I’m reading through Otto Schamer‘s Theory U again, this time with an eye to noting how his model and stories can inspire designs in my own work. I came across a story in the book (can’t remember where) in which Otto is working with a group to make some meaning and see patterns, as a way of sensing the bigger field of work. The group was given a transcript of a lot of information – interviews mostly and invited to circle or highlight those quotes that seemed to talk to the bigger patterns out there. then, as an exercise, each person read one out in turn and after a while the group reflected on what they were hearing.
This is an excellent excerise to create co-ownership over the harvest of the reams of material that come from large group processes. It is a great way to collaboratively sift through the material and make sense rather than having one person do all the reading and distill it for everyone else. Co-ownership over meaning, ensures accuracy and sustainability of results..
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Prince George, BC
Four years ago less a month I was running a huge Open Space event here in Prince George, in fact in the building that right outside my hotel room window. Called “Seeds of Change” the event was a kick off for the urban Aboriginal Strategy, a community driven and led process intended to begin and seed projects that would make a difference in the lives of the urban Aboriginal community in this northern city of 80,000 people.
One of the participants at that event was Ben Berland, who was at the time working with the Prince George school district as an Aboriginal coordinator. Ben had a vision of doing something really different within the education system here in PG. He built upon a long standing recommendation to start a different kind of school. He attracted a number of interested folks at the Open Space and moved his project idea forward.
A couple of years later, a task force was struck to study options for systemic change in the school system and one of their recommendations was to establish a primary Aboriginal Choice School within the school district.
The choice school idea is based on some very successful models in Edmonton and Winnipeg. Getting it rolling has been a lot of work for many people here in Prince George, but tonight was the first of four consultation cafes we are running with four inner city school communities to find out what it would take to make a choice school successful in this city.
Ben, who is now working with the local Carrier-Sekani Tribal Council showed up tonight to hold some space with us and help run some small group conversations. When he saw me the first thing he did was to remind me that this whole idea – four years in germination – had started at the Seeds of Change event.
This whole choice school initiative is a huge undertaking and it feels like in many ways the community here is just beginning its work, starting to engage in earnest with the complexities of finally implementing the idea that gained momentum across the street four years ago.
Things take time. It’s interesting that we know that and we forget it at the same time. We crave immediate results for our ideas. When we forget that things take time, we forget everything that has gone on to take us to the point where we are finally able to start something and we forget the people that laid the groundwork for things. So tonight I am sitting here grateful for Ben’s reminder about where things come from, and what it takes for big shifts to happen. It takes hard work, and a firm conviction and most of all, it takes time.
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My friend Carmen Pirie writes from Halifax about an Open Space event he facilitated in Newfoundland last week. To harvest proceedings, they used ning and a short video clip from each host.
I like what I see here.
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We’d like to invite you to join us for an Art of Hosting workshop here on Bowen Island in September. Myself, Monica Nissen, Caitlin Frost, Tenneson Woolf and David Stevenson will host you here at Rivendell Retreat Centre for three and half days of learning, exploring and playing with the art of hosting and harvesting conversations that matter.
Please grab the invitation, share with others and consider joining us. You can also register online through the Berkana Institute website. And if you are already registered, leave a note in the comments to let folks know who is coming. Confirmed participants already include bloggers, facilitators people working in business, tribal communities and in the food sector.
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Day three at Shambhala and I’m humming. The artists staged what I heard was an incredible improvisational performance today that took the idea of being together in a field to a whole new level. I was in a conversation with some Art of Hosting mates at the time that was alos about fields and we were cracking open some deep learning about the ways in which we work together as friends, but the upshot was the same.
At the faculty retreat last weekend I sat in with the artists and had a conversation that was about the kind of work that art makes possible. I posited the assumption that fields cannot be created without art, an assumption we explored both in conversation and with an improvisational piece. Today one of the artists in that conversation, Wendy Morris, told me that one of her takes on the rock balancing thing was that the rocks make visible the very fine lines of balance. In the same way, art can illuminate the fine and subtle dynamics in systems and in seeing them crystalized with beauty another level of awareness and possibility becomes visible. This is certainly true in my expereince using poetry and graphic recording to harvest meaning from conversational process.
I am learning this week to enter deeply into the practice of “process artist” and to invite other who might be deep practitioners of conversational arts to explore other forms as well and integrate it with their practice. It’s simply a way of seeing differently, and sense making in a way that invites collaborative beauty.
As a taste, my rock balancing student, Jean-Sebastien posted lovely video today which is worth a look – and yes this means you Thomas.