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Category Archives "Uncategorized"

How to Save the World reading list

April 14, 2006 By Chris Corrigan Uncategorized One Comment

At How to Save the World Dave has posted a reading list which is essentially a “Shifting Your Worldview 101” syllabus.

Thanks Dave.

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Soup as invitation

April 12, 2006 By Chris Corrigan Invitation, Uncategorized One Comment

An Akan proverb:

“A good soup attracts chairs.”

Thanks Jeremy.

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Welcoming Annette Clancy to the blogosphere

April 10, 2006 By Chris Corrigan Facilitation, Uncategorized 2 Comments

I first met Annette Clancy when she responded to my call to help design the appreciative summit on Aboriginal youth suicide I did last May.   Now she has hit her stride in the blogging world with a great blog called “Interactions.”

Today she put out a super post outlining a process called Dynamic Participation, which contains 10 principles for her approach.

Good to see her in the game!

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The path of contemplative dialogue

April 10, 2006 By Chris Corrigan Conversation, Facilitation, Uncategorized One Comment

At the Public Resources page of the Center for Contemplative Dialogue you will find an interesting little publication called The Path of Contemplative Dialogue: Engaging the Collective Spirit (.pdf), by Stephen Wirth. In the book, contemplative dialogue is seen as radiating from some core principles:

  • Trust in the basic unity of human people and all life.
  • Nonviolence in spirit, word, and action.
  • Commitment to seeking truth with compassion and humility.
  • Commitment to speaking truth with compassion and humility.
  • Willingness to risk suspending the rush to action.

These principles are close to my core principles of facilitation but with some emphasis on truth that I’m toying with adding to my own list.

The implications of these principles and the process that emerges from them can extend in many places. In a recent discussion on the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation list, Wirth offered some insights into how to make large scale conferences worthwhile learning experiences using contemplative dialogue approaches:

Engaging a group seriously and looking at what its common purpose is, how its ability to learn well together affects the state of the organization or field, and honestly naming the problems that arise from the individual learning stance. This too is where distinguishing the possibilities of dialogue from discussion is significant. Dialogue used here in its technical sense of ‘building shared understanding’ and not just the interchangeable usage with the words discussion or conversation. Further distinguishing ‘learning’ as something more than drinking from the fire hose of ‘theory’ that usually gets sprayed out at such gatherings and consciously inviting/challenging the group to do something more than ‘the usual.’…

Blending meaningful input with thoughtfully designed reflective dialogue allows participants both to engage material and then broaden the groups thinking in relation to it. I assume an effective process requires a skillful blending of time to create safety for the group to speak well together, thoughtful process questions, and allowing meaningful time to reflect and speak to these questions.
Oftentimes I notice a dominant cultural value toward speed and productivity undercuts effective engagement of the group. To arbitrarily assemble groups of eight and give them eight minutes total to share their ‘most meaningful experience of dialogue’ with one another, is a kind of process violence I find all too common. A critical element of good process design requires walking back through the intended process and outcomes and looking realistically at whether the design can produce the hoped for quality of
group interaction.

I am in the midst of putting the final touches on a design for a large scale conference, and these insights could not have been more timely and useful.

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Spring in Ottawa

March 30, 2006 By Chris Corrigan Uncategorized 5 Comments

Ottawa, Ont.

A spring day in the nation’s capital, sunny and warm, everyone in short sleeves and the latest sunglasses, drinking beer on patios in the Byward Market and just showing off. I’m sitting in an old haunt called “Memories” on Clarence Street, in the shadow of the American Embassy that wasn’t here 12 years ago when I last lived in Ottawa. Beside me on the floor is a bag of Quebec cheese, some of which I am going to eat with my mother and father and sister on my mum’s birthday tomorrow.

Like every place I’ve lived in in my life, I really love this town. I especially love the feeling of it on a spring day like this, when the intense cold dark winter has released its grip and the whole place comes to life. Spring is the merest hint of a season in eastern Ontario, wedged uncomfortably between the last winter storm and the leaves coming out. Six weeks tops. The predominant odour is one of warm mud and the odd waft of dog poo. It’s not impressive and it reminds one of the flurry of disorganized activity that surrounds someone getting ready to go out to a party. That’s why its fun to be in Ottawa, a city that thrives on order, composure and protocol. In spring, the whole town and all its inhabitants seem to spring to life. Even the stodgy senior public servants and the overdressed political assistants are sporting yellow and light blue ties with their dark suits.

It’s a lovely, awkward and short-lived time. By the time the last piles of snow melt out of the shadows of buildings, people will have recovered their senses and switched to full on summer clothing, the leaves will burst out of the trees and the tourists will descend. Everyone here will recompose themselves and dutifully attend the bevy of free festivals and concerts and celebrations that last until the leaves start to turn and fall comes to put a stop to all the fun.

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