The Road to Wholeness

April 6, 2012 Leave a comment

“The most sustainable impact comes from our deriving meaning and then connecting that meaning to our purpose, to what we stand for, and to the contributions we make.”

-Dr. Monica Sharma

There is something about the invitation to health and wholeness and to talking about how to measure it that seems to be a real draw to our Whole Measures workshop, which we offer jointly with the Center for Whole Communities.  I can see it in the eyes of many participants as they walk into the room – “Tell us how!”  And there is a bit of a disruptive experience that occurs when we let people know it is not so formulaic.  One of my favorite quotes comes from my mentor Carol Sanford who has said, “Best practice obliterates essence,” and I think it really applies to what we are talking about here.

The work of measuring what matters in terms of healthy whole communities and organizations begins with the realization that each of these wholes has its unique essence, embodied in the values and deeper sense of meaning and purpose that are alive in those systems.  And so Whole Measures: Transforming Communities by Measuring What Matters Most begins with taking a systemic view to identifying the whole we are working within and the stakeholders that comprise it, and whose participation will be key in naming and fleshing out core values.  From here we engage in exploration of the practices of designing and facilitating processes and conversations that ultimately yield meaningful and qualitative measures of health and wholeness.

As is often the case in our work at both the Interaction Institute for Social Change and the Center for Whole Communities, the journey is as important as the destination. There is nothing pre-determined.  The road to wholeness and measuring what matters goes through inquiry, listening, dialogue, storytelling, emergence and co-creation.

If you would like to join us, an opportunity is most immediately available in San Francisco on May 1-3.  More information is available here.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *