Group Facilitation Research

Not quite sure how to share this, as it came through two contacts: Sandy Heierbacher's Notes on Facebook (Executive Director of NCDD)and the IAF - Stephen Thorpe, board member of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF), shared a link to his doctoral thesis on online facilitation on the IAF Forum on Friday, as well as a link to an older post listing (mostly) downloadable masters and PhD theses on facilitation. Regardless, here are some good links to group facilitation research:

Ball, Dianne Lesley (2004). Facilitation of action learning groups: an action research investigation. Unpublished PhD thesis, School of Industrial Relations & Organisational Behaviour, The University of New South Wales, Australia.http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=182889267347&h=1869fbcd57f40c134793e3970419d9fd&url=http%3A%2F%2Funsworks.unsw.edu.au%2Fvital%2Faccess%2Fmanager%2FRepository%2Funsworks%3A871

Butcher, Martin (2007). Participatory Development: Methods, Skills and Processes: A design framed action research thesis. Unpublished PhD thesis, Southern Cross University, Australia.http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=182889267347&h=79d67fa9b11ef7ef3347397cc7465d96&url=http%3A%2F%2Fepubs.scu.edu.au%2Ftheses%2F77%2F

Cook, Susan (2000). A personal description of small group facilitation. Unpublished masters of education thesis, Malaspina University College, Acadia University, Canada.http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=182889267347&h=c6b6fd1b0d54f5933dfba9b659d1c5e3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.collectionscanada.ca%2Fobj%2Fs4%2Ff2%2Fdsk1%2Ftape3%2FPQDD_0003%2FMQ58421.pdf

Fisher, Lynn Patricia (1974). Small group facilitation of participant goals: the participants’ views. Unpublished PhD thesis, Ohio State University.

Hunter, Dale (2003). The Facilitation of Sustainable Co-operative Processes in Organisations. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Western Sydney. http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=182889267347&h=78a06bbbc86be6f4f286cf571fc19e83&url=http%3A%2F%2Farrow.uws.edu.au%3A8080%2Fvital%2Faccess%2Fmanager%2FRepository%2Fuws%3A482

Hogan, Christine F. (2001), The makings of myself as a facilitator: An autoethnography of professional practice, Unpublished PhD thesis, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia.

Jay, Leighton (2008). An analysis of the critical contingency factors influencing the use of group facilitation in organisations. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia.http://www.blogger.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=182889267347&h=29bf44df065230b58e4165bc53062076&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftheses.library.uwa.edu.au%2Fadt-WU2008.0069%2F.

Martin, M. A. (2003). The nature of the lived experience of co-facilitation: A phenomenological approach. Unpublished PhD Thesis, School of Management, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia.

Roberts, Gerard Michael O’Brien (1997). Action researching my practice as a facilitator of experiential learning with pastoralist farmers in Central West Queensland. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Western Sydney. www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar…roberts00.html

Schuitevoerder, Ingrid Rose (2000). Process-oriented dialogue : an inquiry into group work and conflict facilitation. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Western Sydney, Australia.http://arrow.uws.edu.au:8080/vital/a…sitory/uws:349

Sheehan, Michael James (2000). Learning and implementing group process facilitation: individual experiences. Unpublished PhD thesis, Faculty of Commerce and Management, Griffith University.www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/public/adt-QGU20030228.154255/index.html

Thomas, G. J. (2007). A study of the theories and practices of facilitator educators. Unpublished EdD Thesis, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.www.latrobe.edu.au/oent/Staff…ral_thesis.pdf

Thorpe, Stephen J. (2009). Enhancing the effectiveness of online groups: an investigation of storytelling in the facilitation of online groups. Unpublished PhD thesis, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland.http://hdl.handle.net/10292/778

Wardale, D.V. (2006). Managers’ and Facilitators’ Perceptions of Effective Facilitation Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Western Australia, Perth.http://www.blogger.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=182889267347&h=016509a1f7510128c60b2576466c9d2b&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftheses.library.uwa.edu.au%2Fadt-WU2007.0010%2F

Best Practices for Delivering Content

"What information do participants in a meeting need to make wise and informed contributions?"

This is a key design question that facilitators must constantly ask themselves as they work with their clients to find the right balance of information delivery and discovery. The bias of Subject Matter Experts (SME) is often to overload meeting participants with all the facts, details, and exceptions on a topic. Underlying this tendency is likely the belief that nobody else can possibly provide good input without having the same level of expertise as the specialists (e.g., engineers, scientists, and lawyers). And the response to this should be, "not necessarily" and perhaps even, "not at all".

When looking for participant contributions in a meeting, the larger intent is to tap collective experience and knowledge, and to bring many perspectives to bear on a topic. This input does not replace SME knowledge, but rather serves to enhance and expand it, with a view of balancing other considerations that may not have been given equal weighting from a specialist's analysis. So what are some best practices for offering content within a meeting design, keeping it relevant and compelling, while protecting time for participant input?

Just Enough Data. The plain truth is that SME's lose their audience when they're spilling out information as if they were speaking to their peers, weaving in all the 'juicy details' that nobody really cares about or needs to know for the work at hand. After 7 minutes, most participants will zone out and lose the central plot. Were we to see what is going on in their heads, it might resemble something like an empty bubble with the words "blah blah blah...." encased within it. Coach your SME's to state their main presentation points, make their points with just enough information, and then restate the points just made in summary - all in 7-10 minutes chunks!

Speak Directly/Don't Read. As much as possible, have SME's deliver their information without relying on detailed slides. Encourage them to keep the bulk of their presentation verbal, supported with very high level/visually provocative slides that emphasize the main points they are making. Participants can read four times as fast as people can speak. Don't waste valuable meeting time going over detailed information downloads. If it is essential to the meeting purpose, then either provide time, before or during the meeting, to have participants read the complex and necessary information. Devote precious meeting time instead to learning conversations devoted to deepending understanding, generating new knowledge, and as relevant, developing practical solutions.

Pull Versus Push Data. Often SME's mistakenly assume that participants cannot fathom the complexity of an issue. In fact, the research shows that on most topics, participants already know almost 70% of what the presenter is going over. Rather than pushing a heap of data at the audience, invite presenters to stick to the main points, and then give small groups an opportunity to digest, react, and formulate thoughtful questions together around the material presented. After 10-15 minutes, in a focused Plenary Forum, invite participant comments and questions to pull the required level of detail/complexity into the whole.

Remember Your Key Meeting Purpose. The purpose of the meeting is to gain valuable participant insight - not to turn them into specialists. Keep returning to this purpose, and balance the relative value of time spent by SME's delivering content versus participants contributing input.

Keep It Engaging. If there's just no way to avoid delivering a lot of content, then deliberately build in short pauses to allow pairs/trios to quickly buzz for 2-3 minutes on the key insights, reactions from the past 7-10 minutes. Nothing need be done with the buzz content. This is simply a strategy to keep participants actively listening, but providing some time to 'empty' a bit of the accumulated internal conversation that has built up as the SME is speaking, and to create room to receive the next batch of information.

Focus on Strengths

Whether facilitating a group or developing a learning program, where should we focus the bulk of our attention - areas of strength or areas that fall short of the ideal? Most of us are well conditioned to believe that if we focus on problems and areas requiring improvement, this will actually help us perform better.

The sad truth is that only 32% of workers have the opportunity to do their best. (Gallup, US Survey, circa 2007). Research by Professor Emeritus Ron Lippitt (Univ. of Michigan) showed that when work groups focus on problems, two things occur. First they become more depressed, and secondly, they focus their energy on how to avoid pain rather than how to creatively move towards what they desire. As facilitators and instructors, we would do well to heed these learnings and adopt strategies that build on strengths and what's working.

Focusing on the Positive Core

1. Would you ask people to focus the bulk of their energy and effort on what they do worst as a strategy for highest return on investment? Rather, use Appreciative Inquiry to discover what works and areas of strength, and find ways to transfer these learnings to areas requiring improvement, in order to move towards the desired future.


2. When we operate from our strengths, we are often in the 'flow' (or for atheletes, the 'zone'). We become more confident, focused, and creative; we lose track of time and are generally inspired to produce better results, faster.


3. We're happier when we can operate from our strengths, yet according to Gallup only 32% of employees have the opportunity to do so. Imagine the latent potential that can be tapped with more inspired, confident, and powerfully effective people on your team! ,


4. Focusing on people's strengths benefits the organization and the people who work there. Leverage this power by focusing your facilitation and learning programs so that people can refine and expand their inherent talents and abilities, rather than on the Training painful ‘areas of improvement’.

Spoken Word Group Poem

Thanks to a wonderful process developed by Lisa Heft of Opening Space, my colleague at Masterful Facilitation Institute Brenda Chaddock, Sandy Heierbacher from NCDD, and I co-designed a Spoken Word Group Poem with 18 participants at the IAP2 San Diego conference. Together, their response to three key questions resulted in an extraordinary co-created group poem which was delivered it in a collaborative performance at the start of the Wednesday morning Plenary. Read more... DARE to Dream!

Shift Happens - Did You Know?

This wonderfully informative video on the transformative power of technology and how it is changing every aspect of our lives is not only worth watching - the speed of change is mind-blowing!

Best Practices for Facilitative Instructors

Quiz: What Are Your Learners Doing? Estimate the rough % of time spent:

__ Reading the text, handouts, slides, manual
__ Listening to you
__ Watching visuals on slides, TV, or computer screens
__ Discussing concepts or practicing skills
__ Teaching, and learning, from each other
100% of total

As interesting as most people think their lectures and presentations are, most folks remember very little of what they hear, especially if there is no immediate need to apply the information. Even with stories, metaphors, analogies and humour, listening isn't learning. Learning dramatically increases with discussion of concepts and practice, and the single most powerful way for adults to learn is to teach others/learn socially. Research has shown that adult learners already know almost 70% of the information they will learn in a program; yet almost 67% of the time, they are being told rather than engaged to discover/remember existing knowledge.

So, the next time you or somebody in your facilitated session is considering the option to lecture or present, remember to WAIT (stands for Why Am "I" Talking?), and challenge yourself to design a more engaging and interactive piece.

Engagement and Democracy

Great post by Matt Leighninger, director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, on the question, “How should we improve democracy?”, with myriad resources and links such as:

• “Democracy, Growing Up,” Where Is Democracy Headed?, Funding and Fostering Local Democracy, and Democracy as Problem Solving? The core principles underpinning these projects are described here.


• “Promising Practices in Online Engagement” categorizes different online projects, and “Sidewalks for Democracy Online.”


• Empowered Participation


• The Promise and Challenge of Neighborhood Democracy.


• Involve


• “Deliberative Democracy and the Problem of Power”


• “Strengthening Our Nation’s Democracy”


• Youth engagement and the role of higher ed.

Community: The Structure of Belonging

"Most of our communities are fragmented and at odds within themselves. Businesses, social services, education, and health care each live within their own worlds. The same is true of individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost. What keeps this from changing is that we are trapped in an old and tired conversation about who we are. If this narrative does not shift, we will never truly create a common future and work toward it together."

In his book, Community - The Structure of Belonging, Peter Block explores how community can emerge from fragmentation, how community is built, how transformation occurs, and what individuals and formal leaders can do to create a place they want to inhabit. The kind of transformation that can occur in community starting from powerful questions, other than just talk, include:

-Invitation replaces mandate, policy and alignment
-Possibility replaces problem solving
-Ownership and Cause replace explanation and denial
-Dissent and Refusal replace resignation and lip service
-Commitment replaces hedge and barter
-Gifts replace deficiencies

"We know what healthy communities look like—there are many success stories out there. The challenge is how to create one in our own place. Peter Block helps us see how we can change the existing context of community from one of deficiencies, interests, and entitlement to one of possibility, generosity, and gifts. Questions are more important than answers in this effort, which means leadership is not a matter of style or vision but is about getting the right people together in the right way: convening is a more critical skill than commanding."

As he explores the nature of community and the dynamics of transformation, Peter outlines six kinds of conversation that will create communal accountability and commitment and describes how we can design physical spaces and structures that will themselves foster a sense of belonging:

1. Conversations for Inviting


2. Conversations for Possibility


3. Conversations for Ownership


4. Conversations for Dissent


5. Conversations for Commitment


6. Conversations of Gifts.

Download the booklet Civic Engagement and the Restoration of Community: Changing the Nature of the Conversation for the questions, tools and techniques to foster the transformation and restoration of community.

