By Peter Block

Gift:

A natural ability or talent.

A thing willingly given to someone without payment.

Success at building strong communities and organizations is accelerated when we focus on and give full expression to our gifts and the gifts of others. This is in contrast to the more common practice of focusing on what is missing and needs to be fixed.

Giving full expression to our gifts requires us to know what they are, in specific terms. It is a challenge to own them and treat them as if they are important. This is difficult because at the moment I own my gifts, I become accountable for their application. So, we often turn our attention to deficiencies, which demand little of us other than an apology and an improvement plan.  

Gifts come to life when we choose to tell others the gifts we are receiving from them at the moment, not yesterday or what is hoped for tomorrow. And, when we invite others to tell us what gifts they receive from us this time we are together. Awkward? Yes. Impactful? Yes.

For this to occur we choose to operate within a context where gifts are central, primary, the point. We choose not to treat a discussion of gifts as being self-centered or useful only on occasion.  

The dominant contemporary context gives great importance to deficiencies, problems, self-improvement. Our consumer culture attends to what is missing in us, what we might become. Otherwise, we would only buy what we needed. What we are not in the habit of practicing is a conversation about gifts that are exchanged in the normal course of being together. The dominant culture does not see recognition of gifts –– our own and those of others –– as the essence of producing outcomes and of connection, belonging, and making a place better, whether a home, a workplace, a neighborhood, a council meeting, a town hall meeting, a garden or book or dog club.

Our purpose here is to encourage and underline the importance of naming gifts as a routine practice. Plus, to detail what the conversation looks like.

Our Current Habits  

Naming gifts is most often saved for a special occasion. This is where we see three conversational gift habits:

1. On Departure. Retirement and death are the established occasions when we talk about a person’s gifts. In the case of death, it is called a eulogy. In this moment, we will be forgiven. People will express their gratitude towards us and say what they will miss. People will describe what was unique and special about us. Unfortunately, we are likely to miss the conversation. And by just a few days.
   
   At retirement or leaving the workplace, same conversation. We get to listen to this one.  We will hear their gratitude. Our unique capacities. What is special about us. Unfortunately, this conversation occurs on our way out. We are gone tomorrow.  Plus, the occasion only occurs a few times in our lifetime.
   
2. Personality Analysis and Self-Improvement. We have written tests for assessing and giving meaning our gifts. FIRO-B tells me about my leanings toward control, inclusion, and affection. Myers-Briggs lets me know I am an INFJ. Introverted, intuitive, feeling, and judging. Positive psychology helps us focus on our strengths and how to build them. Social-emotional training develops and indexes our path to relational maturity. Performance reviews are another common habit where our pluses and minuses are discussed. Therapy is also a prevalent practice.  
   
3. Victory.  When we win, our gifts are celebrated. Best in class. Sports achievements. Promotions. Awards. Grades. The message here is that acknowledging our gifts has to be earned.

Add No. 4: Exchanging Gifts as a Regular Relational Practice

As we seek connection and belonging or an alternative future, naming the gifts we have received from one another each time we are together is a powerful practice. It deserves to be ranked up there with Robert’s Rules of Order in the public sector, and PowerPoint presentations, updates, and staff meetings everywhere else. We can be very specific about what this would look like. To create the context for the gifts conversation, there are some distinctions that are useful.

• Gifts vs Strengths. There is a distinction between stating what gifts I have received from someone on this occasion and a discussion of a person’s strengths. It is not our task to analyze or name what others are good at. Strengths are an abstraction and prone to projections. The word “strength” also brings the presence of weakness into play.  We want to tell people what difference they made, not what strengths they possess.

• Being Enough vs Needing Improvement. The gifts conversation as envisioned here is not about self-improvement. Self-improvement functions out of a context that something more being needed. It is a useful industry, but its larger context is that we are not yet enough. Advice is needed, and there is always work to be done. Still, there is something twisted when we take on the responsibility of helping the other become a better person. It is a colonial practice, packaged as mentoring and generosity.   

The context for building successful communities and organizations begins with the stance that we are enough. Period. What builds a better world is to create ways of acknowledging and amplifying the fact that each person has all that is needed. This begins with seeing our gifts clearly so they can be amplified. This is what creates agency and accountability.

The Practice of the Gifts Conversation

The gifts conversation is powerful when we decide that exchanging gifts for its own sake is essential. The intent is to learn what action I am taking –– now, in this moment –– has value and meaning for the people in the room and the purpose of our gathering. Naming this teaches each what to focus on and shifts the energy and potential for all in the room.  

Here are the practices that build a gift-minded way of being. This conversation occurs in the middle or the end of every gathering.

