Today John Inman had a great post on using the world cafe for a five hour strategic planning session with a non-profit. His process works as follows: First I asked that the whole system be in the retreat. We had board members, a customer, grant writer, community member, and contractors. 1. Introduction in group setting 2. Introduce the process 3. Pose the question 4. Three cafe tables with three people each, start the cafe 5. Three rounds of conversation each 20 minutes 6. Returned people to original table and asked them to capture the main themes at each table. 20 …
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Adopting change as the point of working together. When so many efforts seemed aimed at preserving the status quo and mitigating the results of things that change and are not the same as before, what would happen if we adopted change as the point of things? Jack Ricchiuto on working with a group using this principle: As usual they are amazed at the pragmatism, efficiency, and wisdom of treating change as a tool of project success rather than a risk, liability, and cost. When change becomes key to how we design future projects, we work with an infinitely greater sense …
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“My grandmother was the one that inspired me,” said my friend Liz over lunch at the Valley Inn in Bella Coola. “She said that the world was once all together, and then it came apart and one day it will be all together again. So I just try to bring things together.” Liz is a pretty remarkable woman. She worked for years in family reunification in Vancouver, bringing together First Nations kids with their birth families, reconnecting them to their culture and communities. She is at home now in Bella Coola on council, working for the Ministry as a social …
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A cafe today, with littler preparation on the ground and a tricky issue in a community, but a good result today and some good learnings about harvesting. Here are my notes: Before we began the chief invited us to stand in a circle to pray and to have some introductions. I was introduced and invited the group to find beauty in the work here, identifying what they really cared about for the education of their young people. We stayed standing in the circle for a half hour while some of the Elders talked about how hurt they had been over …
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Ensconced at the head of an inlet in what has to be the most beautiful valley in BC. My commute yesterday to get here was a one hour flight from Vancouver over huge icefields, 9000 foot peaks, high mountain lakes and deep forested cirques. The landscape here is forbiddingly raw, and when the morning sun catches the blue glint of glacial ice in the cracks and crevacies on the icefall you are flying PAST (not over!) your heart just sings. In this tight little valley – now rain soaked and cloud choked – a few thousand people live cheek by …