Tenneson Woolf

New Website in Progress

2009-12-07T11:21:00.000-07:00

Welcome everyone. I am between blogs / websites now. Moving from one host and format to another. From an old tool that just got to clunky. Learning a new tool. Playing with colors. Playing with formats. Pictures. Everything. It might look quite different by the end of the month. Yes, there is some learning in public.

The new, in-progress site with some changing look and feel is here.

So, I suppose the sign should say “Pardon the mess.” I’ll call it a beautiful mess :). You’ll see some as I continue to migrate posts, old locations for docs, etc in other formats. Yes, there is a continual improvement that will happen. And yes, there is a move-in time also. Thanks for welcoming the in-progress shift.

Tenneson

Pot Pourri

2009-11-28T17:37:00.006-07:00

November 28, 2009

Core deficiencies for nonprofits as learning organizations (from friend and colleague Jeannel King's master's thesis research): 1) Promoting dialogue and inquiry, 2) Empowering people toward a collective vision, and 3) Connecting the organization to its environment. Makes for good contexting of why dialogue and hosting conversations that matter.

On resistance, from Maya Lin, designer of the Viet Nam War Memorial in Washington, DC: "You need resistance to fly." (Thanks Kathy Lung for sharing this.)

On creativity, a must-watch 20 minute video featuring author Elizabeth Gilbert. I found her great, funny, insightful, inspiring. (Thanks Kathy Jourdain for recommending.)

Inner to Outer

2009-11-28T14:33:00.001-07:00

November 28, 2009

Kathy Jourdain is a good friend and colleague in Nova Scotia. This morning we were on a call working the next level of an invitation for an event next year. Kathy is a great colleague. Our work together feels easy. It always begins with delightful invitation to just share what we are noticing in our lives, what has our attention. Inevitably, that sharing creates just the right doorway into the work we've agreed to do.

This morning the gift of insight was about the sweet spot of developing the individual and how the individual is developed in the context of the group. These are not new theories of change. What I found helpful in the individual was clarifying the working assumption that there is an inner _____ in all of us. In our case we were talking about Shaman. However, it could just as easily be an inner artist or an inner tyrant. The implication is that if we give attention to the inner _____, there will likely be a re-relationing of what is, rather than something that is entirely absent. To develop the individual starts by working with something that is already there.

The second part of this discussions was that the individual is fed by the group. There is more that becomes available to the individual just because of being in the group. The field feeds the individual. For example, if I were to go to a writers workshop, just being amongst other writers would improve the realm of what is possible to me as an individual. Coaching would be good. And, the field itself would help. I was trying to think of a farming metaphor. I used to grow corn in the back yard garden. The first year was an experiment. A short row. Ten stalks. The corn was very poor. Small ears. I was told by my wife's grandfather that corn must be planted in bigger fields to grow well. I don't fully remember the reason why. But the field of corn made each stalk more hearty.

Also germane to this conversation, given we were talking about not wanting to create a personal retreat workshop was the difference between group therapy and group wellness. An outcome of so many of the workshops I do is a sense of wellness. I and my colleague don't advertise it that way. It is an outcome though. People say it feels like therapy because that is the label that most know for that kind of experience. Yet, there is a deliberate lack of attention on fixing anything. Rather, there is simple witnessing in a group context of experiences that impact us. And there is simple invitation to create together. In the combination of those two, group wellness emerges. It is quite a beautiful thing.

Thanks to Kathy and the space in the middle that fed these insights.

A Sleep of Prisoners

2009-11-28T11:05:00.002-07:00

November 28, 2009

Nice little poem by English playwright, Christopher Fry. Sent to me by local friend and colleague, Carla Kelley of the Human Rights Education Center. After we shared an afternoon exploring each others work. I love the notion, "Thank God our time is now...."

A SLEEP OF PRISONERS
Dark and cold we may be, but this
Is no winter now. The frozen misery
Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move;
The thunder is the thunder of the floes,
The thaw, the flood, the upstart Spring.
Thank God our time is now when wrong
Comes up to face us everywhere,
Never to leave us till we take
The longest stride of soul we ever took.
Affairs are now soul size.
The enterprise
Is exploration into God.
Where are you making for? It takes
So many thousand years to wake,
But will you wake for pity's sake!
-Christopher Fry

About Hosts, Other Supporting Organizations

2009-11-27T12:16:00.003-07:00

About Kathy Lung -- My current work is to be in the co-creation of social change through meaningful conversation. My exploration is in the discovery of who & how we would be if we were to "dare to be naïve" (Buckminster Fuller). I am learning and experiencing the fullness of this exploration through my work with The Art of Hosting and specifically in working with and sharing in conversation with Tenneson.

About Tenneson Woolf, The Berkana Institute -- I am a consultant, practitioner of change, and group process artist. I am dedicated to what is possible when we explore the heart of our work and the edges of our communities. I use participative leadership methodologies, maps, and models as strategy to create helpful meetings and inquiries. I have hosted interactive processes at large conferences, worked with many teams, and coached many individuals in diverse organizations – from hospitals to financial planning associations, from universities to faith communities, from corporate clients to labor unions. I am a steward of two communities of practice: The Art of Hosting and The World Café. I work locally with The Salt Lake Center for Engaging Community supporting and designing local dialogues on living in healthy community. www.berkana.org; www.tennesonwoolf.com.

Other Local Supporting Organizations / Colleagues

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About The Salt Lake Center for Engaging Community

2009-11-27T12:12:00.006-07:00

www.saltlakecec.org -- SLCEC is a 501c3 non-profit serving communities and organizations in the Salt Lake Valley and cultivating relationships with other communities in Utah, the nation, and the world. SLCEC convenes community conversations, models best practices, and fosters learning toward healthy, resilient flourishing of local communities.

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About The Berkana Institute

2009-11-27T12:05:00.007-07:00

www.berkana.org -- Co-founded in the early 1990s by Utah resident Margaret Wheatley, the Berkana Institute works in partnership with a rich diversity of people around the world who strengthen their communities by working with the wisdom and wealth already present in their people, traditions and environment. Berkana and our partners share the clarity that whatever the problem, community is the answer. We prepare for an unknown future by creating strong and sustainable relationships, by wisely stewarding the earth’s resources, and by building resilient communities and teams. We rely on the belief that human beings are caring, generous, and want to be together. Each of our initiatives is based on a coherent, in-depth theory of how life organizes in cooperative, generous, and interdependent systems -- work we’ve developed with hundreds of colleagues over many years of dialogue, think tanks and practical applications in all kinds of settings.

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About The Art of Hosting

2009-11-27T12:02:00.006-07:00

www.artofhosting.org -- The Art of Hosting and Convening Meaningful Conversations is a training and practice retreat for all who aspire to lead

by engaging with interactive ways of working with groups and teams. It is for leaders—those who want to help—community builders, teachers, social workers, youth workers, trainers, social innovators, administrators, community leaders, consultants, entrepreneurs, politicians. The Art of Hosting and Convening Meaningful Conversations

is offered in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and North and South America. We are a growing community of practitioners,supporting each other to further our ability to facilitate co-creative learning and problem-solving.

The Art of Hosting practice has been used to support numerous for profit and non-profit organizations in large scale change including:

Community Health Reform in Ohio
Faith Community Democracy Planning in Indiana
Navajo Health Services Innovation New Mexico
Social Innovation Labs in the UK
Strengthening Families Initiatives in Illinois
Aboriginal Youth Initiatives in British Columbia
Labor Union planning in Ontario

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Overview of Our 2010 Salt Lake Valley Participative Leadership Offerings

2009-11-27T12:00:00.004-07:00

1. Community Engagement Conversations: December 12, 2009, January 2010 TBA

2. Monthly Participative Leadership Development Workshops: January - August, 2010

- Skills development, leadership capacity building, applied practice.

3. Art of Hosting and Harvesting Conversations that Matter Training (3.5 Days): September 2010 TBA

Deep dive intensive and experiential training.

4. Ongoing Community of Practice: October 2010 - 2011

Monthly circles, quarterly learning days, annual multi-day learning and application forums

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Summary of Need, Purpose, Limiting Beliefs

2009-11-27T11:53:00.007-07:00

Summary of Need and Purpose

Many people are living in times of high-level uncertainty.

People are hungry for more meaningful work and community.

People want to contribute to their local community.

Train together in the next level of skills / tools that can be applied to existing and new participant projects.

Foster processes for accessing collective wisdom that moves to collaborative action.

Create next levels of leadership consciousness, wellness, resilience, wholeness.

Some Limiting Beliefs

- Fear and weightiness is the only way through if we are serious about change.

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Some of the Principles that Guide this Work

2009-11-27T11:44:00.008-07:00

Invite celebration, joyousness, creativity.

Get to do / “get to have to do.”

People want renewal together and of what is already in them

Whatever the challenge, community is the answer (The Berkana Institute)

“The answer to how is yes.” (Peter Block)

The wisdom we need is already in the systems where we work and live.

“Activate” resonance of leadership in community.

Work from the sacred and sense of open mind, open heart, and open will. (Otto Scharmer)

Working across boundaries.

Innovating.

Balancing colearning, building relationships, application to participant projects.

People will come out of the wood work -- many of us yearn for other ways to work together.

Offer what we can. Ask for what we need.

Act locally. Connect regionally. Learn trans-globally.

“Just go for it.” Playful experimentation. Start anywhere.

Trust the universe.

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Contextual Narrative of Context for Practicing Participative Leadership -- Questions as Tools

2009-11-27T11:36:00.002-07:00

What are the questions we need to ask together on behalf of the future of us who live and work in the Salt Lake Valley? What are the next levels of these questions? What if asking these questions together was the most enduring and strongest leadership act we could offer to each other, to our work teams, and to our community?

All over the world we see unprecedented change. Uncertainty. Challenges. These fill news and media reports. Unemployment. Healthcare reform. Education innovation. These impact everyone.

Yet, also all over the world, we see groups of people daring to ask the most challenging questions with each other. Daring to explore more deeply together. Daring to take action to make a difference by working and living more democratically. In government. In corporations. In community groups. In families.

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Participative Leadership In the Salt Lake Valley

2009-11-27T11:18:00.036-07:00

Welcome

Thank you for your interest in Participative Leadership in the Salt Lake Valley. We know there are many of you. Participative Leadership is work that we have been practicing and doing in many parts of the world. With joy in very tough settings. We’ve seen great success and differences made in many organizations, working teams, movement leaders, and community.

An initial gathering was held December 12, 2009. It was an "appetizer" if you will. Well attended with 40 of us together for a half day, we began with a checkin hearing from each why participative leadership matters and in what aspect of work / life it is important. We moved then into a model and framework for thinking about participative leadership -- a container if you will. And then into a questions cafe where participants began to surface the kinds of work and questions that they know are theirs to host. A harvest of some of those materials is here.

A second appetizer is being convened January 16, 2010 at the Holladay United Church of Christ (2631 East Murray-Holladay Road). We will begin at 9:00 (please plan to arrive 10 minutes early to mingle) and be finished at 1:00. Thanks to Rev. Erin Gilmore for offering the space. As before, we will welcome donations to pay for the cost of snacks and drinks.

If you came to the first, you are welcome to the second. You do not need to have participated in December to join us on the 16th. Please, bring a friend. We will be inviting participants to help co-design essential aspects of a Participative Leadership Development Series (tools, skills, maps, methods) that will begin in February or March, and run monthly for 6-7 months. It is intended as before as a learning and experience of working with Participative Leadership. This time to deliver the beginnings of a product. It is also intended, as always, to further weave our local community of people in participative leadership projects.

What follows is really a set of working notes that have helped us evolves the purpose and intention of Participative Leadership work that we are offering in the Salt Lake Valley. We offer them with transparency and with invitation to create together the next level of leadership needed for flourishing community in the Salt Lake Valley.

Contextual Narrative for Practicing Participative Leadership
Some Principles That Guide This Work
Summary of Need and Purpose
Some Limiting Beliefs
Overview of Our 2010 Salt Lake Valley Participative Leadership Offerings
About The Art of Hosting
About The Berkana Institute
About The Salt Lake Center for Engaging Community
About Tenneson Woolf, The Berkana Institute
About Kathy Lung
Other Supporting Organizations / Colleagues

Download All Sections in PDF Document
Download Invitation to December 12, 2009 in PDF Document
Download Invitation to January 16, 2010 in PDF Document

7 Insights on Conversational Leadership -- Canadian Media Guild

2009-11-19T09:43:00.002-07:00
November 19, 2009

Yesterday I had a really helpful phone call with friend and colleague Barb Saxberg. Barb invited me to work with her committee to bring conversational leadership to a Presidents Council meeting in Toronto. It was a meeting for 60 local union presidents, CBC Branch Council staff, and for some of the time, senior leadership from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The meeting was held over two days, one with theme of "Looking Back," and the other with them of "Moving Forward." Our phone call was a chance to be in reflective learning together. I received several gifts and points of clarity from our call. I felt like we were in the best of what people and organizations do to continuously learn. Thanks to Barb and many other leaders at the Guild.

1. Courage -- It really takes courage for someone inside an organization to invite a different way of meeting. They know clearly what they don't want to continue. They have some sense of what they want to move toward. Yet, it is in the end, a paradigm shift. When the habit is presentations from a podium, sitting in circle is a courageous act. When the history is blasting grievances, small group conversations about values and possibilities are a courageous act. Colleague Juanita Brown of The World Cafe speaks about this -- "conversation as a radical act." Her commitment is like that of Barb and the Guild's organizing committee. They knew they needed something different. They knew they could have played it safe and done more of the same, but chose not to, even knowing there would be some bumps and challenges. They knew they needed more capacity in their system to face their challenges and live their highest ideas, and that meeting in conversation was one step on the journey. Hats of to Barb, Marc-Philippe, Fiona and the others that lead with heart and courage to find a new way.

2. Team Clarity -- For design teams and planning committees that are moving into a new way of working, conversational and participative leadership, it is really important to do some good work up front on agreements. They are the ones that will hear the whispers from participants, the worries. This can be difficult to hold when colleagues start to question the effectiveness of the meeting. Speaking some of this up front and clarifying agreements for when it is "not easy" can really help hold a team together.

3. Harvest is Leadership -- Barb is working very thoughtfully to compile a report from the two days. I shared with her some of the notes I had. Some of the key questions. When working from a new paradigm there are two parts of a harvest report / document that feel important. One is the content. What happened. What we learned. Decided. What is different. For the Guild, this includes key questions surfaced with CBC management about work load, quality, sustainable resource models, etc. It includes core values that carry the Guild forward. It includes a sense of report on first next steps. Not full plans. First next steps of plans that grow from values. But the second part, and I believe as important or more, is the narrative on the "how" of working together. This is the one that talks about the need to innovate, to listen and learn together, to move to the next level of democratic participation. This is is the narrative that builds upon older models committed primarily to speed and efficiency, inviting the next level of creative thinking together about unprecedented challenges and dreams. It is the story we tell as leaders. I don't mean that to be manipulative or ingenuine. Rather, just owning it as an important leadership act. As my colleague in Utah, John Kesler says, "changing the narrative is half of the work."

4. Surveys -- It is common to offer a survey, inviting feedback about meetings. Sometimes on the spot. Sometimes later through email or electronic survey sites. There is a tendency in those surveys to ask how people "liked the meeting." Though this can be interesting, and I always hope that all people loved the meeting, it isn't as helpful as it could be. More helpful are questions that speak to the specific objectives of the meeting and of the conversational leadership process. For example, an assessment about strengthened relationships is helpful. About joy. About enthusiasm. About learning new approaches. I tend to focus conversational leadership on three areas. 1. Co-learning (not just presenting into the room, but learning together, creating together). 2. Building relationships (for the challenges that the Guild and all organizations face, we need strength or relationship to carry us through the challenges.) 3. Work (focus on specific projects that are called forward from the group). All are anchored in helping the group do what it needs to do. Action and accountabilities. Surveys need to assess the qualities of the new paradigm of working together, not the old. This is a strong and another courageous act of leadership.

5. Specific Reports -- We used open space technology for the "moving forward" part of the day. It was the way to get to action. It was the way to move into priorities. The reports we asked people to complete in their self-organized groups identified participants and key points of the conversation. However, less attention was given to the action steps. I'd like to add a bit more to the forms that include specific responses to next steps, resources needed, proposals, offerings, and asks for what people need. I sensed that the conversations that occur in the groups were quite rich. Yet, more can be done to move from the impression that conversation is "just talking" into "creating next action steps." In particular, I find myself wanting to emphasize more of the "this is the action" part of the meeting. Needing to be very explicit with it. And in particular offering the freedom framework from living systems that you can "start anywhere and follow it everywhere."

6. Length of Time for Open Space Groups -- At this event we chose three rounds of 45 minute sessions. Some groups that met in the first session re-posted their topics during the second round, thus extending their time to meet. Barb pointed out a good learning for me. When the intent is to explore, shorter sessions can work well. I tend to not go any less than 45 minutes. When the intent is to come up with plans, as was the case for this client group, 75 or 90 minute sessions are more helpful.

7. Preparing the Group -- In this case, the participants were told that they were coming to "something different." They were told that we would meet in circle. That message was clear. However, learning from this for me is that groups need more explicit description ahead of time about how the meeting will be different. Even a list of "will be doing / won't be doing." For example, "will be working at small tables / won't be sitting classroom style to hear presentations." "Will be creating your own agenda of topics / won't be assigned to particular groups." There are a bunch of things to say that just give the most simple form of expectations. Helpful, and I would say kind, to be explicit with this amidst groups that have strong patterns of how they meet. And, I say this with awareness that there will always be an invitation and need for people to welcome surprise and not knowing.

I return to courage, and courage to be in continuous learning. With thanks to Barb, Marc-Philippe, Fiona, Joanna, Gaynette, Xavier, Elizabeth. It takes courage to work in new ways. Particularly with your immediate colleagues and friends. Yet so needed in the pioneering and evolutionary time we live in when we must risk the letting go of the old to find our way to the added benefit of the new. At the Guild. At CBC. And so many other places, where our work immediately impacts the wellness of ourselves and of broad communities.

Photos -- A few that turned out well.
Design -- Agenda and timing that emerged for the days.

Fall Reading

2009-11-18T07:48:00.002-07:00
November 18, 2009

The last few days I have given myself added permission to read. Books. Articles. From the stacks of books and such that I've been wanting to read for months now. From the new ones that are just showing up now. From the gifts I was given for my birthday a month ago. It feels like a bit of a tucking in. Something about the fall weather. Something about being at my apartment now with no immediate preparing to go on a trip. And something about feeling called to read and write. A few simple notes and impressions below.

What capacities must individuals and groups cultivate to experience emergence and create anew? An Exploration of Dialogue, Theory U and Circle (Magy Oriah Nock) -- Shared through the Art of Hosting list serve by Chris Corrigan. A thesis from graduate work. Some good information about circle gained from experience with Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea of PeerSpirit. A good overview of steps and important orientations. The same for Theory U. I liked Magy's comments at the end, "feeling a need for play and silence." These are some of the gifts I experience in the Art of Hosting workshops that seems to deepen the quality of what emerges. I also related to her call for further future attention to shadow.

