“How big is the top of Mount Everest?”

“About the size of a small kitchen table,” he responded.

“That is amazing,” I said, “You know, when you cross the Sahara Desert, there is no way of knowing where the desert ends. There is no peak, no border, no sign that says, “You are Now leaving the Sahara Desert – Have a nice Day!”

• From Steve Donahue’s. Shifting Sands.

 Not only metaphors run our life, but we also reveal our minds and metaphors which runs it, in our day-to-day communication with others.  Metaphors, liberates us and imprison our mind at the same time.  After being a pilgrim as a small kid to Sabarimala and then getting enamored by   Ekanath Easwaran’s spiritual classic. “Climbing the blue mountain” and Jack Krakauer’s.  “Into Thin Air”, Mountains were etched in my mind as Metaphors of summit.  Spiritual or any human endeavor.

All of it changed in a moment.

Almost 12 years back, one fine day, I landed  on Lekhwair airport and  on to the edge of  the vastness of Empty Quarter .   (Rub’ al Kahil in Arabic) , a sand desert of some 650,000 square kilometer. That desert covered a huge part of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen and Oman.  Just to reemphasize the vastness of the place of nowhere to now, 1000km long and 500 km wide.  It has sand dunes of reddish orange in color, with up to 250 m high.

We, Gabriel Benet, Said, Rukmuddin Kahan, and I were part of a team working on a transformation project for PDO, Oman. My role was as a change and transformation consultant. Rukmuddin was our system architect, Said, who belonged to Syria,, having worked as Petroleum engineer for some 3 decades was our  SME and. Gab, a die-hard Barcelona and football fan, our Project Manager. Fieldwork for that project took us to almost all oil fields of PDO. And we landed  on Lekhwair PDO airport too.  Lekhwair camp is quite far from that airport. The driver of the Landcruiser jeep, who took us to the PDO camp was a native of Kerala. And we bonded quite well.  He was a long-time employee at PDO.  In fact, his home in Kerala was not far away from the place I belonged to.  And he told us that he will drive us to the desert.  He said it is worth watching, especially on a full moon day.

 And on that day, he drove us quite near to the point were. Saudi Arabia, UAE and Oman borders meet. We were busy debating on some nonissue as usual.   As the lights of the camp were far behind, we were almost amid the vastness.  And the jeep came to a halt.  Suddenly we all became silent as we stepped out into the desert. The reddish orange color of the sand glistened under the full moon light. And it was one of those moments, universe came to a standstill for me.  Truly a be blessed moment. The light and shade artwork by the moon light, on the sides of sand dunes, the mixed colors on the horizon, clear sky of shimmering shy stars and a brazen full watt Moon.  It was just magical. All of us just got dissolved into it.

Photo courtesy : Freepik

That moment triggered my love of the desert. And books of Thesiger, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Steve Donahue etc. took over my bookshelf.  (Arabian sands, Shifting Sands, wind, sand and stars are all classic must read.).  Till then the only book on Arabia I had read was. The Arabian nights.  But then that book was about. Aladdin, Sindbad and others than about the sand and its beauty.  Benyamin and The Goat days came much later.

The wonderful book. Shifting Sands - A guidebook for crossing the deserts of change, rewrote all my previously held textbook concepts about org transformation and change.  All those theories were cast in stone, cookie cutter solutions.  That book, reoriented my focus on the uniqueness of a context and people in it. From then on,  It became more about transformation of people in a particular context and much less about what we mandate as change.  Ever since, that compass, hold good for me from personal change (self, children, dear and near ) , to Coachee,  to  organizations to eco system.

A long time back, as a member of an ad hoc committee of a residential apartment complex, I remember sharing with other teammates (who were all super achievers in their respective fields) this principle.  Every org and group of people differ. Army, Corporation and commercial entity, a club, a cricket team.  When we carry our baggage of success in one scenario to another, without making necessary changes in our mindset, our effectiveness as change catalysts gets impacted drastically.

 All these thoughts and memories rushed through my mind, as I was looking at the screen with the picture of the Mountain.   There were three labels on that mountain. Now, next year and later.  And our President (ICF Bangalore Chapter) was talking about our organizations plan for next year.

How do I work with my own teenage sons (Manu and Rishi are different in their mindset, temperament and the way they look at the world)  or my colleagues at work  or my Coachee ( paid, probono and low-bono) ?? What about Bodhi Sangha members??

Do I really practice what I learned. Or. In the madness to catch with time, I assume. “what is good for the goose is good for the gander as well?” !

Today early morning, I was searching for my old notes on that book. And here it is  the summary of summary.

The title of the note was / is : “ How do you navigate in the shifting sands of desert of change ?”.   The note was 10 years old.  Dated   7 Jan 2014.  10 years down the lane of life, I see, the rate of change of change has increased exponentially.

While we are busy planning for the yesterday, tomorrow is already knocking on our door. Still, be still for a moment or two.  Dont rush in.   But then the solution to it is not skydive right into it, with our cookie cutter solutions. Remember the proverb , "Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread.".  Festina Lente: Make haste very slowly, should be our unchanging motto as change catalysts. There was a famous quote from Einstein, “ If I have one hour to solve a problem, I will spend 50 minutes trying to understand the problem “ . That holds good in our missions of change as well. Whether we are working with a Coachee, a family, a project, an org or ourselves. Work on learning about the Context and the lives in it.

Btw summary of that note . pfb 

Metaphors – Symbols of effort, achievement, journey, win, lose and even life – offers lessons such as... 

• It is important to be aware of the Terrain.
• What works on Mt. Everest is useless in the Sahara.

                  On the desert's scorching and shifting sands, wearing stiff alpine boots or          plotting a start-to- finish route spells trouble.

• Follow a compass, not a map.

In the desert, a map is worthless. A compass, however, functions without     fail. In the deserts of life, you must learn to follow your own compass-an innermost sense of purpose and direction.

• Lower your gaze.         In the desert, looking ahead to the horizon is defeating.

                  It never gets any closer.

• Stop pushing.
  In the Sahara, it's pointless to push a car that's stuck in the sand. Instead, you deflate the tires, which lifts the vehicle up and out of the sand. In the deserts of life, it's pointless to keep pushing when you're in a rut or stalemate. Instead, deflate your own ego or stubbornness.
• Know when to duck.
  In the Sahara, it's okay to duck. If your camel walks under a low-hanging branch, why not dodge the blow? In the deserts of life, it's okay to avoid a hit you're not ready for.

 Acknowledgement: Sincere thanks to  Sir Wilfred Thesiger ( Mubarak- Bin- London),  Steve Donahue, Sir Edmond Hilary and Jon Krakauer for their wonderful ideas.   Books:  Arabian Sands and Into Thin Air

Now  what is your context of change :  Is it still a mountain, desert, river, a canyon. Or an a urban apartment complex  Or is it an AI startup ??   Please dont rush in with our plan and solution.  Pause for a moment.