Practice One: When you choose to describe a gift you have received 

1. Focus on the conversation you just had. Pick a person. Name names: Sally, Lopez, Derek … Say: I want to say something to you. State the gift you received. For example: You listened. You surprised me. You were vulnerable. Your way of thinking added something new.  You named your doubts. You bring a quiet warmth to the discussion. You shared an experience close to mine. I have seen you around but never got to know you.
2. State why their action matters to you. Example: This matters because … it is rare for me to be with someone who does not have something in mind for me. Also, I am usually very cautious, and I wasn’t cautious in this conversation. I thought I was alone and something was wrong with me. I discovered that is not so. Your presence with me told me I was not crazy. 

Practice Two: When someone says something nice to you

1. Say: Thank you. I like hearing that. Do not respond in kind. Do not be humble. Do not tell a story about your struggles, how your sibling is better at this. How you got lucky this time. How the other person brought it out of you. Do not deflect the attention. Courage is required to take it in without reshaping it with history, explanation, or humility. Thank you. I like hearing that. Pause. Inhale.   
2. Speak to the person who named a gift of yours just now and share what that means to you. You might say that connecting with strangers is not easy for you. This moment is an antidote to your impatience for a to-do list and you find it challenging to simply connect with others for its own sake. You like to control things, and this moment is an example of knowing you are capable of just being present for another. Or you tend to think your ideas are too radical; it is good knowing they might have more value than you realized.
3. Ask: Is there anything else in our conversation that made a difference for you?  
4. Repeat: Thank you. I like hearing that.
5. The purpose is to accelerate connection and value it as the necessary path to outcomes, learning, and accountability. An alternative future is based on this.    
6. Remember the conversation about you at the moment has a larger purpose: to deepen your connection with all who are on the call or in the room. Also, it affirms a context of our being enough. It also is of value to others who witness this moment.

Practice Three: When someone leaves early  

The gifts conversation is also useful for small departures, moments more frequent than death and retirement. This is when someone has to leave a gathering early. Instead of sneaking out at the break or when no one is looking, we take a moment with the one who is leaving to value the fact they showed up. This expresses appreciation for the time the person was present. This serves to complete the circle in the absence of the person leaving. Even if they said nothing all day.

1. The process is for the convener to ask for any three people in the room to share with the person leaving: Here is a gift I received from you as a result of you being part of this today.
2. Next is for the departing person to state what gifts they have received as a result of being there.  

One More Thought   

The point is to put gifts on the agenda in as many ways as possible. This recognizes that asking what we can do better next time has limits; it reinforces the idea that focusing on what is not working takes us somewhere. Start the gifts conversation, which declares we have agency for this event, with a question halfway through a gathering: Are you getting what you came for? This gives time to act, together, on getting what we came for. Surveying participants after the event is a nice gesture but treats people as consumers giving feedback, not as creators of the time we spent together.  

Thanks for Reading

One purpose of every convening is to give form to the world and culture we want to inhabit. This happens when we reshape small and important elements of convening. The questions we ask and the way we convene are what creates a future we do not have to wait for.  Focusing on gifts as one category of meeting design enables us to believe that all we need for transformation or shift is present in this room. Something or someone more is not required for authentic change to occur.

Full Disclosure

I was in a day-long gathering recently and I had to leave early. I had led the morning session but would be gone for the afternoon.

It occurred to me that maybe I should treat my early leaving as a rare moment where I choose to practice what I preach. Before we broke for lunch, I told the group what the three gifts were that I had received from them in our time together.

I then nervously asked in a whisper, what gifts had they received from me? I know what the process is. See practice No. 3 above. I just am not in the habit of following it.  

For the next fifteen minutes, I heard from people I have known and cared about for a long while, years in many cases, and from others whom I had just met. They were specific in describing what my work had meant to them in the past and the gift of how I had been with them in the gathering that morning.  

In hearing what impacts I have had on their practices, in addition to being appreciated, I received insights into the detail and texture of what words and actions of mine had meaning to them. Most were surprises. They mentioned certain times we had been together.  They talked about shifts in their thinking. Ways they had transformed their own practice. Ways they had received value from my words that I could not have known without this conversation.  

In those ten minutes, I was given –– in a way that surprised me –– the gift of being present in a premature version of my own eulogy. I received the gifts and experienced the discomfort of having to exhale into the realization that the work I have committed to makes a difference. That moment answered questions and doubts that haunt us all. It happened not as the point of our gathering, or as a learning opportunity, but as a footnote to the bigger reason for us to gather.

This is what the gifts conversation offers each time. A small metaphor of what will restore our humanity in the face of a commodifying culture. We may still leave the meeting with a list of what to do, but we will hold it lightly, knowing it was really not the point.

Thank you. If anything here means something to you, I like hearing that.    