The Lost Compass: One Father's Journey (B. Clement Makepeace) -- Meg Wheatley gifted this one to me. A simple, short read. Story of a father discovering what he cares about -- his relationship with his son first among them. Might read this one with my son Isaac. For the story. For the experience. For the openings that shows themselves in years to come. Noticed as symbols in the book, and thus the invitation to pay attention, to "true north." What is the true north in my life? What becomes available is focused on this? Also like the reference to "garden as a place and a process." Like most aspects of life, they have an outcome kind of feel as well as a dynamic ongoing process. Relationships. Reminds me of Chris Corrigan's teachings with me about "all is practice." Reminds me of my Uncle Vern's teachings about all as particle and wave at the same time.

Pot Pourri

2009-11-13T07:34:00.002-07:00
November 13, 2009

Just returned last night from two hosting events. One in Toronto, Ontario. The other near Rosendale, New York. Peeking in to email and back through my notes at some of the gems that have my attention.

On Seeing from Anais Nin -- "We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are." (Thanks Roq Gareau for sending this.)

On Beauty from Terry Tempest in her book, "Open Space of Democracy" -- "Beauty is not optional. It resides at the core of each conversation around the dinner table. Beauty nourishes our soul alongside food. It allows us to remember not only what is possible, what we are capable of as human beings, but what is necessary." (Thanks Ann Pelo for sending.)

A Call for Wilderness Stewardship -- Some work that friends Terri Martin and Deeda Seed at Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance are creating. Love how this started in simple dialogue circles that we created together. It's grown to much, much more because of their attention.

Beckoning the Lovely -- Great video on a community gathering in Chicago on 8/08/08 to gather and create something lovely and beautiful in a park.

Pot Pourri

2009-11-04T09:47:00.002-07:00
November 4, 2009

Vision for Inclusive Community -- Good to see this one from Valmae Rose in Australia and her work with a national non-governmnet disability program. A group of us from the disability sector (an unusual alliance of people who are passionate about the future for people with disabilities but who don’t usually work together) got our act together and created a vision for the future using a scenario building process. You can check out the process and the scenario at www.blue-skies.info. We had a launch a few weeks later in the botanical gardens, with ministers from both federal and state govt and 350 members of the community involved. We have since engaged about 500 people in conversation and we’re planning a statewide schedule of conversations around the question of inclusive community on December 3 which is international day of people with disability.

Chaordic Drumming -- Last week I spoke with friend and colleague Sally Wolf. Sally works in restorative justice efforts in Illinois. We've had several conversations now about how to work at the scale of community. We talked about the model of the chaordic path. It is the search for the sweet spot between chaos and order. As Mitchell Waldrop speaks it in his book, Complexity, "enough form to be sustainable and enough freedom to deserve the name of life." Sally was describing drum circles she has been a part of. At first chaotic, without particular rhythm. But then they find a rhythm, even for people without particular music skills. And often, once that rhythm is found, people can't help but introduce some variation, a bit of chaos, that people then reorganize around. Looking forward to trying this one.

Pleasant Grove, Utah

2009-11-03T10:36:00.003-07:00
November 3, 2009

As I grow older, I'm finding myself more interested in the history of places that I visit and where I live. Not so much from the academic side of things. But moreso, to understand the energy of the stories. To know what it might have been like for people living in these areas. To know more of what carries forward in an area that has often become invisible.

I currently live in Pleasant Grove, Utah. It is one of several smaller municipalities that run together in northern Utah County. Between the Wasatch mountains and Utah Lake. A more full description of Pleasant Grove is here. Here's also a bit in brief from a North Utah County Chambers of Commerce publication and perspective, highlighting points of attraction.

- incorporated in 1855, settled by Mormon pioneers
- old area of town named Little Denmark where Scandanavian descendents lived
- abundant annual strawberry crop that began celebrating Strawberry Days, the longest running celebration in the state of Utah

The Ute Indians were the first to live in this area, to the east of Utah Lake and the Jordan River. Staple food was fish, which they would dry for trading. Here's a brief overview of key points of history, cultures bumping into cultures:

- Escalante-Dominguez explorers were looking for an overland route from Santa Fe, NM to Monterey, CA when they discovered the Utes here
- Spanish claimed Utah from 1776 - 1820 but did not establish permanent settlements
- fresh-water sources in the north part of the state attracted trappers and mountain men in the beaver trade
- in March 1849 there was a dispute over missing cattle between arriving Mormon pioneers and Ute tribe. A battle occurred in which several Utes were killed. The location was called Battle Creek, and later renamed by city officials to Pleasant Grove.

A few other often noted points:
- Utah War / Establishment of Camp Floyd -- In 1858, 3,500 troops ordered by President James Buchanan to suppress a rumored rebellion. No battle was ever fought. However, the camp was established which later helped to provide protection for pioneers passing through to the west coast.
- Pony Express -- Speeded communications and delivery of mail by land. Ten days rather than eight weeks. One of 150 stops was near Lehi, about 10 miles north of Pleasant Grove.
- Transcontinental Railroad -- In 1869, Union and Central Pacific railroad companies joined to create advanced transportation. The Golden Spike featured on the Utah quarter illustrates this accomplishment. It occurred at Promontory Summit.
- Steeling Up for War -- Geneva Steel, a long time steel manufacturing facility was constructed between 1941 and 1944 with federal funds. It was intended to provide security of manufacturing to meet the needs for WWII. The plant was closed in 2001.

We Had No Idea

2009-10-28T09:13:00.000-06:00
October 28, 2009

Sitting by a fire this morning. The wind is howling. There is snow on the rooftops, crusting in the wind. Winter has arrived.

I'm reflecting on several experiences during the last weeks. On people that have been involved in work that captures their hearts. It is what is common among many of us, that undeniable spark and trembling as we move into bigger versions of ourselves.

"We had no idea" is a theme common among these experiences. It is a statement about how far-reaching, purposeful, and enlivening our work or projects have become. These stories have my attention because it is typically so much easier to look back on a successful project with only admiration. Often there is an undertone of "we couldn't do that here." Yet, common in many is this sense of just getting started and growing into the bigness. From "we had no idea" to "wow, check this out."

The Mid Ohio Foodbank is one example of this. I heard it through Matt Habash, a former political leader in Columbus. He has had some affiliation with the Foodbank for 35 years now. It has grown to become the 10th largest foodbank of 260 in the US. They redistribute excess food, now 33 million pounds of it, annually. When I was with Matt last week, the new Foodbank was opening. A Leeds certified green building with space to convene community groups in dialogue and learning. They have funding. They have support from the community. They have vision in action. The have "wow, check this out."

The Flow Game is another example. It was created in 1997. Eight friends in Denmark new that they needed something new, a new way to work in deeper consciousness. They created the game. Questions to go with it. They used to draw the board on paper. Simple experiments. Simple resources. Now, this game is being used and practiced in several countries by many trained leaders. It is being welcomed as needed tool to accomplish mission and vision. The game is also being prepared for release in a broader way -- not marketed -- but as a tool for deepening consciousness and action learning. From eight friends to a global stewarding and network.

The Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter is another example. It began with simple ideas. Some from a group of friends gathered at Castle Borl in Croatia, gathered in an open space learning group about 10 years ago. It began with desires to deepen work. It began with awareness that more was possible working with participation, co-creation, living systems, emergence. Friends talking with friends. Sharing "what if" stories. Today there is an explosion of hosts throughout the world. AoH has become a recognized brand. A shared identity in a community of practice that is in the thousands of people. A way of working in large scale change. A movement. We had no idea.

Our Optimal Health grew out of several Art of Hosting connections. One beginning was an Art of Hosting in 2005. Phil Cass convened several leaders focussed on how to improve the level of civic dialogue in Columbus. He thought it would be one event. From that training, an open space group formed, asking how might we be able to create affordable and sustainable health care for all in Franklin County. A bold question for a group of people ready to be bold. Since then, several assemblies have been held. Hundreds of people have been trained and now practice participative leadership. Columbus has become a model for large scale change that inspires other health care systems and other communities to create learning filled organizations and leader filled capacity. We had no idea.

Lastly, The Berkana Institute is another example. One beginning was in 1990. Meg Wheatley had just written Leadership and the New Science. Myron Kellner-Rogers and her were offering new paradigm work of leadership. They and others created Berkana through a series of dialogues about possibility. Friends gathering to imagine together. That grew to more dialogues. Seminars. Global leadership initiatives and communities. Pioneering work with leaders of other networks. Today, Berkana has significant reach. Thanks to Meg with her big heart and founding energy. But thanks to hundreds of others that have found in Berkana connections and courage to be pioneers themselves. Friends to hundreds and thousands of friends.

When teaching, I often offer the principle of "start anywhere, follow it everywhere." It is a way of working in a living system. It is a way of working in a network. It is a way of working with simple beginnings. Not complex, long term linear plans that become obsolete within months. Rather, deeply centered values that endure beyond time. In such, starting anywhere, is born the stories of "we had no idea" that can be shared with next generation leaders, ready to begin their dreams and wondering how to get started.

Pot Pourri

2009-10-28T07:57:00.002-06:00
October 28, 2009

Learning Organization Points of Intention -- From Toke Moeller and his participatory work with senior leaders in the European Commission: Innovation. Concrete Action. Working across boundaries. Building partnerships. Engaging Staff. Improving relations. Colearning. Activating collective intelligence. Action learning.

Balance Requires Movement -- From Bob Wing in a recent check-out circle. Bob offered the image of a bicycle in motion. It needs to be in motion to be in balance, as do we in our work. It is easier in the movement. Few can balance a bike when at rest.

Being Present = Hosting Self -- An insight in working with friends last weekend. It is part of a model, "The Four Fold Practice" that I often use in conversational leadership. I have usually emphasized the "being present" aspect of this through meditation, or the helpfulness of a deliberate pause to more fully show up at an event. Many of these friends were telling stories of the need to be able to host ourselves.

Awareness Days -- From conversations with Jerry Nagel and Toke Moeller. We were exploring how to invited people into the practice of hosting conversations that matter in a way that leads with purpose and need rather than process. We spoke of half day gatherings that proceed an Art of Hosting training that focus on this kind of question: Why do you feel it is important to host conversations in this city now? Or, why have you showed up to learn more about leadership through hosting conversations that matter? This is also a way to activate a shared sense of purpose for convening that is pointed at outcomes. Good also for new calling teams and for finding first level of purpose.

Powerful, Artful Questions of Invitation -- Again from conversations with several hosts at Flow Game training. What are the questions we want to ask on behalf of this city? What do we dare to start today that the kindergarten children will thank us for when they are older? And so as to give this some process awareness also, what if how we live in inquiry is our hope for our grandchildren -- to live as we have lived today.

Minimal Game Rules

2009-10-25T15:18:00.002-06:00
October 25, 2009

I am a student of simplicity. I find myself in search of what is most simple -- not to over simplify, nor to be reductive -- but to create the most essential ground from which to create.

I learned the following this weekend training with Flow Game hosts. I realize these are actually minimal guidelines and conditions for many hosting practices.

Purpose: Flow. Of what? Consciousness, knowing that is not limited to the mind.

1. Have a personal question that you have a stake in.
2. Take turns. Pause between turns.
3. Listen to each other.
4. Offer something to your mates.
5. Harvest

Serving: Each other and projects we care about.

Magic in the Middle

2009-10-25T14:25:00.003-06:00
October 25, 2009

Lately I have been giving much attention to magic. One form of this is a question I am living about what is underneath methods for engagement and participation. At Flow Game training, one of the questions asked was "How to feed the magic in the middle?" I appreciated friend, Toke Moeller's response. Toke has long been a teacher of such for me. We have become fellow students of such. Here is a bit of what he shared that felt very resonant for me:

- trust magic
- trust the space
- trust the heart of everyone

- don't control it or hold it

- don't expect magic, but be grateful when it comes

- be the jester, the student, the juggler, you

- respect form, but don't get lost in it

- we can't not sit in circle; it is who we are

- unite with the vertical

- enjoy the beauty of detachment

Flow Game Training

2009-10-24T05:28:00.003-06:00
October 24, 2009

Taking a few moments to notice powerful learning showing up at this Flow Game Training. I am in Columbus, Ohio with several good hosting friends. We are in a 3-day training offered by Toke Moeller and Monica Nissen on the Flow Game. It is a board game that is centered in the practice of reflection and asking questions. It is a tool for helping individuals and teams learn and deep levels. We each carry a question into the game. Mine is "What next levels of emergence, consciousness, and good work can become available through the Flow Game?"

Yesterday was a full day. I loved hearing more of the place we were meeting in. Friend Matt Hobash offered the space, a beautiful wearhouse that is now the new home to the Mid Ohio Food Bank. They are the 10th largest food bank of 260 nationally, distributing 33 million pounds of food in 2009. Twenty percent of that is local. The food bank captures and redistributes excess food. It has a vision that it is living -- to become a center for hunger and nutrition education, to become a community center for many levels of wellness and inquiry.

The checkin round was full. Honest, real expressions of "not knowing." Of being "between worlds." Of intention to learn and to practice together a rich level of listening. The contexting gems started to surface as I began to imagine how I will use the game, how I will speak it.
- a way of accessing ancient wisdom, the kind that is carried in our togetherness and accessed only in our togetherness
- a way of working deliberately with emergence, consciousness, good work
- a way to be letting go of the definitions we have allowed to become real. Things like dismissals as soft of the simple act of working in love and relationship with each other
- a way of practicing from the heart
- a way of working on key needs -- good story here from Toke of a 13 year-old in Zimbabwe who's question was "How can I help my friends not become pregnant before it is time?"
- a way to strengthen the warrior of the heart in us

It was a full day. As we met for 20-30 minutes for each person, it required deliberate listening. I found that I learned much in others questions. Another experience of wholeness as my learnings peaked through another persons questions. I was tired by the end. Tired in the way that I see many through my hosting work -- energized from the experience, yet fatigued because of the energy commitment it takes to create together. We are all strengthening those abilities.

I learned my about artfulness in the game. The art of offering, whether it be a story, something that I love, a question, a song, a poem, an image, a vision, or a simple witnessing. I learned about connecting question to purpose and to the impressions inspired by the cards of the game -- from the seven directions of North, South, East, West, Heaven, Earth, Integrated Whole.

Looking forward to the next days of learning with this.

Credentials as Practice

2009-10-24T04:51:00.002-06:00
October 24, 2009

I loved the Open Space experience I had last week on the Vancouver Island, Art of Hosting. One group was called on credentials. It began as an inquiry into what it takes to do this kind of hosting work. Had some of that feel of "what training?" It really came alive for me as it shifted to "what practice?" Chris Corrigan offered a few points. The group reflected on some. It fed the list I was noting in my book and helped me to see at a next level, a new paradigm for credentials.

1. Credential as Practice -- An older kind of thought would be credential as certification. As bestowed. Yes, there is value in this. I get the part about integrity of training and learning, etc. I get the part about key skills. Yet, there is also immense freedom to think of being credentialed by our practice. By our doing. By our "here is what I've learned lately, incomplete as it may be." It is a nice shift into emphasizing the learning process rather than the learning event.

2. Work with Friends -- Lots of friends. Practice together. Learn together. Feed off of each other to sharpen skills to see at the next level. To notice at the next level. To act from what we see emerging.

3. Offer Something -- A harvest. A story. A poem. A question. An invitation to work together. An invitation to create together. The shift in paradigm includes re-relationing from the authority of an institution into working within a web of people, into a community of practice. From "is it my place," sometimes restrained by organizational form into "gift to offer" that can then be received by those ready for it within the community.

4. Learn in Public -- Make it transparent. Open. Like the physical office windows or doors in many well-designed contemporary learning organizations. Learn as you go. And in front of people with you new ideas. Half-cooked ideas. Learnings. Insights. Learn on behalf of the whole.

5. Have a Presencing Practice -- With my friends at The Berkana Institute, I learn that this work is about emergence. It is about how we are creating the conditions for emergence within human systems. This is closely connected to learning about next levels of consciousness. It requires an ability to notice the seemingly invisible. The way that the whole of the room is speaking on behalf of any of the individuals. I find this to be a different kind of noticing. It requires me to be comfortable with stillness. With uncertainty. Presencing practices help me to hold myself and others better in that noticing and uncertainty. Meditate. Chi Gong. Yoga. Tai chi. Journaling. Something that helps you know enough stillness to hold self and others in chaos.

6. Examine Core Beliefs -- Keep this as an active conversation. For example, one of mine is the innate need to create. It riffs off of what I've often heard from Meg Wheatley about humans in living systems -- "People support what they create." My sense is that the desire to create -- solutions, innovations, structures,, clarity -- this is innate for us. It is a need, as strong as a need for food, shelter, love. I've discovered a few core beliefs along the way I've let go of. I've found a few new ones too. Credentialed by the ability to let go and construct fundamental beliefs.

7. Learn Global. Connect Regional. Act Local -- Another one I learn with friends at Berkana. It is good to learn together with people at conferences, in person, around the world. Amazing to think how we are changed by meeting the hearts of others. And to connect in regional efforts often is to strengthen courage. All for acting local. Doing the work in front of us.

Gratitude to the eight or so people that helped to created this learning.

Harvest -- Vancouver Island Art of Hosting

2009-10-22T11:55:00.003-06:00

Photos -- a few faces and flipcharts that turned out well.

Credentials as Practice -- a list of seven ways to enter and participate in hosting work as a community of practice. Inspired by an Open Space group.

35 -- What is powerful and important to move out of here?

"35" is a simple process of converging learning. Each participant writes a key insight on a 3x5 card. Here, the question was the one above. Cards are exchanged randomly. You let go of your own. When the music stops, you choose a partner to compare cards. You assign 7 points to the two cards (7, 0; 6, 1; 5, 2; 4, 3). The music starts again and cards are exchanged randomly again. Five stops creates the opportunity for a card to receive a maximum of 35 points. Its a good way to get a quick read, generated by participants, on what ideas are more widely shared. The top ten and ties are below. The full list is here. For me these are quick reads into what happens at an Art of Hosting that has gone particularly well.

Practices bring human heart and authentic community together.

Participation in the process creates ownership.

Hosting conversations with intent and presence is natural and powerful and should be shared -- we can all do it!

The spiraling out of a collective consciousness towards positive communication and change.

We create “conditions” / spaces for honest, authentic dialogue & conversation...the sources of innovation & creative resolution (wholly expressed!!!)

The importance of how simple yet deep the processes are to stimulate “friendly” community around purpose.

Connecting whole ly with mindfulness of self and openness to other.

I / we don’t need all of the answers.

Fearlessly making magic.

Bring hearts & hopes. To possibilities. To actions.

Working from open heart, open mind, open will.

10 Principles for Practicing Conversational Leadership

2009-10-06T08:45:00.009-06:00
October 6, 2009

In late August a team of us (Toke Moeller, Helen Emerson, Glen Lauder, Mary Alice-Arthur, Peter Cowley, Jacqueline Benndorf) completed hosting an Art of Hosting training in New Zealand. There were 92 participants. For three days we had been through much learning together about hosting and harvesting conversations as a strategic approach. Conversational leadership as a strategic approach.

On the fourth day, two participants, Peta Joyce and Viv Maidaborn, hosted us in collecting content insights and gems from the full days together. I loved the commitment they brought to noticing what we could know together that was different from what we knew individually.

The headlines as principles for practicing conversational leadership are listed below. They are tips and insights for all of us as practitioners. They were born from the essential commitment of noticing what is emerging, a core competency in all conversational leadership.

