Archives
September 14, 2012
Facilitative Leadership® is a model of leadership rooted in a whole systems approach, shared power and decision-making, and collaborative skill. It is informed by some of the most important drivers of social change including a commitment to equity and inclusion and networks as levers for change, and a belief in love as a force for social transformation.
At the heart of the workshop are seven powerful leadership practices that will help you create a work environment distinguished by outstanding performance and personal satisfaction.
Read More
September 13, 2012
|Photo by Janet Ramsden|http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramsd/5364325861|
During Monday’s IISC staff meeting I read the following poem. It speaks to where many of us may find ourselves in this new season. And it encourages some resolve as we embark upon new directions, approaches, configurations, partnerships, breadths and depths with our social change work in these uncertain and pregnant times . . .
For a New Beginning
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge. Read More
September 12, 2012
“Look well to the growing edge. All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born . . . “
Howard Thurman
|Photo by Aldo Cauchi Savona|http://www.flickr.com/photos/cheekyneedle/60462071|
The following are some notes I jotted down as I got myself ready to facilitate IISC’s first staff meeting of the new season, and in full swing of our new President, Ceasar McDowell’s, tenure. The overall theme was one of new beginnings . . .
In preparing for today’s meeting I was thinking a lot about how I can often take for granted development, growth . . . evolution! In one moment I may be struggling with a challenge, straining with the growing pains and demands of a given situation and then a few moments (or hours or days or weeks) later I’m skating with relative ease to the rhythm of life and not even appreciative of that fact. I have simply moved on. But of course it wasn’t so simple – in many ways it was and is remarkable. Read More
September 11, 2012
There is nothing wrong with strategic planning – except when we believe that strategy unfolds as planned. A good strategic planning process is one that crystalizes our intention. It is the process through which we articulate a clear vision of where we want to go. And it is how we come to a clear agreement on which direction we are going to take. It is not insurance on the future. The map can never be the territory.
Read More
September 7, 2012
If you’ve been reading Curtis’ blog posts this week, you might be considering what it means to be an evolutionary. If you live in or near Boston, you should join us as we deepen this conversation.
Our friends at EnlightenNext Boston are hosting a dialogue between Amy Edelstein, senior teacher of Evolutionary Enlightenment and myself this Friday, September 21, 7:15pm – 9:30pm at Samadhi Integral in Newton Centre.
Read More
September 6, 2012
|Image from Anders Sandberg|http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenamontanus/273180669|
Yesterday I posted a bit of a summary of Carter Phipps’ provocative new book, Evolutionaries, which included the suggested trajectories from a variety of evolutionary thinkers and observers, including greater (and increasing rates of) external and internal complexity, convergence, creativity and change. The implications I left off with included a call for a stronger embrace of our creative self-starting (entrepreneurial) potential and also the necessity of engaging in more intentional and skillful collective (cooperative or collaborative) effort.
To take this another step, there is much in the evolutionary (biological/physical and philosophical/spiritual) literature that validates and extends our thinking about how to work with life and dynamic systems to steward change in broadly desirable, just, and life-affirming directions.
Read More
September 5, 2012
“Innovation is as much a function of the right kind of relationships as it is of a particular kind of individual vision.”
-Carter Phipps
I capped off my summer reading with what was for me a fascinating and important book – Evolutionaries by Carter Phipps. Phipps is the editor of EnlighteNext magazine and enthusiastic about the evolutionary worldview and how it is showing up in many different fields, from biology to sociology to philosophy and theology, transforming our very understanding not simply of the cosmos, but of ourselves. Over the past few years, readers of this blog have probably picked up on the interest that my colleague Gibran Rivera and I share with Phipps when it comes to the evolutionary worldview. Evolutionaries does a wonderful service in deepening and broadening as well as bringing much more nuance to this perspective, rendering it more timely, accessible and applicable to the work of social change. Read More
September 3, 2012
Happy 130th Birthday, [Organized] Labor Day!
On this Labor Day, let’s remember its origins in the ranks of organized labor. But first, a look at which workers we’re celebrating today.
Who’s unionized now? (Source: Huffington Post: Labor Day History: 11 Facts You Need to Know)
Service station attendants 96,000
Musicians, singers and related workers 179,000
Bakers 183,000
Pharmacists 232,000
Firefighters: 258,000
Chefs and head cooks: 281,000
Taxi drivers and chauffeurs 286,000
Hairdressers, hairstylists and cosmetologists: 718,000
Farmers and ranchers 825,000
Teachers 6.5 million
Not to mention health care workers, police and many other professions.
Read More
August 30, 2012
“Sensitivity can be very self-absorbing.”
-Bill Reed
|Photo by Dan Zen|http://www.flickr.com/photos/danzen/5611377054/in/photostream|
The older I get the more of an appreciation I have for science. Perhaps this is the natural balancing process that occurs over time in my Myers Briggs profile – more T to my natural F, more S to my natural N. It also owes to the impatience I have with the tendency I’ve noticed to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to social change. Two examples I’d like to lift up are thinking about and reactions to consensus and hierarchy. As I become more influenced by research into living systems, I realize that these concepts are often given a bad name because of our tendency to take (or make) things very personally. Read More
August 29, 2012
During a recent planning session for an upcoming conference on community food security, we had a rich discussion about ensuring that the gathering embody some of the future we are trying to realize. This included breaking down silos and encouraging boundary crossing of different kinds. To punctuate the value of this, Rachel Greenberger of Food Sol invoked the words of Cheryl Kiser – “It’s not about breakthrough ideas, it’s about breakthrough interactions.” Read More
August 28, 2012
August 27, 2012
The following is a letter by Akaya Windwood, President of the Rockwood Leadership Institute and member of the IISC Board of Directors.
Summer. Hopefully a time to slow down, find a beach or hammock and read all of the trashy books on the list. Time for ice cream and late night walks and sleeping late. Time to wear only comfortable, old at-home clothes.
Read More