Co-Creative Power

On the Other Side of the Door

2008-10-05T12:15:00.003-07:00

A hopeful poem in a time of chaos and upheaval...

On the other side of the door
I can be a different me,
As smart and as brave and as funny or strong
As a person could want to be.
There's nothing too hard for me to do,
There's no place I can't explore
Because everything can happen
On the other side of the door.

On the other side of the door
I don't have to go alone.
If you come, too, we can sail tall ships
And fly where the wind has flown.
And wherever we go, it is almost sure
We'll find what we're looking for
Because everything can happen
On the other side of the door.

by Jeff Moss, found in Teaching With Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach

Key Questions in Large System Change Solutions

2008-07-07T12:39:00.002-07:00

I love technology! I had been taking Otto Scharmer's online Presencing course with some 125+ folks from all over the world (a most worthwhile course by the way that I highly recommend!), and had not been able to complete the last couple of classes. So I just signed in yesterday, and there was Otto, as vital and interesting as the morning he originally taped the lectures live.

The fourth class topic is about the right-hand side of the U-curve, and prototyping, or how to put vision and intention on its feet with experiments that would allow an exploration of the future by doing. Otto shared seven great questions to ask in order to sort out which of the many possible ideas/solutions to prototype. I share them here, because I believe they have applicability not only in this type of situation, but also for just about any type of implementation planning. Here they are, with the source fully acknowledged as: Otto Scharmer, Presencing Global Classroom, Session No. 4, Prototyping, Weekly Thursday Sessions, March 20-April 17, 2008.

Relevant: Does it matter to the key stakeholders involved?
Revolutionary: can it change the system – the structure that created the problem in the first place?
Rapid: can you do it quickly?
Rough: can you do it small scale? Is it doable and doesn’t cost millions? Can you pull off in a couple of weeks or months?
Right: have you got the right dimensions? Does the microcosm mirror the whole? Do you see in the experiment the core issue that really underlies the fundamental situation you are wishing to address?
Relationally effective: are you leveraging the existing networks and competencies? When you deal with a number of other organizations and players, you want to come up with something where you can leverage the existing competencies in the network, and doing so will give you a jumpstart in addressing the challenge.
Replicable: can you scale it up? Could this go viral?

Collective Learning & Co-Creative Engagement

2008-06-16T19:09:00.005-07:00

“None of us is as smart as all of us. …the problems we face are too complex to be solved by any one person or any one discipline. Our only chance is to bring people together from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines who can refract a problem through the prism of complementary minds allied in common purpose.”

Whether our quest is to solve complex social issues and wicked environmental problems, or our need is to create sustainable value in partnership with the entire value chain of suppliers, employees and customers, Collective Learning is an essential process for integrating and aligning diverse perspectives and knowledge. Over the past 25-30 years, our collective grasp of the interconnectedness of economic, environmental and social systems has risen greatly. We increasingly recognize that more synergistic, innovative and sustainable solutions can ultimately be developed when the collective intelligence and multiple perspective of many minds is focused together.

Collective Learning occurs though group conversations around questions that matter. Such conversations can take place either through one-time, multiple or ongoing activities involving in-person meetings or workshops, online- or tele- conferencing, or multiple engagement processes involving a combination of all of these. The goal of Collective Learning in an organizational or community group is to increase the collective knowledge, understanding, and capacity of members around the issue, such that independent individual action and decisions, as well as any collective action, can be aligned with the system’s interests.

Collective learning involves thinking and reflecting together about complex issues in order to generate new insights and possibilities. Such thinking must rise above the lowest common denominator of understanding often associated with debate to tap the full potential of collective intelligence and wisdom in the group.

Read the full paper I wrote in 2006 about Collective Learning and Co-Creative Engagement including such topics as:

Collective Learning Antecedants
The Art and Practice of Collective Learning
Collective Learning Questions & Practices
Co-Creative Engagement Methods

More on Hosting and Facilitating (cont'd)

2008-06-13T10:36:00.010-07:00

I received an email from my friend Chris Corrigan in response to my previous blog as he was having trouble posting a comment. Hopefully I've fixed that problem and Chris can weigh back in directly as I truly value his contributions and how he stimulates my thinking. One of the questions Chris asked me is ".. what are the conversations that are alive and edgy in the communities of practice you are in? What is the living edge for C2D2 and IAF at the moment? I wonder how those of us around the world in these conversations can reach across our bounded communities and into, what, I wonder?"