Principles for Practicing Conversational Leadership

1. Give and Take What Matters
2. From Trust, Action
3. Notice Interconnection
4. Don't Be Too Hard On Ourselves
5. Share Responsibility
6. Create Our Own Best Living Space
7. Be Bold and Playful
8. Do One Thing Differently That Makes A Ripple
9. Clarify Intent, Hold Opposites
10. Celebrate the More of Me that is Available Because of Us

I've also written an article and posted it here that includes:
- short paragraphs of description for each of the principles
- a next level harvest on more principles that emerged from the community of participants
- links to additional resources including the design overview of the event, Wordle Illustrations of the principles, and related blog links

From the Trail

2009-10-03T17:02:00.003-06:00
October 3, 2009

Living and working in networks and communities of practice makes a lot of really helpful information available. Emails. Websites. Stories. Reports. No shortage whatsoever of great stuff.

My friend Chris Corrigan has taught me what to do with this. He gives attention to several RSS feeds and provides links on his blog to that plethora of good stuff. He calls it "From the Feed." Go see and subscribe if you haven't already. I've picked up many gems from those posts that I've used and forwarded to clients and friends.

I'm beginning to play with that practise today. I'd name two containers for these links.

- stuff that is just interesting. Lots of room in that.
- stuff that furthers the practice of hosting conversations that matter, or as my colleagues and I explore in Berkana as core brand issues: 1) in support of healthy and resilient communities, 2) in support of emergence, and 3) in support of life-affirming leadership.

The intent is not more mass of information. It is more sharing of information / tools through good relationships centered in an identity of leader as host.

Abraham-Hicks Emotional Guidance Scale -- A list of 21 emotions intended to move to the energy of joy. Each of these serve as an interesting base from which to ask powerful questions. E.g., What brings you joy? I've asked this kind of question and seen it shift a group. Similarly to ask something "lower" on the list. E.g., What do you fear?

Six Degrees of Separation from Reality -- A blog post by Tom Atlee of the Co-Intelligence Institute on the seriousness of global climate change.

The Shield -- An exercise shared by Max Neill from the Art of Hosting listerv on helping groups to check in with imagination and dreams.

Feeling Connections -- A blog post by my friend Ashley Cooper who just moved from Seattle to North Carolina. Ashley has a gift for noticing and inviting wholeness. She offers some guided meditations too. Her blog is a good read. Subscribe here.

Quotes
- "Far more powerful than any dogma is an awakened organic collective and its capacity for contagion. That's what makes it so terrifying to the status quo."
Louise LeBrun, friend of my AoH Colleague, Allister Hain in Ottawa.

- "If I took psychadelic drugs I'd be in Google Earth all the time."
Wayne Knox, a colleague in men's work in New Zealand

- "The call, rather, is to enter the flow more deeply. To become the instrument of knowing in action. We are the harvest, and it us the universe's deep yearning to know itself whole that is it's immanent volition."
Glen Lauder, hosting colleague in New Zealand

New Country -- Poem by Monica Pohlmann

2009-10-03T16:34:00.003-06:00
October 3, 2009

Monica Pohlmann's poem below immediately touched me. She shared it last summer at an Art of Hosting training near Calgary, Alberta. Monica describes very well the experience of moving to a new world view. More of her work is on her website.

New Country

I have already moved to another country.
Already think in a new language.
Borders crossed and boundaries now much expanded.

I have caught a glimpse of how big life is
and how much bigger I could be.
Capacity threshold so much larger than I realized.

How to translate this to the motherland?

I loved there authentically.
Still do.
But I think in a new tongue now
and must claim on this new land the life that is truly mine.

Light Hearted -- Poem By Diana Durham

2009-10-03T16:22:00.003-06:00
October 3, 2009

I met Diana Durham April 2008. Her poetry is beautiful. Her spirit is irrepressible. Here website is here. She emailed this poem a few days ago. Loved it.

Light Hearted

the molecules of glass
match the frequencies of light

which is why we have windows
and not dense dim rectangles
of other matter
to look through darkly

and how we can see, while still
indoors, the grass and green leaves
of gardens;

when we go outside it is the same
but unframed, larger, wider
views of plane-trailed skies.

so is our heart the framer
of all clear sight, its frequencies
know light and that something
larger lies beyond

which is why when they match
we no longer take ourselves
too seriously, seeing that
light always makes us lighter.

Harvest -- Salt Lake Valley Sustainability Summit

2009-09-26T08:12:00.010-06:00
Invitation

Photos -- People, flipcharts, cafe table snippets that turned out well.

Strategies for Engagement -- A few notes and principles from one of the open space sessions in which I participated

Landscape Map -- Overview of the day, including agenda, framing poem, voice call-outs from cafe, open space topics and one-line summaries of learning from each

Open Space Harvest Worksheets -- From two one hour time slots. Also includes community announcements.

Key Learnings, Offerings, Needs -- Participants wrote these after participating in Open Space sessions.
Wordle Graphic -- Key Learnings
Wordle Graphic -- Offerings
Wordle Graphic -- Requests

Paradigm Shift -- Get Talking

2009-09-23T08:09:00.003-06:00
September 23, 2009

Last week I cohosted a leadership conference in Kingston, Ontario. A longer harvest of the shape of that day is here.

One of the gifts / learnings for me of the conference was spoken by Juanita Brown. Juanita and I hadn't seen each other in over three years. Yet it felt like it could have been three weeks ago. Such it is with dear friends and colleagues. Juanita offered a playful framing of conversational leadership that pointed to how the very paradigm of talking to one another has been discouraged or even punished for many of us in our early years. It is what many of us grew up with and is thus present in learning contexts today.

To indicate this, she asked how many of us by show of hands had grown up hearing things like, "Stop talking and get to work!" Or, "Stop asking so many questions and give me some answers!" Or, "Don't talk to your neighbor!"

I smile to think of each of these. To remember it from my child years makes me chuckle. Most hands in the room went up, accompanied with a slight groan. Clearly a shared experience. Yet, when I think of how these expressions -- patterns really -- show up in todays learning, it is deeply concerning. So much more feels possible from the perspective of conversational leadership. This was in fact Juanita's point. What becomes possible when we "start talking because it is our work" or "start asking more questions with permission to not have answers for a while" or "talk to our neighbors and coworkers and families"?

Juanita's invitation was to see systems as living networks. Communities. Places that we work. Families. Municipalities. Everywhere. Conversation is one of the mediums through which these systems live. As important as water to the fish. Important as the air we breathe. That's a paradigm shift. Conversation is one of the ways that we human beings connect with each other so that we can do what we need to do. Or do what we need to do with vibrancy and richness and innovation and sustainability and, and, and.

Juanita later named conversation as the new form of work. She offered story from her early community building with farm workers in Mexico. She talked of house meeting after house meeting where she witnessed people shift from dispositions of "if only..." to questions of "what if..." to convictions of "why not!"

Get talking. What a helpful invitation. And it is good to see it as the paradigm shift. I don't feel, by the way that we are at the beginning of this paradigm shift. It feels more like a taking-off point. People of all sectors, and organizations in all sectors, are more and more inviting and requiring us to get talking, talk to our neighbors, ask questions.

And with my kids, yup, it is the new world I've been raising them in all of their lives. To encourage their curiousity -- this is sweet. To ask them what questions they are asking of themselves and with their friends these days -- this is sweet. Makes me wonder what questions they'll be asking when they are older that evolve us even further in our capabilities as collectives.

Conversational Leadership Conference

2009-09-23T07:44:00.004-06:00
September 23, 2009

Last week I was in Kingston, Ontario cohosting a third annual leadership conference offered by Providence Care. Providence Care does great work in the community and region of Eastern Ontario. My colleagues and friends at Providence, in particular Lauri Prest -- she works with deep insight and devotion -- as well as several key senior leaders (Dr. Ken LeClair, Dr. John Puxty, Sandra Carlton, Dale Kenney) are doing an amazing job of building their own internal capacity for conversational leadership as well as the capacity that is in the community.

My cohosts included Lauri, Juanita Brown, Phil Cass and Teresa Posakony. Sara Heppner-Waldston created really beautiful graphic illustrations that require deep listening skills as much as anything. Angie Wagner contributed an amazing level of beauty in print materials. Jessica Herbison was always there supporting a level of logistics in this conference. It is important for me to name this team because the depth of work in these times requires a deep holding. Just as many hold the birth of a child into the world, so it is in the birth of a new view and practice of working together.

The conference was called "Conversational Leadership: Thinking Together for a Change." It was a weave of speakers followed by small group and cafe conversations. We offered as starting point, a definition of conversational leadership offered by cafe host and friend Carolyn Baldwin. We tweaked it a bit for this group: "The intentional use of conversation as a core strategic process to cultivate collective intelligence to create business and soical value."

The Honorable Ray Romanow, Former Premier of Saskatchewan and Commissioner on the Future of Health Care in Canada opened the conference. He is an inspiring speaker with much experience behind him. He is also a key figure in accellerating the impact of the Canadian Index for Well-being.

Teresa and I followed him, the beginning of several conversations during the day where she and I would have attendees turn to each other to learn. Teresa is beautiful to host with in her deep intuition and ability to see what is happening in the room. The conversation we invited of the small groups was simple -- "How does what Mr. Romanow shared connect to you personally and to what is important to you now?"

Juanita Brown was a next speaker. Juanita is a beautiful mix of commitement to core strategy / results and enormuous heart. Through what she is learning through The World Cafe, she offered a really helpful framing on organizations as networks of conversations and then the importance of key questions, involving stakeholders, and simple process steps that shift dialogue from just talk to strategic process. Juanita is all about invitation and engagement -- musts for conversational leadership. In the midst of this we offered small group conversations: "If organizations are networks of conversation what shifts for me / us in my work / community?" It was an invitation to put on the glasses and see through a new lense. And in another small group, "From that view, what possibilities and questions are most exciting to you?" We harvested these on postit notes so that they could be visible in the room.

After lunch, Phil Cass spoke. He told heartful story including his journey from being a driven command and control CEO to a leader that convenes. Meg Wheatley speaks this as the shift from "leader as hero" to "leader as host." Phil is one of the best people I know in this work. His heart is enormous. His ability is extraordinary. His presence is simply honest and authentic. He speaks with clarity. And he sparks a sense of possibility in the group because of his story, both personal and from his perspective as CEO of a medical foundation. I love the way Phil didn't speak from the stage. He came out onto the floor, the shift that all of us as hosts were deliberate to do during the day. It is a deliberate physical step to reframe the environment to one of learning together.

People were now seated in affinity groups: Physicans, Clinical Leaders, Sr. Leadership, HR Professionals, Internal and External OD Practitioners and more. The invitation at this point was to shift into another kind of practical. "What are the practial applications for your work?" It was an invitation for people to notice what they might be surprised by, and what they might need to let go of. Two rounds of this followed by some call-outs into the room.

After another break, we had people sit quietly. It was time to invite another kind of learning, another kind of settling into the day. With a framing assist from the poet David Whyte -- "sometimes the truth depends on a walk around the lake" -- we invited people to journal what they were beginning to see as important questions, key stakeholders that can help engage those questions, and first next steps of process. We gave them 10 minutes for this and then invited them to sit with a partner to share what they had noticed. I like this kind of exercise. Granted, it was short, but it still offers a way for people to notice their clarity and then be able to witness it or sharpen it with a partner. A good wave of words reported out after this as the mic travelled through the room (like creating a circle where you know the talking piece is coming) -- commitment, passion, balance, excitement, engagement, authentic, collaboration. Much was spoken then. And even though they were just single words, my sense is that it was important for the group to witness some of what had arisen and been experienced in the whole of the day. That group hearing is part of the clarifying that people take out of the room.

We closed with a few reflections on the gift of being together. Providence Board Chair Jim Barton offered a few closing remarks -- he is a retired senior leader from Dupont that you can't help but appreciate for his passion and gentle ways. His living of the values of Providence Care is clearly apparent. He is compassionate, and so committed to learning and action. Appreciations to Lauri, who is already three steps ahead in next offerings (Leadership Development Program, Customized Art of Hosting) -- she sees the big picture clearly -- and Providence Care for offering the leadership to strengthen Providence and the regional community of people committed to wellness.

The day was beautiful. There were about 200 participants. It was another courageous step in helping transform the identity of those who work in health care. As Phil says, "a shift from treating illness to promoting wellness." It was another courageous step to invite the community to create an identity together that is the next level of helpfulness in the community. And that shift in identity, as I've learned through Meg Wheatley's teachings on self-organizing sytems, is what changes behavior into the possibilities of a community that we all yearn for.

How Change Happens Today

2009-09-22T13:41:00.003-06:00
September 22, 2009

When in New Zealand I heard a story from friends there about the power of a social network to create change. Cadbury New Zealand had changed one of the ingredients in its chocolate (which is very delicious by the way). It removed cocoa butter, I believe, and replaced it with palm oil. This was met with resistance by some. Palm oil comes from Borneo forests and other rain forests. With increased demand for palm oil, not just through Cadbury, more rain forests are being slashed, wild life species are becoming displaced and endangered, and there is further deforestation and global warming. Basic systems stuff that is simple in concept, yet complex and far reaching in impact.

In previous eras, average citizens would not be as likely to be able to do anything about this. Individuals, groups of citizens stood far less chance in influencing large and powerful corporations. It would have taken mass organizing efforts. But this is a different age, an age where social networks have much more influence. The Auckland Zoo boycotted the Cadbury products. 3,500 people and groups connected on Facebook and other social networking sites, and through freely available tools like Youtube, created a formidable voice in opposition to Cadbury's actions.

The short of it is that within four weeks, Cadbury heard the response, recognized the level of reaction, and issued an apology and reversal of its policy. Citizens united around a cause with simple tools to connect and offer voice. It is how change happens today.

It is what I have learned with friends Debbie Frieze, Meg Wheatley and others about working with emergence and
taking change and connection to levels of scale that is hopeful for all of us. From isolated individuals to networks. From networks to deliberate communities of practice. From communities of practice to systems of influence. It comes from a four step model that my colleagues and I at Berkana Institute have been practicing now for many years. 1. Name the issue and purpose. 2. Connect people together around that issue. 3. Nurther the connecton -- the relationship, the co-learning, the relationships. 4. Illuminate what you are learning, doing and practicing -- tell stories. There is an excellent article by Meg and Debbie here.

A basic description of the situation with Cadbury New Zealand .

A bit more on the involvement of the Auckland Zoo and Facebook group.

And even better, embedded in this process of how change happens through social networks, is that local action impacts regional and global learning. Because of what has happened in New Zealand, there is now amplified and accellerated reach to connect other rainforest action groups.

A good book read on this that I'm in now is Here Comes Everybody, written by Clay Shirky. The subtitle speaks to what happened with Cadbury. "The Power of Organizing without Organizations." Shirky makes simple points that help to context what happend with New Zealand and Cadbury:
- "New social tools lower the cost of group action. Most of the barriers to group action have collapsed, and without those barriers, we are free to explore new ways of gatheirng together and getting things done."
- "We are living in the middle of a remarkable increase in our ability to share, to cooperate with one another, and to take collective action, all outside the framework of traditional institutions and organizations."

Mind boggling yet simple. Powerful. Emergent. Happening in many places on the planet. How change happens in this era.

Questions for Checkin

2009-09-21T13:30:00.003-06:00
September 21, 2009

Lately I have been asking three simple questions. Who are you? What is it like to be you? What has your attention? I ask these three questions of groups as they interact. I ask them of myself. I sometimes ask them at the beginning of gatherings, and often in some form, at the end. In participatory leadership, the conversations that they evoke help further claim our fundamental relationship as co-learners, as co-creators. They also help train all of us into collectively noticing what we learn from being together. They help make available tacit wisdom that creates social and business value. Three questions. Rich outcomes.

Last week I was able to participate in a learning circle with an amazing group from Ottawa. They were all involved in calling and participating in an Art of Hosting from the spring of this year. Together we were exploring what next would help to create further community capacity to host conversations that matter. This checkin took us to a deep place from which choices and decisions were simply more clear.

I remember many years ago my friend Toke Moeller teaching me to "never underestimate the power of a good checkin." Try these and share what you learn.

Harvest -- New Zealand Men's Gathering

2009-09-09T23:55:00.009-06:00
Invitation -- September 5, 2009

Design and Harvest -- Design Values, Agenda, Harvest Notes

Leadership Practices -- Harvest From Circle with Cohosting team

Dimensions of the Work of Men for this Time -- Fantastic piece from friend Glen Lauder

The Sacred Work of Men -- Another clear piece from Glen Lauder. He has unique listening ears.

Six Hopes and Leadership Practices

2009-09-09T23:13:00.005-06:00
September 9, 2009

Three days ago, I sat by a morning fire at the Whatipu Lodge, very near the Tasman Sea and the Manukau Harbor in New Zealand. It was a day when I knew that the remaining four of us, those who had called, designed, and hosted a men’s gathering, would be leaving to a new place. Four of us had a gift of a conversation that morning. There was friendship. There was a unique connection that I felt as men together. There was insight that doesn't just come everyday. In particular, I gained six insights into some of what I hope for and invite in the work of hosting conversations that matter. Thanks Roq, Glen, Wayne. This helps me verbalize what I couldn't see as clearly and to invite it in the groups I work with.

1. Clear Voice – I hope for us to be able to speak with clear voice together. Sometimes it is with innocence. Often with simplicity. And often with awareness that there is always another way to think about things. I hope for us to name and share what we see in the moment, as if we are all tuners to frequencies that none of us individually can receive.

2. Authentic – I hope for us to be deeply authentic. And approachable. When I coach people I usually call attention to purpose and share some of the words I might speak if it were me. However, I invite them to find the words that work for them. If they show up authenticly -- not performing, just authentic and real -- that energy carries to others. It gives people permission to be authentic, honest, vulnerable. I hope we can step ourselves and with others a bit further into our own brilliance. Authenticity, including vulnerability is a doorway.

3. Scissor-Hands Design – I hope for us to realize that design can come quickly and in a comprehensive way. When we notice values, intentions, and a few key questions, it is simple to create times and engagement processes. What can feel like it should take longer -- in fact, often has -- can become surprisingly fast and comprehensive. I didn't see the moving Edward Scissor Hands, but I remember a commercial that showed very quick hands.

4. Magic – I hope for us all to be able to make shifts in the energy in a room by what we do. I hope we can do this with clarity. One of the simple ways to do this is to witness what we love, what is beautiful, what has us really curious. It is as if each of these witnessings invite others to join into a creation together. And oh, it is good to laugh with each other. Even in the difficulties, to shift energy to a field of beauty and curiousity is to make the stuck, unstuck and flowing.

5. Vibrational Rate – I learned with these men about how we each are the harvest. Yes, there are documents to create and reports to share. However, I sense that how each of us is changed -- vibrationally -- is the most lasting harvest. I've known people who are able to change the vibrational rate of a room. It feels like many of us are learning to trust this. I know that for me this has included deliberate practices of wholeness and wellness. It has also included releasing energy in relationship with some of the people I have loved most in my life. Resonance -- us -- lasts longer than any words and actually becomes the most important tool for creating change.

6. Commitment to the Practical – I hope for all of us to be able to take big ideas and apply them at the level of work getting done. I hope for all of us to be able to integrate many ideas and move them from philosophical to practical application. Sometimes we are teachers together. I never find myself doubting that the underlying world views with which we work are not practical. In fact, essential in the new stories we are creating together.

