By Trina Talukdar

My first month at Kshetra, I was already ready to quit.

On the morning of my first day, some team members said they were sick last minute and couldn’t come into work. And this continued to happen. Team members would say in the morning, when we had all-day meetings scheduled, that they had a toothache, migraines. And instead of disciplining them, the organisation’s leaders were sending them TLC, kadha recipes and saying, “Feel better. Get well soon.” Falling sick on a workday- how dare they???

We started some meetings late because team members said they were stuck in traffic, or couldn’t find a ride in the morning. And instead of naming and shaming them, everyone moved their schedules around to accommodate them. How could they???

Kshetra was planning to start a fellowship for dialogue practitioners. I said I’d share a draft design within a week. And they said, “No, no. Take your time. Think through it. Sit with it. We will do this over the next four months.” Four months to design one program???

And yet, Kshetra has enabled more 25,000 community leaders to use dialogue to strengthen their work, in less than two and half years! Kshetra has worked with the two most premier legal education institutions in the country, and trained our next generation of lawyers to move away from binary, polarised thinking, towards dialogue. How did they manage to achieve that?

In my finite wisdom, I went to my friends who also work in non-profits, ranting about Kshetra. “They fall sick, they get stuck in traffic, they do slow work – are they having any impact at all???”

And, in their infinite wisdom, my friends said to me, “Look inwards.” (With friends like these, who needs a therapist? Am I right?!)

So, there I was, sitting with the questions- what within me was triggered by Kshetra’s work culture? What are my deeply held beliefs and assumptions that I’ve been socialised into, that Kshetra is challenging? I sat there with my discomfort. And it dawned on me!

It is but natural for people to wake up in the morning and feel sick. No one can plan their sickness according to meeting schedules! In Bangalore’s unmanaged traffic, and inadequate public transport, who isn’t late? And most importantly – isn’t sustainable social change mindful and slow?

Over 15 years of my work life, I had been socialised into believing that I wasn’t allowed to fall sick, that if I was 10 minutes late to work it meant I wasn’t committed to my cause. I have been made to believe that impact comes at the cost of self-care, that if I wasn’t working 16 hour days and burning out, and kept pushing myself, still, without taking breaks, then I wasn’t having any impact.

Lies! Lies! Lies! These are all lies I was telling myself. So, now, it’s time to tell myself the truth.

I’m allowed to fall sick! It’s okay if I’m late sometimes. I don’t need to reply to every email as soon as I receive it at 11:27 pm. Mostly, nothing is urgent. And, more importantly, I’m not that indispensable. I can take a break, I can take care of myself, and the good work will continue just as well, because the amazing people I’m surrounded by have got this!

So, after 15 years of working, here I am at Kshetra- where, when I fall sick my team members send me kindness, love, and kadha recipes; where, when I’m struggling to meet a goal, instead of putting me on probation, the team comes together to support me, so we can all meet the goal together; where late night or early morning emails come with the disclaimer, “Not urgent! Don’t look at it now!”; where, when I asked if I could take a few days off to work on my side passion project, the leadership said, “You are a whole person, Trina, and we want you to keep bringing your whole self to Kshetra.”

So, here I am at Kshetra- questioning my toxic beliefs, unlearning, learning to be slow, thoughtful, mindful, taking care of myself, daring to be my true, full self.

After 15 years of my work life, here I am at Kshetra – healing.

This empathetic space, understanding team, supportive work processes is only possible because Kshetra practises what we preach – dialogue! For example, In my experience, when I or other team members haven’t completed our goals, typically there is no dialogue to understand my situation, or for me to be able to understand what missing that goal means for the larger context of the organisation. Without dialogue, we usually resort to punitive measures, like naming and shaming, putting our team members on probation. But these solutions, arrived at in non-dialogic ways, do not solve anyone’s problems – not the person’s who wasn’t able to meet the goal, nor the organisation’s, because the goal is still not achieved.

At Kshetra, dialogue allows us to understand both the person and the organisation’s contexts and interests, so we can find a solution together, where the individual’s barriers are removed so they can work on their objectives, and the organisation moves towards our key results.

Kshetra has been able to impact 25,000 community leaders in under 2.5 years, not in spite of team members taking time off, not in spite of their slowness in scaling, but because of it!

A burnt out team never helped anything – not the people, the organisation or the mission. No one can have a 3-5 year plan to solve a complex social problem, no matter how well organised the OKR spreadsheet, or how beautiful the slide deck. Through dialogue at Kshetra, we are investing our time, our feelings, our mindspace, not chasing impact numbers, putting out fires everyday within and outside of us, repressing our own needs – but on building an empathetic, loving, understanding people, team and community.