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.
Showing posts with label Chris Corrigan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chris Corrigan. Show all posts
Reflections on Invitation
September 19, 2008
A nice little piece here from Chris Corrigan that we are including in a workbook for an open-enrollment training. Chris speaks something very important here for me. I have noticed in many events that there is a tendancy to think of the invitation as a checklist item. "Just get it done so that we can get on with planning an event." The invitation actually is one of the first doorways into planning an event. When done well, it brings all of the planners into a deeper sense of possibility. It opens the creative space with each other. I particularly like the reference below to beginning with a conversation on the need, on the purpose. It is also my experience that this focus helps get to the real juice of why this meeting matters and what possibility it holds. It helps move the process from one of "selling" to one of "attracting in" because people share the basic sense of need and don't want to miss it. This feels particularly important in the meeting-full context in which many of us live.
A nice little piece here from Chris Corrigan that we are including in a workbook for an open-enrollment training. Chris speaks something very important here for me. I have noticed in many events that there is a tendancy to think of the invitation as a checklist item. "Just get it done so that we can get on with planning an event." The invitation actually is one of the first doorways into planning an event. When done well, it brings all of the planners into a deeper sense of possibility. It opens the creative space with each other. I particularly like the reference below to beginning with a conversation on the need, on the purpose. It is also my experience that this focus helps get to the real juice of why this meeting matters and what possibility it holds. It helps move the process from one of "selling" to one of "attracting in" because people share the basic sense of need and don't want to miss it. This feels particularly important in the meeting-full context in which many of us live.
Reflections on Invitation
Chris Corrigan
When we think of invitation, the first thing that usually comes to mind Is simply a notcie sent out by email or appearing on a buletin board. Invitation as a THING,
Over the years I have come to realize that invitation is not a thing but a process, a lifestyle and a practice. When we host the call of inspiration, we do well to pay attention to how it generates the urge to invite others. Invitation is a process that brings us alive. Compared to compulsion, invitation results in people choosing to show up and being open, curious and enthusiastic. Compulsion results in closed, defensive, judgemental and apathetci participation.
In our work, developing invitations to gatherings is becoming more and more of an art. And the process starts well before the formal “invitation” is issued. As a design principle, it pays to remember that the meeting begins long before the invitation is issued.
The goal of invitation is to attract people fully to the event. So invitation begins very early on in the planning process and continues to build up to the event and beyond. Typically when I am working with a group, we follow something like this workplan:
* Work through the chaordic stepping stones and harvest the need, purpose and people. This becomes the basis for the invitation process.
* Create an invitation list of people who are needed for the meeting
* Begin contacting these people and hosting little conversations to find out what quality of invitation would attract them to this gathering.
* As the design progress, issue small invitations to the growing list of inviitees. Let them know when the dates are chosen, where the location will be, the clarity of the need and purpose as it arises.
* Try to send out more than one invitation. The more important and deep the gathering is, the more information I like to send out before hand. With some communities, setting up a web site, blog, forum, or wiki before hand can begin the converstions before the participants arrive. The more engaged you are with the participants before the meeting, the more engagement arises in the face to face space.
* Within the meeting itself, frame everything as an invitation. Using language that invites people to choose to participate so they participants are aware that the quality of the experience is up to them.
* Support follow up by inviiting participants to connect to one another and continue to find each other. Keep websites in place, send out follow ups and invite connection until the energy wanes and the project moves on.
It's a lot of work, but it is essential because the quality of any gathering depends largely on how the participants show up. Be creative, be dilligent and make sure the invitation process works well.
Principles to Get to Emergence -- Part 2
April 13, 2008
It is no surprise that friend and fellow traveler Chris Corrigan would add some of his experience to what I posted from Debbie Frieze. He is a deep thinker, big open heart, and amazing connector -- it comes from living attentitively. When I read these, I could immediately see openings for people I work with and my own understanding -- a killer set of principles that can invite conversation and relation and creation. See Chris' full description of an approach to facilitation. Very helpful.
If I look for the one, the most simple in this, my first hit is that these all serve a principle of wholeness. Mine. Yours. Ours. I find myself asking -- what if all that I did, that we did, were a commitment and practice of restorying, restoring, and amplifying wholeness?
It is no surprise that friend and fellow traveler Chris Corrigan would add some of his experience to what I posted from Debbie Frieze. He is a deep thinker, big open heart, and amazing connector -- it comes from living attentitively. When I read these, I could immediately see openings for people I work with and my own understanding -- a killer set of principles that can invite conversation and relation and creation. See Chris' full description of an approach to facilitation. Very helpful.
If I look for the one, the most simple in this, my first hit is that these all serve a principle of wholeness. Mine. Yours. Ours. I find myself asking -- what if all that I did, that we did, were a commitment and practice of restorying, restoring, and amplifying wholeness?