"You Are Brilliant and the Earth Is Hiring" - Class of 2009 Commencement Address

A message of urgency and hope for young people and all of the rest of us.

Extracts from: Commencement Address to the Class of 2009 University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009

Paul Hawken is a renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental activist, founder of Wiser Earth and author of many books -- most recently Blessed Unrest. He was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters by University of Portland, when he delivered this superb commencement address (read the full transcript).....

"Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. ..... Basically, civilization needs a new operating system; you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades. .....

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn't bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. ....

Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don't be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done. .....

No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. .....

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. .... It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, non-governmental organizations, and companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history. ....."

Read the full transcript).....

Standing in the Fire: Facilitating Complex Group Dynamics

(Here is an excerpt from a recent article I wrote.)

You’ve been hired to facilitate a meeting involving a diverse group of people whose ideas, specialized knowledge, expertise, alignment and/or support are needed for an important outcome. Yet the diversity inherent in that cross-functional group, inter-disciplinary project team, organization-wide planning session, or multi-stakeholder meeting is a potential source of complex group dynamics.

What can you do to minimize the possibility of group dynamics disrupting productive work? And what helpful interventions can you rely on with confidence “in the moment”, if you’ve done your level best, and SHIFT still happens?

• Rule #1: The main thing is not to panic!
• Rule #2: Don’t assume you know what is going on.
• Rule #3: Don’t take it personally.
• Rule #4: Remember and use the O-I-R Framework, for “Observation –Implication – Resolution”.

Read full article.....

Office of Public Engagement at the White House!

From the NCDD listserve, just received this incredibly positive breaking news for the field…!

The White House announced today that the White House Office of Public Liaison is being tasked with an expanded mission, and a new name: the Office of Public Engagement! In his video announcement about OPE, President Obama said:

“This office will seek to engage as many Americans as possible in the difficult work of changing this country, through meetings and conversations with groups and individuals held in Washington and across the country.”

Core Principles for Public Engagement

Reproducing here, a truly important synthesis piece initiated by the National Coalition on Dialogue and Deliberation, the Co-Intelligence Institute, the International Association of Public Practitioners, and endorsed by many others....

PREAMBLE

The Seven Principles for Public Engagement were developed collaboratively in Spring 2009 by dozens of leaders in public engagement, with the expectation of ongoing dialogue and periodic revision. (See National Coalition on Dialogue and Deliberation for full details.)

In a strong democracy, citizens and government work together to build a society that protects individual freedom while simultaneously ensuring liberty and justice for all. Engaging people around the issues that affect their lives and their country is a key component of a strong democratic society.

Public engagement involves convening diverse, representative groups of people to wrestle with information from a variety of viewpoints all to the end of making better, often more creative decisions. Public engagement aims to provide people with direction for their own community activities, or with public judgments that will be seriously considered by policy-makers and other power-holders.

The more any given public engagement effort takes into consideration the following seven Core Principles, the more it can expect to effectively build mutual understanding, meaningfully affect policy development, and/or inspire collaborative action among citizens and institutions. These seven interdependent principles serve both as ideals to pursue and as criteria for judging quality. Rather than promoting partisan agendas, the application of the Core Principles creates the conditions for authentic engagement around public issues.

The Seven Core Principles (download PDF)

These seven recommendations reflect the common beliefs and understandings of those working in the fields of public engagement, conflict resolution, and collaboration. In practice, people apply these and additional principles in many different ways.

1. Careful Planning and Preparation

Through adequate and inclusive planning, ensure that the design, organization, and convening of the process serve both a clearly defined purpose and the needs of the participants.

2. Inclusion and Demographic Diversity

Equitably incorporate diverse people, voices, ideas, and information to lay the groundwork for quality outcomes and democratic legitimacy.

3. Collaboration and Shared Purpose

Support and encourage participants, government and community institutions, and others to work together to advance the common good.1

4. Openness and Learning

Help all involved listen to each other, explore new ideas unconstrained by predetermined outcomes, learn and apply information in ways that generate new options, and rigorously evaluate public engagement activities for effectiveness.

5. Transparency and Trust

Be clear and open about the process, and provide a public record of the organizers, sponsors, outcomes, and range of views and ideas expressed.

6. Impact and Action
Ensure each participatory effort has real potential to make a difference, and that participants are aware of that potential.

7. Sustained Engagement and Participatory Culture

Promote a culture of participation with programs and institutions that support ongoing quality public engagement.

————-
1 In addition to reflecting democratic ideals of liberty, justice, and freedom for everyone, “common good” refers to that which benefits all, like a traffic light in a dangerous intersection or a cleaned-up water supply.

Stand By Me - Music for Change

Wow, this is a truly uplifting rendition of the classic, "Stand by Me" (originally released in 1955 by The Staple Singers and released again in 1961 by the Drifters) from the Music for Change website. Music for Change is committed to developing cultural understanding and respect for cultural diversity through music and the arts in educational, community settings and through events and projects. Click on the link for the composite audio/video of different singers and musicians from different places around the world singing this great tune. Enjoy!

Canada's World Dialogues

Last year, I had the priviledge of being part of a fabulous national team of professional facilitators who co-facilitated a series of regional dialogues held across Canada as part of Canada's World 3-year consultation process into the role that Canadians want our country to play in the world in the 21st Century. Through dialogue, Canada's World engaged Canadians in a great conversation about our role in the world. The dialogue process brought Canadians together to discuss their visions for Canadian foreign policy and for Canada as an important actor on the world stage. Using the perspectives and ideas heard in the dialogue sessions, Canada's World is putting Canada Back on the Map and sharing a new story about a bolder, more responsible Canada in the world. The reports on the session results, including the wealth of dialogue resources used, are available at Canada's World Results.

Empowering Change

This appreciative and possibility-focused video entitled Empowering Change by David Gershon provides an excellent overview of how to achieve large scale transformation of the magnitude of climate change.

Leadership in a Complex World

Love this quote:

“In this day and age, when problems are increasingly complex and there are no simple answers, and no simple cause and effect - how stressful for leaders to pretend that they have the answer. A life-affirming leader is one who knows how to rely on and use the intelligence that exists everywhere in the community, the company, school, or organization. Such leaders act as stewards of other people's creativity and intelligence. Today’s leader needs to be one who convenes people, who convenes diversity, who convenes all viewpoints in processes where our intelligence can come forth. These kinds of leaders do not give us the answers; rather they help gather us so that we can discover the answers together."

– Margaret Wheatley, author, Leadership and the New Science

Continuum of Engagement - Ask Who Does It Primarily Serve?

This Sunday January 18th at beautiful Rivendell Retreat on Bowen Island, BC, my colleague Brenda Chaddock and I are co-presenting Facilitating Wise Action: Engaging Groups in Meaningful Conversations Around Complex Issues. The program is focused on conversational methods that foster mutual understanding, learning, partnership, and co-creation.

In past offerings (this is our third), participants have found the questions from our Engagement Process and Continuum to be enlightening, especially those related to purpose, convener, participants, and methods. We suggest that the continuum of engagement can be distinguished according to two broad types: unilateral/bilateral, and multilateral. The purpose for unilateral and bilateral forms of engagement primarily serves the convener. In multilateral engagement, all participants are equally served by the purpose, including the convener. Viewing the purpose of engagement through this lens sheds some helpful light on the role of the convener, on who should be invited, and on what are the best methods for the engagement. For those interested in learning more, please download a PDF extract of the Engagement Process: Continuum of Engagement which is part of our Facilitating Wise Action curriculum. A summary follows of the above categories:

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE? CONTINUUM OF ENGAGEMENT

Type: Unilateral & Bilateral (Serves Convener)

• One Way Communication: We Tell You Our Story (inform, educate)
• Hearings & Research: We Invite Your Input (listen, gather data, input)
• Two-Way Consultation: We Listen to Various Sides (discuss, obtain feedback; hear sides & stories)

Type: Multilateral (Serves all participants)

• Mutual Understanding: Together, We Learn/Reframe Conflict (learn together about common issue; transform conflict)
• Partnership & Co-Creation: Together, We Decide & Collaborate (generate solutions; collaborate; partner; co-create)

Engaging Groups Around Solving Tough Organizational Problems

Yesterday in conversation with a client who leads Six Sigma projects to enhance operational excellence in his organization, a moment of clarity emerged around a distinction that is not always apparent on what is needed for successful implementation. (The Six Sigma methodology is a proven and rigorous approach for systematically identifying problems, examining root causes, generating possible solutions, and eventually selecting the best according to objective criteria.) Essentially, the insight boils down to this:

• Six Sigma processes are appropriate for studying and analyzing processes and systems. Underlying this methodology is the assumption that: 1) operational and production processes can be viewed from a problem-solving lens; 2 the problem though complicated, can ultimately be known; 3) through appropriate analysis and study, the problem can be solved, i.e., a 'right' answer can be found; and 4) a good implementation plan can then eventually be designed and implemented. Most Six Sigma teams devote the bulk of their attention and energy on getting this right.
  
  
• Organizational change and transformation processes are based on different assumptions: 1) organizations and people are systems; 2) systems are complex and therefore are inherent unknowable; 3) complex issues and systems cannot be solved; at best they can be aligned with a common direction and purpose; 4) successful implementation in a system requires the alignment of individual and collective, as well as personal and organizational/community systems and structures. Even if the Six Sigma gets a 100% correct answer to the problem, implementation may not succeed unless conscious attention is also placed in parallel during the project on engaging the people within the organization for alignment with the eventual change.
  
  
• Conversational methods are uniquely suited to help people grapple with the complexity of the need and implications of change, to understand and embrace diverse points of view, and to gradually gain a larger system's perspective. Such methods are also effective in drawing out insights, generating creative ideas, and obtaining contributions from the people affected by the change that the Six Sigma team can incorporate or address in such a way that it may make a big difference in the eventual acceptance of the proposed changes. Adding conversational methods to the Six Sigma toolkit, and learning how to attend to the dimension of change from start to end can go a long way to enhance the eventual success of a Six Sigma project.

Starting With Engagement Purpose

I have been a long-standing member of the International Association of Facilitators, and enjoy the benefits of the Group Facilitation Forum. This morning, I contributed to a thread related to my previous blog post on Stakeholder Engagement and Purpose. One of the contributors, Penny Walker from England, had offered this distinction which was very helpful to the IAF thread on Deliberative Events:

• Broadly, the market research gang are interested in understanding the group so that they (the consultant / client) can better design the product / service / policy and better communicate it to people once it's been designed.
• The participation & involvement gang are interested in helping the group to develop its understanding, share perspectives, air differences and find ways forward, so that they (consultant / client AND stakeholders/public) can jointly design the product / service / policy and better implement it.

(Here is my posted response) This thread underlines the vital importance of understanding one's broad purpose for engaging stakeholders, and then adopting the appropriate method to support it. Our sister organizations, the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation in the USA, and the Canadian Community for Dialogue and Deliberation have been examining these issues for some time. Building on their work, I have developed a table that may further contribute to this conversation, see Best Methods for Engagement.

Following Penny's categorization:

• The "market research gang" as she refers to them, often have as their purposes for engagement: to tell their story and to obtain input. Certain methods are more appropriate here such as Focus Groups, Town Hall Meetings, Open Houses, Public Hearings, Surveys, Websites. The methods that fall under these forms of engagement in general tend to be one-way and to some extent can be viewed as initially transactional in that they mainly serve the convening organization, though ultimately, the resulting products, services, policies should be better, if in fact, they have listened well.
• The purposes informing why the "participation/involvement gang" may engage stakeholders (including citizens) are various, from building awareness and trust, learning together to build common ground, resolving conflict, collaborating, and working together over time. The methods that may be appropriate here are quite numerous and diverse. For example, the 21st Century Town Hall meeting that Gary spoke of is appropriate when input from large groups of people is desired to help formulate and decide upon the best course of action. Methods such as World Cafe, Open Space, Appreciative Inquiry, Charettes, Future Search and so on, are all exceptional in the results they can produce when chosen with care to serve the purpose, context and needs of the engagement.

A high degree of transparency about engagement purpose, how the results will be used, and whom they will serve is vital in my view to the success of any of these endeavours. As facilitators, the more we know about how various methods serve different engagement purposes, the more helpful we can be in assisting our clients create appropriate expectations with participants, and also in understanding the role that we may be called upon to play.

