Tag Archive: humor

January 27, 2021

Keeping Fires Lit and Wells as Full as Possible: Network Momentum During a Global Pandemic

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

Albert Schweitzer
Image from Sarah

As a number of networks I am supporting are settling into the lingering reality of operating within our COVID19 context (“2020 still feels like it’s with us!”), uncertain of what resolution will look like or mean, we have been having more conversations about how to maintain momentum around key goals (food justice, health equity, equitable conservation, climate adaptation and mitigation) and also lead with care, supporting collective regenerative capacity. Through explicit asking and reading what is coming up through people’s engagement, here are some ideas for how to keep movement going over this lengthening haul in sustaining fashion.

  • Put movement into the movement (literally invite people to move their bodies during and in-between on-line and phone meetings)
  • Leverage the power of one to one conversations (they can often be more nimble and dynamic, including having people walk and talk to one another)
  • Keep some meetings agenda-free (and follow the emergent energy)
  • Share stories, music, recipes, jokes, games
  • Stay open to spontaneity
  • Lean into humor!
  • Do a meditation, be silent together
  • Give grace – “It’s okay to not be okay”
  • Make space for teach-ins and knowledge sharing
  • Invite people to not look at screens, and to look out windows
  • Offer different kinds of conversation models – Six Conversations model, for example
  • Use flexible and asynchronous means/tools for moving work forward (Google docs, MURAL, etc.)
  • See, appreciate and “amplify” one another
  • Use more visuals to focus on tasks and be less presentation-oriented
  • Bring in pictures and sounds from the natural world
  • Keep more personal meetings shorter
  • Stay focused on what is essential and let the rest go (see the urgent/important matrix)
  • Schedule long meetings as multiple meetings with a shared agenda over time to break it up
  • Remember this is not ours alone to do or solve and that there are others out there, including those we do not know

What would you add?

We never know how our small activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness. In this exquisitely connected world, it’s never a question of ‘critical mass.’ It’s always about critical connections.

Grace Lee Boggs

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February 5, 2014

Networks for Change: Conditions for Success

The other day I was interviewed by Eugene Eric Kim for a project we are working on together, and he asked – “What are some of the keys to creating the conditions for successful networks for change?” I really like the question because it spurred some interesting reflection that yielded a few off-the-cuff insights that I wanted to share, extend, and test out here.

The phrase “Bring it!” came to mind as I was thinking about what is key to creating conditions for collaborative network success, with a number of iterative qualifiers: Read More

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February 20, 2013

Mischief-Making for Change

“The trickster is anybody who’s a bit of an outsider. They’re the ones who make change. They’re not thinking about making change; they’re almost doing it in a selfish way. But because they’re working outside the rules, they change the rules. Everything around them is always new, everything is an opportunity.”

Angela Cheng

Over the long weekend, my wife and I spent some time looking through the archives of old TED talks and stumbled upon a great one from humorist-philosopher Emily Levine where she talks about the important role of the trickster in facilitating change. Read More

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April 1, 2010

Humor for Our Humanity

laughter

|Photo by futureshape|http://www.flickr.com/photos/futureshape/2037704163|

(In the spirit of April Fool’s)

A town is hit by a fire that catches in the church district one evening.  As the fire spreads, so does word among the members of the neighboring congregations.  Before long, people have assembled in front of their respective houses of worship and are deciding what to rescue from inside.  A roving reporter goes from group to group to see how they’re responding.  She notes that the Catholics have already salvaged the communion cup.  Moving to the Episcopal Church, she witnesses a man emerging from smoke to cheers as he hoists the Book of Common Prayer.  The reporter heads next to the Unitarians, and as she approaches cannot see a particular object among the group assembled in the street.  Observing the expressions on peoples’ faces, she becomes alarmed that someone may still be inside the church, which is on the verge of collapsing.  As she gets closer she hears the group in heated debate about who should be on the ad hoc committee to make the final decision about what to rescue . . .

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