There is a sense of discovery and newness in the AoH community - Chris refers to it as ‘wow…shiny!”, as for the first time people experience the power of co-creative engagement space. They contrast this to what they have known before and want to make distinctions, and ‘better than’, or ‘different than’, or ‘more than’, or ‘not that’ is often the result. Beyond my own personal experience, when I ‘listen in' to the AoH Flickr photos and other retreat AoH Harvests, and tap into the energy of the videos, I get a sense of how profound it is for people to connect in their humanity with others in natural, conversational space around deep questions. This is all new to them, potent, juicy, ‘real’, and I do understand it and am glad for it. Simultaneously I am wary that it not lead to division and hair splitting. To feel comfortable calling myself a member of the AoH community, I need what we do to be about strengthening the ranks of people who understand the importance, necessity and power of co-creative engagement, rather than contributing to distinctions amongst practitioners about whether a ‘host’ is different and superior to a ‘facilitator”.

Chris asks where is the ‘living edge’ of this similar excitement in other communities of practice, and I'm glad to have a chance to provide some context here. For the International Association of Facilitators, it showed up a long time ago – well over 13 years ago for me anyway at the 1995 Denver conference, when Billie Alban and Barbara Bunker featured their research findings about the power and potential of large group, whole system interactive methods. There was a palpable sense of discovery, amazement, and possibility at that conference, when I first learned about and subsequently began to attend training programs in all these methods – taking Harrison Owen’s 6-day training on Open Space with Dell Spencer, the Dannemiller Tyson training on Real Time Strategic Change, later rebranded as Whole Scale Change, Future Search and The Conference Model from the Axelrods and Sandra Janoff, Appreciative Inquiry from Gervase Bushe, Dialogue from Glenna Gerard, and so on. The excitement for these methods also showed up at the same time in the OD Network field.

For the Dialogue and Deliberation community, an explosion of interest and excitement in these methods took place in 2002 with their first conference of the National Coalition on Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD). A visit to the NCDD website is well worth it for the wealth of resources, materials, links, and connections to a huge community of communities - probably the largest intersecting gathering place of community and organizational interest from all avenues - practitioners, researchers, academics, community leaders, activitists. The Canadian Community for Dialogue and Deliberation (C2D2) is part of this phenomenal rise in interest, learning, application.

The Nexus for Change is another field where practitioners and the original founders of these methods are exploring what we know about whole systems and participative change and what were are learning so that each of us and all of us are more competent to act in these times.

More on Hosting and Facilitating

2008-06-02T13:30:00.009-07:00

Yesterday I spent over half an hour viewing the "The Art of Hosting" video with interest as I have both attended and helped to host local AoH events. For me, the contribution of AoH to the field of facilitation and the nexus for change is about the integration, design, and flow of wholistic group methods that enable and support meaningful conversations and outcomes. I admit, however, to being dismayed to see rise up again the theme of wanting to create a dichotomy that sets "hosting" apart from "facilitation". As I understand it, the distinction suggests that facilitation comes from a 'mechanistic view' of organizations and communities, whereas hosting comes from a 'living systems' view. Quotes from the video that exemplify this:

Ravi Tangri: "A facilitator for me stands outside of the group like a symphony conductor guiding and controlling them with various processes. A host steps into the field of the system and senses what it needs to support itself on its way forward; a host provides the minimum amount of structure to allow the living system to align and self-organize and go where it needs to go."

Monica Nissen: "Facilitation for me has more a quality of entering outside the field and ‘doing something – making things easier’, whereas hosting is actually entering into the field and inviting people into your own field – the quality with which we tend to hold these processes."

This sense of a dichotomy is one that I have previously taken up on my blog - see Facilitation and Hosting: A Dichotomy or a Continuum with my colleague Chris Corrigan (and posted to the Art of Hosting listserve), and challenged as creating a real disservice to the field. The end result is that Chris agreed with the notion of a continuum, though he also advocated the importance of charting a path of wisdom from the start, so that facilitators learn how to work as a servant leader (or host) as they acquire new methods and processes.

Perhaps a clue to some of the underlying assumptions at play in the AoH community can be found in this statement on the video by Ravi Tangri: "While a good facilitator can work with maybe 50 people, a hosting team can work with 100’s and 1000’s of people at the same time, working with them as a living system."

As an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator who has used and blended whole system, large group interactive change methodologies such as Open Space, Real Time Strategic Change, Whole Scale Change, The Conference Model For Work Redesign, World Café, Appreciative Inquiry, Dialogue, Future Search, the ICA Technology of Participation, and many others since 1990, this statement is very surprising and reveals a misunderstanding of what a good facilitator actually is capable of doing and how s/he works. In my world, facilitators: 1) are skilled in large group methods; 2) do work collaboratively in partnership teams composed of facilitators and the client group; and 3) engage in real time redesign during sessions, as needed to respond to emerging issues and needs.