- The wisdom we need right now is in the room.
- Facilitation is not a directive practice, but rather a practice of creating and holding a container for the group's wisdom to emerge.
- To get to truly creative solutions we must invite chaos and order to play together.
- Leadership is about inviting passion and responsibility into the process and supporting connections for action.
- The process serves the group and needs to be carefully planned but should remain totally invisible.
- Co-creation is the best way to get to wise action.
- Process and content are equally important.
- For a system or a group to function well it needs to be learning from its experience.
- Groups are living systems, not mechanical systems.
- All good work done in the world depends on good collaboration. Good work therefore is about both quality content and quality process.
The Tao of Open Space
February 8, 2008
I first read this in Chris Corrigan's book, The Tao of of Holding Space. Read all of this book many times. I immediately used it to help invite people into an Open Space session. It comes from the Tao Teh Ching, by Lao Tzu -- the edition I have is translated by John C. H. Wu.
And as I think of it now, and a design proposal I am working on with some university faculty, staff, and an advisory committee, I think I might use this again to invite the opening to conversation with each other. The release of the managed presentation agenda.
Thirty spokes converge upon a single hub;
It is on the hole in the center that the use of the cart hinges.
We make a vessel from a lump of clay;
It is the empty space within the vessel that makes it useful.
We make doors and windows for a room;
But it is these empty spaces that make the room livable.
Thus, while the tangible has advantages,
It is the intangible that makes it useful.
I first read this in Chris Corrigan's book, The Tao of of Holding Space. Read all of this book many times. I immediately used it to help invite people into an Open Space session. It comes from the Tao Teh Ching, by Lao Tzu -- the edition I have is translated by John C. H. Wu.
And as I think of it now, and a design proposal I am working on with some university faculty, staff, and an advisory committee, I think I might use this again to invite the opening to conversation with each other. The release of the managed presentation agenda.
Thirty spokes converge upon a single hub;
It is on the hole in the center that the use of the cart hinges.
We make a vessel from a lump of clay;
It is the empty space within the vessel that makes it useful.
We make doors and windows for a room;
But it is these empty spaces that make the room livable.
Thus, while the tangible has advantages,
It is the intangible that makes it useful.
Art of Hosting Research
Today I was able to talk with Jeannel King in San Diego, CA. Jeannel is a friend I met through the Art of Hosting at Wooded Glen in Indiana earlier this fall. She is completing her masters thesis for a degree from Regis University in Denver, CO. Jeannel invited me to provide feedback on her thesis. The real inviation was to be in a learning relationship together. This is what I experienced.
One of the threads from our conversation was about simplicity. How do you speak of the Art of Hosting in a simple way (not easy task to write about this in an academic form) that preserves the energy of the experience and doesn't just end with "you had to be there." Jeannel's clarity was about hosting self, so as to be a resource for others. I heard this as a tuning, an ability to feel into what is happening in ourselves, the group, the space, the field. I liked the question we arrived at -- what is the self of the group? What does hosting that look like? Feel like?
I also shared with Jeannel this simple model that good friend Chris Corrigan spoke as a change model. This is the most simple I've heard that speaks oodles. Open hearts. Engage conversations. Enable movements. Open hearts. To look through this model at the "things" of an Art of Hosting is helpful for me. Open hearts -- participation, cocreation, rest, dreams, meals, play, listening, deep listening, connection to nature.... Engage conversations -- methods, silence, structured, unstructured, self, partner, small group, large group.... Enable movement -- harvest, convergence, simple clarity, tangible energy.
What if our work was to open hearts?
How would that change our plans?
What would that make available that typically is not?
What could our work also be?
One of the threads from our conversation was about simplicity. How do you speak of the Art of Hosting in a simple way (not easy task to write about this in an academic form) that preserves the energy of the experience and doesn't just end with "you had to be there." Jeannel's clarity was about hosting self, so as to be a resource for others. I heard this as a tuning, an ability to feel into what is happening in ourselves, the group, the space, the field. I liked the question we arrived at -- what is the self of the group? What does hosting that look like? Feel like?
I also shared with Jeannel this simple model that good friend Chris Corrigan spoke as a change model. This is the most simple I've heard that speaks oodles. Open hearts. Engage conversations. Enable movements. Open hearts. To look through this model at the "things" of an Art of Hosting is helpful for me. Open hearts -- participation, cocreation, rest, dreams, meals, play, listening, deep listening, connection to nature.... Engage conversations -- methods, silence, structured, unstructured, self, partner, small group, large group.... Enable movement -- harvest, convergence, simple clarity, tangible energy.
What if our work was to open hearts?
How would that change our plans?
What would that make available that typically is not?
What could our work also be?
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