Two useful additional resources on this topic of engagement purpose may be found at:

• IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation (under Practitioner Tools)
• Health Canada Public Involvement Policy Toolkit (see Public Involvement Continuum)

Finally, for anyone interested in learning many of these engagement methods, including when and how to apply them for better outcomes, please visit Facilitating Wise Action for Lasting Impact: Engaging Groups in Meaningful Conversation Around Complex Issues for an upcoming learning intensive in January, 2009.

Stakeholder Engagement Methods & Purpose

Stakeholder engagement is a new competency area that many organizations are realizing they need to acquire in today's connected, aware, and sophisticated world of networks and relationships.

• Yesterday I had a long conversation with a program manager in an oil and gas company who is trained as an engineer, yet is routined called upon to mediate and facilitate multi-stakeholder meetings who have a multiplicity of interests and needs. He was exploring whether our upcoming program, Facilitating Wise Action: Engaging Groups in Meaningful Conversations Around Complex Issues, might provide him with useful tools. He asked me, "How do you turn these meetings where everyone is focused on their own WIIFM (what's in it for me?) into a more productive conversation where we can also talk about what we have in common. For example, sometimes we should be asking, what are we all going to do together to leave something behind in situations where we all realize we can't continue to do what we've all been doing? How do we get business, government and NGO's to be willing to innovate, risk and do something different together?"


• Two weeks ago, I spent a morning with some 40 members of a parks consultation community of practice interested in learning how Appreciative Inquiry might be an appropriate engagement method for their various stakeholder meetings.


• A few months ago, a colleague in a large resource company commented to me that the time their senior Executive Team devotes to stakeholder issues now often overshadows all other priorities, which is in stark contrast to the way things were a few years ago. He attributed this to the much smaller world we live in, the rise of stakeholder awareness, sophistication and activism, and the increasing expectation by people generally to be consulted and involved on issues that affect them, not only by their governments, but also by businesses and social profit agencies. We were exploring how their company might develop a more effective strategy for building long-term, trust-based stakeholder relationships.

In all of these cases, a key part of my message has been the importance of knowing one's broad purpose for engaging stakeholders, and then adopting the appropriate method to support it. As illustrated in the above table, if the starting purpose is to provide information, tell your story, obtain input and undertake some type of market research (all one-way or to some extent transactional forms of engagement), then certain methods are appropriate. If the reason for engaging is to build awareness and trust, learn together, build common ground, resolve conflict, collaborate and work together over time, then other methods will be more effective.

Learning Community

Just finished co-leading an intense, transformative, and profoundly satisfying 3-day program for advanced practitioners (The Inspired Facilitator: Achieving Mastery Engaging Organizations and Communities) at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue in Vancouver. We came together initially a group of strangers willing to be vulnerable and learn together in public, and quickly gelled into a powerful learning community. This poem by StarHawk describes some of the energy of that circle.

“Somewhere, there are people
to whom we can speak with passion
without having the words catch in our throats.
Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us,
eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us
whenever we come into our power.
Community means strength that joins our strength
to do the work that needs to be done.
Arms to hold us when we falter.
A circle of healing. A circle of friends.
Someplace where
we can be free.”

--StarHawk, Dreaming in the Dark

There Is No Road - We Make Our Path By Walking It

“It doesn’t work to leap a twenty-foot chasm in two ten-foot jumps.” -- Anonymous

"We make our path by walking it." -- African proverb

"Caminante, no hay camino / se hace camino al andar" – wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking along." -- Antonio Machado y Ruiz

Whosoever Wishes to Know the World, Heraklietos

“Whosoever wishes to know about the world must learn about it in its
particular details.
Knowledge is not intelligence.
In searching for the truth be ready for the unexpected.
Change alone is unchanging.
The same road goes both up and down.
The beginning of a circle is also its end.
Not I, but the world says it: all is one.
And yet everything comes in season.”

--Heraklietos of Ephesos, 500 B.C

The Road Ahead, Rainer Maria Rilke

“My eyes already touch the sunny hill,
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has its inner light, even from a distance.
and changes us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are;
a gesture waves us on, answering our own wave...
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.”

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

On the Other Side of the Door

A hopeful poem in a time of chaos and upheaval...

On the other side of the door
I can be a different me,
As smart and as brave and as funny or strong
As a person could want to be.
There's nothing too hard for me to do,
There's no place I can't explore
Because everything can happen
On the other side of the door.

On the other side of the door
I don't have to go alone.
If you come, too, we can sail tall ships
And fly where the wind has flown.
And wherever we go, it is almost sure
We'll find what we're looking for
Because everything can happen
On the other side of the door.

by Jeff Moss, found in Teaching With Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach

Key Questions in Large System Change Solutions

I love technology! I had been taking Otto Scharmer's online Presencing course with some 125+ folks from all over the world (a most worthwhile course by the way that I highly recommend!), and had not been able to complete the last couple of classes. So I just signed in yesterday, and there was Otto, as vital and interesting as the morning he originally taped the lectures live.

The fourth class topic is about the right-hand side of the U-curve, and prototyping, or how to put vision and intention on its feet with experiments that would allow an exploration of the future by doing. Otto shared seven great questions to ask in order to sort out which of the many possible ideas/solutions to prototype. I share them here, because I believe they have applicability not only in this type of situation, but also for just about any type of implementation planning. Here they are, with the source fully acknowledged as: Otto Scharmer, Presencing Global Classroom, Session No. 4, Prototyping, Weekly Thursday Sessions, March 20-April 17, 2008.

1. Relevant: Does it matter to the key stakeholders involved?
2. Revolutionary: can it change the system – the structure that created the problem in the first place?
3. Rapid: can you do it quickly?
4. Rough: can you do it small scale? Is it doable and doesn’t cost millions? Can you pull off in a couple of weeks or months?
5. Right: have you got the right dimensions? Does the microcosm mirror the whole? Do you see in the experiment the core issue that really underlies the fundamental situation you are wishing to address?
6. Relationally effective: are you leveraging the existing networks and competencies? When you deal with a number of other organizations and players, you want to come up with something where you can leverage the existing competencies in the network, and doing so will give you a jumpstart in addressing the challenge.
7. Replicable: can you scale it up? Could this go viral?

Collective Learning & Co-Creative Engagement

“None of us is as smart as all of us. …the problems we face are too complex to be solved by any one person or any one discipline. Our only chance is to bring people together from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines who can refract a problem through the prism of complementary minds allied in common purpose.”

Whether our quest is to solve complex social issues and wicked environmental problems, or our need is to create sustainable value in partnership with the entire value chain of suppliers, employees and customers, Collective Learning is an essential process for integrating and aligning diverse perspectives and knowledge. Over the past 25-30 years, our collective grasp of the interconnectedness of economic, environmental and social systems has risen greatly. We increasingly recognize that more synergistic, innovative and sustainable solutions can ultimately be developed when the collective intelligence and multiple perspective of many minds is focused together.

Collective Learning occurs though group conversations around questions that matter. Such conversations can take place either through one-time, multiple or ongoing activities involving in-person meetings or workshops, online- or tele- conferencing, or multiple engagement processes involving a combination of all of these. The goal of Collective Learning in an organizational or community group is to increase the collective knowledge, understanding, and capacity of members around the issue, such that independent individual action and decisions, as well as any collective action, can be aligned with the system’s interests.

Collective learning involves thinking and reflecting together about complex issues in order to generate new insights and possibilities. Such thinking must rise above the lowest common denominator of understanding often associated with debate to tap the full potential of collective intelligence and wisdom in the group.

Read the full paper I wrote in 2006 about Collective Learning and Co-Creative Engagement including such topics as:

• Collective Learning Antecedants
• The Art and Practice of Collective Learning
• Collective Learning Questions & Practices
• Co-Creative Engagement Methods
  

More on Hosting and Facilitating (cont'd)

I received an email from my friend Chris Corrigan in response to my previous blog as he was having trouble posting a comment. Hopefully I've fixed that problem and Chris can weigh back in directly as I truly value his contributions and how he stimulates my thinking. One of the questions Chris asked me is ".. what are the conversations that are alive and edgy in the communities of practice you are in? What is the living edge for C2D2 and IAF at the moment? I wonder how those of us around the world in these conversations can reach across our bounded communities and into, what, I wonder?"

There is a sense of discovery and newness in the AoH community - Chris refers to it as ‘wow…shiny!”, as for the first time people experience the power of co-creative engagement space. They contrast this to what they have known before and want to make distinctions, and ‘better than’, or ‘different than’, or ‘more than’, or ‘not that’ is often the result. Beyond my own personal experience, when I ‘listen in' to the AoH Flickr photos and other retreat AoH Harvests, and tap into the energy of the videos, I get a sense of how profound it is for people to connect in their humanity with others in natural, conversational space around deep questions. This is all new to them, potent, juicy, ‘real’, and I do understand it and am glad for it. Simultaneously I am wary that it not lead to division and hair splitting. To feel comfortable calling myself a member of the AoH community, I need what we do to be about strengthening the ranks of people who understand the importance, necessity and power of co-creative engagement, rather than contributing to distinctions amongst practitioners about whether a ‘host’ is different and superior to a ‘facilitator”.

Chris asks where is the ‘living edge’ of this similar excitement in other communities of practice, and I'm glad to have a chance to provide some context here. For the International Association of Facilitators, it showed up a long time ago – well over 13 years ago for me anyway at the 1995 Denver conference, when Billie Alban and Barbara Bunker featured their research findings about the power and potential of large group, whole system interactive methods. There was a palpable sense of discovery, amazement, and possibility at that conference, when I first learned about and subsequently began to attend training programs in all these methods – taking Harrison Owen’s 6-day training on Open Space with Dell Spencer, the Dannemiller Tyson training on Real Time Strategic Change, later rebranded as Whole Scale Change, Future Search and The Conference Model from the Axelrods and Sandra Janoff, Appreciative Inquiry from Gervase Bushe, Dialogue from Glenna Gerard, and so on. The excitement for these methods also showed up at the same time in the OD Network field.

For the Dialogue and Deliberation community, an explosion of interest and excitement in these methods took place in 2002 with their first conference of the National Coalition on Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD). A visit to the NCDD website is well worth it for the wealth of resources, materials, links, and connections to a huge community of communities - probably the largest intersecting gathering place of community and organizational interest from all avenues - practitioners, researchers, academics, community leaders, activitists. The Canadian Community for Dialogue and Deliberation (C2D2) is part of this phenomenal rise in interest, learning, application.

The Nexus for Change is another field where practitioners and the original founders of these methods are exploring what we know about whole systems and participative change and what were are learning so that each of us and all of us are more competent to act in these times.

More on Hosting and Facilitating

Yesterday I spent over half an hour viewing the "The Art of Hosting" video with interest as I have both attended and helped to host local AoH events. For me, the contribution of AoH to the field of facilitation and the nexus for change is about the integration, design, and flow of wholistic group methods that enable and support meaningful conversations and outcomes. I admit, however, to being dismayed to see rise up again the theme of wanting to create a dichotomy that sets "hosting" apart from "facilitation". As I understand it, the distinction suggests that facilitation comes from a 'mechanistic view' of organizations and communities, whereas hosting comes from a 'living systems' view. Quotes from the video that exemplify this:

Ravi Tangri: "A facilitator for me stands outside of the group like a symphony conductor guiding and controlling them with various processes. A host steps into the field of the system and senses what it needs to support itself on its way forward; a host provides the minimum amount of structure to allow the living system to align and self-organize and go where it needs to go."

Monica Nissen: "Facilitation for me has more a quality of entering outside the field and ‘doing something – making things easier’, whereas hosting is actually entering into the field and inviting people into your own field – the quality with which we tend to hold these processes."

This sense of a dichotomy is one that I have previously taken up on my blog - see Facilitation and Hosting: A Dichotomy or a Continuum with my colleague Chris Corrigan (and posted to the Art of Hosting listserve), and challenged as creating a real disservice to the field. The end result is that Chris agreed with the notion of a continuum, though he also advocated the importance of charting a path of wisdom from the start, so that facilitators learn how to work as a servant leader (or host) as they acquire new methods and processes.

Perhaps a clue to some of the underlying assumptions at play in the AoH community can be found in this statement on the video by Ravi Tangri: "While a good facilitator can work with maybe 50 people, a hosting team can work with 100’s and 1000’s of people at the same time, working with them as a living system."

