2011. A new year for us here at IISC to continue to move on the vision of ensuring that everyone engaged in social change work has some knowledge of and facility with Facilitative Leadership. Another year to restate and reframe the need for these critical skills to bring alive our goals of a more just and sustainable world. So why Facilitative Leadership? Here is my take . . . Read More
Toward the end of last year I tweeted about stumbling back upon Don Miguel Angel Ruiz’s Four Agreements, thanks to a reminder from a participant in the Hanley Center Health Leadership Development initiative. They were invoked as being key to keeping people grounded when their collaborative skillsets were being pushed to the limit by challenging circumstances. In thinking about these agreements more deeply over the winter break, they struck me as powerful and appropriate intentions to set for the new year, especially in our social change and sustainability work. Here they are with my own editorializing: Read More
Leave a commentAnother calendar year is coming to an end, and as of today, the seasonal darkness begins to recede. As I look forward to 2011 and the return of the light, I am reminded of the following words of George Bernard Shaw. Through them I find meaning in the busy-ness of life and blessing for the fullness of each day that calls on my whole self to be of service. May we burn brightly and steadily in the coming year and bring clarity and warmth to a world in need.
“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations”.
~ George Bernard Shaw~
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Thanks to the current ICL/Hanley Center Health Leadership Development class for the conversation that inspired this impromptu composition . . .
How Matters
How matters,
Perhaps more than you think.
Who you invite matters,
And how you invite them.
How you come together matters.
What you talk about and how you talk about it matters.
Where and how you start matters,
As does where you go next,
And where and how you end.
How matters.
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Ever since the mid-term elections, I’ve taken to choosing a politically-oriented question for the practice meetings I do with participants in our collaborative skills workshops. Specifically, in helping people to more firmly grasp the difference between content (an egg) and process (how you prepare the egg), I’ve invited participants to consider “process-oriented” changes they would like to see in our public leadership. It’s been interesting to see some of the common themes and requests emerge across the political spectrum. Below are some of the ideas that have come up for federal, state, and municipal/town levels:
I very much appreciate my colleague Gibran’s post the other day, questioning the degree to which slight shifts to the current system will make the differences we desperately need and seek. So, in asking for your additions to and comment on this list, I would also like to bring back a slightly altered question from his post – How do we organize public leadership in such a way that it supports our collective capacity to both address threats to the survival of our species and further our evolution?
Leave a commentIn order to make the point that the sky is the limit in terms of the way in which we bring people together to collaborate and ultimately realize social change, I’ve taken to showing the video clip above and the one below back-to-back in our Facilitative Leadership trainings. The point I am trying to make is not that any one approach is necessarily better than the other, but that there are a plethora of options available to leadership between herding and hosting “the people,” and that much of this comes down to context and what we are trying to achieve. If it is true, as Barry Oshry says, that the work of leadership is to create the conditions for systems (human and otherwise) to be able to cope with threats (survive) and prospect opportunities for development (thrive), then we will understand and embrace the vital leadership role of process designer and use it wisely.
As has been stated elsewhere and at various times on this blog, our current unpredictable times and the complex nature of social change work would appear to ask that we move away from the leadership tendency, particularly in stressful times, to suck up responsibility away from others and drive, drive, drive. There is a particular and worthwhile challenge in perhaps counter-intuitively and more strategically stepping back, and making repeated invitations and the space for people to join and shape emergent responses (free hugs, anyone?).
What are your thoughts and reactions?
Leave a comment“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”
-Leonard Cohen
Life and work certainly have been burning of late, and while I have been thankful for the opportunity across the board for full engagement of mind, body, and spirit, I am also missing some of my reflection and writing time. And now I hear the voice of Mr. Cohen again – “Forget your perfect offering, there’s a crack in everything, that is how the light gets in.” So here is my little offering of light as the seasonal darkness grows, in the form of a few questions that continue to smoulder throughout my work.
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Last month we were graced by the presence of Kathy Sferra, who was on loan from Mass Audubon. Kathy took the initiative to approach us about spending one month of her six week sabbatical apprenticing herself to IISC, observing and contributing to our work and taking the lessons back to her home organization. She began contributing instantly as a thought partner, often making keen observations and asking good questions that her relative outsider perspective afforded. As her parting gift to us, Kathy offered up the following reflections and take-aways, specifically with respect to designing and facilitating meetings and other convenings, that I wanted, in the spirit of the season, to re-gift and pass along: Read More
Leave a commentWishing you all a restful and nourishing Thanksgiving, along with reminders of the bounty that may be closer than we think.
The Wild Geese
Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer’s end. In time’s maze
over fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed’s marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.
From Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, by Wendell Berry. Copyright 1998 by Wendell Berry.
Leave a commentJust coming off the second public offering of Whole Measures: Transforming Communities by Measuring What Matters Most, IISC’s joint venture with the Center for Whole Communities. I have to say, the workshop experience keeps getting better and better. More is yet to come (next stop, New Jersey in March), and I wanted to offer these words as a way of summarizing our evolving co-creation.
What we talk about is what we see,
so must convene conversations that matter.
What we see is what we measure,
so we must see the whole (system).
What we measure is what gets done,
so we must measure what matters.
What must be done cannot be done alone,
so we must design and facilitate collaborative processes.
We cannot do any of this by transaction or command and control,
so we must embody transformational leadership.
Leave a commentSometimes it takes science a little time to catch up with the world’s wisdom traditions. Recent research findings from a couple of Harvard psychologists, Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert, confirm what meditation and mindfulness practitioners have long known – our ability to stay focused in the present has a strong correlation with contentment. Using data collected from a specially designed iPhone application, the researchers report that people spend nearly 47 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what’s happening in front of them. Furthermore, they find that, “Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people’s happiness. How often our minds leave the present, and where they tend to go, is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged.” You still with me?
My colleague Gibran Rivera has recently been blogging about Otto Scharmer’s Theory U, and the power of collective presence this framework promotes. Essentially, Scharmer affirms that how we attend and the quality of our individual and shared attention and intention affects what emerges. We know this from the simple and yet profound experience of listening to someone in a fully engaged way and or when we cultivate and participate in sacred spaces and rituals. In other words, “presencing” is not just about happiness, but ultimately new ways of seeing, being and doing. Knowing all of this, can we more boldly accept the invitation of mystics and poets in the midst of our otherwise mundane and muddled lives?
For Presence
Awaken to the mystery of being here
and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to
follow its path.
Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.
May anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of
soul.
Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek
no attention.
Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven
around the heart of wonder.
Last week I attended Pegasus Communications’ annual Systems Thinking in Action Conference in Boston and had the privilege of meeting and hearing from extraordinary people from around the country and globe, all interested in helping others to better see and work with wholes. From systems mappers and modelers to complex facilitation practitioners to researchers and preachers, my teachers were many. I was one of many tweeters spreading the wealth of wisdom cycling through that dynamic event and system. Here are some of my favorite take-aways in the form of quotes heard, read, and spiritually imbibed:
Make Change Stick Beyond the Meeting
Turn ideas into agreements that stick, and keep change going after the meeting ends. Perfect for teams stuck in “great conversation, little action.”