Part 1: Introduction to the model Part 2: A deeper dive into the model The two loops model emerged from many years of conversations amongst people working in the Berkana Exchange and their friends and mates in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As my friend Tim Merry pointed out on a comment at LinkedIn, the model itself was an emergent framework of how organizing happens on what we called back then “trans local” communities of practice. The Berkana Exchange was made up of many learning hubs around the world in places like Zimbabwe, South Africa, Senegal, India, Brazil, Mexico …
My Epiphone Emperor Joe Pass guitar upon which I am learning…leadership? Read on! It’s a cliche as old as time, one I have been guilty of using occasionally too. Leadership is like jazz, where the members of an ensemble support each other in improvisation. We listen carefully, respond to what each other is doing, offer creative responses and make something amazing together. Yes. Leadership is way more about improvisation than, say, following a step to step guide to assembling IKEA furniture. But there is another set of metaphors from jazz that I have never seen talked about, perhaps because it …
A piece of public art in Berne, Switzerland. Two chairs facing each other in dialogue, but chained to the walls behind them so they can never meet. At the conclusion of Alicia Juarrero’s new book “Context Changes Everything” she writes: “Neither puppets nor absolute sovereigns, human beings and the material and social forms of life they induce are true co-creators of their natural and social worlds. We serve as stewards of the metastability, coherence, and evolvability of both of these worlds. Matter matters. History matters. Social and economic policy matters. Most critically, however, because top- down causality as constraint makes …
An interesting rabbit hole was opened for me thanks to Tim O’Reilly’s cheeky claim that the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt created the “unconference” in 1828. Through a link on the OSLIST provided by Rolf Schneidereit I’ve just read Humboldt’s opening address at the “Meeting of German Naturalists and Physicians” held over several days and several locations in Berlin during September of 1878. The invitation was to break down barriers between scientists from multiple disciplines to explore diverging opinions and ideas. As Harrison Owen did a century later when reflecting on his development of Open Space Technology, Humboldt drew his …
I love Phil Cass. He’s one of my closest friends in the world of the Art of Hosting and is a long-time collaborator. I’ve been lucky to work with him on some BIG work over the years, including a national Food and Society Conference for the Kellogg Foundation and a two-year scenario planning process for a national effort to change the conversation on palliative care in the United States. These days I am on faculty with his Physicians’ Leadership Academy in Columbus, Ohio, where I get to teach complexity to a couple of dozen incredible physicians every year. Plus, he …