A Class Double-Act

Our dynamic lead trainers open up about their working relationship and what it takes to deliver capacity building leadership programs.

Dr Phil Harrell and Dr Rebecca Spence with Adi Vasu Levu at the Pacific Week of Agriculture 2019 in Samoa

She is a diminutive woman who grew up during the bloody conflict in Northern Ireland and has spent much of her life working for peace. He is a towering former naval officer and organisational consultant, awash with stories of drug smugglers and corporate intrigue.

Together, Rebecca Spence and Philip Harrell are an unlikely yet dynamic duo. Their teachings about leadership are reverberating throughout the Indo-Pacific courtesy of the Pacific Week of Agriculture, John Allwright Fellowship and now the Gender Equity in Agriculture Research for Development (GEAReD) program.

Here, Rebecca and Philip describe their polished double-act - itself a model for working relationships that embody gender equality and respect.

Rebecca: I only met Phil three years ago, to deliver leadership training for John Allwright Fellows, and now we're working together with the Meryl Williams Fellows taking part in GEAReD. He's a big man with a big personality and could be quite intimidating, but he's not because of the way he presents himself and the subject matter. He knows a lot about leadership and management and project management, but is not at all boastful. He likes having fun with people and is someone the participants can relate to.

We have complementary facilitation styles. We are both very open and adaptable. We have complete and utter trust in one another. When we're delivering training together, we have a thing whereby if I need to say something, I step forward, and that's the signal. And if he wants to say something, he steps forward. We don't need to say anything. It's really fluid.

The idea of having an all-female team to teach emerging female leaders has been argued many times. The women that we work with - drawn from agricultural institutes, universities and government departments - are dealing with all kinds of inequity in terms of participation and access to resources and/or promotion. Some live in societies in which they are not permitted to contribute to discussions until they reach a certain age, where the norms of what women can and can't do are still very rigid. Our philosophy is always to be sensitive to their cultures, recognising that western methods and ideas, especially around gender, are not always well received if delivered too assertively.

Some of the fellows' stories are heart-breaking, but they haven't always considered the role of gender before. I think it's very powerful for them to hear from Philip about unconscious bias and how the workplace and its structures have continued to privilege men over women. It empowers them. They learn that cultures are not static, that they can change.

When Philip and I are facilitating, we are also teaching facilitation; how the women can return to their communities and run the exercises with men. And that's exactly what they are doing. They're running their own workshops, designing projects within their communities and seizing opportunities. The fellowship gives them confidence, authority and permission, and we're already seeing them developing in unexpected ways. The partnership between Philip and I illustrates how working relationships between men and women can be different.

The Meryl Williams Fellows are on the cusp of tremendous changes in terms of food security and climate stressors and now the COVID-19 pandemic. But they are already working in ways that bring men and women together to co-create powerful and effective solutions.

Philip: Our leadership courses focus on trust. Rebecca and I share a depth of experience and a similar sense of humour, and our fellows get on board with that; it relaxes them and helps them to develop their own strategies. Rebecca laughs at my jokes, even the bad ones!

I'm a bit more outgoing and business focused, and have a military background, while Rebecca has a Peace Studies background. My corporate way of thinking bounces very well off her more socially aware work. At the same time, there are multiple places where our work experience has intersected. Rebecca is a fantastic inspiration.

We respect and understand each other's backgrounds and tend to give each issue a different take. I joke with Rebecca that I will get myself into a corner and she will come and save me. Of course, it works both ways.

We watch each other's body language constantly and our little dance [of stepping forward to take the lead on a discussion] is well practised. Our facilitation is not about competition; it's about achieving results.

Every workplace has men and women, so male and female perspectives are vital to the GEAReD program. I have delivered leadership training for a long time and worked with disadvantaged women, women in corporate roles, and men. I understand the issues. It's important to recognise that you cannot create equity with only women; men also need to be the champions. Sometimes my male perspective really adds value; at other times it is appropriate that I am not in the room, that it's a female-only session. By and large, the male perspective helps achieve a balance.

The other important thing is that not all mentors of the Meryl Williams Fellows are female. Many are men, because the only people in very senior positions, who can support the emerging female leaders in their countries, are men. Getting the men onside with what we are trying to achieve is vital. Many of the countries that the fellows come from are still highly patriarchal. And in these countries, sometimes it can be more effective for a man to address this imbalance with other men in the first instance.

What the fellows see with Rebecca and I is total equality. We give them stories based on our personal experiences, to help where they might have difficulties, and in me they see a male champion for equity. We teach them that more equitable and socially inclusive working relationships result in better decision-making, because it gives a more diverse way of dealing with issues. Mind you, I am always learning from the fellows, too, about other ways that problems might be addressed, how we can make society more equitable. And Rebecca and I learn from each other every single time we facilitate discussions together. We're a great team.