What a gift to sit with this circle of men. What a gift to relate to each other in this way. What a gift to explore and reflect back some of what we notice and learn together. I smile to think of the “symbol books” that we picked to close out this learning together. Glen, the Allan Root that goes to the heart. Wayne, the Mole that tunnels below the surface and with a sense of smell and vibration felt through the ground. Roq, the Peace Lilly. May it be so. Me, “I can give up anytime.” Ah, there are beliefs to just let go so that we can be at our next level of generativeness together. Thank you men.

Harvest -- New Zealand Art of Hosting

2009-09-09T14:42:00.005-06:00
Design
- The Agenda that Emerged

Article
- Principles for Practicing Conversational Leadership -- A few thoughts I wrote on what emerged from the group

What is Arising in Me? Us? This Community?
- Notes
- Wordle Me
- Worldle Us
- Worldle Community

Scenic Photos and Videos
- The South Island
- The North Island

Invitation -- Framing the Larger Journey

2009-09-02T13:24:00.003-06:00
September 3, 2009

Colleague Glen Lauder shared this with me this week. It was framing that he spoke to the New Zealand Land and Water Forum. It was offered in the context of framing a structure for a years worth of engagement processes that would include 30 people. It was spoken to offer clarity of invitation and purpose. It is one of the clearest I have seen in some time.

1. Wellness -- It is important that we focus on what we are doing well. It is important that we notice when we are working well. This links nicely to the appreciative approach and the reality that "what we give our attention to grows." It is also a nice invitation to notice what we already know. Thus, the invitation is not to start over, but rather to build on what we know and ask what we could also know, including what we could also let go of.

2. Pratice -- The learning that we are in comes largely from a field of practice. There are now practitioners all over the world who are sharing what works. It is learning from engagement. It is story. It is methods. It is invitation for us to be practitioners and pioneers of social methodologies and apply what we learn at scale.

3. Theory -- Though we do not speak as theoreticians, there are several aspects of theory that feed these practices. It is an invitation to notice the most clear gems and world views. And example is self-organization. Another is systems theory. Another is chaos and complexity theory.

4. No Shit -- This was a warrior's call into clarity of purpose. If the work is about preserving water and land availability -- some of NZ's most important issues, then make sure this is at the center. If the work is about preserving rivers that our children might swim in them and feel expansive in spirit, then make sure this is at the center. It is the invitation to show up with the realness of issue, despite any obstacles in the past be they political or otherwise. It is the invitation to think beyond planning meetings.

5. Personal -- For us to work in wholeness, we must show up personally. Very often I hear the distinction that people make about showing up personally versus professionally. Sharing stories of home, of family, of emotions often are not the pattern for professional work. And yet, the learning is that we can't not show up personally. We must be willing to take that personal journey and not fear the integration.

6. Offer what is Above -- Each time, can we be deliberate to notice what we know now that we did not know before. Or feel. Or intuit. Stand with each other in a commitment to innovate and to notice what is emerging. Earlier in the week we asked people to notice what is arising in the group. This was a question about noticing patterns. It is the invitation to see what is unfolding. To see what is beyond what we know as individuals. It is further invitation to trust that those noticings give us the wisdom we need for the next steps.

Alistair Lauder

2009-09-02T01:28:00.004-06:00
August 25, 2009

I’ve just spent the past hour or so in a pub / restaurant, The Honest Lawyer, in Nelson on the south island of New Zealand. The wind is brisk, howling past the window and through the trees. A cozy fire burns next to me.

I’ve learned and loved much on this trip. Though only four days since arriving in Wellington, much has happened that I feel very grateful for. Learning. Experience. Feeling the energy of this place. An immediate meeting with Glen Lauder my colleague and good friend. A short flight to Picton and a drive down the coast to Kaikoura, where the sun was shining and the views of the Pacific and the Seaward Kaikoura Mountains was spectacular. I love the experience of staying at an Inn. Homey. Friendly. Welcoming. The Pier was our first overnight stop. From Kaikoura, the next day we found our way across Lewis Pass to Maruia Springs for a good soak in the hot pools. From there to the west coast through Greymouth and down to Hokitika – very wet and very rain-filled. Back up for a night in Murchison and then to Nelson. I am filled with a newness and rush of feelings that only come from first time adventures.

This last stop in Nelson has been delightful. It has included a visit with Glen’s father, Alistair. Alistair is a former engineer who migrated from Scotland with his family 40 or so years ago. I think he is in his 80s. He is slower in his step and speech, yet quick in his mind and joyful in his heart. Quite a thing to meet a friend’s parents and see a few of the root – these quick minds and joyful hearts.

Today’s conversation with Alistair was particularly a gift. He and I were to sit for a bit by the fire. We’d met yesterday so we had some sense of each other. I joked with Glen as he was off to meet his colleague Peter – “go change the world.” Alistair was gentle as he shared with me, twinkle in his eye, “maybe it isn’t changing the world, but instead, changing the way we think about the world.” Ah, a good start.

We each shared stories with each other over the next hour in what felt like one of the exquisite moments of deep connection with an elder. He told me about participation (yes, Glen and Peter were have a similar discussion with different content). Alistair's story was of migrating. Sitting with his wife, daughter, and Glen as a 7 year-old to talk about what they were doing. They asked the kids when they arrived if they should stay in Auckland or go to Wellington. Alistair was sharing a version of participative leadership, of co-creation. “We were pioneers together.” Yup, that feels like the work of leadership and hosting today.

I so much appreciated Alistair's wonder in being able to talk about choices and freedom in this era. He lives with an appreciation that is palpable and sweet. He thanked me for bringing my light, for carrying light. This too, deeply moved me. And one last kicker and twinkle – “You know what I’ve learned today?” he started as we were finishing our conversation. “Metaphysical discussions and umpteen cups of tea make me go to the bathroom.” We belly-laughed together.

Thanks Alistair for your light. And for just what I needed as I carry forward from four days on the South Island to a couple of weeks on the north island, and to the work of leadership that is crystal clear from our sit by the fire.

Seeing Systems -- Lessons from A Computer Novice

2009-08-16T09:28:00.004-06:00
August 15, 2009

Much of the work that I'm involved in is to see systems. To learn, even relearn or remember, how to work with a broader level of connection. There are always the parts. Yup. And there is always the collection of the parts. Yup. Like most, I have spent a lot of time trying to work with more complex arrangements of parts.

There is something more, however, that is not just working with broader compilations of parts. It is, instead, working with the wholeness of the system that has "no parts." This is quite a mind-teaser. The science of the last 300 years has taught us well, engrained in us really, the world view that to understand complexity, we must see those delightful, measurable parts. Any of us in western world live in this as a fundamental cultural medium. Yet, a growing practice is to let go of even seeing through the "lens of parts." Seeing systems. "Seeing wholeness" is the invitation.

I noticed a simple way to see this recently. It became apparent as I worked through a crashed computer (fried motherboard) that then required me to work on a new laptop. Beyond the loss of some data and the frustration of reloading programs, searching for updated drivers, etc., I loved the sense of a "clean" laptop. It didn't yet have too much junk loaded on it or defaulted onto it. It's performance was as advertised. It felt faster than my old laptop -- the boot process was one minute rather than 10. Feels good, right.

As I added programs, as well as some updated versions of programs, it didn't take long to feel my new computer start to slow down and feel clunky. Granted, I'm not computer guy, so my attention and wisdom might be a little low here, but I found it incredibly frustrating to notice that many of the programs, the parts, that I wanted to add to my system, couldn't seem to be in good communication with the other parts. All of them were indiviudally good. And I live with the assumptions that each of them, if the only program on my computer, would work swimmingly well. However, with each there was a background level of technical hocus pocus that didn't seem to be in full communication with the whole of the system. Each seemed to have built into it defaults that place it in startup menu or that sometimes replaced existing defaults. The short of it is that my new system, with its great spiffy new components and programs, doesn't work in such a spiffy way.

To get to the bottom of it through each of the parts is to hear repeated claims that amount to "our program works well; it must be one of your other programs." Does that sound familiar? Departments that actually are telling the truth, yet not able to see the outcome of interaction with other departments and programs. It is the pattern that often results in great blame of the other for a characteristic that we just don't see enough of -- more of the system.

I'm grateful for a computer that works. Let's be clear. I'm also greatful for what I assume is intense research and development into the next level of integration and seeing systems in computer world. Let's be clear on that too. And I'm aware of the operating mode of our time that does fascinating things with parts. Cool. But oh how the invitation of our times is to see more of the system, and even come to see it as "no parts." Well beyond the realtive insignificance of my computer, does this feel familiar in our major societal systems -- health care (what a raging debate these days in the US), education, energy...? Feels like a huge invitation and challenge that many of us need to be in now.

Camp Valor

2009-08-06T22:08:00.003-06:00
August 6, 2009

Just returned today from being a helper and counselor for three days at Camp Valor, a summer camp for about 50 kids and siblings with bleeding disorders. We actually left early today. Though scheduled to conclude tomorrow, we were evacuated from the area -- Camp Wapiti in the Stansbury Range of the Oquirrh Mountains. A lightning strike started the fire late last night. I just saw a news report stating that 22,000 acres have now burned.

The camp was inspiring. I'm reflective tonight, realizing I'm missing what would have been our last night together sharing skits together. The bleeding disorders world is filled with inspiring people. From kids (this camp is for kids 8-13 years old) to counselor associates to counselors and leaders of the foundation. Last night we all participated in a "Golden Pine Cone Ceremony," a chance for each kid, counselor, and others to name something or someone that they felt gratitude for, and then ceremonally place the pine cone in the bon fire. Some spoke of loved ones who have died. Others spoke of friends in the camp. It was touching.

A few other things that I loved from this camp:
- Being with friends, other parents, like Mya Anderson, and being able to share a few stories of our early days in raising our children with hemophilia and what we've learned over the years.
- Listening to Chad Hymas, an amazing being and speaker. In a farming accident, he was left paralyzed from his chest down. His story is one of perserverance. Of humor. Of gifting each other with time. Of being creative. He told his personal story, of which I know many varieties from the bleeding disorders world. It is one of doing what seems like it can't be done.
- I loved offering a few practices with the kids that I've learned with friend, Chris Corrigan. Rock-balancing, which was great while waiting for next rotations. I love it when the kids see the rocks and wonder how it is done. They see the seemingly impossible in front of them. Even better when they try them. And juggling -- particularly good this time while we waited in our evacuation space with a very gracious group of people in the Elks Lodge.
- Seeing the Air Med helecopter (demo unrelated to the fire), hearing a few stories of their work. Similarly with three SWAT Medics (again, unrelated to the fire). Those are people with some serious training behind them.
- Sleeping outside in the field. I was on my own for this one. And woke to see the lightning that started the fires.
- The SPLORE staff that worked with us again this year. They are a great group of inspiring leaders themselves. I love their commitment to recycling and conservation. It isn't easy to do with kids. These SPLORE friends -- Chala, Zach, Beth, Josh, Megan and others are really great to be with.
- I loved the Tai Chi class in the morning. This is a practice I could get into more.

I loved the feeling of being with this community. And in some way found myself very happy to be in the simplicity of purpose together. Camp is about wellness. About education. About helping kids learn to infuse and improve their self care. It is straight forward and clear. I'll save it for another post, but the gift of this for me was reflections on the straight forward in my work.

Let's Fall In Love

2009-07-24T15:10:00.003-06:00
July 24, 2009

I've heard many people talk about the importance of relationships in the critical work of today. Building trust. Improving communications. I've deeply appreciated the friendships and working relations with those that speak so boldly and honestly about love. Sharon Joy Kleitsch is one of those. A lovely and fierce activitist for shifting consciousness. We spoke together earlier this week, the day after her 71st birthday, about the work needed in these times. It was a gift to me to notice what thoughts were sparking for me as we talked about supporting a shift of consciousness through IONS and other means in the Tampa area. Here's a few of them:

- Let's fall in love. Naming the importance of dropping barriers and coming into the energy and resonance of love. It occured to me that as we open ourselves to the resonance of love -- no, not the romantic kind, though it has its appeal also -- we drop the barriers so that our resonance can mingle and entangle with others. In so doing, we open ourselves to love, and thus to creating together. Things that are created in love -- projects, initatives, programs -- have a much better chance of lasting and accomplishing what we care about. Particularly in community and networks where authority structures can't impose actions.

- What we give our attention to, grows. This is a common principle I use in explaining participative leadership and in particular, appreciative inquiry. What a thing to think of an energy and resonance of love growing, of deep relationships, that can support our work in these times. It's needed, no?

- This is not a rehearsal. This is the fierce voice from Sharon Joy. I know many sweet qualities and experiences with Sharon Joy and others in her community. She, like myself, like many others, are feeling an added fierceness about the call of these times now. Not a rehearsal. We are called now to hold to the deepest purpose. I've heard Sharon Joy state this many times. One recently, regarding the IONS conference. The purpose is not conferences. It is a shift in consciousness. What a gift to see that fierceness and feel it strengthen in me, and in many of us.

Reflections from Labour Union Education

2009-07-23T18:14:00.002-06:00
July 23, 2009

Deeply appreciating these words from colleague and friend, Tamara Levine of the Canadian Labour Congress. She is writing the words below to introduce her colleagues in New Zealand to attend an Art of Hosting that I'm coleading in August. She is reflecting on an event that I hosted with Chris Corrigan and Esther Matte, and a great bunch of union leaders.

"The Art of Hosting (AoH) (see http://www.artofhosting.org/home/) is about ways to bring people together in conversations that matter in response to a powerful question in order to strengthen our work and our communities. It's about emphasizing the value of building relationships and learning into our work so that our work and our communities can become more grounded, relevant, and stronger.

I met Tenneson about a year ago when he co-facilitated a 3-day session with staff of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the largest union in Canada. The question developed by the CUPE planning group for the invitation to that session was "What more can local unions be?". CUPE participants left the session with deep bonds to each other, to the work, and with a new set of skills to bring to how they organize more participatory and meaningful meetings and conferences, write more dynamic courses, revitalize union locals, etc. Since then, the ripples of AoH continue to spread throughout the organization, bringing new energy, enthusiasm and possibilities.

Last fall, the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) Education Department was beginning to plan a retreat for our Education Advisory Committee. The CUPE rep on the committee highly recommended that we use AoH both as a way to host the retreat and as a training session for those who would attend. We started planning what came to be called our "Learning Circle" in December with a committee of affiliate reps and three facilitators, including Tenneson, hoping that we might get 25 or 30 participants. However, because of the fabulous planning and invitation process, because word of AoH was getting out into the movement, and because of the enthusiasm of the planning committee members within their own organizations, we had 70 participants at the CLC Learning Circle in May who responded to our question " What is needed from us as activists and labour educators in these challenging times?"

I've attached some of the eloquent comments that have been coming in from participants at the Learning Circle FYI. Like in CUPE, the stories of how Aoh is infusing the work of the labour movement continue to inspire. Hosting the Learning Circle was seen as an important and valuable convening role for the CLC to play as the national central labour body.

What Grows in Rocks

2009-07-23T17:36:00.007-06:00

July 23, 2009

Last weekend I took a solo hike and overnight camp to Stewart Falls. It is near Sundance, Utah in the Wasatch Mountains. The hike is about 2 miles in and well worth it -- the hike itself and the 200 foot falls. After a good sleep underneath the stars, I spent most of the next day sitting quite still. In meditation. In appreciation. And, in the way that only happens when I sit long enough, noticing things that have always been there but that I haven't seen in the same way.

This time is was noticing the amazing amount of growth in what feels like solid mountain. Beautiful flowers. Beautiful greens. On the sides of cliff walls. Tucked in to little crannies. It really captured my attention and awe. Amazing beauty that grows out of rocks. Seeminginly impossible or improbable. Gloriously beautiful.

I found myself thinking about that voice I've heard from some clients (and that I know in myself). It is the voice that says "this is all really great, but _____ (insert name of person who doesn't get the work we are trying) will never go for this." Or "can't do this." Or "will never change." It is that voice that comes from a desire for doing good communally and in cooperation, but knows the strength of pattern and personality that can block the very collaboration we want. More and more when I hear this voice, I speak of and invite all of us to be willing to be surprised. Just like those flowers and such that grow out of seemingly impossible conditions, people too, when in community, grow and flourish. From seemingly impossible and improbable to gloriously beautiful.

Here are a few additional photos from that day of things growing in rocks. Enjoy. And here are a few other photos from the falls and surrounding area. Enjoy again.

And here's one from Peggy Dunn, a friend who I met several years ago. She shared this photo in response to the above.

Learning Edge is the Center

2009-07-23T17:20:00.003-06:00
July 23, 2009

Earlier this week was in a good skype call and video with friend Chris Corrigan. The beauty of skype video -- seeing Chris's deck, yard, garden and sharing a bit of the duck ponds out my window. I loved our exploring. As is always / often the case, much shows up in our interaction that feels like a gift.

One was the sense of "learning edge" being at the center. Quite often in our work together we encourage ourselves and others to go to the learning edge. Most often I think of this as something "out there," something that is far away. In fact, I'd asked Chris something about what was the most "far out" learning that he felt he was in. He shared some of his. I shared some of mine. And then we began to notice some of what makes things feel far out. Uncertainty. And in particular, uncertainty when it has implications on the lives of the ones we love. Such is life indeed -- an invitation to many uncertains. And such is the process of being awake or alert -- an invitation to go to those uncertains. It can take us to what feels like an edge, often marked by such things as "conventional wisdom" or "majority perspective."

That conversation helped us both realize something anew. It is the process of coming to have radical trust in our own wisdom. Or in the wisdom that is not as apparent in "conventional wisdom." And then this gem -- that to come to have radical trust in our own wisdom is to come to trust our own core. To shift the learning edge is to shift the identity at the core of who we are. To be at the learning edge is to live into the very center of who we see ourselves to be.

Interesting to think of the invitation that this provides for any of us and our clients. Go to your learning edge. OK. Go deep into your center to recognize what is at the core. Be willing to recognize what might be audacious in your belief or action, and dare to find at the learning edge, the very center from which "unconventional wisdom" is trying to be born.

A good one to play with. A gift of another way of seeing it.

Labour Educators -- Closing Reflections

2009-07-20T14:47:00.002-06:00
July 20, 2009

A few reflections from Labour Educators at an Art of Hosting in May. I love what shows up in closing reflections as participants are making sense of their experience together. A closing poem and a participant feedback also below.

Closing Circle Reflections, Intentions
See also: http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/1007857/CLC_Reflections

- Implementing hosting in IDEW and CAW training
- Specific direction
- Inner peace of mind
- Excitement about changes I can make at home
- Meeting other union labour educators – I haven’t done this for a long time
- We can do more in the collective than we can alone
- Enthusiasm and confidence to use these skills
- A respectful process for me to integrate
- I’m so full I’m leaking!
- Taking away a community
- Worked on a real-life planning event
- I don’t always need the answer
- A sense of caring
- Plans and ideas for an international postal conference
- What might a world café look like without words
- Quickly put ideas in place
- Renewed and increased respect for crafting friendship
- Human rights planning program
- Going away with a lot of work!
- Stable enough to be sustainable; creative enough to deserve the name of life
- I go away with the feeling I have when I dance – humming, soaring, electricity
- Aware of an invisible presence in this country
- I’ve got a heart going – yippee!
- Bringing the right people together for getting to answers
- This has transformational powers
- I feel like I won something
- Group wisdom
- Accomplished a lot in a few days

What in your life is calling you?
The Terma Collective

What I you life is calling you?
When all the noise is silenced,
the meetings adjourned,
the lists laid aside,
and the wild iris blooms by itself
in the dark forest,
what still pulls at your soul?

