I have had an interesting few days working with Aboriginal leadership from around North America. In Michigan last week, I helped convene 24 folks interested in what indigenous leadership means, and today I am here in Port McNeil BC, hosting a community to community forum between First Nations and local governments.

One of the things that folks in the rest of indigenous North America don’t realize about the cultures of the west coast is how radically different they are from the cultures of the plains, desert and forests of the rest of North America. This is true in many ways, but especially true in the way the individual is perceived.

IN Ojibway culture for example, the individual is important. The integrity of one’s personal path is virtually sacred. So much so that Ojibway Elders never teach people by correcting them. Instead they will make broad pointers, refer to hypothetical people or talk indirectly about situations. Shaming is a very powerful force, and people will go to great lengths to avoid doing it. In general, hints are extremely subtle.

On the west coast however, the social world is very highly segmented, and in traditional communities, a strict hierarchical class system is in place from chiefs all the way down to slaves. Protocols are extremely important, and breaching protocols entails elaboration restitution and reconciliation before the natural order is restored. In this sense, west coast cultures are similar to Hawaiian and other Polynesian cultures as well.

I was faced with these two different cultural contexts in the last two weeks as I went about my work facilitating groups. In both cases, I experienced these cultural norms as participants were suggesting changes to process and the way I was facilitating.

In Michigan, we ran a circle process to help understand themes that were emerging from a cafe. In the circle, the conversation became more and more high level and eventually it came time for us to stop talking theoretically and start sharing stories. One man who was present, a Gros Ventre psychologist and teacher, made a very subtle hint about this saying “it will be good to ground these ideas and exchange stories.” It sounded like a very general comment, but it was offered, from his perspective as a very specific request: let’s move on.

When we didn’t move on, a Hawaiian professor spoke up, much more directly and suggested that I wrap up the circle and get to an Open Space process. That’s what we did and the energy began flowing again.

IN contrast today, while hearing a round of introductions, a young man was introducing himself but was going beyond the one things I asked people to say about themselves. At one point I interrupted his train of though with a friendly reminder about saying only one thing so that we could allow everyone to have a chance to speak. Instantly one of the hereditary chiefs rose, and in a big resonant voices said “point of order!” He then chastised me for “taking the talking stick out of that young man’s hands, and that is something we never ever do.” I apologized to the chief and the young man and he continued his introduction. It became a little teaching moment for the whole gathering, local politicians feeling their way into working together and the non-Aboriginal ones were quite nervous about protocol violations. Luckily I have no such qualms about making mistakes – in my 15 years on the west coast, I could never hope to be perfect all the time – and in apologizing, everything was set to rights and we continued, but the power was very visible in the room.

These kinds of deeply cultural ways of speaking and teaching and correcting are radically different between a Gros Ventre academic and a Gwasala hereditary chief. It’s one of the things that makes working in Indigenous communities so interesting and so challenging. Never make assumptions about what you think you know, and what is going on in the room. Every culture is different, has different thoughts about speech and different ways power is used. Understand that you can never hope to comprehend them all fully, not without years and years of living in the community, and even then, mistakes are made. Most important is to be yourself though, because although it is possible to violate protocols unconsciously, it is not possible to reconcile if you are anything other than authentic with people.

When all is said and done, that is probably the essence of the teaching for this week.