Leaving dichotomies of 'hosting' vs. 'facilitation' aside, as I continued to listen to the AoH video, to me the key point being made by Ravi Tangri and others which I fully agree with (though do not believe is unique to AoH) is the importance of attending to the living, interactive, conversational space that is created as we blend methods and processes. As servant leaders, our intent should be to ensure meaningful conversations and real work occur around those questions that profoundly matter to the client organizations and communities we serve, such that greater health and wholeness of the system is fostered.

(Ravi Tangri, AoH video) "... it is what connects all those practices, a resonance, a life pattern, a living systems pattern – all the methods are ways or entry points of how to be different with one another."

For me, masterful facilitation is both an outer art and an inner practice. "Outer facilitation" is the art (and technology) of assisting a community of participants to achieve their stated purpose and desired outcomes, through the skilful use and blending of methods and processes in accordance with principles and other articulated norms for working together. "Inner facilitation' - which my AoH friends would refer to as 'presence' is attending to what is actually emerging in the 'living field of interaction and community', and being willing to change the design to best serve the health and wholeness of the group in the moment.

(quote from AoH video) "... it is not the methodologies, because you can use those tools out of books, but about the art of what is needed inside oneself to sense what tools to use, how to design the processes the group needs to go through, what is needed inside yourself to hold a group of people".

Dialogue and Deliberation: Principle and Design Do’s & Don’ts

2008-04-20T15:23:00.010-07:00

What are the keys to enhancing the effectiveness, outcomes and impact of our Dialogue and Deliberation practice, no matter what the methodology, scale and approach adopted?

This question was the focus of the Saturday morning plenary session at the first Canadian Conference on Dialogue and Deliberation in October 2005 in Ottawa Canada. The session was facilitated and designed by myself and Miriam Wyman, with input from Diane Abbey-Livingstone and Ray Gordezky, and Graphic Facilitation provided by Christine Valenza and Sara Waldston (whose image is shown here). The previous blog on the importance of purpose reminded me of this valuable work, and I want to ensure that the results are known and shared broadly. (What follows is extracted from the pdf report I co-authored and can be downloaded by following the link below.)

From the outset, we intended to offer the results of the Dialogue & Deliberation: Principle and Design Do’s and Don’ts plenary results as a ‘work in progress’ for continued refinement by the global D&D community, as part of C2D2’s contribution to the growing body of collective intelligence around D&D practice. After the conference, I compiled and consolidated the data, then met with Jan Elliott and Miriam Wyman by phone several times to further analyze and summarize the raw data into this Summary.

For the most part, we came out of this exercise feeling that indeed there are principles that are inviolate – things that must characterize any dialogue or deliberation process; these actually do underpin our work and guide us in design, implementation and follow-up. These include things like transparency about purpose, accountability, inclusivity, commitment to feedback - what Dr. Peter A. Singer has called “procedural values”. Design relates to aspects of the dialogue or deliberation itself, like matching approach to situation or numbers, ensuring comfortable and conducive physical arrangements, creating guidelines for engagement, etc. In general, design flows from principles, and careful design is essential to ensuring that principles are ‘lived out.’ That is, principles and design are very closely connected and not always easy to distinguish. So we found ourselves moving away from our initial idea of first identifying principles and then talking about design.

I invite you to download and use the Dialogue & Deliberation: Principle and Design Do’s and Don’ts Summary we compiled as a platform for further reflection and conversation. Researchers and practitioners may wish to flesh out this information further, add stories, and make it come alive, and share their findings through the NCDD website at http://www.thataway.org/ and/or the C2D2 website at http://www.c2d2.ca/.

Clarity of Purpose - Streams of Engagement Framework

2008-04-20T14:13:00.011-07:00

In a recent Art of Hosting post, as well as in his blog, my friend and colleague Tenneson Woolf is inquiring into questions that invite real energy and focus into the purpose of a project, especially at the start of community or organizational engagement, and also to guide such initiatives once they are underway to ensure the original intent is not lost. He remarks that often there is a rush to 'jump in', overlooking this vital first step, and this may lead to stuckness later on.

When it comes to stressing the importance of being clear on purpose, I love Toke Paludan Moeller's wonderful quote: "Clarity of purpose is a sweet weapon against confusion”. This reflects my own experience that if you don't know where you're going, any road will lead you there, and don't be surprised if you find yourself lost, confused, frustrated, and de-energized in the process. The single most important task in the initial phase of engagement contracting is to clarify the 'why' of coming together, along with the 'what' of desired outcomes and deliverables.

