Art of Participatory Leadership, day one

Toke and I along with our Estonian colleagues, Piret, Robert and Ivika, began our three day participatory leadershipworkshop today.  We were join at Altmoisa by 20 young-ish leaders who have been training together since the summer in the Art of Hosting and who have been using participatory meeting methodologies in the places of work.  Tis workshop is intended to take the exploration of those practices deeper, and extend the learning that comes from hosting into the realms of leadership.

This is the first Art of Hosting workshop I have done in a language different from mine.  Although most participants speak English (and I speak no Eesti) a few need whisper translation to follow along and Toke and I have someone whispering in our ears when others are speaking.  It’s going well, and I’m getting used to connecting with the speaker rather than the translater when folks are sharing thoughts and insights.

In the opening circle, which was around the questions of Who am I today and What has been a recent example of participatory leadership, I made a long poem harvest from the stories that were shared.  It’s clear here that people are both pressed for time, and feeling the need to feed a hunder in their organizations and communities for more participation.  Like everywhere, when folks get a taste of participation, they want more of it, and most folks are here to continue their learning and sharpen their skills in offering.

One thing Toke and I are doing is trying to reduce all of these concepts and practices to basics. What are the basics that you need to host participation, whether in a meeting, and organization or a community?  We riffed today on the four fold practice of the art of hosting, and explored the basic practices of being present, cultivating participation, being purposeful and practicing co-creation.  We taught for a while, combining a little aikido in with our work and then the group met in triads to crack questions for their learning agenda together.  We taught a little more and then went into a cafe to ground our learning, discovering where these basics show up in our lives and work and what the next level is regarding cultivating a deeper practice of these ways of working.

I like this idea of going back to basics, teaching the essence of practice and then having people find out how those things can take root and grow in different ways in their own lives.  It is a lovely way to take what ones learns as a host and extend it to other parts of one’s life, whether its parenting, living in community or be a participatory leader.