minister of India. At this minister-level position, he led the development of strategies for the country on issues relating to industrialisation and urbanisation. He also advised the Commission on its future role.

With his vast experience and expertise, Arun is indeed a thought leader. He is invited to speak at various forums and has written several books that capture his insights.

His most recent book, A Billion Fireflies: Critical Conversations to Shape a New Post-Pandemic World and Transforming Systems: Why the World Needs a New Ethical Toolkit before that, talk about how systemic problems of social inequality and environmental unsustainability are becoming intolerable. Prevalent precepts of good business management and best practices in government as well as civil society organisations are failing the needs of humanity. This calls for a whole new toolkit founded on systems thinking, ethical reasoning and deep listening. And that civil society, government and private companies need to work together to encourage a variety of local systems solutions for deep-rooted issues that impact different communities differently.

His previous books include An Upstart in Government: Journeys of Change and Learning (2016); Redesigning the Aeroplane While Flying: Reforming Institutions (2014)Remaking India: One Country, One DestinyTransforming Capitalism: Improving the World for EveryoneShaping the Future: Aspirational Leadership in India and Beyond; and Listening for Well-Being: Conversations with People Not Like Us (2017).