Communication really can help community develop

By William Seidman I’ve been in Germany leading training for best practices in a very interesting company. We’re in the former East Germany (German Democratic Republic – GDR) and I’ve been working with people born in the 1970s and 1980s – who have no, or very little, recollection of life “behind the Iron Curtain.” I’ve learned so much from some of the reactions to our work there. The best one was about our group discussions: people develop the best practices as a group then, during deployment, discuss them as a group. This was a very positive and awakening experience for many of them. One guy, old enough to remember life under the old regime,  used an incredible metaphor for the experience. He remarked that, after the wall came down and people were no longer afraid of speaking, they discovered that most of them had the same thoughts. When communication could develop, community resulted. Reality can be powerful.]]>