In this regard, yet more of my friends have been grappling with the same issue at the National Coalition on Dialogue and Deliberation. The result is a wonderful resource developed by Sandy Heierbacher, ED of NCDD (presented in October 2005 with Tonya Gonzalez at Study Circles - now Everday Democracy national conference) and Jan Elliott (presented at the Facing Complex Issues Together Canadian Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation), entitled: NCDD's Engagement Streams Framework. Intended to assist in the process of clarifying purpose and the alignment of methods to serve that purpose, this free downloadable resource is a series of two charts that categorize the D&D field into four streams based on intention or purpose:

Exploration - people learn more about themselves, their community, or an issue – and perhaps also come up with innovative ideas.
Conflict Transformation - poor relations or a specific conflict among individuals or groups is tackled.
Decision Making - solutions are generated and evaluated, a decision or policy is impacted, and public knowledge of an issue is improved.
Collaborative Action - people tackle complex problems and take responsibility for solutions they come up with.

The framework shows which of the most well-known methods (e.g., Cafe, Dialogue, Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space, Study Circles, and so on) have proven themselves effective in which streams. The second chart goes into more detail about 23 dialogue and deliberation methods, and includes information such as group size, meeting type and how participants are selected.

The Streams of Engagement framework was featured in the May 2006 issue of IAP2's Participation Quarterly publication, was featured in a book published by the United Nations Development Programme called Democratic Dialogue: A Handbook for Practitioners, and is also described in Sandy Heierbacher's chapter on D&D in the 2nd Edition of The Change Handbook. It has also been used by numerous D&D practitioners to help community leaders and public managers understand their options. The resource can be downloaded free in the following formats as:

A 9-page PDF resource
A comic graphic representation of the 4 main purposes, and
NCDD is in the process of developing a beginner's toolkit around this.

Masterful Facilitation Institute: Becoming An Inspired Facilitator

2008-04-06T19:22:00.011-07:00

With my friend and colleague Brenda Chaddock, for the past couple of months, we have been busy developing our exciting 3-tier "Masterful Facilitation Institute: Becoming an Inspired Facilitator" (download overview PDF flyer).

Last July, we offered "Facilitating Wise Action for Lasting Impact" at Rivendell on Bowen Island in BC. It was sold out and a real success. Wise Action was initially conceived as a practically focused skill-building program for people who want to gain greater confidence in the process of convening, designing, and facilitating the engagement of communities or organizations. It is for people who are in positions where they are already asked to be the guide in the overall process of engagement, and to lead in a whole journey from the call to the plan for action. The program in particular was for facilitators and practitioners who had already attended previous AoH programs and attended Nexus for Change conferences, and wanted to understand more about the bones beneath the experience of hosting inquiry and conversation, to the methods, the principles, guidelines that often are tacit knowledge to a skilled facilitator.

We examined issues such as how to select the right process for different challenges and opportunities, and provided ideas for mixing and matching methods for effective outcomes around existing issues. Wise Action was a blend of formal teaching, action learning, experiencing, understanding the key elements of each methodology, of design principles, and of blending methods to achieve a desired result.

From last July’s experience, we realized that in order to build even greater facilitator competence and confidence, we needed to add two additional tiers, hence this year’s Institute which starts with building essential skills for guiding groups through "The Confident Facilitator" offering October 6-8, 2008, and "The Inspired Facilitator" October 27-29, 2008, which goes on to provide more opportunity for deep diving into the ‘moments of truth’ that inevitably arises – opportunities for group emergence. The difference between "Facilitating Wise Action for Lasting Impact" and "The Inspired Facilitator" is that the former focuses more on the engagement process and the blending of conversational methods for engaging communities and organizations in non-adversarial processes (in 1-day or several day engagements), whereas the latter picks up on ‘what do you do in the moment, once the engagement is underway, when things go awry, and/or when opportunity shows up? – either way, how do you facilitate emergence of group wisdom and dynamics? The two programs complement one another, with "The Inspired Facilitator" picking up where "Facilitating Wise Action" leaves off. Participants who took "Facilitating Wise Action" last July are telling us they are coming to "The Inspired Facilitator" this October. In a nutshell then, depending on existing knowledge and proficiency, the three Institute programs build and enhance confidence and skill at designing and facilitating successful meetings, retreats and sessions through these tiers:

The Confident Facilitator: Essential Skills for Guiding Groups - a three-day experiential program (October 6-8 2008), focused on the foundational level of practical facilitation theory and practice at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, SFU in Vancouver, BC, Canada. If you or your staff regularly lead meetings in any setting, whether at work or in the larger community, solid facilitation skills are critical for obtaining successful outcomes. This facilitation workshop is a three-day experiential program that will give participants a practical foundation in facilitation theory and practice. As a competent, capable, and confident facilitator, participants will be able to use their skills and knowledge to achieve effective results in guiding and enabling groups to move towards their goals and find their own answers. Participants will know how to create participative environments, and use a variety of approaches to help groups achieve their objectives and desired outcomes. Participants will be able to honour and recognize diversity, support groups to higher performance and creativity, leverage different learning styles, and minimize tension and conflict. The regular registration rate for this program varies according to corporate or social profit sector. Learn more or register.