As an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator who has used and blended whole system, large group interactive change methodologies such as Open Space, Real Time Strategic Change, Whole Scale Change, The Conference Model For Work Redesign, World Café, Appreciative Inquiry, Dialogue, Future Search, the ICA Technology of Participation, and many others since 1990, this statement is very surprising and reveals a misunderstanding of what a good facilitator actually is capable of doing and how s/he works. In my world, facilitators: 1) are skilled in large group methods; 2) do work collaboratively in partnership teams composed of facilitators and the client group; and 3) engage in real time redesign during sessions, as needed to respond to emerging issues and needs.

Leaving dichotomies of 'hosting' vs. 'facilitation' aside, as I continued to listen to the AoH video, to me the key point being made by Ravi Tangri and others which I fully agree with (though do not believe is unique to AoH) is the importance of attending to the living, interactive, conversational space that is created as we blend methods and processes. As servant leaders, our intent should be to ensure meaningful conversations and real work occur around those questions that profoundly matter to the client organizations and communities we serve, such that greater health and wholeness of the system is fostered.

(Ravi Tangri, AoH video) "... it is what connects all those practices, a resonance, a life pattern, a living systems pattern – all the methods are ways or entry points of how to be different with one another."

For me, masterful facilitation is both an outer art and an inner practice. "Outer facilitation" is the art (and technology) of assisting a community of participants to achieve their stated purpose and desired outcomes, through the skilful use and blending of methods and processes in accordance with principles and other articulated norms for working together. "Inner facilitation' - which my AoH friends would refer to as 'presence' is attending to what is actually emerging in the 'living field of interaction and community', and being willing to change the design to best serve the health and wholeness of the group in the moment.

(quote from AoH video) "... it is not the methodologies, because you can use those tools out of books, but about the art of what is needed inside oneself to sense what tools to use, how to design the processes the group needs to go through, what is needed inside yourself to hold a group of people".

Dialogue and Deliberation: Principle and Design Do’s & Don’ts

What are the keys to enhancing the effectiveness, outcomes and impact of our Dialogue and Deliberation practice, no matter what the methodology, scale and approach adopted?

This question was the focus of the Saturday morning plenary session at the first Canadian Conference on Dialogue and Deliberation in October 2005 in Ottawa Canada. The session was facilitated and designed by myself and Miriam Wyman, with input from Diane Abbey-Livingstone and Ray Gordezky, and Graphic Facilitation provided by Christine Valenza and Sara Waldston (whose image is shown here). The previous blog on the importance of purpose reminded me of this valuable work, and I want to ensure that the results are known and shared broadly. (What follows is extracted from the pdf report I co-authored and can be downloaded by following the link below.)

From the outset, we intended to offer the results of the Dialogue & Deliberation: Principle and Design Do’s and Don’ts plenary results as a ‘work in progress’ for continued refinement by the global D&D community, as part of C2D2’s contribution to the growing body of collective intelligence around D&D practice. After the conference, I compiled and consolidated the data, then met with Jan Elliott and Miriam Wyman by phone several times to further analyze and summarize the raw data into this Summary.

For the most part, we came out of this exercise feeling that indeed there are principles that are inviolate – things that must characterize any dialogue or deliberation process; these actually do underpin our work and guide us in design, implementation and follow-up. These include things like transparency about purpose, accountability, inclusivity, commitment to feedback - what Dr. Peter A. Singer has called “procedural values”. Design relates to aspects of the dialogue or deliberation itself, like matching approach to situation or numbers, ensuring comfortable and conducive physical arrangements, creating guidelines for engagement, etc. In general, design flows from principles, and careful design is essential to ensuring that principles are ‘lived out.’ That is, principles and design are very closely connected and not always easy to distinguish. So we found ourselves moving away from our initial idea of first identifying principles and then talking about design.

I invite you to download and use the Dialogue & Deliberation: Principle and Design Do’s and Don’ts Summary we compiled as a platform for further reflection and conversation. Researchers and practitioners may wish to flesh out this information further, add stories, and make it come alive, and share their findings through the NCDD website at http://www.thataway.org/ and/or the C2D2 website at http://www.c2d2.ca/.

Clarity of Purpose - Streams of Engagement Framework

In a recent Art of Hosting post, as well as in his blog, my friend and colleague Tenneson Woolf is inquiring into questions that invite real energy and focus into the purpose of a project, especially at the start of community or organizational engagement, and also to guide such initiatives once they are underway to ensure the original intent is not lost. He remarks that often there is a rush to 'jump in', overlooking this vital first step, and this may lead to stuckness later on.

When it comes to stressing the importance of being clear on purpose, I love Toke Paludan Moeller's wonderful quote: "Clarity of purpose is a sweet weapon against confusion”. This reflects my own experience that if you don't know where you're going, any road will lead you there, and don't be surprised if you find yourself lost, confused, frustrated, and de-energized in the process. The single most important task in the initial phase of engagement contracting is to clarify the 'why' of coming together, along with the 'what' of desired outcomes and deliverables.

In this regard, yet more of my friends have been grappling with the same issue at the National Coalition on Dialogue and Deliberation. The result is a wonderful resource developed by Sandy Heierbacher, ED of NCDD (presented in October 2005 with Tonya Gonzalez at Study Circles - now Everday Democracy national conference) and Jan Elliott (presented at the Facing Complex Issues Together Canadian Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation), entitled: NCDD's Engagement Streams Framework. Intended to assist in the process of clarifying purpose and the alignment of methods to serve that purpose, this free downloadable resource is a series of two charts that categorize the D&D field into four streams based on intention or purpose:

• Exploration - people learn more about themselves, their community, or an issue – and perhaps also come up with innovative ideas.
• Conflict Transformation - poor relations or a specific conflict among individuals or groups is tackled.
• Decision Making - solutions are generated and evaluated, a decision or policy is impacted, and public knowledge of an issue is improved.
• Collaborative Action - people tackle complex problems and take responsibility for solutions they come up with.

The framework shows which of the most well-known methods (e.g., Cafe, Dialogue, Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space, Study Circles, and so on) have proven themselves effective in which streams. The second chart goes into more detail about 23 dialogue and deliberation methods, and includes information such as group size, meeting type and how participants are selected.

The Streams of Engagement framework was featured in the May 2006 issue of IAP2's Participation Quarterly publication, was featured in a book published by the United Nations Development Programme called Democratic Dialogue: A Handbook for Practitioners, and is also described in Sandy Heierbacher's chapter on D&D in the 2nd Edition of The Change Handbook. It has also been used by numerous D&D practitioners to help community leaders and public managers understand their options. The resource can be downloaded free in the following formats as:

• A 9-page PDF resource
• A comic graphic representation of the 4 main purposes, and
• NCDD is in the process of developing a beginner's toolkit around this.

Masterful Facilitation Institute: Becoming An Inspired Facilitator

With my friend and colleague Brenda Chaddock, for the past couple of months, we have been busy developing our exciting 3-tier "Masterful Facilitation Institute: Becoming an Inspired Facilitator" (download overview PDF flyer).

Last July, we offered "Facilitating Wise Action for Lasting Impact" at Rivendell on Bowen Island in BC. It was sold out and a real success. Wise Action was initially conceived as a practically focused skill-building program for people who want to gain greater confidence in the process of convening, designing, and facilitating the engagement of communities or organizations. It is for people who are in positions where they are already asked to be the guide in the overall process of engagement, and to lead in a whole journey from the call to the plan for action. The program in particular was for facilitators and practitioners who had already attended previous AoH programs and attended Nexus for Change conferences, and wanted to understand more about the bones beneath the experience of hosting inquiry and conversation, to the methods, the principles, guidelines that often are tacit knowledge to a skilled facilitator.

We examined issues such as how to select the right process for different challenges and opportunities, and provided ideas for mixing and matching methods for effective outcomes around existing issues. Wise Action was a blend of formal teaching, action learning, experiencing, understanding the key elements of each methodology, of design principles, and of blending methods to achieve a desired result.

From last July’s experience, we realized that in order to build even greater facilitator competence and confidence, we needed to add two additional tiers, hence this year’s Institute which starts with building essential skills for guiding groups through "The Confident Facilitator" offering October 6-8, 2008, and "The Inspired Facilitator" October 27-29, 2008, which goes on to provide more opportunity for deep diving into the ‘moments of truth’ that inevitably arises – opportunities for group emergence. The difference between "Facilitating Wise Action for Lasting Impact" and "The Inspired Facilitator" is that the former focuses more on the engagement process and the blending of conversational methods for engaging communities and organizations in non-adversarial processes (in 1-day or several day engagements), whereas the latter picks up on ‘what do you do in the moment, once the engagement is underway, when things go awry, and/or when opportunity shows up? – either way, how do you facilitate emergence of group wisdom and dynamics? The two programs complement one another, with "The Inspired Facilitator" picking up where "Facilitating Wise Action" leaves off. Participants who took "Facilitating Wise Action" last July are telling us they are coming to "The Inspired Facilitator" this October. In a nutshell then, depending on existing knowledge and proficiency, the three Institute programs build and enhance confidence and skill at designing and facilitating successful meetings, retreats and sessions through these tiers:

• The Confident Facilitator: Essential Skills for Guiding Groups - a three-day experiential program (October 6-8 2008), focused on the foundational level of practical facilitation theory and practice at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, SFU in Vancouver, BC, Canada. If you or your staff regularly lead meetings in any setting, whether at work or in the larger community, solid facilitation skills are critical for obtaining successful outcomes. This facilitation workshop is a three-day experiential program that will give participants a practical foundation in facilitation theory and practice. As a competent, capable, and confident facilitator, participants will be able to use their skills and knowledge to achieve effective results in guiding and enabling groups to move towards their goals and find their own answers. Participants will know how to create participative environments, and use a variety of approaches to help groups achieve their objectives and desired outcomes. Participants will be able to honour and recognize diversity, support groups to higher performance and creativity, leverage different learning styles, and minimize tension and conflict. The regular registration rate for this program varies according to corporate or social profit sector. Learn more or register.

• The Inspired Facilitator: Achieving Mastery in Engaging Organizations and Communities - a deep dive into the principles, theories, practices, and processes for understanding, designing, and facilitating complex group dynamics and multi-stakeholder situations scheduled October 27-29, 2008 the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Using different theoretical frameworks as useful constructs, participants will dialogue, analyze, experiment and practice how to transform (and as needed, rescue) design and facilitation situations, nurture the emergence of group creativity and wisdom, while remaining centered, authentic and present.

• Facilitating Wise Action for Lasting Impact: Engaging Groups in Meaningful Conversations Around Complex Issues - a unique in-house learning intensive scheduled January 18-21 2009 (Bowen Island, BC) on how to facilitate conversational methods in communities and organizations for more cooperative and sustainable results. This program combines theory and practice around proven participatory methods used around the world (e.g., World Café, Open Space, Dialogue, Appreciative Inquiry, Deliberative Dialogue, etc.) for breakthrough thinking, decision-making and collaborative action.

INFORMATION: All three of these highly experiential programs are designed to help enhance facilitation performance to produce extraordinary group results. For more information, visit our website, download the full Masterful Facilitation Institute brochure, send me an e-mail: myriam@myriamlaberge.ca, or call me at 604-943-9133.

REGISTER: To register, please download the Registration Form and return completed to me by email at myriam@myriamlaberge.ca.

Women's Leadership Revival Tour with Meg Wheatley - April 29th in Vancouver

Another project that has been taking up a lot of my discretionary pro bono time is taking a coordinating role on the Core Host team organizing the upcoming April 29th Vancouver evening event with Meg Wheatley. We expect to be sold out this week, and are looking forward to a incredible evening of stimulating and inspiring inquiry into how women can step forward more fully with the gift of leadership in service of community. One hundred percent of the funds raised by this event will support the work of The Berkana Institute; click on the link to see the work with women and men in Latin America, Africa, Asia and North America. Along with an amazing local organizing group, we are also in the process of setting up a social network site for pre- and post- event connection and follow-on project work. We also intend to host whoever is interested in further conversation following an Art of Hosting format (World Cafe, Open Space, AI, Dialogue) - stay tuned!

Twitter - A New Tech Tool Goodie

Andy Fluke at the National Coalition on Dialogue and Deliberation has put me on to this 'mini-blogging' tech goodie, and I am testing it out. I have also added the application to synchronize Twitter and Facebook updates, though of course that would mean I actually would have to provide one :-)! Plus I have the updates linked into this blog - all so cool and instantaneous!

