So what is a trim tab and why does it matter?
A dictionary will tell you that a trim tab is a control surface attached to the trailing edge of a rudder. As you may know, rudders are what steer ships. Slightly adjusting the angle of a trim tab in relation to the rudder has a significant impact on changing the direction a vessel is headed. Trim tabs are an important component for a ship’s maneuverability and its ability to steer out of harm’s way.
Of course, the technical applications of a trim tab on a boat have been and continue to be made analogous to the work of people. In a 1972 interview for Playboy, Buckminster Fuller, the renowned architect, philosopher, and innovator said:
Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary – the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there’s a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim tab.
It’s a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab. Society thinks it’s going right by you, that it’s left you altogether. But if you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go.
So I said, call me Trim Tab.
—R. Buckminster Fuller, Barry Farrell (Playboy Interview, Feb 1972)
Source: http://www.bfi.org/our_programs/publications/trimtab
Kathryn Schindler is a facilitator of the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium, and she is a metaphorical, human trim tab for the “New Dream.”
Kathryn Schindler, Facilitator
Professionally, Schindler is a consultant at JMJ Associates, an international consulting firm that guides many of the world’s largest oil, gas, and construction companies through transformational conversations that yield safer and more sustainable work conditions for their employees. Schindler notes that having their clients commit to a goal of no worker injuries happening on the job is a significant step since much of the work their clients’ employees perform is the most dangerous work on the planet. In addition to creating safe industrial workplaces, Schindler and her colleagues are committed to making sustainability a priority for their company and the companies whom they consult.
A year ago, Schindler and some of her colleagues had the opportunity to travel to Peru and meet the indigenous people of the Amazon Rainforest and the highlands. Schindler’s encounter with women from these communities was inspirational and unforgettable. During their journey, they experienced an earth-honoring way of life that exists in harmony with the natural world rather than at war with it.
Within days of her return from Peru, Schindler attended an Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium. Her Symposium experience further grounded her connection to the earth and pursuing a sustainable future. She was impressed by the transformational opportunity the Symposium offers its participants, and she observed that the Symposium provides information in a format that she felt JMJ Associates needed to access. She and her colleagues are fully aware of the reputation that many of their client corporations have with regard to their impact on the natural environment. They feel that given the commitment their company has to sustainability and the deep relationships they have with corporations who must clarify this for themselves, they are in a position to influence the thinking of several of these corporations. Indeed, more than one client company has seen the dramatic shift in thinking and outcomes when their organization has taken on a clear commitment to eliminating worker injury and have opened conversations with JMJ Associates about what a similar commitment to the environment might look like for them.
Two weeks after attending her first Symposium, Schindler attended the First Day Elders Facilitator Training in Venice, California, in September 2008 led by Ruel Walker and Leslie Whiting. She was resolved to take the Symposium into her company’s headquarters in Austin, Texas and incorporate it into their work. The question was how to have this happen by attraction rather than by forceful means. During the Facilitator Training, Leslie and Ruel suggested that new facilitators might schedule a “living room” Symposium as a “low-risk” way to get started with supportive friends and family members. This gave Schindler the creative opening she was looking for. She called three other highly committed colleagues in Austin and devised the plan for bringing the Symposium’s message into their company and its thinking.
The plan was to invite environmentally-conscious friends in Austin to a living-room Symposium in one of her colleague’s homes. JMJ Associates’ CEO and Development Director and their wives would also be invited. The “trim tab” strategy was that these two JMJ Associates executives, who have the ultimate authority in terms of the company’s public stands and communications, would be in an informal neighborhood setting, rather than in the office, for their first experience of the Symposium. This would give them the opportunity to participate freely and have whatever personal experience they would have, positive or negative, without the pressures of needing to monitor their participation in front of other employees. If their experience was positive, they could begin generating their own possibilities, again, without being encumbered with a more formal setting inside the company. If their experience was negative, the project would be halted with no further company energy expended.
One colleague offered her home for a Saturday in Austin. Schindler and her colleagues began inviting their non-work friends, family members and associates in Austin. They also attended conference calls that Schindler arranged with Hana Bakir, another experienced facilitator in the Austin area, and began studying sections of the manual that Schindler assigned to them. One of them devoted himself to learning how to show the videos flawlessly, which he did.
Their private living room Symposium was well received by all of the participants who attended. The two executives from JMJ Associates were deeply impressed with the message, the quality of the content and agenda and the commitment of other community members in attendance. Two days later, with the full endorsement from the CEO and Development Director, JMJ Associates launched a Green Team with the purpose of providing their employees with the opportunity to take actions and engage in conversations that forward personal, social, and environmental sustainability.
The Green Team’s inaugural meeting was a Symposium led by Schindler and her team of facilitators. At subsequent meetings, the Green Team formulated their charter, which includes the guideline that any employee working from any of JMJ Associates’ six offices around the world could join as long as they attend a Symposium within a year. Schindler points out that the fact that the Symposium and Awakening the Dreamer community have a global reach has made it easy for JMJ Associates’ employees in different parts of the world to participate in a Symposium. Already, other employees have attended Symposiums in locations as varied as Salem, Oregon, Stamford, Connecticut, and India, with plans in the works for hosting one for the London office next.
One of the Green Team’s stated Areas for Action and Learning is, “Making sustainability personal, relevant and important for JMJ Associates and its clients.” The Green Team is particularly interested in investigating ways that JMJ Associates can reduce its carbon footprint and adopt more sustainable operating practices and, in turn, work with their clients to do the same. JMJ Associates not only recognizes the opportunity to help steer their clients toward a new, sustainable and just direction in the world, but is now equipped with an effective tool—the Symposium—to help achieve that end goal. More internal inquiries, client requests and more possibilities are occurring in conversations each week. You could say that by creating one special living room Symposium with the primary purpose of bringing the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium to JMJ Associates, Kathryn Schindler is indeed a trim tab for the “New Dream.”
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