The Inspired Facilitator: Achieving Mastery in Engaging Organizations and Communities - a deep dive into the principles, theories, practices, and processes for understanding, designing, and facilitating complex group dynamics and multi-stakeholder situations scheduled October 27-29, 2008 the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Using different theoretical frameworks as useful constructs, participants will dialogue, analyze, experiment and practice how to transform (and as needed, rescue) design and facilitation situations, nurture the emergence of group creativity and wisdom, while remaining centered, authentic and present.

Facilitating Wise Action for Lasting Impact: Engaging Groups in Meaningful Conversations Around Complex Issues - a unique in-house learning intensive scheduled January 18-21 2009 (Bowen Island, BC) on how to facilitate conversational methods in communities and organizations for more cooperative and sustainable results. This program combines theory and practice around proven participatory methods used around the world (e.g., World Café, Open Space, Dialogue, Appreciative Inquiry, Deliberative Dialogue, etc.) for breakthrough thinking, decision-making and collaborative action.

INFORMATION: All three of these highly experiential programs are designed to help enhance facilitation performance to produce extraordinary group results. For more information, visit our website, download the full Masterful Facilitation Institute brochure, send me an e-mail: myriam@myriamlaberge.ca, or call me at 604-943-9133.

REGISTER: To register, please download the Registration Form and return completed to me by email at myriam@myriamlaberge.ca.

Women's Leadership Revival Tour with Meg Wheatley - April 29th in Vancouver

2008-04-06T19:15:00.004-07:00

Another project that has been taking up a lot of my discretionary pro bono time is taking a coordinating role on the Core Host team organizing the upcoming April 29th Vancouver evening event with Meg Wheatley. We expect to be sold out this week, and are looking forward to a incredible evening of stimulating and inspiring inquiry into how women can step forward more fully with the gift of leadership in service of community. One hundred percent of the funds raised by this event will support the work of The Berkana Institute; click on the link to see the work with women and men in Latin America, Africa, Asia and North America. Along with an amazing local organizing group, we are also in the process of setting up a social network site for pre- and post- event connection and follow-on project work. We also intend to host whoever is interested in further conversation following an Art of Hosting format (World Cafe, Open Space, AI, Dialogue) - stay tuned!

Twitter - A New Tech Tool Goodie

2008-04-06T19:11:00.004-07:00

Andy Fluke at the National Coalition on Dialogue and Deliberation has put me on to this 'mini-blogging' tech goodie, and I am testing it out. I have also added the application to synchronize Twitter and Facebook updates, though of course that would mean I actually would have to provide one :-)! Plus I have the updates linked into this blog - all so cool and instantaneous!

If you are already on Twitter, then you can follow me at http://twitter.com/myriamlaberge

Creativity of A Different Kind

2008-04-06T19:06:00.005-07:00

I have been remiss adding to my blog since January with my focus taken up with many new ventures, including learning how to paint. Here is a picture of me beside an acrylic painting I submitted as part of the Poets and Painters art show at the South Delta Arts Gallery - it is called Old Light (on the right) and is of an old growth stand backlit through a sunny clearing.

Engaging People Around Climate Change

2008-01-16T18:04:00.001-08:00

My friend Darcy Riddell at the Hollyhock Leadership Institute has sent me some very illuminating articles by Chris Rose and Pat Dade from the UK (Marketing and Cultural Dynamics Strategy) about engaging people in climate change and other environmental causes/behaviour change:

Research Into Motivating Prospectors, Settlers and Pioneers To Change Behaviours That Affect Climate Emissions

Using Values Modes

They use Maslow's hierarchy of needs to frame overarching and subset values. One of their essential points is that people engage in similar behaviours for extremely different value and motivational reasons. Knowing this provides insight on the importance of employing nuance in public engagement efforts to encourage sustainability effort, and how to use different language to speak to the different values of people at various developmental levels.

Darcy also provided a link to a very interesting new report, Mindsets in Action. It provides an Integral perspective on Corporate Sustainability and makes good links between mindsets, behaviour change, and the necessary relationship between expanding consciousness/personal development, and the ability to effectively lead change in complex environments. I especially like the application of Ken Wilber's comprehensive all quadrant approach rather than just a narrow set of success factors to understand what it will take to achieve sustainability.