If you are already on Twitter, then you can follow me at http://twitter.com/myriamlaberge

Creativity of A Different Kind

I have been remiss adding to my blog since January with my focus taken up with many new ventures, including learning how to paint. Here is a picture of me beside an acrylic painting I submitted as part of the Poets and Painters art show at the South Delta Arts Gallery - it is called Old Light (on the right) and is of an old growth stand backlit through a sunny clearing.

Engaging People Around Climate Change

My friend Darcy Riddell at the Hollyhock Leadership Institute has sent me some very illuminating articles by Chris Rose and Pat Dade from the UK (Marketing and Cultural Dynamics Strategy) about engaging people in climate change and other environmental causes/behaviour change:

• Research Into Motivating Prospectors, Settlers and Pioneers To Change Behaviours That Affect Climate Emissions


• Using Values Modes
  

They use Maslow's hierarchy of needs to frame overarching and subset values. One of their essential points is that people engage in similar behaviours for extremely different value and motivational reasons. Knowing this provides insight on the importance of employing nuance in public engagement efforts to encourage sustainability effort, and how to use different language to speak to the different values of people at various developmental levels.

Darcy also provided a link to a very interesting new report, Mindsets in Action. It provides an Integral perspective on Corporate Sustainability and makes good links between mindsets, behaviour change, and the necessary relationship between expanding consciousness/personal development, and the ability to effectively lead change in complex environments. I especially like the application of Ken Wilber's comprehensive all quadrant approach rather than just a narrow set of success factors to understand what it will take to achieve sustainability.

Sometimes Facilitation Can Be Like Herding Cats

If you are a facilitator, then it is likely that you've heard, or worse yet, experienced the reality of the phrase that 'sometimes facilitation is like herding cats' (courtesy of youtube, and Tom Atlee of the Co-Intelligence Institute who brought it to my attention).

Collaboration As A Living Emergent Co-Creative Process

Two quotes came across my field of vision today, both speaking to the art of working in groups in a living, present, emergent way, mirroring some of my own thinking over the past few years.

"One primary qualification for guiding others in a living process is less on what we know and more upon our capacity for holding presence with the unknown; that is, to be curious and open to whatever is emerging in our awareness that appears to be fuzzy, ambiguous or unclear. This capacity for sense making is amplified when we are together and diminished when we are apart. There is a power that comes to us when we meet as an ‘ensemble’ where, for a moment, we forget ourselves and work for the benefit of the larger whole. Creating spaces for exploring what we do not yet know, spaces where we can be present to what is unformed and incomplete, sets in motion a process of unfolding order, a practice which has always been familiar for the artist but unfamiliar to others whose have been educated into a more parts-based mentality that is common in the industrial world. Once this living process is initiated, it will follow along the trajectory of its own unfolding potential—one that is natural, organic and unrepeatable—and which reflects the expression of wholeness as it appears to us in that particular moment." -- Michael Jones, Roots of Aliveness, Fieldnotes

"Humans in relationship with each other are, after all, living systems, and as such even a group of two people can be an incredibly complex system, bouncing between high degrees of chaos and order. So there is nothing whatsoever mechanical about human beings, and therefore any approach to working with humans – and life in general, is by definition a living systems approach....And so I am led instead to think about the attributes of living systems so that I might better understand effective ways of working with people." Chris Corrigan, Parking Lot

Chris and Michael's words echo the thinking I have done with my colleague Ann Svendsen as we've developed our Co-Creative Multi-Stakeholder Engagement model, which is grounded in a living systems view, and suggests that new ways of thinking, leading and engaging are required for innovative outcomes. Some of the characteristics from living systems that are important include:

New Ways of Thinking

• Systemic. A shift in thinking from a mechanistic consideration of separate parts to the relationships and dynamics of the functioning whole.
• Network-Based. Recognition of networks as the fundamental pattern of all living systems, and of human networks as complex adaptive systems. A ‘community’ is created over time around shared purpose, language and meaning , and the development of shared values, reciprocity and mutual trust in the longer term from being and doing together.
• Holistic. An integrative mindset where the aim is to evolve the whole system while allowing each “part” to retain its unique core identity and purpose.
• Sustainable. A focus on the social, environmental and economic considerations and impacts in both the short and long term.
• Inclusive. Engagement of all relevant and affected members of the system, rather than just those stakeholders who meet the test of credibility, influence and urgency. The organizing assumption is that there is strength and innovative potential in diversity.

New Ways of Leading

• Voluntary. Stakeholders are free to set their own priorities, and to contribute when and how much they wish. They engaged because they are motivated to do so, rather than ‘compliant’ and forced to participate.
• Relationship-Focused. Building connections, trust-based relationships, and mutual understanding is essential for effective system-wide action. Relationships between members of a network are dynamic – they grow, change and die out over time.
• Egalitarian. A co-creative approach is egalitarian where members of a system come together as equals to address shared issues and opportunities. Shared contributions, shared benefits, and respect for the contributions of all are important features of this approach.
• Common Good Focus - The focus is on seeking a common good and on finding common ground where stakeholders are willing to take action together in ways that integrate perspectives and benefit the whole.

New Ways of Engaging

• Learning-Focused. Creating opportunities for learning together about the history and points of view of other members, developing shared language, vocabulary, interpretations and mental models are all important aspects of building the will, intent and capacity of diverse networks to act together. Collective learning starts from the assumption that no one organization or individual has all the answers, and that addressing complex issues depends on integrated, innovative solutions co-created from all parts of a system.
• Authentic and Meaningful Dialogue. Transformative and learning conversations between stakeholders that support genuine interactions and communication are emphasized, rather than debate-based and polarizing appproaches.
• Self-Organizing. Ultimately, though there is usually a convenor, responsibility and leadership for outcomes is shared; leaders emerge rather than being assigned. This reflects the property of emergent systems to self organize and evolve to higher levels of orders that are both more complex and more capable.
  

For more information, read: Convening Stakeholder Networks

You Were Made For This

This message by Clarissa Pinkola Estes (author of Women Who Run with the Wolves) seems perfect as we move into the darkest and longest days of the year: "there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here." This is the full text:

"My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind. Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these—to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for."

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D
Author of the best seller Women Who Run with the Wolves

Effecting Systemic Change and Profound Innovation

When Adam Kahane was in town for the C2D2 2007 Vancouver conference, I was fortunate to be invited to a small invitational workshop hosted by the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University to explore some of his experiences and theories. Through his international consulting work with Reos/Generon Partners, and his colleagues Otto Scharmer and Peter Senge at the Society for Organizational Learning, Adam has contributed to the development and application of Theory U - a conceptual framework for thinking about deep collective change capable of bringing forth new realities in alignment with people's deepest aspirations.

Theory U is a helpful visual for understanding three smaller movements or 'spaces' - co-sensing, co-presensing and co-creating - representing the journey we must go through to effect systemic change and achieve profound innovation. Typically, in the face of simple or complicated issues (where the problem is knowable, even if difficult socially or technically), our habitual reactions are a linear progression or extrapolation of past standard responses to similar challenges. The journey to addressing complex issues as illustrated by the U can be thought of as these three broad, not necessarily sequential, movements:

• Co-Sensing - observing and listening with your mind and heart wide open through immersing yourself in current reality.


• Co-Presencing - retreating from current reality, to reflect and connect to inner knowing, inspiration and will, for what life calls you to do.


• Co-Creating - acting in an instant from a deep understanding of the whole, to prototype and embody new co-created and co-evolved approaches, solutions and responses.

In this framework, co-creation proceeds from agreement on a common purpose, but not necessarily on a common vision. Consistent with the philosophy of Future Search, parties agree to take action on perceived common ground, despite potential areas of significant disagreement, and learn by doing, that is, through fast-cycle prototyping where the extent of goodwill, commitment, understanding and trust are quickly establish in fact, rather than as possibility.

If we are trying to change reality, says Adam, then until we start to do something together, we haven't really done anything to truly change reality. The imperative in co-creation is to begin to act together much sooner than we are normally comfortable with, because until we do, what might be possible remains merely a theory.

Enhancing Capacity for Collective Action

Recently, I came across the term “civic agency” which in many ways is closely related to the term “co-creative power” that I've coined with my colleague Ann Svendsen. "Civic agency", according to Harry C. Boyte, the founder and co-director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship and author of Everyday Politics: Reconnecting Citizens and Public Life, is “the capacity of human communities and groups to act cooperatively and collectively on common problems across their differences of view. It involves questions of institutional design (that is, how to constitute groups, institutions, and societies for effective and sustainable collective action) as well as individual civic skills. Civic agency can also be understood in cultural terms, as practices, habits, norms, symbols and ways of life that enhance or diminish capacities for collective action.”

The Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute has developed a framework for building civic agency based on their theory of public work, which they define as “a sustained, visible effort by a mix of people that creates things - material or cultural - of lasting civic impact, while developing civic learning and capacity in the process”. The public work framework moves away from the dominant paradigm model of one-way expert interventions, to a citizen-centered approach that taps and develops diverse talents, and also away from the illusion that professionals can - or should - control processes and outcomes. Five key elements that underpin the public work framework include:

1. Surfacing the irreducible plurality of interests and ways of seeing the world which is part of the human condition, and understanding that at times interests can be integrated while at other times, merely mitigated.
2. Conceiving of the citizen as a co-creator of a democratic society - a problem-solver and co-producer of public goods, which is a far more robust definition than volunteer, voter, protestor, client, or customer.
3. Rooting action in the life of places and reconnecting it to mediating local institutions like schools, businesses, congregations, unions, and non-profits with local communities.
4. Re-conceptualizing the role of professionals from service deliverer and outside expert to collaborator, organizer and catalyst (on tap not on top), and recognizing that knowledge is co-produced by diverse groups, not simply academics, with the purpose of helping to animate the public world, and not mainly securing commercial gain or communicating to other academics.
5. Shifting the definition of democracy – so that it is not mainly about elections, laws, and institutions but rather about a society, a lived cultural experience; "not just out there in the public sphere", "but in here, at the very soul of subjectivity," and re-conceiving government not as prime mover but as catalyst and resource of citizens.

Inspiring Quotes on Leadership in these Complex Times

"We are crossing the river by feeling for stones." Deng Xiaoping on reform in China

"What does it mean to be a leader in complexity? It means accepting that certain aspects of our work are inherently unknowable. It means accessing the wisdom in our communities, rather than being the 'Big Brain' leader who provides the wisdom. It means not beating up on ourselves when we can't figure something out. Leadership in complexity requires different skills than traditional models of leadership. It requires us to think of leadership as inquiry, and this in turn means that we need to think much more critically about the kinds of questions that we ask. It may not be the answers that need changing, but the questions." Brenda Zimmerman, Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed


"There is no greater power than a community discovering what it cares about. Ask “What’s possible?” not “What’s wrong?” Keep asking. Notice what you care about. Assume that many others share your dreams. Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters. Talk to people you know. Talk to people you don’t know. Talk to people you never talk to. Be intrigued by the differences you hear. Expect to be surprised. Treasure curiosity more than certainty. Invite in everybody who cares to work on what’s possible. Acknowledge that everyone is an expert in something. Know that creative solutions come from new connections. Remember, you don’t fear people who’s story you know. Real listening always brings people closer together. Trust that meaningful conversations change your world. Rely on human goodness. Stay together." Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers, A Simpler Way, Berrett-Koelher Publishers

What Is The Work We Really Do?

In my previous blog conversation with my friend Chris, I am hearing that this deeper question, "what is the work we really do?" is underneath our seeking to find a way to define what we're up to, as we offer our service in the world as facilitators, consultants, coaches, educators, catalysts, hosts.

I resonate with Chris when he says we need new words to properly communicate a living systems practice and new ways of doing things. Perhaps this can be done through a set of words embedded together as holons. Inspired by some thinking of our mutual friend Tenneson Woolf, I found that the following relation of words helped me clarify the larger picture that my work is committed to, ("Focus" would be the larger holon within which "Work Mission" would be embedded, and "Avenues of Work Service" would be embedded within it):

My Focus: Conscious human evolution, whole system transformation and change, co-creative power, collective intelligence and wisdom - especially through groups, organizations and communities.

My Work Mission: Creating effective, empowering, healthy, unifying and uplifting spaces and experiences where groups, organizations and communities can discover, and take positive action towards, wholeness, deeper purpose, possibility and sustainable outcomes.

