Just off of an amazing Skype conversation with Jack Ricchiuto who is the second person I’ve talked to about my suicide prevention project. We spoke about what an appreciative perspective might look like and what kinds of design questions might help to shape a community forum. Jack pointed me to his work on a process called DreamSpace whic is in his book on appreciative leadership. DreamSpace focusses on seven questions:

These are great questions for structuring a conversation in a group of any size. The twenty year time frame is especially appealing, as it asks us to look beyond one generation and it places our work in a much broader context.

Technorati Tags: skype, appreciativeinquiry, facilitation

I recently posted an invitation to help me design an appreciative summit and bits and pieces of a project designed to address Aboriginal youth suicide in north western BC. A small group of people have responded to that invitation from Ireland, India, the UK and right here in BC. Last night I had an amazing Skype conversation with Wendy Farmer-O’Neill from Gabriola Island, across the Strait of Georgia from Bowen Island, where I live.

We spoke about ways to represent the voice of the community and the loss from suicide in policy discussions. We also spoke about ways to connect the community’s heart to the heart of individuals who care to make a difference. It was an amazing conversation with a new friend who appeared out of the woodwork, just like in Open Space.

I’ll be using some of this thinking in my design conversations with my client in the next week or so. In exchange I filled Wendy in on some workshop development I have been doing and how it might be beneficial to some of her clients. I promised a future conversation with her to noodle around some ideas for her projects.

This is an exciting new way of working, posting an invitation on my blog and freely exchanging ideas with whoever shows up. And we’re working on real business here, in a gift economy, trading our intellectual capital with each other using relatively free technology. Skype is certainly a huge enabler of this for me, as a voice conversation over Skype is time saving and has the intimacy of a face to face conversation that email can’t capture.

When I’m done the project, I’ll post a bunch of the ideas that we have kicked around so others may harvest from our conversations as well. As long as we are talking openly with one another, I’m committed to sharing what I’ve learned with whoever else might find benefit.

If you’re interested in this invitation, just email me or Skype or leave a comment below.

Technorati Tags: Skype, facilitation

Organizations, leaders, people – in short, sponsors – who decide to take responsibility for convening an Open Space meeting often wonder what their role can be afterwards. In working recently with a community I asked the question to gather perspectives and one answer stood out:

That’s a lovely way to talk about holding space for learning, action or development.

Technorati Tags: leadership, openspace

On the OSLIST today, a question about success:

Often people expect big things from organizational development “interventions.” They wouldn’t do so otherwise. Retreats, planning sessions, Open Space forums…all come with the expectation that doing something significant will change things significantly.

In working with sponsors I do have conversations about what transformation really means and how willing people are to transform themselves to meet the new world they are wanting to be born. There is a real stretch in this work for people, to go into somewhere new while not abandoning what they know – the “safe ground” – even if the safe ground is no longer serving them very well.

Fear, trust, openness, chaordic confidence…all of these are emotions, practices and states we need to grapple with to open ourselves to transformation. We need to be able to embody change in order to be there to welcome it when it arrives.

And so for me success is relative, but what I really invite people to stretch into is that place where they can embody the success they want. If they can’t then we have to get real about what we’re willing to do.

But if they CAN get really big and offer themselves up for change, unbelievable things can happen. I’ve just seen it happen most recently in Prince George.

Technorati Tags: leadership, facilitation, openspace, success

Twenty years ago, in June 1985 I remember listening to the CBC at a friend’s cottage north of Toronto when the news came that Air India flight 182 from Vancouver to Delhi had been bombed out of the sky near Ireland. Three hundred and twenty-nine people, most of them Canadians died that day, including my friend Sanjay Sakhawalkar, his whole family and four other kids from my school. The summer of 1985 was filled with grief and sadness at the loss. I sobbed far more than a 17 year-old boy is supposed to. My dreams were filled with terrible recurring images of falling into the sea. All of us that knew people on that plane felt powerless, robbed of friends and family and determined to see justice brought against the murderers.

It was the worst act of air terrorism until September 11, 2001. An investigation began which soon targetted Sikh seperatists and several men were later arrested. After 19 years, the trial of the two principal suspects began and although the case was not watertight, a guilty verdict was anticipated.

Today the verdicts came and the news is appalling. A BC Supreme Court judge found the two men not guilty. And it’s not because these men are innocent (they are far from nice guys), but because the evidence that the Crown amassed and the witnesses they called were useless. The investigation was a shambles in many ways. At one point our ironically named intelligence agency erased key tapes of phone taps.

The Crown owes a huge apology to the families and friends of the victims of AI 182. Over 80 children died that day, including my friend Sanjay, a brilliant young man who we all knew was destined for great things. That the perpetrators of this crime are walking free makes the vomit rise in my throat.

No one has apologized for these crimes, or taken responsibility for them. I am really quite angry that I may never see the day when anyone does. We have seen the mass slaughter of Canadian children and adults and no one can nail the bastards who did it. It’s an outrage.

My heart goes out to the families.

Technorati Tags: AirIndia, terrorism