Sometimes Facilitation Can Be Like Herding Cats

2007-12-24T10:58:00.001-08:00

If you are a facilitator, then it is likely that you've heard, or worse yet, experienced the reality of the phrase that 'sometimes facilitation is like herding cats' (courtesy of youtube, and Tom Atlee of the Co-Intelligence Institute who brought it to my attention).

Collaboration As A Living Emergent Co-Creative Process

2007-12-21T10:27:00.001-08:00

Two quotes came across my field of vision today, both speaking to the art of working in groups in a living, present, emergent way, mirroring some of my own thinking over the past few years.

"One primary qualification for guiding others in a living process is less on what we know and more upon our capacity for holding presence with the unknown; that is, to be curious and open to whatever is emerging in our awareness that appears to be fuzzy, ambiguous or unclear. This capacity for sense making is amplified when we are together and diminished when we are apart. There is a power that comes to us when we meet as an ‘ensemble’ where, for a moment, we forget ourselves and work for the benefit of the larger whole. Creating spaces for exploring what we do not yet know, spaces where we can be present to what is unformed and incomplete, sets in motion a process of unfolding order, a practice which has always been familiar for the artist but unfamiliar to others whose have been educated into a more parts-based mentality that is common in the industrial world. Once this living process is initiated, it will follow along the trajectory of its own unfolding potential—one that is natural, organic and unrepeatable—and which reflects the expression of wholeness as it appears to us in that particular moment." -- Michael Jones, Roots of Aliveness, Fieldnotes

"Humans in relationship with each other are, after all, living systems, and as such even a group of two people can be an incredibly complex system, bouncing between high degrees of chaos and order. So there is nothing whatsoever mechanical about human beings, and therefore any approach to working with humans – and life in general, is by definition a living systems approach....And so I am led instead to think about the attributes of living systems so that I might better understand effective ways of working with people." Chris Corrigan, Parking Lot

Chris and Michael's words echo the thinking I have done with my colleague Ann Svendsen as we've developed our Co-Creative Multi-Stakeholder Engagement model, which is grounded in a living systems view, and suggests that new ways of thinking, leading and engaging are required for innovative outcomes. Some of the characteristics from living systems that are important include:

New Ways of Thinking

Systemic. A shift in thinking from a mechanistic consideration of separate parts to the relationships and dynamics of the functioning whole.
Network-Based. Recognition of networks as the fundamental pattern of all living systems, and of human networks as complex adaptive systems. A ‘community’ is created over time around shared purpose, language and meaning , and the development of shared values, reciprocity and mutual trust in the longer term from being and doing together.
Holistic. An integrative mindset where the aim is to evolve the whole system while allowing each “part” to retain its unique core identity and purpose.
Sustainable. A focus on the social, environmental and economic considerations and impacts in both the short and long term.
Inclusive. Engagement of all relevant and affected members of the system, rather than just those stakeholders who meet the test of credibility, influence and urgency. The organizing assumption is that there is strength and innovative potential in diversity.

New Ways of Leading

Voluntary. Stakeholders are free to set their own priorities, and to contribute when and how much they wish. They engaged because they are motivated to do so, rather than ‘compliant’ and forced to participate.
Relationship-Focused. Building connections, trust-based relationships, and mutual understanding is essential for effective system-wide action. Relationships between members of a network are dynamic – they grow, change and die out over time.
Egalitarian. A co-creative approach is egalitarian where members of a system come together as equals to address shared issues and opportunities. Shared contributions, shared benefits, and respect for the contributions of all are important features of this approach.
Common Good Focus - The focus is on seeking a common good and on finding common ground where stakeholders are willing to take action together in ways that integrate perspectives and benefit the whole.

New Ways of Engaging

Learning-Focused. Creating opportunities for learning together about the history and points of view of other members, developing shared language, vocabulary, interpretations and mental models are all important aspects of building the will, intent and capacity of diverse networks to act together. Collective learning starts from the assumption that no one organization or individual has all the answers, and that addressing complex issues depends on integrated, innovative solutions co-created from all parts of a system.
Authentic and Meaningful Dialogue. Transformative and learning conversations between stakeholders that support genuine interactions and communication are emphasized, rather than debate-based and polarizing appproaches.
Self-Organizing. Ultimately, though there is usually a convenor, responsibility and leadership for outcomes is shared; leaders emerge rather than being assigned. This reflects the property of emergent systems to self organize and evolve to higher levels of orders that are both more complex and more capable.