In the silence between your heartbeats
hides a summons.
Do you hear it?

Name it, if you must,
or leave it forever nameless,
but why pretend it is not there?

Participant Feedback

“This learning circle was like the force of gravity that shoots a spaceship around the moon. I had no idea the power of joy that would be created. I feel hopeful, renewed, rewoven into a community, and surprised. I needed this filling.”

Hosting Defined

2009-07-19T20:56:00.003-06:00
July 19, 2009

There are many definitions of hosting that my colleagues and I are evolving into. I laugh when I remember back to an event earlier this year, where, at the start Chris Corrigan offered a definition and named it as one of 87 that we would offer in the coming three days together. He laughed. I laughed. We all did. What makes humor funny is it's truth.

Here's a definition that I like from the Community of Practice in Upper Arlington, Columbus, Ohio:

"Hosting is an emerging set of practices for facilitating group conversations of all sizes, supported by principles that:
- maximize collective intelligence;
- welcome and listen to diverse viewpoints;
- maximize participation and civility;
- and transform conflict into creative cooperation.”

What I like about this is that it comes from many years now of work in the area around conversational leadership. I also like that it names as practice in form and in value of some very basic things that most systems want. It's good, direct language.

I also would add a bit further through another lens. Hosting is what we do to create basic conditions so that the energy of people in the room can co-mingle and entangle. Co-mingle is to mix, to invite a shared wholeness and creation. To entangle is to become a new entitity and remain as such in some manner. It is an emergent entity. I heard Edgar Mitchell, founder of IONS speak this recently, "resonance is nature's way of transfering information." Hosting, from this view, is about giving us access to each other's resonance. It is often in the form of conversational practices that are deliberately focused on particular questions. However, it is more -- the silence, the play, the shared inquiry, the poetry, the agreements, the listening, and the like -- each creates additional ways to come into a shared resonance. From the living systems view of "people support what they create" this means that hosting is about creating conditions so that this resonance sharing can happen, and thus support of what is created.

Hard to find words for it. But I sense it is what is happening and what is most promising when I think of how we respond to the challenges of this day. Or when I try to make sense of why so many past AoHs have gone so well -- in client systems and in open-enrollment learnings.

U Journaling -- Otto Scharmer

2009-07-06T16:00:00.002-06:00
July 6, 2009

I have used variations of this journalling process now in several events. The source comes from Otto Scharmer's work and The Presencing Institute. I typically use them to invite a level of personal sourcing, and to clarify intentions. Everything from 10 minutes to a couple of hours. Colleague Martin Siesta hosted a sweet version of this last week in Colorado working with financial planners. It was followed by time in wilderness and then a partner discussion.

The full questions and context are here.

The questions in brief, follow:

[ 1 ] Challenges: Look at yourself from outside as if you were another person: What are the 3 or 4 most important challenges or tasks that your life (work and non-work) currently presents?

[ 2 ] Self: Write down 3 or 4 important facts about yourself. What are the important accomplishments you have achieved or competencies you have developed in your life (examples: raising children; finishing your education; being a good listener)?

[ 3 ] Emerging Self: What 3 or 4 important aspirations, areas of interest, or undeveloped talents would you like to place more focus on in your future journey (examples: writing a novel or poems; starting a social movement; taking your current work to a new level)?

[ 4 ] Frustration: What about your current work and/or personal life frustrates you the most?

[ 5 ] Energy: What are your most vital sources of energy? What do you love?

[ 6 ] Inner resistance: What is holding you back? Describe 2 or 3 recent situations (in your work or personal life) where you noticed one of the following three voices kicking in, which then prevented you from exploring the situation you were in more deeply:

Voice of Judgment: shutting down your open mind (downloading instead of inquiring)
Voice of Cynicism: shutting down your open heart (disconnecting instead of relating)
Voice of Fear: shutting down your open will (holding on to the past or the present instead of letting go)

[ 7 ] The crack: Over the past couple of days and weeks, what new aspects of your Self have you noticed? What new questions and themes are occurring to you now?

[ 8 ] Your community: Who makes up your community, and what are their highest hopes in regard to your future journey? Choose three people with different perspectives on your life and explore their hopes for your future (examples: your family; your friends; a parentless child on the street with no access to food, shelter, safety, or education). What might you hope for if you were in their shoes and looking at your life through their eyes?

[ 9 ] Helicopter: Watch yourself from above (as if in a helicopter). What are you doing? What are you trying to do in this stage of your professional and personal journey?

[ 10 ] Imagine you could fast-forward to the very last moments of your life, when it is time for you to pass on. Now look back on your life’s journey as a whole. What would you want to see at that moment? What footprint do you want to leave behind on the planet? What would you want to be remembered for by the people who live on after you?

[ 11 ] From that (future) place, look back at your current situation as if you were looking at a different person. Now try to help that other person from the viewpoint of your highest future Self. What advice would you give? Feel, and sense, what the advice is—and then write it down.

[ 12 ] Now return again to the present and crystallize what it is that you want to create: your vision and intention for the next 3-5 years. What vision and intention do you have for yourself and your work? What are some essential core elements of the future that you want to create in your personal, professional, and social life? Describe as concretely as possible the images and elements that occur to you.

[ 13 ] Letting-go: What would you have to let go of in order to bring your vision into reality? What is the old stuff that must die? What is the old skin (behaviors, thought processes, etc.) that you need to shed?

[ 14 ] Seeds: What in your current life or context provides the seeds for the future that you want to create? Where do you see your future beginning?

[ 15 ] Prototyping: Over the next three months, if you were to prototype a microcosm of the future in which you could discover “the new” by doing something, what would that prototype look like?

[ 16 ] People: Who can help you make your highest future possibilities a reality? Who might be your core helpers and partners?

[ 17 ] Action: If you were to take on the project of bringing your intention into reality, what practical first steps would you take over the next 3 to 4 days?

Health Care Reform in Utah

2009-07-06T14:53:00.005-06:00
July 6, 2009

A bit from colleague, John Kesler, with whom I have worked a bit to support the evolution of health care in Utah...

The overview is here. The large change priorities follow...
Vision 2010 Sub-Committees

“Large Change” Priorities

Quality and Safety
• Support the IHI 5 million lives campaign. The Campaign’s goal is to protect patients from 5 million incidents of medical harm from December 2006-December 2008. The effort aims to enlist 4,000 hospitals in a renewed national commitment to improve patient safety faster than ever before.

Seamless Technology
• Support the creation of a universally accepted and accessible clinical records exchange tool
• Reduce “fragmentation” in the system and simplify exchange of clinical data.

Access and Affordability
• Link the various conversations related to access and affordability in the State of Utah—the Governor’s Plan, UMA’s committee, Healthcare Coverage Coalition, Salt Lake Chamber, Michael Leavitt plan, other conversations, etc.
• Support a Shared Values Model for a New System:
--A strong public health system
--A reformed insurance market that delivers essential core coverage
--A reformed healthcare delivery market that creates incentives for increasing value
--Systems that fully support the delivery of high quality care
--Transition bridge for existing community and volunteer clinics

Engaged Workforce
• Continue to support and pursue initiatives to support academia. Work in partnership with the Utah State Office of Education and Dept. of Workforce services to promote health sciences careers and “fill the pipeline” for future healthcare needs. Work in partnership with UONL and academia to initiate the USPIN proposal to streamline clinical placements for nursing students.
• Increase interaction with other sub-committees in the areas of safety, wellness and diversity. Focus on efforts to improve employee wellness in our hospitals, both physicially and emotionally, working toward the goal of “Treating the employee better than they treat the patient.”
• Further define levels of professional competence in the healthcare workforce.

Berkana as a Self-Organizing System

2009-07-06T14:48:00.001-06:00
July 6, 2009
From Berkana's most recent enewsletter, an invitation to reinvent that is true for all of us, and one that I am in with dear friends.
Berkana as a Self-Organizing System

Berkana is reinventing itself, and we’d like to share our new direction with you.

Since 1992, when Berkana was founded, we have been learning about how to create the conditions for self-organizing to happen. During this time, we ourselves have operated in a somewhat traditional form: as a nonprofit institute with staff, offices and professional leadership. The gift of today’s challenging economic environment has been to call us far deeper into the experiment in self-organizing.

For all of us working to create social change, we are confronted with the paradox that there is less money available but more need than ever for the kind of work we do. The nonprofit model Berkana has been working in is proving to be unsustainable, and we believe it is time to invent a way to do our work that is flexible, resilient and adaptive.

Fortunately, we know a little something about flexible, resilient and adaptive systems. The organizational model that we plan to experiment with is a self-organizing system that invites many people throughout the Berkana community to step forward with the leadership they wish to offer. It calls for entrepreneurship, creativity and ingenuity. It requires that many people engage in a whole new level of effort around the actions they wish to commit to.

We invite you to learn more about how self-organizing can harness our collective creativity and commitment for building healthy and resilient communities.

IONS -- Hosting Conversations at Large Conferences

2009-07-06T11:18:00.005-06:00
July 6, 2009

Last week Teresa Posakony and I hosted at the IONS conference in Tucson, Arizona. We were asked to support the desire for more participation in the event, a large scale conference. Many colleagues (Berkana, Art of Hosting, World Cafe...) joined us in direct support, offering ideas, and in standing with.

I want to share some of the gist of this – because it went really well! And because there is important learning for many of us, all of us, in pioneering engagement and deep community in large conference formats. And because it was beautiful learning and experience on activating a field, a resonance. And, and, and…

The gist of the how and what was four plenary weaves and two breakout sessions to meet in open space format (hosted with Sharon Joy Kleitsch, Jane Gignoux and others from the IONS Community Groups), as well as a conference table for Berkana / AoH materials. Each day we had between 25 and 50 minutes to work with the group at a plenary level. There were 400 – 600 in the room in basic theatre style seating in the conference ballroom. The basic framing we chose was one of “turning to one another.” Naming the kinds of learning that can occur, acknowledging amazing speakers, and inviting us to make sense, tell stories, get clear by turning to one another. Yes, Meg Wheatley’s book, Turning to One Another, was available at the bookstore. Yes, partner discussions. Yes, groups of 4 or 5. Yes, journaling… And yes, this was an audience where we could talk about wholeness, wellness, consciousness. We spoke it as “the wisdom we need is in the room, the wellness we need is in the room, the consciousness we need is in the room.” We could speak of the wholeness of the world wanting to be in communication with us and through us.

Day 1 we worked with experiences of shift in consciousness. Day 2 with images of the future being born in us. Day 3 with sense-making of a very powerful and dyer presentation from Edgar Mitchell on the state of sustainability and what we can begin to do with our two feet and hands – working with simplicity and first next steps that feed the whole. Day 4 with intention setting. And yes, we told stories. Of Berkana Exchange. Of our kids. Of whales thinking they can fly. Of blue footed boobies. Thanks Meg for the latter two. Yes, even offered a dialogue poem / rap in the moment which landed well. And yes, we invited – called out – ourselves and the group to be in deep questions. Held them with seriousness and with a lightness.

A representative story of appreciation…. We were done with all of our sessions. A participant handed us a note of deep appreciation. “You have shifted how this conference is run. You have hosted and held the kind of inclusive community that we so want and need.” It was a beautiful little offering from her and full of thanks. We had so many people share similarly. It was as if they couldn’t not share with us. People in the halls would stop and tell us deep, involved stories. They felt invitation to just open up and felt release and wellness in doing so. The energy field we intended had them well(er). Activated…

So, all of this to say, yes, a movement is afoot. Yes, a beautiful taste of being involved and sharing Berkana stories. Yes, a dive into the river of heart and soul. Yes, to the work that is beneath the words – working in energy fields. We held it that way, along with many, and it came to form that way.

Gratitude friends, in the turnings.

A few additional photos, including graphic recordings of Julie Gieseke are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tennesonwoolf/sets/72157620843375326/

The Space of On -- Art of Hosting Money

2009-06-26T21:47:00.006-06:00
June 26, 2009

Arrived in Denver, Colorado today to meet with a wonderful hosting team. Martin Siesta from New Jersey, Elizabeth Jetton from Georgia, and Dick Wagner from Colorado are all financial planners. They are dear hearts, they know there industry, and they have a deep commitment to exploring the unknowns of the economic paradigm. Dear friends Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea are here from PeerSpirit -- it is always such an opening and gift to work with them. Teresa Posakony and I are here as pattern keepers of the Art of Hosting.

Today was a day of simply checking in. It was the work of gathering in circle so that we could say a few words to each other. Yes, a social space to check in, and some dinner together, a short walk away to Pho on Sixth. It was the activating of a center, the creating of a hearth that I was looking for. Christina rang the bells and invited the spirit of creating good in the world through our work. I offered the questions -- what are you most excited about for this gathering? What do you need to show up in the way you want too? From the moment that Dick spoke, the first to speak, of money as a way of connecting people in a society, and then followed by Elizabeth, sharing some of the consciousness shift that we are in, I felt the working field become very present.

Other inspired words and invitations were spoken and felt in that circle. The sense of quest. The hope of community. Bold actions. Activating energy fields. The gift of dark times and the next levels of "yes." Each and all noticed from telling a few stories together in response to the questions. They are the beginning, a container, that now gives us a lot of freedom in our design for the next day.

"On," or a particular level of "on" begins with a good checkin. And as I sit with this feeling of "on" now, that we will carry into design, I keep hearing Elizabeth's words -- "we might just create a new profession this week." When "on" arrives, those kind of words get very real. It is inspiring and worth a good breath too.

Car Ride Full of Stories with Murray -- Meeting in Our Humanity

2009-06-07T07:06:00.004-06:00
June 7, 2009

Last week I cohosted a learning event, Conversational Leadership -- Builiding Relationships that Matter, with colleagues and friends, Lauri Prest, Anne Symes, and others. When complete, I needed a ride from Kingston, Ontario to Ottawa so that I could catch a flight. Murray Hillier, a participant, was headed that way and offered a lift. Together we were delighted to have the two hour ride for some bonus time together. Murray works in the area of mental health. He is a clinical nurse practitioner, an educator, and a former paramedic. I loved Murray immediately in the workshop because of his love of questions and stories. In our ride, I felt the gift of building on the time together in our workshop, and the gift of sharing stories from our lives and work. A few of those gifts are below.

"If you take the breath away, you die." A model that Lauri and I shared at the workshop was around divergence and convergence. It is a model that invites the need to slow down. To breath into our work. It is a challenge to the pattern that many of us live in that is primarily focused on efficiency. That efficiency, though a good intention and good practice, often has us unintentionally feeling out of breath. "Breath is life's blood. When we are in fear, or panic, often we hyperventilate," Murray shared. "In this, we lose breath, the very thing we need to feed our brain and other parts of our body to be well." The breath that we need to expand what we can see as choices isn't there. "Shallow breath. Shallow thoughts." This reminds me further of what good friend and hosting colleague, Janice Stieber Rous, has taught me -- most people aren't breathing. She is very experienced in integrating energetic and physical wellness.

Mental Wellness Days -- Murray shared another story about mental wellness days that links to overall wellness. In an organization he was a part of, a new program began with gave employees six mental wellness days per year. There was no particular need that had to be named. No illness. No justification. Just six days for mental wellness. The days couldn't be banked. Murray shared how at the end of the year only 1/2 of the days were actually used. However, sickness had decreased substantially -- I think he said 66%. Yes, there is a relationship between our physical wellness and our mental wellness, and I would add, our spiritual wellness, our intellectual wellness, and, and, and.... I'm grateful to Murray for the stories of wholeness and wellness -- it is really what I feel my work is, all of us, who are working as group process artists and faciltators.

Murray had more -- stories of brutal honesty that he had to share as a paramedic with people who were facing death. People who he was treating, asking if this was it -- was this the end, and have to tell them yes. If I were to name a common thread in all of it, they were stories of meeting in our humanity.

A good car ride. Good friendship. Good learning. And a few great tips on supporting our shared love of our daughters :). All about wellness.

What Do We Know Now About Leadership In A Self-Organizing World?

2009-05-19T12:11:00.006-06:00
May 19, 2009

This was a question that Teresa Posakony and I carried deliberately at the learning conference, Leadership in a Self-Organizing World (see also previous blog post on this event).

Below are three levels of harvest from this question:

1. Teresa hosted a circle in open space on the third day. These two embedded photos capture some of the discussion. The notes below are in response to a check-out circle on "How do we talk about this?"

Saturday, 3:00 (Teresa, Tenneson, Gabriel, Diana, Henri, Jim, Shiloh, Ashley, Roosey, Tom, Diana, Christy and more………. - Tell real stories of amazing stuff that we wouldn’t have expected - Be in the practice of listening, hearing, and symbolizing - Assume that everything we need to know is right here - Name it as participant organized – they own the responsibility and can point to “somebody did it” - Relationship between hearing the story and self-organizing change - Clear intention, purpose context…people can self-organize to create - Experience it - Ask powerful questions - How would you like to access the true potential of your organization - Focus on the work we have to do, the real need and purpose. Then be thoughtful and choiceful about how to get about it. - Reflection of nature & Body…words and images - Follow the energy of yes! - Use vocabulary to understand and engage - Be in the life energy – how to serve the larger whole. - Cultivate genuine curiosity and authentic response - Welcome people home…to the best of what we know and in connection with what is alive already

2. The last convergence exercise we did on the fourth and last day was with the full group. The intention was to see another glimpse of what was important in the group. Innovative process hosted by Peggy Holman. Each of us wrote the one principle we thought was most important for leaders in a self-organizing world. The cards included everything from simple principles to larger sets of ideas. We exchanged cards randomly with other participants and then stopped to rank points between two cards. Then random exchange. Then ranking. We did this through five cycles and totalled the points. The top responses are here:

1. One never knows the power of an idea/vision until shared with others who have similar passions. (27)
2T. We are the ones we've been waiting for. "Leaders" are not self ordained. They are recognized by their contributions and response to a calling from deep within to commit their life to contributing to the greater good. (26)
2T. Clarity I now have: *So many labels! * To participate in a Self Organizing World means truly owning up to allowing each person (including myself) freedom to express their passions about the subject * to be fully present and mindful within myself and within the group. (26)
4. Be yourself. (25)
5. In a Self Organizing World: I bring my whole self my dream passion each moment presence, and allow others the same grace. (24)
6. Provides a space where each person can speak her/his truth and offer his/her gifts. (23.5)
7T. Leadership in a self-organizing world - means…We all lead and we know when it is our time to lead by listening to our body and spirit - when it calls out our gift. (22)
7T. Creating contexts that help life-energy find itself, manifest, serve itself, and evolve - at all levels including self, group, community, social system, and planet - with decreasing violence, toxicity, and waste. (22)
9T. You must be a vital self-organizing system in order to lead, serve, and host the ever unfurling nature of a self-organizing world. In this breathing, beating, crumbling, and constellating living world - we love and lead into dynamic tension of living and dying - sending and receiving - leading from in front or behind. True leadership is authentically living expressing just that. (21)
9T. The power of connection to nature remaining in its stillness so that all that needs to show up shows up, with flow of a river. (21)
9T. Open Space is a way that nature organizes itself. I also see that the container is the "how" of the system. It would take longer time periods to deal with certain grievances at a more root level than others. Truly what is needed for humanity currently is "root" responses to personal and collective trauma. (21)
9T. My insight: Hierarchies arise, serve, disolve, reorganize. Leaders can relax and allow their role to present itself - be free of the burden of the acknowledged leader role. It takes an integrated "anima" to be a effective leader in a self-organizing world. (21)
9T. LSOW is allowing and nurturing passion. (21)
9T. Convene in curiosity to remember and create together choices. Trust first next steps. (21)
3. I asked about a dozen people (thanks to each of them) the same questions on the 3rd and 4th days with this context. Assume the world is self-organizing. Assume there is such a thing as leadership. Knowing that these are both meaningful conversations that invite more attention, what you would you name as the most important principle for a leader to be effective in a self-organizing world? Those reponses are below.

