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The Gift: chapter three

July 23, 2004 By Uncategorized

Chapter three of “The Gift” is called “The Labor of Gratitude.” In it Hyde examines the nature of the transformative gift, the gift that works a transformation in the recipient. These kinds of gifts are very close to my heart, for they include teachings (received from Elders, mentors and other teachers) and, in a purely prosaic context, the kind of information received from people in processes like stakeholder consultations and organizational change initiatives.

Here’s Hyde:

In each example I have offered of a transformative gift, if the teaching begins to “take,” the recipient feels gratitude. I would like to speak of gratitude as a labor undertaken by the soul to effect the transformation after a gift has been received. Between the time a gift comes to us and the time we pass it along, we suffer gratitude. Moreover, with gifts that are agents of change, it is only when the gift has worked in us, only when we have come up to its level, as it were, that we can give it away again. Passing the gift along is an act of gratitude that finishes the labor. The transformation is not accomplished until we have the power to give the gift on our own terms. Therefore, the end of the labor of gratitude is similarity with the gift or with its donor. Once this similarity has been achieved we may feel a lingering and generalized gratitude, but we won’t feel it with the urgency of true indebtedness.

This is wonderful way to capture what happens when Elders pass on teachings. We receive them in a sense as a challenge and an invitation to raise our own standards to the standards outlined in the teaching. We are also invited to find our own way of achieving the similarity that Hyde speaks of. The very best teachers, in my experience, give us something to aspire to and nurture our own discovery of the path to similarity. The labor of gratitude, the work of becoming transformed by the gift of the teaching, is ours alone. And if you have ever been a teacher, you will recognize the gift that a student gives you when she responds to your teaching by intentionally incorporating it into her life.

I think that these kinds of gifts are actually widely available to us. I do a lot of work with groups who are asking other groups for their opinions, input or collaboration. I facilitate consultation processes where stakeholder are asked for their ideas on things like policy development. I work with organizations who are creating processes to work with employees, clients and other stakeholders to effect organizational change. I work with communities that are seeking to involve more citizens in their decision making.

In every case I make a point of informing my clients that the processes we are crafting will work only if people show up and give to us willingly. (The first principles of Open Space Technology is “whoever comes is the right people” acknowledging those who show up to offer and contribute). We have an obligation to treat these people as teachers and to treat their contributions as gifts. Consultation processes fail without this depth of relationship, because if the relationship is commodified, people feel taken advantage of.

Advice given by people who are usually volunteering their time and effort, is an unrepayable gift. The only proper way to honour it is to undertake the labour of gratitude that creates a similarity between consulter and consultee. And if the fruit of that labour is not transformation, then we have approached people dishonestly and bought their trust, which is a betrayal of that trust.

This has huge implications in organizations and communities. Imagine if everyone was engaged in a way that honoured the gifts they have to offer. Imagine if people in power established a reciprocal gifting relationship with citizens, recognizing that people who contribute are doing so out of a place that cannot be quantified, but must instead be honoured with the gifts of support and connection that people in power can offer.

Hyde’s idea of the labour of gratitude gives me some nice language to deepen my own understanding of these processes.