This fall I have been really lucky to study and work alongside Alissa Schwartz in New York and Wendy Morris in Minneapolis. Both of these women are actors and performance artists, and in my working with them I have become cracked wide open to the reality of leadership and ACTION as performance, best trained through understanding the relationship of the inner body to the outer, the presence of the individual in relation to the collective and relational field. Since connecting with the Applied Improvisational Network and working with colleagues Viv McWaters, Johnnie Moore and Geoff Brown, I have been learning …
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My friend Tom Atlee has been a remarkable documented of the lessons from the #Occupy movement. Since I was at Wall Street two months ago I have continued to be astonished at the creativity, leadership and communication styles emerging from the movement. Today though, Tom has a long post on perhaps the most astonishing event yet. Following the well publicized pepper spraying of students at UC Davis, a remarkable non-violent action took place to de-escalate the situation. Take the time to read the whole post and watch the full video. It is moving, inspiring and possible ground breaking in the …
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I have often had calls from clients in the past that begin “we are having a lot of communication problems in our organization. We think it is a good time to do some strategic planning.”. My common response to that is to point out that those two statements do not go together. If you engage in strategic planning, especially if that planning is looking at working with organizational structures, and you haven’t dealt with communication, interpersonal and power issues then there is a strong likelihood of those unspoken dynamics being built into your organizational structure. Silos get created for many …
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A lot of work I am doing these days centres on supporting activists. Whether it is through the Art of Social Justice, the work of addressing addictions related stigma in the health system, running a pro-action Cafe for the BC Government Employees Union Human Rights and Equity Conference, changing the conversation about immigration in the United States I am surrounded by people both within and outside of systems and corporate structures that are engaged in changing things. Over the course of the fall I’ve been thinking alot about what I have been learning about action from these folks. I think …
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Lawrence Lessig has noticed a very important practice that is emerging from the #occupy movement. It is the principle and the practice of non-contradiction: In this movement, we need a similar strategy. Of course a commitment to non-violence. But also a commitment to non-contradiction: We need to build and define this movement not by contradicting the loudest and clearest anger on the Right, but instead, by finding the common ground in our demands for reform. This is a a very useful contribution to the tools that are emerging from the #occupy movement. It is edgy because in traditional social activism …