- stay open -- don't get stuck in a time suck
- keep dropping seeds -- don't get freaked out about what you can't do
- remember you already are leading in a self-organizing world
- be bold, listen, and do
- fully manifest and make room for others to fully manifest too
- give people a place to tell their story (until the sun comes up and it is a new day)
- practice letting go and welcoming a discerning stance
- be deliberate in witnessing what is happening, sometimes not through voice
- create a safe place in the transition (grief work is birth work)
- put a ball into play and then be a participant
- pay attention to the field
- speak a best guess of what is arising
- be bold, and then surrender
- be grounded
- work with the spirit of invitation
- name the question clearly
- be a steward of shared intention
- tend to the social fabric of community
- tune in / center
- welcome and invite diverse voice
- welcome disruption as gifts
- give shared attention to task, process, and relationships
- reenlist in the love affair with tension

Leadership in a Self-Organizing World -- 90 Practitioners Gathered

2009-05-19T11:27:00.006-06:00
May 19, 2009

Last week I was in Leavenworth, WA for a learning conference, Leadership in a Self-Organizing World. Berkana was co-sponsor -- another event to support the needed exploring and forms for these times. The place was beautiful. Gigantic pines. Icicle River running alongside the conference space and at the feet of Sleeping Lady, the mountain after which the conference center is named. A harvest video is here, including some beautiful shots of the land. Amazing people there. I particularly found it helpful to be with some old friends and feel the sense of meeting each other even more deeply -- the times are calling us to be in our deepest relations and creations together.

The gathering was held largely in Open Space format. Harrions Owen and Anne Stadler were there, people who really helped give Open Space its early shape, conditions, and practice. Peggy Holman was a core host -- her work is thoughtful and exquisite. Anne is among the most beautiful souls I've ever come to know. She is elegant, full of grace, lives from such a beautiful place of joy. Harrison is direct, has a cowboy's straight-talking edge, and spoke with simplicty. Below are a few of the gifts I got through this listening with Harrison, including added ways to talk about the principles and laws.

- What can we do together that we can't do alone? The invitation was for each of us and all of us to take our practice to next levels in the reality of a self-organizing world. It was an invitation to get to the "what's possible" in the companionship of many that are pioneering.

- This time is one of the most exciting times in history. It is a time where many recognize we are beyond bullshit and that we have to be honest with each other. Harrison spoke of "a whole mess of people" who are scared now and having fits. It's time for us to get lit up and go to the edge and beyond.

- There is a difference between doing something wrong and doing the wrong thing. The former presumes we have the right paradigm and just need to learn. The latter asserts we need a new way of thinking.

- There is no such thing as an closed system. A closed system is a mythology born in Newtonian science and perpetuated through many traditions of management and control. "Managerialism is the greatest evil and hypocracy of the 20th century," speaks Brian Bainbridge, a dear elder parish leader and consultant from Australia. "In my parish, they no longer ask, 'what do you want us to do?' That question has evaporated." Brian is leading with a different principle -- that open systems seek deeper meaning and fitness. They do this or they collapse and make way for the emergence of other systems.

- Open Space as a format came to Harrison over two maratinis and 20 minutes. It was a simple as naming areas of care, opening a market place and then getting to work with no advance planning needed and no facilitation of groups.

- From Harrison's book, Wave Rider, naming that surfers are not in charge of the wave. They are curious, go with the flow, see opportunities, work with invitation and appreciation.

- The focus is on the reality of self-organization, what has been happenign for 13 billion years.

- Everyone, every organization, every community will have bumps, hills, valleys and what have yous. Create a way for people so share what they have passion for and then take some responsibility. Create a nexus for caring that is real passion and real responsibility.

- Whoever comes are the right people. Why? Because they care. "I'd rather have 3 people who care -- that's gorgeous -- than 50 that don't give a damn." Structure contrains spirit.

- On the law of 2 feet -- when feet stop moving, and organization dies. We need to keep the grief working in organizations because it helps us get to the next that is needed. "Give people a place to say 'o shit' with vigor."

Removing the Illusion of Separateness

2009-05-11T07:27:00.003-06:00
May 11, 2009

This would be another one of those topics about "what is really going on when people come together in conversation and learn well." It is some of my imagining about the energetics that I have less language for, yet feels very important to name. For the many of us pioneering or re-pioneering the art of meaningful conversation and connnection as a way to do the work needed in the world today, it gives us further ability to connect and be helpful.

With thanks to mate, Toke Moeller for asking the question: What if hosting conversations that matter is the kind of leadership that allows everybody to learn? And to Bob Stilger and Lauri Prest who helped me churn a bit further with this, a few key points...
Conversation gives us doorway to learning and access to a shared resonance.
From there, it is on. Big imagination and aliveness in purpose weaves to practical first next steps. In vision and in projects.
This is what I’m seeing activated – spreading like wildfire. In faith community. In family wellness in Illinois. In wellness in Ontario and across Canada. In labour education. It is what I am hearing and imagining with European Commission and the work that Toke and other hosting mates are in.
People reawaken. I reawaken. We can’t seem to help ourselves but reawaken. And when the smallest of that happens together, the world begins to feel deeply inviting.
Though I have less language for it, it is the energy center that pops with our conversations. I think we remove the illusion of our separateness and reclaim our wholeness / oneness.
Yup, from there it is on. How gorgeous to experience this in systems of governance, health care, etc. And maybe for the last 200,000 years or whatever period of adaptiveness.
Perhaps it is our nature to know wholeness. Perhaps this is what we know is possible in community. Perhaps this is what we yearn for, and when we taste it, we actually become different. Different in presence. In possibility. In capacity to work together and offer gifts to these times. Perhaps we are further learning to drop the mask and illusion of separateness.

The Power of Conversation

2009-05-04T06:10:00.002-06:00
May 4, 2009

The closing cafe hosted at Ontario Art of Hosting was around this question: What do you know now about the power of conversation? It was asked of the group, held for three rounds.

The tone of the harvest question was: What are you going to tell Joe or Joeanne about it? Our intention was to surface some of the language in participants as they return to their respective work settings. It was clear to me that though many of these words aren't new, the conviction with which they were spoken was strong. It came from the experience of being in community, which always changes everything.

Below are a few of the postit responses shared by participants and harvested by Christian Lord.

- Listening
- Expectation vs What is

- Notice what different cultures need in order to have a conversation
- Notice what is nourished by questions from the heart. Notice where your questions come from.

- What could possibly happen through conversation?
- Learning how to have meaningful conversations to make the world a better place - speaking from the heart and inviting curiosity.

- We could use the metaphor of planning & preparing a banquet together
* Brings together our individual talents, traditions & richness
* Creating a juicy whole
* Nourishing us at all levels & bringing great joy to all
- It is about weaving a beautiful tapestry from the disparate strands, bringing together many colors, patterns and textures, making us stronger and more vibrant than our individual threads.

- What you know in your Heart matters to the whole
- Respect and gently hold the flow

- How do we call the questions (warrior) that need to be called and how do we create the safe place or sanctuary (mid-wife) to be in the conversations (emergence)?

- Kesher – Dineamaagawik – Appartenance – Enfoldment - Respect
- Fertile question & Appropriate vessel

- Have you ever thought that there is another way to work/live/be which is possible?
- Conversare - “to turn to one another” --- relating

Pembroke Art of Hosting Endorsements

2009-05-03T22:54:00.012-06:00
Gilles Asselin
Consultant, SoCoCo Intercultural
New Jersey

It was a pleasure exploring some truly wicked questions with you in the past few days. I can sense a subtle change in me. Some of what I call my "judgment barrier" has evaporated, leaving more space for deep conversations. What a blessing this process is! Not to mention the loving folks in the process.

"In a time of uncertainty (which is ALL the time), we must have the courage to suspend our beliefs and conditioning and ask fresh, new questions. Truly inspired answers emerge only from asking honest, probing questions and releasing what we know deep inside. In this process, intercultural dialogue is essential. It has the power to bring creative solutions to our troubled world and healing for humanity."
Lubosh Cech, Artist

Corrina Chetley-Irwin
Consultant
Alberta

I am totally in awe of what your guys do and your approaches. I particularly appreciated your openness (the collective your) to sharing your materials, resources, experiences and the fact that there were absolutely no egos in the room. It was an amazing experience as a participant but also as an observer of the process.

Kathleen Connelly
Consultant, Groupe Intersol Group
Ontario, Canada

I will use a quote I love (and is on my fridge) to tell people what the Art of Hosting was and is for me....

Spending 4 days learning about the Art of Hosting, and spending those days with the wonderful people who were compelled to be there and be present was in my view, doing exactly what Howard Thurman (US author, philosopher, theologian, educator and civil rights leader) was talking about when he said:

Don`t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

I believe the Art of Hosting helps people connect with what makes them come alive. It`s what the world needs!

Adria Goodson
Hunt Alternatives Fund
Massachusetts

I am in awe of the universe. What a lovely, lightning bolt kind of week and, in particular, a joy to be in your presence! Thank you for sharing your gifts and holding space for me to share mine more fully.

Joan Huling
Community Liason Coordinator, Hokonui PHO
New Zealand

Personal learning, I realised that I have been living and working in isolation for too long. I no longer want to work this way. The power of the group, with difficulties and all, is mighty.

I experinced the 5 breaths of design in my body, especailly the groan zone. During one conversation I went through the groan zone twice. In the past I would have gotten up from my chair and left but because I recognised that I was in the zone and I knew there was something coming behind it I stayed. That was very powerful for me.

I gained confidence and belief in my wisdom, again with help from the collective.

Professional learning: I will share the models that we practiced. The 5 breaths, Theory U, Chaordic Path, and World Cafe were all new to me. I will share some of them through my personal story and the other by way of example. I will let the people that I work with know that I have new knowledge and I hope that they will access it.

Thanks again for the opportunity and the marvelous experience.

Laurence Lenoir
Consultant, Lenoir Associates
France

I came to this AOH session to improve methods and technics; I realized it’s all about relationships and intention!

I came to meet professional facilitators; I met wonderful and meaningful people, just being present and able to set the right conditions to hold the space!

I came to speak and work in English; I discovered the magic and the interest about bilingual workshops!

All being so natural!!!

Christian Lord
Quebec

From my experience of the Art of Hosting sprouted a cognition of a 4 stage meaning for living in community:
1) Coming together with a loving & willful purpose
2) Upgrading from Being to Becoming: witnessing and owning the onset of collective consciousness
3) Promoting & harnessing the infinite organizing power of the emerging group creativity
4) Harvesting the timeless sequential unfoldment & manifestation of our initial purpose for coming together

Geoff Selig
Concordia University
Quebec

First, I would like to thank every one of you for helping to create such a wonderful and rewarding learning environment. I have come away from this three day workshop inspired by the power of the “art of hosting” and the potential for a group a individuals to come together and create, in a very short time, an inviting and safe environment in which to reflect, to exchange ideas, and to learn. Thank you all very much. I am still “buzzing” from the experience.

From Conversation to Movement

2009-05-02T06:25:00.004-06:00
May 2, 2009

The following is a recent communication from SUWA, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. I was involved with them in the seeding of conversation as a way to bring faith communities together in support of protecting wilderness. And then they ran with the conversations. I love seeing this, now a year later because of the action it shows and the community that it reveals. It is a story for me that begins with "from simple beginnings...."

United by belief in the spiritual value of wilderness, people from diverse religious traditions have come together in a call to protect Utah’s wild lands. On April 21st, the day before Earth Day, representatives from ten Utah faith and their supporters released an interfaith statement about the spiritual importance of Utah’s wild lands and the need for action to protect these special places.

After a brief news conference, the group delivered copies of the interfaith statement to the offices of Utah Senators Bennett and Hatch along with a letter requesting a meeting to discuss wilderness issues. The same request was sent to the offices of Utah’s Congressmen.

Development of the interfaith statement has been taking shape over the past year through “Faith and the Land” dialogues held in a variety of religious settings. These forums brought together members of the Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, Islamic, Jewish, Latter-day Saint, Methodist, Presbyterian, Quaker, Unitarian Universalist and United Church of Christ faith communities. More than 230 people took part. Participants discovered that, though their religious practices might vary, they stood on common ground in their respect for creation and the natural world.

Leaders of the project see the development of the interfaith statement as a starting point for communities of faith throughout Utah and the nation to begin a conversation about ways to honor nature and protect America’s redrock wilderness. If you are part of a community of faith and would like to participate in the project, email deeda@suwa.org.

Working together we can preserve Utah's amazing redrock wilderness!

And here are a few other harvests:
Report Created by Terri Martin
SUWA Webpage -- Other Reports, News Articles, etc.

Tales from Marguerite

2009-04-29T05:26:00.002-06:00
April 29, 2009

Hosting today in Pembroke, Ontario. We are about to head into the third day together with a focus on "getting to work in the journey." The group is alive. Very well connected. Very oppened to relationship with each other. Their work will look different today than it would have on the 27th -- the level of community is much more than seems possible in such a short time.

One story that I loved from yesterday was from Sister Alice. She is a long time administrator and leader of the Marguerite Centre, which is where we are meeting. We invited her to tell us a bit of the story of this place so that we could know more of where we are. What she told in 5 minutes was grounding, insightful, and delightful.

This Marguerite Centre used to be a home for the sisters of the order. This included many older sisters, between 80 and 95 years old. Sister Alice described how they had moved in here expecting to live their full lives here and to die here. The Order knew that they would need to move into a new place across the street in order to give the care that they needed to the sisters, as well as shift the Centre into a place that can host groups like us and produce some revenue. Sister Alice described the need to let go of the old so that the new could be born. She described in an inspiring way these principles of working with the women:

1. Asking the question, "What gives?" And invitation to relationship and to understand in a shared way.
2. Get them involved. It was commical the way she described this. They held circles. Not "committees." "Those women are old enough to not want any more committees so we called them circles."
3. End with ritual. When the move was eventually happening, their was invitation for each sister to take an object from the old place and carry forward the symbol to the new place.

These three little steps feel like great guideposts for working with change. I love it when these just show up in the context of telling a story. They are real, simple, and to the core.

Sister Alice reflected a bit further. "I've never seen such life. They trusted and became alive because of those circles. They were called to be alive." She told of talking with some that were resisting. "You may be old but you aren't too old to think!"

It was a tale of calling forth that comes from the freedom to let go. Was beautiful to hear.

Art of Hosting Design -- From Engage Interact

2009-04-22T04:36:00.003-06:00
April 22, 2009

From colleagues Tim Merry, Tatiana Glad and others. These questions are really strong and created breakthrough thinking for all involved.

Day One - Protection

What is sacred to me?

What am I protecting?

What time is it for me and my world? What do I wish to protect in myself and the world?

How does protection show up in hosting?

What is hosting protecting?

Day Two - Death and Hospicing

What is ready to die in me and my world?

What do we know about hosting death?

What are our questions about hosting graceful passage?

What beliefs hold me back from my full potential as a host and human?

Day Three - Hosting Emergence - the new

What is emerging here? What is emerging everywhere?

What is the new I commit to support in myself and life?

How do we host emergence?

How can we host space invaders?

Day Four - Bridging and Illuminating

How capable is humanity of dealing with intense and rapid change?

What do I want to share with others?

What is the path I am building as I walk it?

What is the bridge (in me and life) between the old and the new?

The Unprecedented Unknown

2009-04-21T15:31:00.002-06:00
April 21, 2009

I was listening into an invitation phone call yesterday. It was a beautifully hosted. It was friends and possible participants exploring an Art of Hosting event in June that is focused on this core question:

What is dying and what is being born in a world where capitalism is being transformed and wealth redefined?

Some of these possible participants were asking why it would be important to be at the event. The spoken needs ranged everything from desparate for "practical tools for the trenches" to much needed "philosophical reeavaluation of the financial and wealth paradigm."

As I listened, a core question became clear to me that underlies the specifics of the financial questions.

How do we face the unprecedented unknown?
As leaders?
As participants?
Or for this specific context, as professionals from this particular field of financial planning?

My bias is that we are “facing an unprecedented unknown.” (health care, food and sustainability, education…). I find this helpful to name. It helps name the need for why a project or an initiative matters. For why pioneering efforts matter. For why pioneering process matters.

Learning surfacing through Art of Hosting, Berkana and other groups supporting engagement is that the “how” of “facing unprecedented unknowns” is found in community. This is what I am learning. This is what leading practitioners are sharing. This is what academians are reporting.

More specifically in the “how” is the importance of colearning (think of this as core competency to adapt) in community. And real work that people care about. And relationships that are real and close enough to endure and thrive in the knowing and the not knowing that most certainly shows up in unprecedented unknowns.

Christina Baldwin has been a great example of a "namer" for me. She names what is going on so that we can have choice of what to do with it. It is my learning that naming the magnitude of unknown helps people focus beyond the tools and tricks. It takes us into the core competency needed of creating the new together, gathered in community.

Invoking Emergence in Times of Uncertainty

2009-04-13T08:00:00.003-06:00
April 13, 2009

This is one of the best posts / articles I've read in a long time on emergence. Peggy Holman, the author, has a unique gift of giving voice and applying it in practice.

I love her story -- transforming a prison system where the leader must work with both the tradition needs of a board and yet the visionary needs of the system.

I lover her description of emergence, including the qualities of the new that show up when connected. "Mom's nose, Dad's eyes, but still something unique in and of itself."

I love the three questions she asks to invoke the emergence of the new...

1. How do we disrupt coherence compassionately?
2. How do we engage dissonance creatively?
3. How do we realize novelty wisely?

Her post is here. Enjoy

Community of Kindred Spirits

2009-04-13T07:07:00.005-06:00
April 13, 1009

I have heard and been in many conversations in the last six months about "these economic times." Meetings with conference organizers concerned about attendance. Colleagues with whom I am hosting events and trainings. There is a strong thread about how meeting together is a luxury, as if it is something we will do again when "these times" pass.

I know the thread well. Yet I also know the need, even more, not to get trapped in the energy of collapse.

I love what Meg Wheatley has written below. It came in an email this morning naming two weeklong semiars she will be hosting during the summer. I love the clarity of description and invitation to support each other in community.

"There has never been a greater need for us to be together --reflecting, learning, supporting each other-- as we learn how to sustain our good work in the midst of so much fear and groundlessness. This summer I am offering two seminars that speak directly to the needs of those of us who want to serve others from a place of clarity, peace and sanity. Because this is such a difficult time to be a good leader, each of these seminars will delve deeply into the skills, capacities and perspectives that give us the ability to act well and persevere over the long term.

Even though you may feel you have neither the time nor the money to attend a seminar, I hope you will seriously consider attending. I believe that you will return to your work feeling more focused and confident about how best to serve at this time. And after five days of being in the company of other good and dedicated leaders, you will also feel refreshed, enthusiastic and ready for the challenges ahead. I know this to be true from past experiences and now, more than at any other time, we need to experience the inspiration, imagination and dedication that always blossoms in a community of kindred spirits."