Avenues of Work Service: Design, facilitation, teaching, hosting/leading, co-creating, organizing, collaborating, speaking, writing, art-making, music-making, poetry-making – especially through group sessions, seminars, workshops, retreats, classes and virtual spaces.

Facilitation and Hosting - A Continuum or A Dichotomy?

Some recent blog musings by my friend and colleague Chris Corrigan on the distinctions between 'facilitation and hosting' stimulated me to clarify my own thinking, which in turn have led us to a further exchange and refinement of views (for the full thread, see Facilitation vs. Hosting - Parking Lot. Here is a brief extract that captures the essence of Chris's initial reflections:

"Facilitation comes from a mechanistic view of organizations, that they are machines that can be fixed.... Hosting, on the other hand, is a practice of leading from within a living system. It’s like entering the machine, becoming a part of it and changing it by being there... From a complexity stand point, facilitation is seen as a reductionist activity, reducing complexity to simple problems with simple outcomes and a simple path for getting there. Facilitators help groups to seek answers and end states. Hosting from within the field however is more aligned with the nature of complex systems, where there are no answers, but instead only choices to make around the next question, and the paths where those questions lead us." (November 20, 2007)

Here is my November 26th response to Chris post:

Chris, I appreciate the thoughtfulness and time you have committed to attempt to distinguish between facilitating and hosting; it is one that as a Certified Professional Facilitator with the International Association of Facilitators and as a Fellow of the Art of Hosting, I have grappled with as well.

We are in agreement about the need for leading from the emerging field within the living systems we are invited to serve, and of bringing our whole self to the work - all of our tools, insights, wisdom, processes, and other assets that may assist in enabling the wisest and most sustainable choices.

Characterizing facilitation as a mechanistic and reductionist activity, however, is where we disagree. As a professional facilitator, I do not see groups, organizations and communities - the client systems where I am called to assist - as machine problems to be fixed. Clients do not bring me into the relationship as a mechanic, but rather as an active partner and catalyst, where my process expertise and experience are to serve as 'evolutionary agent' towards a desired change or transformation.

As a facilitator, whenever I can, I work with a design team of the whole system throughout the convening and design phase of an engagement, so that together, our combined content and process knowledge can help ensure we develop the most effective and appropriate work we are capable of at this time, given what we know. Once the system convenes around the agreed upon agenda and process, however, there is clearly a need for a neutral and skilled facilitator that is trusted by all to remain in service of the whole system, and not perceived to have a bias towards a particular group, stakeholder, answer or direction.

The facilitator’s neutrality does not equate in my mind with being a mechanic; it is a role adopted on behalf of and in service of the whole system towards its greatest ongoing good. Within that role, it is still possible for me to 'lead from the emerging field' and to 'host consciousness' - in other words, to discern what is emerging, to sense the questions that need to be asked, to have the courage to name patterns, call behaviours, and to suggest changes in process direction - all in service of the group's larger health and wholeness. Up until now, I have called this "masterful facilitation", or "servant leadership"; it requires complete detachment from the outcomes, and no investment in being right, looking good, or making a difference. I am willing to also call it 'hosting' so long as in doing so, I am not agreeing to a dichotomy that I do not believe truly exists between facilitating and hosting.

I suggest that a true disservice will be created Chris, by fostering this distinction in the field. Instead, I would invite you to view hosting as the endpoint of the facilitation continuum – representing the deeper intention and commitment of the goal of facilitation – to host the highest and wisest good of the whole. Along this continuum, the student starts with technique and method, and as s/he gains experience and wisdom, is increasing is able to act as a true servant leader - courageous as a warrior, gentle as a midwife - a humble host who understands one’s self as an integral and inseparable member of the larger whole.

To which Chris responded on November 28th:

Thanks all for these comments. Myriam, you are right I think to call me on the dichotomy. I think this post was generated out of a call to see things like that, and I acknowledge that the raw dichotomy itself does a disservice to the continuum you point to so beautifully.

On one level our language doesn’t matter, and on another level it does. I don’t mean for this post to be a call to see oneself as one thing or the other - I will call myself a facilitator for a long time to come. Nor am I seeking a conflict between communities of practice that use one term or the other, because there IS no conflict there. I do, however think that language does belie some hidden cultural assumptions about things. I am inspired in this regard by Meg Wheatley’s practice of trying to exorcise mechanistic language from her vocabulary and see where that leaves us. We can certainly shift the meanings of words depending on how we use them, but to me it’s interesting to note what does pass for “facilitation” in the wider world and to see the assumptions that many people who are not facilitators hold about the work we do. In my experience, more often than not, the general population has a view of facilitation that is mechanistic or arises from the dominant mechanistic worldview - come and help us solve the problem, make things easier, make things run smoother. You are the guy with the tools…come work with us. It might not be how I actually show up, but the ground of expectation is set there.

You speak of “masterful facilitation” as a term to describe this shift from a beginning in facilitation to the practices I am also writing about. The only quibble I would have with this is the light implication that we move there from a place of being a student facilitator showing up with tools and techniques. It charts a path from technique to wisdom. I wonder if there isn’t another starting point. What if people were introduced to this field not through techniques and tools but rather through processes of presence? If the core practice of a masterful facilitator is leading from the field why not begin a path that is about learning how to be in that field first, how to work from within fields as a servant leader or a host? This is something I am trying hard to do with the people I run “trainings” with. Can we find our core capacities in being rather than in doing? What if we began the journey that way? Of what service could we then become? What implications would this path have for learning the art?

In practice of course, the dichotomy doesn’t matter and I agree wholeheartedly with the idea of a continuum. Those of us that do this work offer ourselves to the world in numerous ways, and that is all good. We are needed in the world in a diversity of ways. There really is no language that works for me to describe the kind of work I am doing with people, and any attempt to choose words comes with all kinds of implication. I have to be careful not to call myself a facilitator if the expectation is that I will behave in certain ways as a result. And calling myself a host in most contexts is even worse, because most people don’t even know what that means.

Although, like here, it is the conversation that might matter rather than the label. Thanks for these thoughts and for showing up in here with such strong and generous energy. Chris

And to which I then replied on November 28th:

Chris,

You ask, “what if people were introduced to this field not through techniques and tools but rather through processes of presence? If the core practice of a masterful facilitator is leading from the field why not begin a path that is about learning how to be in that field first, how to work from within fields as a servant leader or a host?”

What I meant about the ‘do be do be do’ comment earlier is that whether to start with presence or technique may be a conversation that does not lend itself to a ready or obvious answer. In our practice retreat Wise Action/Lasting Impact, we do both together - that is, strive to help participants learn to attend, or “be present to” in your language, both the ‘outer’ and ‘inner’ work of facilitation “as” they learn various facilitation methods/techniques.

Quoting directly from our program materials (download brochure - Wise Action/Lasting Impact) “outer facilitation is helping participants through the agenda in accordance with the purpose, principles and other articulated norms for working together. Inner facilitation is being present and attending to what is actually emerging, and being willing to change the design to best serve the group.” We go on to further help participants distinguish (and practice) these dual foci of facilitation, and provide these two lists to help clarify what to attend to:

Outer Facilitation During Event: Constantly Ask – What Will Serve the Group Now?

• Help participants pursue or explicitly revise the purposes and goals that brought them together, and the norms and agreements for how they want to work together.
• Stay focused on the agenda, framing questions and exercises from the methods selected within the time available.
• Coordinate activities and contributors (as appropriate to the method/process chosen).
• Model a spirit of openness, curiosity, respect & care.
• Collect group results/data for harvest; display group work/progress.
  

Inner Facilitation During Event: Constantly Ask - How Can I Nurture Emergence?

• Be fully present to the unfolding field. Attend to what is unfolding in real time versus original agenda.
• Continually ask: how can I best serve the whole for collective wisdom to emerge?
• ‘Dance’ flexibly with the design in response to group energy.
• Anticipate and be transparent about the ‘groan zone’ or other bumps. If/when it happens, be willing to stand in the creative tension to foster emergence.
• Demonstrate commitment to responsiveness, detachment, collaboration, co-design.”

I am grateful to you Chris for the opportunity you are providing to help clarify thinking about these two terms.

All the best,
Myriam

Convening Strategic Conversations Around Emerging Crises

Tom Atlee of The Co-Intelligence Institute and his daughter Jennifer Atlee, have initiated a very interesting conversation through the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation listserve on how to convene strategic conversations around emerging social and environmental crises to enhance how consciously our societies evolve, even as: 1)impacts arise faster than our understanding; 2) action lags behind understanding; and 3) time to think about issues — and resources to address them — decline as disasters increase. “How, they ask, "do we rapidly evolve models of inquiry to meet demands of the time?” or, from an evolutionary perspective “How can we enhance the potential evolutionary power and wisdom of conversation in times of crisis and catastrophe?” This conversation is worth following, and will hopefully lead to some tangible action on the part of the dialogue and deliberation, Nexus for Change, Art of Hosting, and 0ther related communities.

Adam Kahane - Facing Complex Issues

As an organizer of the 2007 C2D2 Vancouver Nov. 12-14 conference - Facing Complex Issues Together, I wasn't sure how much inspiration and new insights I would be able to take away. To my delight, two opportunities presented themselves for me to interact with and learn from Adam Kahane. Here are some of the 'golden nuggets' I retained from his talks:

• Sun Tze in The Art of War teaches the importance of solving tough problems without destorying the system, or 'taking whole'.


• Co-creating a better future requires both love and power. Love is the act of listening from a place of deep attending, compassion, and empathy - as if what is being spoken is sacred. Power is the capacity to achieve purpose and to act together. The most important outcome of a multi-stakeholder meeting then, is for people to find and commit to what they have energy and will to act upon together. (For an in-depth elaboration of his new thinking representing the last 15 years of his work, replete with case examples, see Adam's article, The Language of Power and the Language of Love, in Fieldnotes.)


• Quoting Martin Luther King Jr., "Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change. ... What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love."


• We can deceive ourselves with easy answers such as, "we're sure this is doing some good", "talk is work", and delay taking action until later when we hope all will see what we need to do. As long as we're not acting, says Adam, then we can imagine that we are in agreement. It is not until we actually start to 'do something' to transform and change current reality that we can actually determine whether there is in fact sufficient will to act. Action is the litmus test of whether we've had "good talk". The imperative then, especially in the face of complex issues like climate change where Mother Nature (and not humanity) is in charge, is to act together much sooner, learning by doing and by prototyping, in an ongoing process of action and response.


• The important questions to guide how we design our work in facing complex issues include: 1) How can we work systemically, generatively and participatively? 2) How can we move from downloading (what we know); debating (our positions) to reflective dialogue and presencing for real learning and understanding? 3) How can we put our purposes together first then decide on our ideas for acting together? 4) How can we become bilingual in the language of love and power?

Wise Action/Lasting Impact

These complex times call for meaningful involvement of people, tapping their collective intelligence and wisdom to co-create solutions that serve the common good. "Engaging Communities and Organizations for Wise Action/Lasting Impact: How to Convene, Design and Facilitate Meaningful Conversations Around Complex Issues" is a new program that I have designed and co-lead with my dear friend and colleague Brenda Chaddock.

Wise Action is a practically-focused, skill-building program for people who want to gain confidence in the process of convening, designing, and facilitating the engagement of a community or organization. It is for people who are in positions where they are already asked to be the guide in the overall process of engagement, and to lead in a whole journey from the call to the plan for action. The program is for facilitators and practitioners who want and need to understand the bones beneath the experience of hosting inquiry and conversation, to the methods, the principles, guidelines that often are tacit knowledge to a skilled facilitator. Wise Action is a blend of formal teaching, action learning, experiencing, understanding the key elements of each methodology, of design principles, and of blending methods to achieve a desired result.

The dates of our next offerings are January 18-21, 2009. A 3.5 day residential practice retreat on Bowen Island BC at the magnificent Rivendell Lodge (download PDF flyer - www.breakthroughsunlimited.com/wise-action.pdf). Register: myriam@myriamlaberge.ca

Understanding Complexity

Since last fall, I have been busily engaged with a group of volunteers across the country organizing the next Canadian conference on Dialogue and Deliberation - Facing Complex Issues Together, coming up in Vancouver BC, November 12-14, 2007 (do register if you haven't yet done so!). Here are some key research pieces I compiled to help us understand complexity.