For more information, read: Convening Stakeholder Networks

You Were Made For This

2007-12-19T13:34:00.000-08:00

This message by Clarissa Pinkola Estes (author of Women Who Run with the Wolves) seems perfect as we move into the darkest and longest days of the year: "there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here." This is the full text:

"My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind. Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these—to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for."

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D
Author of the best seller Women Who Run with the Wolves

Effecting Systemic Change and Profound Innovation

2007-12-06T16:25:00.000-08:00

When Adam Kahane was in town for the C2D2 2007 Vancouver conference, I was fortunate to be invited to a small invitational workshop hosted by the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University to explore some of his experiences and theories. Through his international consulting work with Reos/Generon Partners, and his colleagues Otto Scharmer and Peter Senge at the Society for Organizational Learning, Adam has contributed to the development and application of Theory U - a conceptual framework for thinking about deep collective change capable of bringing forth new realities in alignment with people's deepest aspirations.

Theory U is a helpful visual for understanding three smaller movements or 'spaces' - co-sensing, co-presensing and co-creating - representing the journey we must go through to effect systemic change and achieve profound innovation. Typically, in the face of simple or complicated issues (where the problem is knowable, even if difficult socially or technically), our habitual reactions are a linear progression or extrapolation of past standard responses to similar challenges. The journey to addressing complex issues as illustrated by the U can be thought of as these three broad, not necessarily sequential, movements:

Co-Sensing - observing and listening with your mind and heart wide open through immersing yourself in current reality.

Co-Presencing - retreating from current reality, to reflect and connect to inner knowing, inspiration and will, for what life calls you to do.

Co-Creating - acting in an instant from a deep understanding of the whole, to prototype and embody new co-created and co-evolved approaches, solutions and responses.

In this framework, co-creation proceeds from agreement on a common purpose, but not necessarily on a common vision. Consistent with the philosophy of Future Search, parties agree to take action on perceived common ground, despite potential areas of significant disagreement, and learn by doing, that is, through fast-cycle prototyping where the extent of goodwill, commitment, understanding and trust are quickly establish in fact, rather than as possibility.

If we are trying to change reality, says Adam, then until we start to do something together, we haven't really done anything to truly change reality. The imperative in co-creation is to begin to act together much sooner than we are normally comfortable with, because until we do, what might be possible remains merely a theory.

Enhancing Capacity for Collective Action

2007-12-05T10:48:00.000-08:00

Recently, I came across the term “civic agency” which in many ways is closely related to the term “co-creative power” that I've coined with my colleague Ann Svendsen. "Civic agency", according to Harry C. Boyte, the founder and co-director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship and author of Everyday Politics: Reconnecting Citizens and Public Life, is “the capacity of human communities and groups to act cooperatively and collectively on common problems across their differences of view. It involves questions of institutional design (that is, how to constitute groups, institutions, and societies for effective and sustainable collective action) as well as individual civic skills. Civic agency can also be understood in cultural terms, as practices, habits, norms, symbols and ways of life that enhance or diminish capacities for collective action.”

The Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute has developed a framework for building civic agency based on their theory of public work, which they define as “a sustained, visible effort by a mix of people that creates things - material or cultural - of lasting civic impact, while developing civic learning and capacity in the process”. The public work framework moves away from the dominant paradigm model of one-way expert interventions, to a citizen-centered approach that taps and develops diverse talents, and also away from the illusion that professionals can - or should - control processes and outcomes. Five key elements that underpin the public work framework include:

Surfacing the irreducible plurality of interests and ways of seeing the world which is part of the human condition, and understanding that at times interests can be integrated while at other times, merely mitigated.
Conceiving of the citizen as a co-creator of a democratic society - a problem-solver and co-producer of public goods, which is a far more robust definition than volunteer, voter, protestor, client, or customer.
Rooting action in the life of places and reconnecting it to mediating local institutions like schools, businesses, congregations, unions, and non-profits with local communities.
Re-conceptualizing the role of professionals from service deliverer and outside expert to collaborator, organizer and catalyst (on tap not on top), and recognizing that knowledge is co-produced by diverse groups, not simply academics, with the purpose of helping to animate the public world, and not mainly securing commercial gain or communicating to other academics.
Shifting the definition of democracy – so that it is not mainly about elections, laws, and institutions but rather about a society, a lived cultural experience; "not just out there in the public sphere", "but in here, at the very soul of subjectivity," and re-conceiving government not as prime mover but as catalyst and resource of citizens.

