I’ve been using Dave Snowden’s conception of simple, chaotic, complicated and complex systems for a while. This video: How to organise a Children’s Party is a brilliant redux of these helpful distinctions.
This week I had the tremendous privilage to facilitate two days of Open Space for Xyolhemeylh, the Aboriginal child and family services agency in the Fraser Valley, east of Vancouver. The agency has been going through a lot of turmoil over the past few years, and has come to a point of reinvention. The theme of the gathering was “Reclaiming our Journey” and it marked a significant transition for the organization as it headed into community control from being managed by the provincial government for the past 2.5 years. The point of the Open Space meetings were to invite the Elder’s staff and Board of the organization to reflect on the values that the organization wanted to name for itself as it moved forward. Over two days 140 people participated in the two back to back open space gatherings. Forty discussion groups were held on values that staff in particular felt were important to take forward. There was lots of laughter (especially from the the group on “laughter!”) and some very important healing took place.
Our gathering was held in the community at Tzeachten, a small First Nation in Sardis near Chillliwack. The event was held in a ceremonial container over the whole two days, with traditional protocols being in place, “floor managers” operating to keep things happening in a good way and Elders actively involved in witnessing what was happening. All of these activities are deeply traditional Coast Salish ways of working, taken directly from the longhouse protocols and they are deeply important to the organization.
Heln and Herb Joe, two Elders I have tremendous respect for, held the space over the two days while I simply ran the process. In the middle of the second day, a full blown ceremony broke out, as the outgoing director was honoured for her work and the incoming director was given his proper welcome. Witnesses were appointed, songs were sung and many many gifts were given as the two individuals were honoured. Many teachings were shared during this two hour ceremony that just appeared in the middle of the day, but the most important one I think has to do with the fact that this agency, responsible for hundreds of children, and employing 150 staff, is considered a family.
“Xyolhemeylh” the word talks about the relationship between a parent and a child, and is a word that describes the quality of this relationship, full of care. The name is also carried by an individual, although it seems not be at present. This creates a very different form of organizational design. In Sto:lo culture, there is no word for adoption as there is no way for a child to be outside of family. Family is all encompassing and surrounds you even in periods where you feel alienated. Xyolhmeyelh has been in many ways outside of the family of Sto:lo communities for the past few years as the organization has weathered political storms and concerns over practice.
But this past week there seemed to be a reaffirmation of the fact that the agency has never left the bigger family. Our Open Space was a family gathering, intended to remind us of the values that are important and the children that need help, care and nurtiring if the future of First Nations is to be secured.
It was a truly wonderful gathering, the best of who we are. More photos, especially of Colleen Stevenson’s lovely evolving mural are here.
Fascinating read about the fall of East Germany and how the leaders in West, especially Thatcher, loved freedom, but loved order even more. For her, reunification was too chaotic. For Moscow, used to imposed control, they had no idea what people were thinking. The people finally just acted out of a basic self-organizing impulse, and Gorbachev, confused but bemused, let them go:
Moscow probably thought it could have it both ways: earn the gratitude of the East by liberalising the system and the gratitude of the West for promoting democracy and human rights. In fact, it reaped only mistrust and suspicion from the leaders on both sides.
It all changed after the Wall came down. Gorbachev began to get cold feet. He was furious at what he saw as triumphalism in the West, especially in Bonn. He complained that America was trying to force “Western values” on the Warsaw Pact. He savaged Helmut Kohl, the German Chancellor, for pushing the pace on reunification. Things were moving too fast for him as well as Mrs Thatcher. But that’s history. Events have a chaos and a momentum that no one can control.
A very cool read. Look at the official transcripts of the conversations between Thatcher and Gorbachev. Neither leader understood chaordic.
Sometimes we describe what we do with practing the Art of Hosting as bringin participatory leadership to life. THis can be a major shift in some people’s way of thinking. To describe it, Toke Moeller sent this around a few days ago – an explanation of participatory leadership in one sentence.
| How do you explain participatory leadership in one sentence? |
o Imagine” a meeting of 60 people, where in an hour you would have heard everyone and at the end you would have precisely identified the 5 most important points that people are willing to act on together.
o When appropriate, deeper engagement of all in service of our purpose.
o Hierarchy is good for maintenance, participatory leadership is good for innovation and adapting to change.
o Complements the organigramme units with task force work groups on projects.
o Look at how well they did it in DG XYZ – We could be the ones everybody looks at.