Adam Kahane, author of Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities identifies three types of complexity: dynamic, social and generative. Dynamic complexity relates to the lags that occur in time and space between the actions taken by organizations (causes) and their consequent social and/or environmental impacts (effects). Social complexity arises from the diversity, multiplicity, and interdependence of stakeholders from different social, economic, political, geographic or other systems. Generative complexity arises from encountering issues, realities, problems and opportunities that have never before been faced by human beings, and where past solutions and methods no longer work or cannot be applied. Adam Kahane will be a guest panelist at C2D2.

Dr. Brenda Zimmerman (co-author of Getting to Maybe: How the World Is Changed) says that understanding whether an issue is simple, complicated or complex is critically important to how we go about addressing it. Solutions to complex issues require involvement of multiple views to gain as much of the whole picture as possible; dialogue methodologies are very helpful here. At best, it is important to recognize that we will likely only ever arrive at 'good enough for now' solutions to complex issues. At any time, dynamic, social or generative sources of complexity may cause today's solutions to become ineffective or irrelevant. A good example of this is the case of BC's interior pine forests. Hard-come-by plans to manage the forests sustainably have been dramatically altered by the arrival of the pine beetle due to climate change. The beetles are decimating the pine forests and transforming the landscape, ecology and local economies at a rate beyond anything previously envisaged. Such is the nature of complex issues.

• Simple - the issue is known; there is certainty of the same outcome every time; e.g., a recipe, a puzzle; an oil change.
• Complicated - the issue is knowable, even if very difficult technically; there is a high degree of certainty of the outcome; e.g., putting a spaceship on the moon; organizing a Live Aid concert.
• Complex - issue is unknowable; there is uncertainty as to the outcome; e.g., raising a child, achieving sustainability, reducing world hunger, addressing homelessness, reducing drug use. etc.

(Definitions extracted from Dr. Zimmerman's PowerPoint presentation, "Complexity, Mental Models and Ecocyle/Panarchy" delivered in Ottawa, 2007.)

Tapping Our Collective Capacity

In June, I had the fortunate pleasure to attend Otto Scharmer and Peter Senge's workshop, The Art & Practice of Presencing: Human Purpose & the Field of the Future at the Omega Point Center in Rhinebeck, NY (US).

Weaving together the experiences and stories from their two groundbreaking books, Presence: An Exploration of Every Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society, and Otto's new book, Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges, the workshop underscored how any profound change process, whether in a personal, organizational, or social setting, is the result of a journey that includes both tangible and intangible dimensions. This journey begins with the realization that novel, innovative and sustainable solutions require a higher level of consciousness to be tapped than that which created the current situation.

So many of our current attempts to address the complex issues before us fail dismally, suggests Otto, because of the 'blind spot' in our collective leadership and everyday interactions to the source from which effective responses and action actually come into being. A shift in the quality of leadership intention and attention is required from:

• downloading (listening to reconfirm what you already know), to
• factual listening (noticing to disconfirm what you know and notice what is different), to
• empathetic listening (redirecting your seeing through another's perspective), and finally to
• generative listening (connecting to a deeper realm of emergence; the emerging field of future possibility).

There are practices to help leaders develop a new consciousness and to tap collective leadership capacities to meet challenges in a more conscious, intentional, and strategic way. These involve developing an open mind, an open heart and an open will. The Presencing Institute has recently been launched to help refine this social technology, and make it available to change makers, innovators and communities.

Leading In A Complex World

What type of leadership is needed for wise outcomes to emerge from the engagement of communities and organizations? Some friends and colleagues are meeting this week in Belgium to ponder this question. I was also at a conference this week - "Changing Community Systems through Collaboration" where in many ways the same question was being asked. And the answer they came up with is about the importance of letting go of the 'expert' leader model and of inviting instead, diverse stakeholders to grapple with best solutions to complex issues along with them. Margaret Wheatley says,

"A leader is anyone who wants to help at this time. In fact, in this day and age, when problems are increasingly complex, and there simply are not simple answers, and there is no simple cause and effect any longer, I cannot imagine how stressful it must be to be a leader and to pretend that you have the answer. And a life-affirming leader is one who knows how to rely on and use the intelligence that exists everywhere in the community, the company or the school or the organization. And so these leaders act as hosts, as stewards of other people's creativity and other people's intelligence. And when I say host, I mean a leader these days needs to be one who convenes people, who convenes diversity, who convenes all viewpoints in processes where our intelligence can come forth. So these kinds of leaders do not give us the answers, but they help gather us together so that together we can discover the answers." >Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World, Berrett-Koehler Publisher

Fragmentation & Coherence

The ability of a community to collaborate is eroded by fragmentation into parts - diverse social networks with different values, vocabularies, histories, goals and purposes. Social complexity increases fragmentation. The greater the number of stakeholders, the more views exist about the nature of the issue (i.e., what the problem or opportunity really is), and the appropriate response.

"Fragmentation", says Jeff Conklin, CogNexus Institute, "suggests a condition in which the people involved see themselves as more separate than united, and in which information and knowledge are chaotic and scattered. The fragmented pieces are, in essence, the perspectives, understandings, and intentions of the collaborators. Fragmentation, for example, is when the stakeholders in a project are all convinced that their version of the problem is correct. Fragmentation can be hidden, as when stakeholders don’t even realize that there are incompatible tacit assumptions about the problem, and each believes that his or her understandings are complete and shared by all."

Collaboration is enabled by increasing the coherence of the group of stakeholders around an issue. Through respectful learning and inquiry, the shared base of understanding of the issue is built up, as is the shared commitment to wise action. Social coherence is the recognized sense of a larger integrity, unity or wholeness among the parts. It results in collective intelligence, where a larger picture than one's initial view emerges from understanding the different needs, interests, language, roles, positions and interpretations of all the stakeholders. Collective capacity is another outcome of social coherence - the ability of stakeholders to generate and act on, or at least to recognize and agree upon, a mutually acceptable response to a complex issue.

Changing Community Systems Through Collaboration

Ali Grant, who is leading an innovative program on collaborative efforts in complex times, told me about the above upcoming conference on June 5 and 6th in Abbotsford, Britich Columbia. The program is very reasonably priced and offers great content and process value on how to build strong and vibrant communities (Sherri Torjman, Caledon Institute for Social Policy), how to support sustainable change through comprehensive solutions (Jay Connor, The Collaboratory for Community Support) and how to develop comprenhensive community initiatives (Mark Cabaj,Tamarack: An Institute for Community Engagement).

Please register right away if you are interested in attending - there is still space (click on title link to download the PDF flyer).

Wise Action That Lasts

“The challenges of these times call for collective intelligence. We must co-create the solutions we seek… It is common sense to bring people together in conversation when you seek new solutions for the common good. When human beings are invited to work together, they will take ownership and responsibility for moving their ideas into action.” - Margaret Wheatley

Engaging Communities and Organizations for Wise Action That Lasts: How to Host, Convene, Design and Facilitate Meaningful Conversations Around Complex Issues is a program I will be co-leading with Brenda Chaddock on July 9-11, 2007 at Rivendell Retreat Centre on Bowen Island, British Columbia. The practice retreat is for those who aspire to engage their communities and organizations in focused meetings and conversations around real and pressing questions, and has grown out, and is in many ways an integral part, of the learning communities of Art of Hosting and the Nexus for Change. This experiential program combines theory and practice on meaningful and effective methods for engagement, using four participatory group methods used around the world for breakthrough thinking, decision-making and collaborative action: Dialogue, World Cafe, Open Space and Appreciative Inquiry.

There Is No 'Right' Answer for a Complex System

E.F. Schumacher, renowned economic thinker and statistician (author of Small Is Beautiful; A Guide for the Perplexed) pointed out that there are two types of problems: those for which there is a right answer (e.g., why is my engine leaking oil?), and those for which there is no one right answer (e.g., why are we running out of oil?). The more we learn about complex issues, the more we understand as Schumacher and Peter Senge (MIT Professor, author or The Fifth Discipline) say that "there is no right answer for a complex system". To find our way through complexity, we need to be willing to invite, and enter into, learning conversations with a broad diversity of people who each contributes a partial view, from which a wholer view emerges.

Openness and curiosity help us probe beneath familiar assumptions and territory to explore multiple perspectives in the promise of achieving a more expansive view. "This", says Senge, "is easy to say but extraordinarily difficult to do". Eventually, the wise path towards greater wholeness requires not only that we open our minds, but also our hearts to see how we, and not just them, are part of the problem. One more thing is need of true leaders, the courage to act upon this broader understanding.

See: Systems Citizenship: The Leadership Mandate for this Millennium, Peter Senge, Reflections.Solonline.org

Working Together on Large Scale Change

Many thoughtful people who have been committed to profound positive change for many years are taking time to stop and reflect together on what may be emerging from the nearly countless gatherings of people all over the world. This was the focus of a recent conference I attended with several friends, entitled Nexus for Change. Peter Block, who sat beside me during one intense Open Space session, had this to say before attending, "Working on our own, valuable as that might be, we will never have the impact that working in concert on a large, movement level scale might have. This conference holds the possibility of clarifying what we are learning and creating transformation in a way we have not yet imagined."

As Steve Cady (one of the authors of The Change Handbook -see reference in booklist below) opened the conference, he invited us to apply the notion of forgiveness as we move through an emergent conference design, remembering that emergent systems are messy, and require trust, learning and the willingness to stretch beyond our comfort zone so that something new can emerge. The conference was indeed messy at times, and it was also beautiful! We made connections with people whose work we have admired and applied, and with whom we've longed to engage with. We met exceptional and wonderful people who do this work all over the world, and forged new friendships and bonds that will surely last. We entered into passionate conversations and shared our stories. We shared the wisdom we have gained over the years. And we agreed that it's not over!

Personally, I came to the conference with one burning question, "What are the underlying patterns beneath the methods and processes for whole system change?" A large group of us coalesced around just this conversation convened by Emily Axelrod and Peggy Holman during an intense Open Space session at the end of the conference. The contributions were thoughtful and diverse; many different aspects of the underlying patterns were explored. We agreed that the conversation is not over. In the final Circle of the conference, we committed, Emily Axelrod, Sylvia James and I, that we will convene another conversation on the topic, and invite the group to meet again to continue deepening our understanding of this work, so that we may be more effective in the arenas where we work and ultimately contribute positively to the world that needs this work. Peggy Holman said it best about our deeper intention, "The faster we can scale this up in our extinction world, the greater the chance that it will still be here."

Advancing Human Capacity to Work Together

Recently I clarified my work purpose with the help of a wonderful coach. It summarizes down to this: To help advance human capacity to work together and co-create a desirable future. My specific contribution is primarily to design, facilitate, and teach about - effective, empowering, and inspiring processes where groups, organizations and communities can discover and take positive action towards wholeness, deeper purpose and possibility.

There are many others in the world with a similar focus and intent. The Collective Wisdom Initiative is just such a virtual community. Their Declaration of Intent states: "We know that people in groups can consciously generate collective wisdom and that individuals can cultivate their capacity to receive, to hear and to amplify wisdom in the communities they are called to serve. By coming together in groups to consciously generate collective wisdom, we believe we have the potential to heal conflicts that seem impossible to heal; embrace with compassion polarities and paradoxes that tear the fabric of our psyches and communities; and cultivate our capacities to love and forgive in groups splintered and polarized. We come together as artists, educators, mystics, practical idealists, scholars, activists, and especially pragmatists, bringing forward some of our own light and seeking to do together what is not possible alone."

The growing list of dedicated world servers on this site is uplifting, and I am honoured to have my co-authored piece on their website: Co-Creative Power: Engaging Stakeholder Networks for Learning and Innovation.

Another World Is Not Only Possible, It's Already Here

Following on the heels of last week's inspiring Appreciative Inquiry conference, I came across an example of AI in action, and it relates to a personal story.

During some of the remaining last days of the pre 9-11 era, on May 25th 2000 to be precise, I participated in a special dialogue hosted by the US National Security Commission on Building for Peace (see what I wrote about my experience, Dialogue: Organizing for Conflict Prevention). The unique idea I brought into the room was inspired by Barbara Marx Hubbard’s Synergy Centre concept - to create a new Peace Room function in the White House (and in all the government houses of nation states around the world) devoted to scanning, mapping, connecting and looking for what is working of local and global developments, innovations, discoveries and processes that contribute to a co-creative society (e.g., peace, security, sustainability and a humane, regenerative world). My fellow participants considered this to be a promising and bold social innovation that a visionary new American president might adopt (the dialogue results were to form part of the report of the USNSC to the President and Congress after the election). The post-9-11 reality took the United States in a different direction.