Learning is the Harvest

2009-04-06T08:25:00.004-06:00
April 6, 2009

I just returned from two weeks hosting. One with friends and colleagues in Illinois that are committed to strengthening families statewide. The other with an amazing web in Indiana supporting a movement for wholeness.

I have so many questions living in me from these two experiences. They feel like they happened in a time warp. In Illinois, one person slipped in speaking and referenced us as being together for 16 days. The event itself was 4 days. In Indiana, the communication slip was 2 years. Working deeply and with intention can feel very full.

As I tried to make sense of all that happened, I was reminded of an old Star Trek, The Next Generation episode. What I remember was Captain Picard finding himself on a planet, not knowing how he got there. He was imported into a community and life. He had no contact with the ship. He didn't know how he got there. He lived a full life on that planet. Married. Aged. I think, raised children. Lived in community. Learned to play a small flute. He learned to accept the life he was living and began to wonder if the Enterprise was an illusion. The episode ends with him waking on the Enterprise, doctors hovering over him. He had passed out for a minute or two in Enterprise time. He retained the whole of his planet life, including his ability to play the flute. I'm wondering what the flutes are of the last two weeks.

One, a few notes anyway, may be what this awareness of "learning as what we do."

In Indianapolis these wicked questions were present and nibbling at the edges: What is the most meaningful harvest we can imagine from a large scale café? What core purpose does it serve?

I loved what one of the participants named and received it as a gift – “we are not looking for an answer. We are looking for a journey.”

What if learning is what we do – sometimes applied to particular projects etc. But the core is supporting the capacity and ongoing process to learn. What if this learning is just the flow of life, in us, through us, around us that enables imagining and manifesting the next level of system that serves?

Harvest -- Interior and Exterior

2009-03-16T18:36:00.003-06:00
March 15, 2009

Noticed this thread from the AoH listserve recently. It is a helpful piece on interior and exterior harvests by Chris Corrigan.

I wrote earlier on four levels of harvest (look at the bottom half). Content and process, which fit in with Chris' exterior. And then relationships and field, which fit in with the interior.

"Just a thought in the harvest piece...For me there are many ways to harvest, but they all come down to either being interior harvests or exterior harvests. Exterior harvests are the ones we see and use to communicate with others, what we sometimes call artifacts. These can be notes, graphics, films, photos and other things that are portable and objective. They may be designed for a broad audience or only for those who were there, as a reminder of the experience, for example. I use all kinds of artifacts, and with most events I do now there is usually more than one.

The interior harvest - the learning and the collective story - needs special support to be useful. For me I use the shorthand of "feedback loops" to think about the ways in which we might create ongoing containers for these interior harvests to be revisited and refined. For example, setting up reflective practices to revisit learning, or setting a future schedule of storytelling sessions to continually work with the meaning arising from an event. These things use strategies of conversation and social technology as well as personal reflective practice to continue to work the interior harvest.

A holistic harvest scheme is an important part of the design of any event - it needs to meet needs, and sometimes that means a reductive accounting of time spent along side the establishment of a presencing practice to revisit personal learning.

It has helped a lot with clients when I say that we are planning a harvest and not a meeting. The meeting simply helps us arrive at the harvest that is needed for the group I am working with. Sometimes the need is just learning, and no external harvest document is necessary. Sometimes the need is a plan."

Goblin Valley

2009-03-14T21:25:00.002-06:00
March 14, 2009

I just spent the last day and night in Southern Utah with my son, 25 other scouts, and a few parents / scout leaders at a place called Goblin Valley. It is a place of very unique rock formations. The water and the wind has eroded 170 million year-old Entrada sandstone and siltstone into gnome and globlins. From an old, old, old inland sea to the park today. It is worth a bunch of exploring.

The area was first discovered by cowboys of the old west. In the late 1920s a ferry owner / operator named Arthur Chaffin came into the valley. He came back in 1949 to further explore and photograph the area and named it Mushroom Valley because of the shape of the figures and stones. It was made a state park in 1964.

A few hikes are available in the area. Lots of great sites. Some camping in a campground as outside the park. Really beautiful. And guaranteed to send you home with red dust in your shoes.

More on Goblin Valley

Photos of the area, along with a few boy scouts.

Regional Learning Communities

2009-03-08T16:00:00.002-06:00
March 8, 2009

I've just spend the last several days with with board members and friends of The Berkana Institute. It is an amazing group of people dedicated to social change and pioneering work. Many of us have been together in projects and deep learning together years. For me, this began in 1993. We really are family.

One of the initiatives that I became more familiar with this week is about Regional Learning Communities. These are groups engaged in local work (like solar cooking, which I learned about this week from Manish Jain) and trans-local learning (what happens when individual groups connect with other groups in their region or other places in the world).

From the Berkana website: "Each participant contributes to creating greater resilience in his or her own community through local action—from growing food to engaging youth to creating useful things out of waste. These pioneers are constantly experimenting with new approaches, ideas and technologies. When they connect regionally with others who share their culture and context, the capacity for learning and innovation accelerates."

I am inspired by the description below on why regional learning communities matter (key phrases highlighted below that are strong communication points). I can see in it helpful framing for local networks, including one that I am supporting on sustainability in the Salt Lake Valley. The full document is really helpful for further stories, in this case featuring a South Africa Learning Collaborative.

"There is no universal solution for the challenges of poverty, community health, or ecological sustainability. But there is the possibility of widespread impact when people working at the local level are able to learn from one another, practice together, and share their learning with communities everywhere."

Earthour

2009-02-28T06:29:00.004-07:00
February 28, 2009

Just got word of this one. A sustainability movement that began in Australia in 2007. It went global in 2008. It goes global global in 2009. The action is simple -- turn off the lights for an hour in your local time zone, March 28, 2009 at 8:30 pm.

What I love in this is the simplicity of step. I don't know the energy conservation impact of turning off the lights for that time. However, the shared identity, the common identity as citizens on the planet, on our earth, feels very impactful.

The three minute video is here. The website for more information and participating cities and countries is www.earthour.org.

A bit by the numbers from www.earthour.org...

10 million—total combined readership for magazines committed to running Earth Hour advertisements over the coming month. Includes: Martha Stewart Living, National Geographic, Oprah Magazine, Allure, J14, Health, Family Circle.
746,698—unique visitors to www.EarthHourUS.org.
105,727—registered participants on the Earth Hour US website to date.
48,000—letters sent to elected officials asking for action on climate change via the Earth Hour website.
29,000—number of times the official Earth Hour video has been viewed on YouTube in the past 90 days. Average is 1,500 views a day.
1,000—new friends signing up to WWF's Facebook page each day as a result of Earth Hour.
8,000—blogs mentioning Earth Hour to date.
4,314—unique visitors to the EarthHourKids.org site.200—stories about Earth Hour on prominent online sources in the US (not including blogs). Highlights include Huffington Post, Boston Globe, Sprig and Blender.
78—countries taking part in Earth Hour. Nearly 700 cities have already signed up.
75—TV news stories in the US featuring Earth Hour.
28—US cities now pledged to turn out for Earth Hour.
20—seconds that elapse before someone new views the Earth Hour video.
7—seconds that elapse before "Earth Hour" is mentioned somewhere on the web.
4—US TV networks planning coverage.

I GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS: Support for Earth Hour is building among organizations across many sectors, many of which have committed to reaching out to their own constituents to build greater awareness. The list includes:

American Federation of Teachers
American Institute of Architects
Association of Science-Technology Centers Inc.
Astronomical League
CarbonfreeDC
Energy Action Coalition
Environmental Defense Fund
Goddard Schools
Green School Alliance
ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability
Jane Goodall's Roots & Shoots Program
National Association of Secondary School Principals
National Conversation on Climate Action
National Education Association
National Science Teachers Association
Natural Resources Defense Council
Newspaper Association of America Foundation
Reading Is Fundamental
U.S. Conference of Mayors
Unitarian Universalist Association
United Church of Christ
World Organization of the Scout Movement
Youth Service of America

CAN WE TALK?: One great way for communities to translate Earth Hour into action that will last beyond March 28th is to take part in the National Conversation on Climate Action, organized by ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Earth Day Network and AmericaSpeaks. The National Conversation is an unprecedented community engagement effort that is designed for and driven by local governments. Communities can register at www.climateconversation.org.

Community Organizing -- Parker Palmer

2009-02-23T16:39:00.002-07:00
February 23, 2009

Michael Jones brought this insightful interview to my attention. It is Bill Moyers interviewing Parker Palmer. It includes commentary on the Obama approach to organizing.

"I don't remember until the Obama campaign a presidential campaign which we were not asked, I was not asked, to buy a presidential candidate as a commodity in a consumer culture. The Obama campaign did not ask me to buy something. It asked me to tell a story. And in that movement it turned me from being a consumer of a political commodity to being a citizen, a voice."

The entire interview is very insightful and is here. Much to learn here about opening possibilities of community.

Reads

2009-02-21T18:51:00.003-07:00
In the Crease, by Dick Irwin -- This was a fun book to skim. Written by legendary hockey announcer Dick Irwin, the voice I new of the Montreal Canadians when I was a young boy, it connected me to many boyhood memories of NHL goalies and stories of legends in the game. Reminded me of the masks I used to paint and wear in the basement playing with my friends. To think that there used to be only one goalie per team and that was one not wearing a mask. Also has me paying attention to Martin Brodeur who is about to break the record for most career shutouts ever. At the time of writing the book, Irwin described Terry Sawchuk, the current record holder, as holding a mark that would never be beaten. It is about too!

Einstein’s Dreams, by Alan Lightman -- Really quite a lovely collection of images and stories of time. I found myself thinking of those who I know that have a different relationship with time. Chris Corrigan on kairos and chronos reminded me of “body” and “mechanical” time described by Lightman. And I loved the expansiveness with which the author names the relationship between time and other cultural norms. “A world in which time is absolute is a world of consolation. For while the movements of people are unpredictable, the movement of time is predictable. While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted.” There is also a chapter that I really enjoyed on time standing still, as if the center of time is where time doesn’t move. It’s worth reading and enjoying.

New Moon, by Stephenie Meyer -- Read this one with my daughter Zoe. Vampires, werewolves, and a love story for young readers. Author went to local university here, BYU. Good reading with Zoe.

Dream School

2009-02-16T10:28:00.004-07:00
February 16, 2009

I am feeling very schooled in dream space. It has been about a year since I started more deliberately trying to catch my dreams. Just simple description when they occured. It has been about three months since I started seeing more in them. The universe finds ways to speak with us in the subconscious and in the language of symbols. Feeling awe for this – when the student is ready, the teacher appears…

This morning I woke from a dream that spoke several questions. The language builds on what Toke Moeller shares here from a previous post on powerful questions. I haven’t tried to match those. Rather, just write what showed from my dream.

I think of these as root questions – good to ask a round from the “I” and a round from the “we.” This also builds on what Teresa Posakony and Chris Corrigan and I have been sharing with clients on core intentions of conversations that matter: learn / work / build relations.

How could we strengthen our ability to stand in this journey?
- it isn’t one that all will take or can take
- it has many qualities of the unknown
- sometimes we take the journey on behalf of others, as a gift to the whole
- we often stand in what feels like a minority

What is at the center of this journey?
- glimpses of the biggest vision we see
- might come to see more of this together

Who can help us along the way?
- notice the people able to work in beauty
- may be quiet people
- may be people of deep knowing and ground

What will we need to let go of?
- redefine “other”

How might we be more wise together?
- now
- in the future
- what do we need to learn

How might we be more compassionate?
- honoring people where they are

More Powerful Questions

2009-02-12T10:57:00.003-07:00
February 12, 2009

Hosting friend and colleague Toke Moeller just sent these out. They represent incredible clarity that invite a deeper consciousness as we engage in partipative work. I see these as questions to really invite a shared sense of deep purpose and commitment from those who might steward an action.

Toke has them in beautiful form. Asked from the I perspective here. And from the we perspective here.

Question at the center...
Why will I serve the common good in all?

Question to the north...
What am I ready to let go of and what am I ready to contribute to be part of a healthy and thriving community?

Question to the east...
What could I also be?

Question to the south...
What have I forgotten about being a neighbour?

Question to the west...
How will I organize myself to act wisely and ethically in service of the common good?

Question to heaven...
Who do I serve?

Question to earth...
How may I be kind today?

These relate to questions we asked of a health care system, some of which I blogged here.

The Turtle -- Mary Oliver

2009-02-09T15:19:00.003-07:00

The Turtle

breaks from the blue-black
skin of the water, dragging her shell
with its mossy scutes
across the shallows and through the rushes
and over the mudflats, to the uprise,
to the yellow sand,
to dig with her ungainly feet
a nest, and hunker there spewing
her white eggs down
into the darkness, and you think

of her patience, her fortitude,
her determination to complete
what she was born to do----
and then you realize a greater thing----
she doesn’t consider
what she was born to do.
She’s only filled
with an old blind wish.
It isn’t even hers but came to her
in the rain or the soft wind
which is a gate through which her life keeps walking.

She can’t see
herself apart from the rest of the world
or the world from what she must do
every spring.
Crawling up the high hill,
luminous under the sand that has packed against her skin,
she doesn’t dream
she knows
she is a part of the pond she lives in,
the tall trees are her children,
the birds that swim above her
are tied to her by an unbreakable string.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Dream Work)

Art of Hosting -- Seeing Brilliance

2009-02-09T15:06:00.003-07:00
February 9, 2009

From colleague and hosting mate, Tim Merry...

Last year Jon Guilbert, a documentary film maker joined us at the Shire for the Stewards gathering. He had taken part in the Boston AoH and was excited to explore a documentary around the AoH - following my story and relationships as a way to make the web of people and work visible. Check out the 6 minute film made from the gathering at the Shire.

It's beautiful. Includes some of my dearest friends and hosting colleagues. It offers one voice on this body of work called the Art of Hosting and Convening Conversations.

SLCEC -- Workshops

2009-02-05T16:43:00.002-07:00
Salt Lake Center for Engaging Community
2009 Calendar of Events and Workshops

SLCEC trainings are meant to enrich and build leadership capacity and to foster healthy vibrant communities in the Salt Lake Valley and beyond. These workshops support growth and change in our friends, team members, our communities and ourselves by offering methods for facilitating open dialog, community engagement and transformation.

January 22, 2009
Community Transformation: An Introduction to the Integral Approach
7:00 pm - 9:30 pm, Wasatch Retreat & Conference Center (75 S 200 E, SLC)
John Kesler

February 7, 2009
Sustainability Summit Stewards Group
2:00 - 5:30 pm, SLC Main Library, Room L-1

February 19, 2009
Conversational Leadership Workshop: The World Cafe -- Creating a Culture of Connection
7:00 pm - 9:30 pm, Wasatch Retreat & Conference Center (75 S, 200 E, SLC)
Kathy Lung, Tenneson Woolf

February 28, 2009
Creating Community Through Virtue Meditations
1:00 - 4:30 pm, Wasatch Retreat & Conference Center (75 S, 200 E, SLC)
John Kesler

March 19, 2009
Five Levels of Civil Conversation: How to Increase the Quality of Group Decision-making and Dispute Resolution
7:00 pm - 9:30 pm, Wasatch Retreat & Conference Center
John Kesler

Art of the Start -- Harrison Owen

2009-02-05T08:36:00.007-07:00
February 5, 2009

I suppose I am a high context person. I really love simple framings of big picture and purpose. I love them because they aren't formula. The best that I see or offer are invitation to show up in the framing and purpose and offer the gift of our seeing in that. Sometimes to explore. Sometimes to do particular work in the best way that we know.

Here's one that I like from Harrison Owen from the Open Space Listserve...

"The basic idea of my book, Wave Rider, is that we live in a self-organizing world, universe, cosmos - and it has been that way from the very beginning, all 13.7 billion years. This means that everybody (all 6.5 billion of us) inevitably rides the waves of self organization - we don't have any choice.

But some of us do better than others. In a word we are all Wave Riders, but some have polished their skills and actually seem to enjoy the ride. Of course there are others who feel out of control and seek some way to manage and direct all those waves. Their experience is rarely pleasant. We are all Wave Riders. Some do it well, some do it poorly - and it has been going on for a long, long time.

Here's the point (at last)! I may have named the "Wave Rider" but I certainly didn't invent the process. Wave Riding has been going on for ever. When it is done well, great things happen in the human domain. All people in all times and places have been "doing it," and I think we could learn an enormous amount by thinking seriously about how we as individuals and as a species have adapted to this self organizing world. The names and the concepts will vary from place to place and time to time - but the basic reality of self-organization remains present over time and space - and the adaptive response by Homo sapiens will be equally universal. For example I suspect that much of the Chinese tradition surrounding the Tao may have its roots in the adaptive process. And there are others.

And why bother? I believe that Wave Riding, by whatever name is critical to the continuance and fulfillment of humanity. In short, when and as we "get it" we will find ourselves aligned and flowing with the primal force of the universe. And when we "don't get it" - our succeeding days on Planet Earth will be "nasty, brutish, and short" (Thomas Hobbes)."

All of this is beautiful to me. It names the underlying purpose and world view. When I think further on this about how I am beginning trainings that explicitly use paraticipatory and self-organizing methods and models, here is a bit of what I am speaking. Not as script, but as some key framing. It is one of my current versions of response to the question, "what are we going to do in the next few days?" With thanks to several friends that have fed this clarity in one way or another -- Toke Moeller, Teresa Posakony, Chris Corrigan, Patti Case.

"As I hear it, the purpose of us being together is that we feel we have work to do. What I hear at the center of this is this very big challenge and very big dream. We can see the difficulty. We can feel in our hearts the images of creating our way into the next level of solution or helpfulness. And we really want to do this. Many of us carry the strong hunch and intuition that we need to do this together. But how?

Here is the most simple I currently know...

First, we will be in in meaningful conversation. To explore the questions and issues together that help us move to the next level of health and well-being around our purpose. If we don't need new, or if we don't need learning, we don't likely have as strong of a need to be together. But if we do, meaningful conversation is a key strategic choice for how we will create the next level of solution together.

Second, we will be in wise collaboration. We will not begin with collaboration because it is essential that we look at the problem and the dream from many perspectives. And from this, we can welcome the shared sensing together that tells us what is wise to do together. Anything that lasts, comes from people doing it together. We know that many individuals will take action. And this is good. But we want to choose the collaboration from our conversation together. We want to invite our collaboration to grow from not just our individual preplanning, but from the surprise that might emerge from our being together that none of us could see until we were together.

Third, we will be in bold decisions. Or we will have the choice of bold decisions together. Our boldness may be about what to do. It might be about what not to do. It might be about how many different people will hold particular responsibilities. But we will deliberately challenge ourselves to work in boldness, and I would say, deep beauty, to harvest from our conversations and collaborations into desicions and actions. To be in added partnering with the self-organizing world that Harrison describes so well.

I'm in it for the doing that comes from a deep place of knowing. Conversation is a choice, and it needs to be deliberate, for how we will get to the most lasting and helpful doing.