It has been over two weeks since I returned from this year’s China OD Practitioner (CODP) Conference held on November 16-17, yet the impact of the event still lingers on my mind. I am deeply moved by the overwhelming feedback shared by participants, especially their reflections from a talk given by Peter Block, which was streamed via video.

Some Background

The CODP Conference is an annual gathering organized by the Innovative OD Center (IOC), an OD training and consulting firm based in Shanghai. This event fosters connections among OD practitioners in China and helps them share best practices, learn new perspectives, and deepen their sense of community.

The gathering of this year had a special significance as it was a celebration of the 10^th anniversary of IOC’s most foundational program, the Competencies in OD Certificate Program. Close to 80 graduates participated in this gathering, representing about one-third of all alumni. As a graduate of the 10^th OD Certificate Program, I am lucky to be one part of this growing community. 

The “Encounter”

Peter Block’s name is familiar to everyone in this community as his book, Flawless Consulting (3^rd edition) has been one of the two pre-reading books for the OD Certificate Program in the past decade. However, the conference was first time that the participants finally “met” Peter, albeit virtually, through a 26-minute video excerpt from a recent 80-minute Zoom interview conducted by IOC.

The video played on Day 2 of the conference during a session focused on envisioning the community’s next 10 years. Peter’s insights addressed profound and wide-ranging topics:

• The essence and value of OD in a world of uncertainty and change
• Bringing authenticity into organizations often dominated by the “head” rather than the “heart”
• His journey to becoming a Master of OD
• Transitioning from organizational to community-focused work
• Shifting people’s mindsets from being consumers to becoming co-owners of their communities

The Gifts

Unexpectedly, watching a short video recording turned out to be the highlight of the conference. In the small groups that were convened immediately after watching the video, many participants shared that they were deeply touched and inspired. In the WeChat group for the conference, many shared similar reflections.

The momentum continued even after the conference was finished. I saw many participants posting photos of Peter on video in their WeChat Moments, together with the lines that struck them most.

Here are just a few of the lines shared:

• “The essence of OD is that relationship and our connection to each other is what produces outcomes.”
• “OD is…confronting people with their gifts, confronting with what you want to bring to this place.”
• “We’re not trying to protest or change anyone. We’re looking for people looking for us.”
• “When you choose to treat people as subjects rather than objects, you’re going to feel lonely. And that’s why we need each other.”
• “You’re not trying to convince anybody. You’re an invitation. You’re not a mandate.” 
• “That’s the magnet you are and the container you are for your culture.”
• “Leadership is to step into an uncertain future, to believe and face ourselves that we can create the future, even though we can’t predict it.”
• “The future always exists in the present.”

Meaningful Reflections

With curiosity, I asked some of the participants, “What made those particular words meaningful to you?” Here are some of their responses:

• “Our work of HR and OD treats ‘people’ as the end instead of the mean. However, we often feel lonely and frustrated, because most people around us are focusing on the ‘things’ only. And I feel greatly comforted by Peter’s words that we just need to look for people looking for us.” (Leslie, an HR leader of a new energy automotive company)
• “Treating people as subjects instead of objects is so important for our time. Nobody can be all-powerful, and we need everyone to be agent and give full play to our creativity.” (Jinfeng, a former sales leader of a bio-pharmaceutical company.)  
• “Peter talks about the essence of OD and community in such simple but powerful words. And his way of talking just demonstrates authenticity. This encourages us as OD practitioners to trust and confront ourselves–we can create the world we want to inhabit.” (Victoria, an independent EQ and leadership coach, and OD consultant.)     
• “Everyone is trying to make a change, and the change does not happen in the future but starts from now. And my reflection is how I can become to be the magnet and the container for that change.” (Wing, OD Head of a chain catering enterprise.)

Immediate Application

One outcome that was particularly inspiring to me was an action immediately taken by the Dream Team responsible for co-designing the conference made up of six volunteers from the OD practitioner community. Vera, one of the Dream Team members and an OD consultant of IOC, shared with me:

“I heard Peter talking about the subtle differences of questions, and I suddenly realized that our questions designed for collecting participants’ feedback on the conference were all ‘consumer’ questions, for example, ‘What attracted you to the conference?’ and “What is your takeaway from the conference?’ I discussed this with the rest of the team, and we immediately decided to change them to ‘ownership’ questions- ‘What intention did you bring to the conference?’ ‘Did you realize your intention?’”

Gratitude

As Maria Wang, the founder of IOC, reflected, “Peter’s presence made a difference to the conference. His words evoked and provoked a lot of thinking and reflections on OD and community. They are such precious gifts to our conference participants.”

Thank you, Peter, for the abundant gifts you brought to OD practitioners in China. Your words continue to inspire, guide, and elevate this community.

Article written by Mei Hong