I discovered today that a group of people through WorldChanging.com have taken up a similar idea, and are doing just that – inviting people to look for what is working in the world. Their appreciative and simple premise is this: “that the tools, models and ideas for building a better future lie all around us. That plenty of people are working on tools for change, but the fields in which they work remain unconnected. That the motive, means and opportunity for profound positive change are already present. That another world is not just possible, it's here. We only need to put the pieces together.” They have already compiled a 600-page book of emerging innovations and solutions for building a bright green future, from disaster relief to sustainable business. What could be possible if people everywhere went looking for, and acted upon, what is right with the world?

Social Architects of the World We Want

"How can we design the social architecture of our organizations and communities so that our most cherished values are embedded in the underlying design (i.e., the relationships, practices, programs, processes, products, services, policies, communications and technology)?" - Diana Whitney, Creating Dynamic Destinies, Appreciative Inquiry Conference in Vancouver February 15-16, 2007.

This is the invitation of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) - the study of what gives life to human systems when they are at their best, and a process for translating 'our best' into the design of positive futures. The foundations of AI are:

• Wholeness - giving all stakeholders whose future is affected an equal voice.
• Story - engaging people in a narrative-rich exchange of personal experience to foster learning and deepen respect across boundaries of differences.
• Relationships - providing opportunities for people to make meaning together - and from a positive core, to discover how to co-create a desired future.

I feel privileged to have shared two intense days of learning and connection through a conference design that modelled how a social architecture can inevitably lead us to 'live our most cherished values' - intimate conversation even in large groups, supportive community, goal-setting grounded in our deepest values, and committed action based on voluntary, self-authored effort.

Tipping Point on Climate Change?

Catalyzing Large Scale Change Around Climate Change

Two positive developments this week:

• A truly promising initiative is being organized by AmericaSpeaks and Architecture 2030 to create a global interactive teach-in addressing climate change and the role of the architecture, planning and design communities in addressing it. Their goal is to reach more than 500,000 students, faculty, deans and practicing professionals in the architecture, planning and design communities in both North and South America. This is a wonderful example of how to catalyze concerted global and local action. What couldn't we do if we learned how to work in this way?
  
  
• Another great idea came across my virtual desk last week in the form of a request to help build a "global network of facilitators around the world who would engage local citizens in raising awareness of global warming and deliberating how to respond at their geopolitical level".
  

Conversation Week

Celebrating the Power of Conversation to Change the World.

"Have you ever wondered what would happen if the people of the world talked to each other about the most important questions of our times – and the world listened?"

OrangeBand, Conversation Café and dropping knowledge (with help from Skype) are hosting a global Conversation Week at the end of March, celebrating the power of conversation to change the world and the fifth anniversary of the launch of the Conversation Cafes. 'Serendipitously', following on my last post, this larger social event is coinciding with the date of our next local Saturday Soup Salon, so in an informal way, we'll be part of this initiative.

The provocative proposition of Conversation Week: "What if dialogue and deliberation had an Earth Day equivalent, a time to raise awareness and knowledge of the people, organizations, and models we have to promote meaningful conversation?" And what if, instead of one day, we had a whole week - a Conversation Week, March 25-31, 2007, on which to consider some important questions such as the following listed on the website:

1. What is the most important question in the world now?
2. What can we do now to make life better here?
3. What matters most?
4. What steps can we easily take now to solve our problems? What more challenging steps we could take that might solve even bigger problems?
5. How much is enough? For you? For others?
6. What one thing could I do this day that would do the most to help address the world's problems?
7. What question, if answered, do you believe could make the most difference to you, those you love, and the world at large?
8. What would a just world be like? What are we doing - or not doing - to have an such a world?
9. What do you do when self-interest and the common good seem in conflict?
10. What do we owe the future?
11. What is freedom for?
12. What is the good life?
13. What can make life better now and in the future?
14. What is the highest leverage action we can take to respond to the challenges of these times?
15. What is the economy for?
16. To whom or what does my life belong?
17. What is our responsibility to each other whether friend or foe?"
18. And many more.... see the website or add your own.
    
    
    

Turning to One Another (Saturday Soup Salons)

Since turning 50 last February, I have consciously entered an introspective cycle, listening within to sense - "where does my life energy most feel drawn to flow next?", and "how can I follow what is calling me forward into the second half of life with ease and grace - in fact, without burnout, through high leverage actions?" Then, a few months ago I attended a public evening with Margaret Wheatley in Vancouver, and was reminded of the importance of simple conversation. “I believe we can change the world if we start listening to one another again. Simple, honest, human conversation where we each have a chance to speak, where we each feel heard, and where we each listen well to our experiences, hopes and fears. This is how great changes begin.” - Meg Wheatley, Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future.

Meg's presentation helped me realize that authentic conversation is a powerful leverage point for social change. And this sparked in me the idea of hosting Saturday Soup Salons, to engage (for now) in conversation with thoughtful and reflective women around what is drawing us in our lives. Last Saturday, January 20th, eight of us gathered and shared deeply around one of Meg's questions, "What is your faith in the future?" Without divulging the content of our rich exchanges, I'd like to share some of the quotes and books that helped to seed our conversations.

• At the start, I read an excerpt from Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential by Barbara Marx Hubbard: "Social innovations are springing up everywhere. Thousands of acts of caring, sharing, healing and new solutions are emerging....However, will the convergence of positive innovations happen before the convergence of destructive tendencies? Will the planetary system repattern to a higher orcder, or will it fall apart into chaos, into environmental collapse that has also been predicted? This is the question. There is no guarantee that a dissipative structure will repattern to a higher order. It is merely a tendency, just as it is the tendency of each baby to survive, although many do not. It is precisely at this point that we need a new social innovation to facilitate the increased interaction among positive innovations - a new ground of the whole to facilitate this convergence - conscious evolution."


• And I shared a quote from Clarissa Pinkola Estés, from "Letter To A Young Activist During Troubled Times" "Do not lose heart, we were made for these times..."


• Several inspiring books and resources were mentioned (including two written by members of our Salon). These are listed in the sidebar under 'Books'.


• I closed the Salon with a reading of this poem, by Christopher Fry - A Sleep of Prisoners:
  The human heart can go to the lengths of God
  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 'til we take
  The longest stride of soul men 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?
  

Engaging Citizens Around Questions That Matter

Out of despair and extreme tragedy, new patterns of engagement are providing citizens with meaningful opportunities to be involved in the most important public decisions that impact their lives (see New Orleans and World Trade Center events below). What if this level of citizen engagement became the norm? What could we accomplish say, on the issue of climate change, by creating a collective agenda to bring together not just politicians, but also the various experts, side by side with citizens in all the regions of the planet, to learn together and coalesce the global will to act?

• "Displaced New Orleans residents gather to discuss how they'd like their city to recover, in an Internet-linked gathering that allowed for a conversation among some 2000+ of the city's current and former residents who are now in Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, and New Orleans. The participants focused on neighborhood stability; education; affordable homes and rent; roads; transit; utilities; health services; and other vital public services following a methodology designed by AmericaSpeaks." NPR http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6944978.
  
• Listening to the City - In 2002, AmericaSpeaks was honored with the responsibility of providing thousands of New Yorkers with a meaningful voice in the process of rebuilding the World Trade Center site. "I would be tempted to call it a turning point in the story not only of the World Trade Center, but of American planning in general. ... Thousands and thousands of people talking seriously about urban design is something I never thought I would see."New Yorker Magazine architecture critic, Paul Goldberger.

Something Is Emerging

I have always implicitly understood that the deeper purpose behind the work we do in organizational and community development is to consciously evolve our human institutions and ourselves towards our aspirations for a more positive and sustainable future. As Tom Atlee writes so eloquently below, through this work we become part of the evolutionary imperative that transformed star dust into ferns, eagles, children, and music. For good or ill, we are co-creators of the planet's future. It is high time we took our role of planetary co-creator seriously.

"Coherence is emerging among us, in many forms which, in turn, can interact towards greater coherence. That emerging coherence is potentially all-powerful -- and we are its life. Its potential will only be fully realized through our co-creation of it, building it through expanding understanding, not force, welcoming diversity and dissonance as guides to our next challenges en route to ever-greater coherence. When we join our power to this evolutionary imperative, and invite others into it, we become evolution, we become the whirlpool, we become the new civilization. We are that emerging world, waking up right now." Tom Atlee, Co-Intelligence Institute, http://www.co-intelligence.org, Nov. 26, 2006

Democracy and Citizen Engagement

"Elections do not equal democracy." Carlos Santiso, IDEA, June 2000 "Participation does not refer simply to voting... [but] requires that individuals have a voice in the decisions that affect them." Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist, World Bank

The institutionalizing of a democratic electoral process in Iraq (Bush, USA) represents only the 'form' of democracy. It does not equate to the creation of a democratic culture and country. The 'substance' of democracy is the free and open engagement of citizens in conversation, exchange and meangingful participation in the various aspects, levels and decision-making processes of governance in their country.

To the quotes above, I would add: "Referendums do not equal democracy."

After the 1995 Referendum in Quebec Canada, I was moved to organize People-to-People Search for Canada (an Open Space event), as an opportunity for ordinary citizens to participate in discussions on the future of Canada. I did not see the Quebec referendum process as a wholly democratic process because it excluded a vitally important stakeholder group from the decision-making process - the citizens of Canada outside Quebec. Beyond individual actions (writing letters, flying to Montreal), Canadian citizens were unable to participate in this crucial decision process which had the potential to dramatically affect their future forever.

Dialogue & Contribution to Human Consciousness (Spiral Dynamics)

(Inspired by Democratic Dialogue Handbook - see further below for extract)

Dialogue contributes to enhancing the level of individual and collective consciousness in groups, by expanding the level of understanding and awareness of issues and perspectives from "me" to "we". Dialogue helps move people from a self-centered, 'me' focus to a more aware and inclusive 'we' focus. At the beginning, participants engage in 'nice talk' - polite but guarded conversation where the core issues are only surfaced without speaking to the deeply held beliefs, histories, and values underneath. In 'tough talk", participants risk divulging the differences and tensions and disagreements that separate them from other views. In 'reflective talk', participants extend a willingness to consider and truly 'hear' the views of others, and in the final 'generative talk', participants see themselves as intrinsically bound within a larger whole and generate new options and solutions that are reflective of the shift from 'me' to 'we'. This movement in focus and relationships can be characterized as an enhancement in the individual and collective level of consciousness of the group.

Provocative Proposition Dialogue is a powerful process to enhance the level of human consciousness. The creation of more positive human futures depends on transcending competing and conflicting views to a larger and more compelling whole that all can align with. Don Beck in Spiral Dynamics calls this a 'supra-ordinate' goal - one that is desirable by all, but that none of the players can achieve on their own; it requires the active support and participation of the whole. Spiral Dynamics also suggests that the evolution of human consciousness from one development level to another is brought about by such supra-ordinate goals and shifts. Thus, dialogue can be seen as a powerful tool to contribute to a shift to higher human consciousness. (Caveat: Don Beck warns that dialogue - a primarily 'green' (communitarian; social-network) v-meme process, is totally ineffective to deal with 'red' (power; exploitive) v-meme situations and individuals. The only response that 'red' respects is a 'red/blue' response - consequences backed up with power.)

Dialogue as a Tool for Peaceful Conflict Transformation, The edition of Dialogue as a Tool for Peaceful Conflict Transformation, Magna Terra editores in October 2004.

• Nice talk - as the group first meets, conversation is limited to polite and guarded exchanges, and agreements on rules and norms of behaviour to ensure a sense of safety and order. Issues are raised superficially without delving into the underlying structures of belief, history, values and differences (cultural, religious, gender, age, etc.)
• Tough talk - participants take more risks to disclose their views, and to disagree; tensions, challenges; conflict issues become more visible
• Reflective talk - willingness to consider the issue from another's perspective; to hear, see, own the perspective of others - represents the first shift from 'me' to 'we'.
• Generative talk - participants recognize their interconnectedness to the larger whole, and generate solutions, options and possibilities reflective of that understanding; what is good for 'us' and not just for 'me'.

First Musings

On Procrastination

task without passion
attention wanders
emails beckon
anything to distract

is this really worth doing?
why bother?
who cares?
a million excuses not to do

try new technology goodies
skype
tagging
and blogging too

here goes....