One of the things I love about sport is the real life that happens out there. Nothing is predictable, nothing is a given. Competitors try themselves against each other, supporters follow and cheer them on and time is marked by transcdent moments on and off the field of play. The game is the setting for stories that are singular in occurrence or narrative arcs that span generations. While most of the world of sport has its attention turned to the Olympic games, my own attention yesterday was fully devoted to a critical match for the men’s team of the soccer …
Folks in Mitchell County, North Carolina, working with stories of substance use to discover patterns and generate ideas for supporting folks in active addiction and recovery and prevention. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reflecting on what participatory leadership really looks like. I use the word a lot in my work – teaching participatory leadership and participatory decision-making – and of course, “participation” is one of the four practices of the Art of Hosting. Hosting meetings and contexts for large-scale work means creating the conditions for participation. And it means learning how to be a good participant. Words like …
In Those Years In those years, people will say, we lost track of the meaning of we, of you we found ourselves reduced to I and the whole thing became silly, ironic, terrible: we were trying to live a personal life and yes, that was the only life we could bear witness to But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged into our personal weather They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove along the shore, through the rags of fog where we stood, saying I — Adrienne Rich, 1992, hat tip to Jim My …
Our gaffer Will Cromack moments after we won the League 1 BC Championship in August Today I’m travelling from Vancouver to Columbus Ohio via Chicago to resume an annual trip to that city I did for many years before the pandemic. My friend Phill Cass invites me to discuss complexity with physicians in the Physicians Leadership Academy he has been running for nearly a decade now. I love the trip because I get to catch up with my Columbus friends, to try some new ideas out in person and to stop over in Ontario and visit family on the way …
A box of donuts that Joanna Vervoza-Dolezal, the starting centre back for TSS Rovers, brought for the Swanguardians on the last game of the season. Reciprocity in support. Yesterday I had an informal call with a person who is leading up customer relationships for a large local company. The company is both a profit-making venture but also is a community institution and has a profile and responsibility beyond just the bottom line. We were talking about how the organization was stuck and the different approaches that the organization was taking towards customer relations when we stumbled onto an untapped area …