o Using all knowledge, expertise, conflicts, etc. available to achieve the common good on any issue.
o It allows to deal with complex issues by using the collective intelligence of all people concerned & getting their buy-in.
o Participatory Leadership is methods, techniques, tips, tricks, tools to evolve, to lead, to create synergy, to share experience, to lead a team, to create a transversal network, to manage a project, an away day, brainstorming, change processes, strategic visions.
o Consult first, write the legislation after.
|
Traditional ways of working |
Participatory leadership complementing |
| Individuals responsible for decisions | Using collective intelligence to inform decision-making |
| No single person has the right answer but somebody has to decide | Together we can reach greater clarity – intelligence through diversity |
| Hierarchical lines of management | Community of practice |
| Wants to create a FAIL-SAFE environment | Creates a SAFE-FAIL environment that promotes learning |
| Top-down agenda setting | Set agenda together |
| I must speak to be noticed in meetings | Harvesting what matters, from all sources |
| Communication in writing only | Asking questions |
| Organisation chart determines work | Task forces/purpose-oriented work in projects |
| People represent their services | People are invited as human beings, attracted by the quality of the invitation |
| One-to-many information meetings | A participatory process can inform the information! |
| Great for maintenance, implementation (doing what we know) | When innovation is needed – learning what we don’t know, to move on – engaging with constantly moving targets |
| Information sharing | When engagement is needed from all, including those who usually don’t contribute much. |
| Dealing with complaints by forwarding them to the hierarchy for action | Dealing with complaints directly, with hierarchy trusting that solution can come from the staff |
| Consultation through surveys, questionnaires, etc. | Co-creating solutions together in real time, in presence of the whole system |
| Top-down | Bottom-up |
| Management by control | Management by trust |
| Questionnaires (contribution wanted from DG X) | Engagement processes – collective inquiry with stakeholders |
| Mechanistic | Organic – if you treat the system like a machine, it responds like a living system |
| Top down orders – often without full information | Top-down orders informed by consultation |
| Resistance to decisions from on high | Better acceptance of decisions because of involvement |
| Silos/hierarchical structures | More networks |
| Tasks dropped on people | Follow your passion |
| Rigid organisation | Flexible self-organisation |
| Policy design officer disconnected from stakeholders | Direct consultation instead of via lobby organisations |
| People feel unheard/not listened to | People feel heard |
| Working without a clear purpose and jumping to solutions | Collective clarity of purpose is the invisible leader |
| Motivation via carrot & stick | Motivation through engagement and ownership |
| Managing projects, not pre-jects | Better preparation – going through chaos, open mind, taking account of other ideas |
| Focused on deliverables | Focused on purpose – the rest falls into place |
| Result-oriented | Purpose-oriented |
| Seeking answers | Seeking questions |
| Pretending/acting | Showing up as who you are |
| Broadcasting, boring, painful meetings | Meetings where every voice is heard, participants leave energised |
| Chairing, reporting | Hosting, harvesting, follow-up |
| Event & time-focused | Good timing, ongoing conversation & adjustment |
Reading David Holmgren’s book on Permaculture right now, sitting on my front porch overlooking the garden that we have created using some of his principles. I love the permaculture principles, because they lend themselves so well to all kinds of other endeavours. They are generative principles, rather than proscriptive principles, meaning that they generate creative implementation rather than restricting creativity.
At any rate, reading today about the principle of Design from Patterns to Details and in the opening to that chapter he writes:
Complex systems that work tend to evolve from simple ones that work, so finding the appropriate pattern for that design is more important than understanding all the details of the elements in the system.
That is a good summary of why I work so hard at teaching and hosting important conversations in organizations and communities. Very often the problems that people experience in organizations and communities are complex ones and the correction of these complex problems is best done at the level of simple systemic actions. Conversations are a very powerful simple systemic action, and serve to be a very important foundation for all manner of activities and capacities needed to tackle the increasing scale of issues in a system. Collaboration, dialogue, visioning, possibility and choice creating, innovation, letting go of limiting beliefs, learning, and creative implementation are all dependant on good conversational practice. If we use debate as the primary mode of communicating, we do not come to any of these key capacities; in fact debate may be the reason for these capacities breaking down.
Conversation between people is a simple system that is relatively easy to implement and has massive implications for scaling up to more and more complicated and complex challenges. The ability to sense, converse, harvest and act together depends on good hosting and good conversation.