So, what kind of conversations? What will this feel like? I love talking about the primary need of connection, ala Humberto Maturana's notion of "if you want a system to be healthy, connect it to more of itself." To invite a deliberateness of the self-organization requires connection. Conversation is one form of connection. Some of our connection / conversation will be in full group. Some in small groups. Some with self. Some with partners. Some with nature. Some with music, or movement. Some with empty stillness. Some with deep groaning. Some with the interaction of many energy ripples in the room.

Each of these conversations will be rooted in one or all of... learning, building relationships, and working.

Our learning will show up as, "I'd never thought about it that way." Or, "I've been thinking about that for a long time." Or, "aha!" Or, "I'm beginning to see some of the letting go needed to work with more wisdom."

Our building relationships will show up as, "I never knew that about you." Or, "I'm surprised by how much I learned about this stranger in such a short time and how strongly connected we now feel." Or, "I'd never heard another or myself speak in this way about what we care about in this work." Or, "it felt so good to bring myself more wholely into this room." Or, "it was really good to just breath a bit together and witness not only our dreams, but our fears."

Our work will likely show up as, "here is a project that I really can't not do." Or, "I want to invite help in thinking about how I could work differently with my team, my board, my community, my family...." Or, "I'm glad that I came here to be in my work in another way, rather than retreat from it."

Shall we get to it.... Let's be wise together. Let's be healthy together. Let's work as wholely as we can together. Let's be in our gifts together. Let's be in our beauty together. Let's be in what we are called to do at this time and place, because it is ours to do."

And this poem from Teresa, which she shared with the OS list a few years back and won her the distinction of poet laureate...

Diving Deep
Teresa Posakony

Diving Deep
Are you ready?
No I mean…
Are you READY?

The time is now
Hold my hand
Together we dive
Into the river of heart and soul

The water is deep and quick
All there is to do is trust the flow
Struggling makes no sense though
We don’t know where the river goes

The choice is clear
Ready
Set
Wait a minute Let me catch my breath

Go.

Harvest Report Example

2009-02-04T14:09:00.003-07:00
February 4, 2009

Morna Ballantyne and Cathy Remus are two friends that I have met in working with CUPE, the Canadian Union of Public Employees. They, and CUPE, are people that amaze me with how they have used the material, methods, and models experienced together in two developer meetings in 2008. Their harvests are particularly beautiful, clear, and helpful. Here is one example of a report from a two-day meeting they recently hosted for the Canadian Labour Congress.

Within this, I also like the way they are harvesting from Open Space sessions with these questions:

- Why is this an important topic or idea?
- What can we do together?
- What would be the next step?

IDWM Cabinet Meeting -- Resources, Harvest -- January 2009

2009-01-28T07:55:00.007-07:00
Great Newsletter with stories and appreciation from participants (select Newsletters, then February 2009)

Photos, Best of
Photos, Flipcharts and Harvest Sheets
Photos, All
Movies, A little glimpse into some of the spirit and community present

Invitation 1: Invitation to be in something New
Invitation 2: Invitation to be wise

Resource Book: 16 Page version of core models

Dr. Sharon Watkins, General Minister, sermon at Obama Inauguration (select from the list of all prayer service proceedings): We used this to invite people to hear the invitation spoken not only to President Obama, but to Disciples Women.

Agreements Harvest: What one priniciple would you suggest for working collaboratively in beauty? (Created on http://www.wordle.net/)

Open Space Harvest: What questions and issues capture your imagination that could make a difference in the future of Women's Ministries? (Created on http://www.wordle.net/)

Action Open Space Harvest: What first next steps are you committed to taking? (Created on http://www.wordle.net/)
Powerful Next Steps: Specific plans for next steps from the Action Open Space

Appreciations for the work of our team from Adonna Bowman, Executive Director

"What an incredible time we had in Greensboro! Your IDWM Executive Committee was overwhelmed with your openness to allowing God’s spirit to so fully permeate everything that happened during our Cabinet and Staff Fellowship meetings. From the level of energy displayed, the 30+ marketplace topics lifted up, exploring safe spaces in World Café, developing deeper relationships with one another, finding our passions, committing to furthering God’s work through us in our churches and communities, and finding and dwelling in our heart centers – this was one extraordinary gathering. Disciples Women Cabinet meeting 2009 will go down in the annals of our history as a birthing place for new and vital ministry and it couldn’t have happened without you!

YOU are such a gift in my life. Last week (or has it been two weeks now?) was one of the most amazing experiences and truly a dream realized for me. God has answered prayers and orchestrated this coming together of kindred spirits to further the ministry to which we are each called.

Tenneson, thank you for this amazing harvest. We will definitely use this as we move forward into letting everything that happened resonate deeper and see what rises to the surface. Don’t know about you all, but for me, I can’t wait until our next gathering of spirits."

Lisa Heft on Hosting Large Open Space Meetings

2009-01-14T16:32:00.000-07:00
Hi, Martin -

(Martin has asked for tips for a 600-or-so person Open Space event)

So - As part of Christine Whitney Sanchez’ wonderful team for the Girl Scouts USA event, I facilitated a pre-conference Open Space for 700+ people.
(I smile when I think of your comments, Harrison - I, too have done OS for 2,000 so to me 5-600 sounds like a breeze. But Martin - it’s new until you have done it a few times, eh? And we are all happy to help).

The hotel ballroom I used for that was (according to the hotel) about 21,000 square feet - though it was a bit long rather than square. Being a person who absorbs information by graphics and not by numbers, this does not help me and I usually ask the site to see if they can help by creating a to-scale diagram of the room-sets we are discussing, to see if it all works as we discuss our variations before settling on one.

In very large events, I find that it may not be possible to have an opening circle set-up as a circle (or concentric rings) -and also- the ability to set up 50+ discussion areas.
Elements influencing this may be the size of the room, time it takes to move across the room, fire codes and safety issues, and so on.

So. On this list we have shared so many experiences about what-ifs regarding room set-up, and we have collectively found that the circle - for opening and closing - is essential. As not all rooms alow that, we have collectively found that the *feeling* of circle and the facilitator’s body use to *imply* and set that circle is essential.
Therefore, in large events / spaces - think about this:

(for those of you who think graphically, take a piece of paper - write ‘Agenda Wall’ at the top, make a little square in the center, and then draw a ‘cross’ bisecting the page from top to bottom and from left to right)

· I have the Agenda Wall along one very long, approachable wall (like always).

· I have the site set up a small platform in the center of the room upon which I stand (so everyone can see me and know where the sound is coming from when I speak).

· I have the room set up as pre-set circles of chairs (zero tables of course), allowing for a good wide ‘cross’-shaped aisle bisecting the room (my platform is in the center of that cross, one ‘arm’ leads to the Agenda wall and on the other three ‘arms’ are…topics tables…see below).

· In the other three ‘arms’ of the cross-shaped aisles (not the one leading to the Agenda Wall) I have - in each of those - three or four rectangular tables touching/in a line to form in each aisle one very long table. On these tables I have pre-set many markers, plus many topic signs. If the time is short I pre-affix the little time/space post-its to those topic signs, if not I put those post-its to the side of the Agenda Wall in the usual way. At the center end of these sign-making stations I position a microphone on a stand. I also hold a microphone.

· In the center of every of the 50+ circles of chairs I have a location sign (such as “A” or “AA”), notes-taker forms, and sign-in sheets to pass during a discussion.
(there are more than 50 possible conversations of course, as you have your different session times x number of discussion circles - the numbers of discussion circles depends on the size of the room - for large groups I like to imagine my group size divided by 15 to imagine how many discussion areas - others do this differently)

· On the walls (for visibility and help with traffic in a very large room) I have big signs that say things like “A through N” so one can look across the room and know where to walk to.

People start by coming into the room and sitting anywhere - in any one of those little circles of chairs.
I open, explain process and guidelines, from my little platform in the center.
I invite people to come to the sign-making tables, make a topic sign, come to their microphone, announce their topic, and post it on the Agenda Wall.

As people do this I indicate each next speaker, in the round. I am still using / physicalizing the opening circle. My indication of who speaks next also helps the seated participants know who is speaking next. With a large room it is useful to know this as the sound sounds like it comes from everywhere.

Agenda co-creation in my experience has never lasted longer than 1 hour 15 minutes - no matter how large the group has been.

Then we are off - people simple go to the Agenda Wall (you want plenty of room for traffic in front of that and it wants to be very long if possible to allow all to see), put their names on the signs (if that’s your approach) or not, then go to the discussion areas where their preferred topics are.

**everything happens in the same big room**. **there is no space/time in-between sessions on the schedule** **food is also brought in to stations around the edges of this room** **if there is a Newsroom, ideally it is also along the wall of this same room** ** if additional signage is needed helium balloons or signs hanging from the ceiling may be used **

We come back together at Closing Circle time by sitting anywhere. I am once again twirling on my little platform in the center. I invite Closing Circle comments and reflections, once again indicating in the round who next will speak as they once again come up to stand at the 3 microphones.

We have a really delicious time.

My fabulous colleagues who also have done larger OS will give you other ideas from their own experiences…

Our warm wishes go with you,

Lisa

Larry Peterson on Hosting Large Open Space Meetings

2009-01-14T16:28:00.001-07:00
a. Do you have any 'top tips' on special needs for a group of this size?
As Lisa says, the wall is really important and I leave it chaotic with post-its on one side and room for the folks at the wall on the other.

b. Any special suggestions for how to create the circle/s? (I am considering three concentric circles: one of cushions, one of benches, and then one of chairs. But we could also possibly build risers. How much space will we need for this circle/these circles? Do you suggest three concentric circles or more?

With 600 I go with more concentric circles. I find that when the centre circle is at or over 150 people, then the connection with the sponsor and the opening is less. I prefer a centre circle of between 100 and 150. A small platform, one step up at the most, in the centre of the circle might help but it must be easily gotten on and off of. I would not build fixed seating in risers.

c. How much extra time will be needed for the agenda setting, given the size of the group?
I have not experienced that a lot of extra time is needed – say .5hr.

d. How many sessions should I expect from 600 people? (In a highly motivated group of 100 people, I would usually provide breakout spaces for about 50 sessions. But my guess is that this ratio should go down as the numbers increase. Also, we expect a lot of people who are too shy, reserved, or not sufficiently motivated -- this time -- to post a session. So I am guessing that I'll need about 150 breakout slots.

I plan for .7 times the number, say about 42 per round and then have extras available, so that is similar to your number for 100. I've never had need for 150 breakout slots in a given round of OST discussions with 600. You know your people better than I and the theme for this event. The amount of passion evoked by the theme question shapes the number at any given round. You are talking between 3-4 rounds of discussion.

e. Any advice on the schedule? The day is limited to 8.30 – 16.30. Some people might be able to stay later, but we can't plan on this. I normally don't schedule tea breaks, but in this case, it might be necessary to give people time to find their way around the venue. Here are three versions:
I would go with the simplest agenda and 1.5 hour session. With this number, there will be more time for folks to move between sessions so allowing 1.5 hours for each will give them the freedom to self-manage that time – which for me is the genius of OST. Building in breaks makes it seem like any other conference and reduces the "whenever its over, its over" injunction.

Larry

Hosting Large Open Space Meetings

2009-01-14T16:17:00.012-07:00
January 14, 2009

Many of my colleagues and I are being asked to scale up our work, both in purpose and in the number of people participating. Recently there was a discussion on the OS listserve about tips for hosting OS in groups of 600. Everything from room setup to expected number of groups to adjustments in time needed, etc. Very helpful. With thanks to my OS colleagues.

From Lisa Heft, an excellent post from her experience of hosting with the Girl Scouts.

From Larry Peterson, a practitioner based in Toronto, Ontario, another excellent post.

From Chris Corrigan, this: "Oh...one thing I did in my 600 person OS that really helped was to have someone writing up the agenda for the first session as it was being produced and once the agenda setting session was over we projected it on large screens. THat just saved traffic piling up at the wall and 600 people all trying to read one person's handwriting. Subsequent sessions were projected as the day went on."

And this, "emphasize the 1.5 hour part. 600 is a lot of people. Don't rush them."

From Harrison Owen, this on moving people along: "But you do have to keep the folks moving with a large group. I set the stage for this by saying as we start on announcing sessions that this is not the time for a speech. Just announce your title and state your name – and move on. One secret is that I ALWAYS hang on to the mike. I act just like a sticky microphone stand. If somebody starts on a speech (something more than title and name) I let them go for a very little bit and then intervene to say “No Speeches.” Some times you have to do this twice, but I have never had to do it a third time. Net effect is that even with very large groups (2108 German Psychiatrists) announcing 236 sessions took a little less that ½ an hour."

And this, "I have always found that it is much easier to work with a group this size and larger. Everything works just the way it always does, even down to the amount of time it takes to get started – an hour an a half – and any thought that you might be able to control the situation is simply unthinkable."

Art of Hosting Invitations

2009-01-14T15:35:00.004-07:00
Germany, July 2008 -- MS Word

New York, October 2008 -- MS Word

Florida, November 2008 -- MS Word

Just the Right Moment

2009-01-12T20:07:00.003-07:00
January 12, 2009

An image to good to pass up, sent from friends Ann Linnea and Christina Baldwin with the following message:

"The winter image we send is of a plant holding its fruits into the next season and the incredible mystery of why and when is just the right moment to drop them into possibility."

Beautiful.

Inspirations

2009-01-12T14:39:00.008-07:00
New Country (Monica Pohlmann) -- I love that Monica and I share a nationality. I love her artful words on growth, learning, and what we leave behind.

Light Hearted (Diana Durham) -- Our hearts as the framers of light. Beautiful

From Blossoms (Li Young Lee) -- Sweet. Particularly for those of us who like to pick peaches.

A Beautiful Rhythm It Is (Toke Moeller) -- Action together to make better what is not good enough any more...

Simply Listen (Toke Moeller) -- I love the invitation to hear what is in our hearts.

The Turtle (Mary Oliver) -- Doing what we are born to do...

Powerful Questions

2009-01-12T13:53:00.004-07:00
January 12, 2008

This weekend I was in a design call for an upcoming Leadership Symposium for a health care system. One of my colleagues, Toke Moeller offered the questions below as a a general framing for an agenda. I have learned there is an art to asking powerful questions and that the questions are a tool to focus a group in its learning and exploring. Eric Vogt, Juanita Brown, and David Isaacs have an excellent article on this topic. What I like about these questions in particular is they come from core assumptions, core process assumptions, about how a system, in this case a health care system, can be in transformative thinking. I've noted some of those core assumptions that I see below the questions.

How will we together create our short and long term solutions to care for our future health care system in Ontario?

What am I will to let go of and what am I inspired to contribute to be part of co leading a healthy health care system in Ontario?

What is a wise overall approach and practices that we all are willing to work within, practice and support for us to find the next level of our health care system in Ontario?

Together create -- intractable problems and outrageous dreams require social technologies that support working together

Short and long term solutions -- the work that we do must be grounded in solutions to real needs and purposes

Care for a system -- transformation requires tending not just to the demands of the moment, but to the capacity of a system to support itself, including the relationships

Willing to let go -- letting go is a choice; innovation requries some choosing to let go

Inspired to contribute -- wisdom comes from many realms; innovative solutions are born from offerings and contributions

Co-leading -- the best that we know on solutions that last is that they come from shared ownership and creation

Practice and support -- innovative solutions don't come tested; they come with challenges that require a commitment to practice, a willingness to make mistakes, and an agreement to support each other in levels of unknowing

Resources

2009-01-12T08:52:00.016-07:00
Wicked article on Greed and Scarcity from Yes Magazine. By Bernard Lietaer. Hard not to be interested in an article on "biggest issues" humanity faces with the doorway of economic systems.

Excellent paper from Toke Moeller and Interchange on applications of the Art of Hosting
Other excellent resources from Interchange

Open Space Technology -- Articles and Videos

Life on an AoH Host Team -- A helpful description by Teresa Posakony on what it is like to be on a hosting team. Includes some on structure / flow, how to participate, teaching / learning, and working with participant hosting teams.

Guidelines for Calling an Art of Hosting -- A few simple steps and rough timelines for people considering calling an AoH.

Arts

Proletariat Theatre -- I met Rob Luckau, Company Director, through the Salt Lake Center for Engaging Community. I loved his commitment to building community, theatre being one medium for doing such.

"It is the mission of Proletariat Theatre to provide substantial theatre opportunity, education and experience to people of all communities and socioeconomic backgrounds. We will provide and support quality theatre education and experiences in a helping, learning environment. We value the talent in all individuals and their willingness to learn. We are committed to the development of the artist, actor, writer, techie and director in everyone."

Articles

The Work of Leadership (Ronald A. Heifetz, Donald L. Laurie) -- I love the subtitle: "Leaders do not need to know all the answers. They do need to ask the right questions." I also like the way this article describes complex problems, "adaptive challenges." These are not challenges to do more of the same. They are challenges "when our deeply held beliefs are challenged, when the values that made us successful become less relevant..." It also speaks to me to the need to address change from the level of identity. Less from "technical job description." More from "adaptive learning innovators."

The Art of Powerful Questions (Eric E. Vogt, Juanita Brown, David Isaacs)

Invitations -- For several Art of Hosting Trainings

Tips for Hosting Large Open Space Meetings

Video

Conversation as a Radical Act -- Juanita Brown

The Global Mindshift -- I like the conciseness of description on the requirement for connection, for global community to be in global challenges.

Harvesting (Chris Corrigan, 3 minutes) -- From Tampa Bay Art of Hosting, that Chris and I co-hosted with others in May 2008.

The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot

2009-01-10T20:04:00.007-07:00
January 10, 2009

This is a book recommended to me by Vern Woolf. What is alive for me is the general notion that the world and reality is not what it seems. This is something I've felt deeply for much of my life. It has led me into many significant paths, including spiritual journeys, and a life of much curiosity. It is a book grounded in science, yet readable for the non-scientist. It is a mind-shifting read, for me, to include deep wonderings (disturbing and compelling) about what is really real.

The book is available here.

A few general ideas that have my attention:

- The universe itself is a kind of giant hologram...projections from a level of reality so beyond our own it is literally beyond both space and time.
- The holographic model helps to make sense of a wide range of phenomena including telepathy, precognition, mystical feelings of oneness, psychokinesis. It also offers alternative explanation about the vastness of memory, recall and forgetting ability, associative memory, photographic memory, and transference of learned skills
- Since Western science has devoted several centuries to not believing in the paranormal, it is not going to surrender its additiction lightly.

A quote that in intriguing:

"Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing." T. H. Huxley

A story:

Early studies by Pribram were about where memories are stored in the brain. Research in the 30s and 40s indicated memories were stored in specific areas of the brain. However, later research contradicted this. Rats trained to find their way through a maze had parts of their brains removed, even drastic and varied sections, but could still find their way through the maze. The conclusion was that memory was distributed throughout the brain. The implication is that the whole is contained in all of the parts, or is available in all of the parts.

Questions:

If holographic films are created by the interference, the intersection of several frequencies, what does this mean for social technologies? I suspect that as we create formats for interaction, for our individual frequencies to show up in general or around specific issues, the whole of the experience becomes available in any of the participants. This has so many implications for sustainable change in large systems that I am just beginning to find words for. Worth noting that "interference" in this is a good thing. It creates the holograph.

In short:

Wow! What a helpful way to see into more of the whole of experience. My intuition tells me this is spot on. A holographic description helps me to have a bit of an anchor in the letting go of the known. A kind of meta framing for a very different world, much different than what I have told myself that it is. And encouragement to continue to see and feel and work with the resonance of people, groups, ideas, places, times.