Inspiring Quotes on Leadership in these Complex Times

2007-12-03T11:11:00.000-08:00

"We are crossing the river by feeling for stones." Deng Xiaoping on reform in China

"What does it mean to be a leader in complexity? It means accepting that certain aspects of our work are inherently unknowable. It means accessing the wisdom in our communities, rather than being the 'Big Brain' leader who provides the wisdom. It means not beating up on ourselves when we can't figure something out. Leadership in complexity requires different skills than traditional models of leadership. It requires us to think of leadership as inquiry, and this in turn means that we need to think much more critically about the kinds of questions that we ask. It may not be the answers that need changing, but the questions." Brenda Zimmerman, Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed

"There is no greater power than a community discovering what it cares about. Ask “What’s possible?” not “What’s wrong?” Keep asking. Notice what you care about. Assume that many others share your dreams. Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters. Talk to people you know. Talk to people you don’t know. Talk to people you never talk to. Be intrigued by the differences you hear. Expect to be surprised. Treasure curiosity more than certainty. Invite in everybody who cares to work on what’s possible. Acknowledge that everyone is an expert in something. Know that creative solutions come from new connections. Remember, you don’t fear people who’s story you know. Real listening always brings people closer together. Trust that meaningful conversations change your world. Rely on human goodness. Stay together." Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers, A Simpler Way, Berrett-Koelher Publishers

What Is The Work We Really Do?

2007-11-30T14:02:00.000-08:00

In my previous blog conversation with my friend Chris, I am hearing that this deeper question, "what is the work we really do?" is underneath our seeking to find a way to define what we're up to, as we offer our service in the world as facilitators, consultants, coaches, educators, catalysts, hosts.

I resonate with Chris when he says we need new words to properly communicate a living systems practice and new ways of doing things. Perhaps this can be done through a set of words embedded together as holons. Inspired by some thinking of our mutual friend Tenneson Woolf, I found that the following relation of words helped me clarify the larger picture that my work is committed to, ("Focus" would be the larger holon within which "Work Mission" would be embedded, and "Avenues of Work Service" would be embedded within it):

My Focus: Conscious human evolution, whole system transformation and change, co-creative power, collective intelligence and wisdom - especially through groups, organizations and communities.

My Work Mission: Creating effective, empowering, healthy, unifying and uplifting spaces and experiences where groups, organizations and communities can discover, and take positive action towards, wholeness, deeper purpose, possibility and sustainable outcomes.

Avenues of Work Service: Design, facilitation, teaching, hosting/leading, co-creating, organizing, collaborating, speaking, writing, art-making, music-making, poetry-making – especially through group sessions, seminars, workshops, retreats, classes and virtual spaces.

Facilitation and Hosting - A Continuum or A Dichotomy?

2007-11-28T20:07:00.001-08:00

Some recent blog musings by my friend and colleague Chris Corrigan on the distinctions between 'facilitation and hosting' stimulated me to clarify my own thinking, which in turn have led us to a further exchange and refinement of views (for the full thread, see Facilitation vs. Hosting - Parking Lot. Here is a brief extract that captures the essence of Chris's initial reflections:

"Facilitation comes from a mechanistic view of organizations, that they are machines that can be fixed.... Hosting, on the other hand, is a practice of leading from within a living system. It’s like entering the machine, becoming a part of it and changing it by being there... From a complexity stand point, facilitation is seen as a reductionist activity, reducing complexity to simple problems with simple outcomes and a simple path for getting there. Facilitators help groups to seek answers and end states. Hosting from within the field however is more aligned with the nature of complex systems, where there are no answers, but instead only choices to make around the next question, and the paths where those questions lead us." (November 20, 2007)

Here is my November 26th response to Chris post:

Chris, I appreciate the thoughtfulness and time you have committed to attempt to distinguish between facilitating and hosting; it is one that as a Certified Professional Facilitator with the International Association of Facilitators and as a Fellow of the Art of Hosting, I have grappled with as well.

We are in agreement about the need for leading from the emerging field within the living systems we are invited to serve, and of bringing our whole self to the work - all of our tools, insights, wisdom, processes, and other assets that may assist in enabling the wisest and most sustainable choices.

Characterizing facilitation as a mechanistic and reductionist activity, however, is where we disagree. As a professional facilitator, I do not see groups, organizations and communities - the client systems where I am called to assist - as machine problems to be fixed. Clients do not bring me into the relationship as a mechanic, but rather as an active partner and catalyst, where my process expertise and experience are to serve as 'evolutionary agent' towards a desired change or transformation.

As a facilitator, whenever I can, I work with a design team of the whole system throughout the convening and design phase of an engagement, so that together, our combined content and process knowledge can help ensure we develop the most effective and appropriate work we are capable of at this time, given what we know. Once the system convenes around the agreed upon agenda and process, however, there is clearly a need for a neutral and skilled facilitator that is trusted by all to remain in service of the whole system, and not perceived to have a bias towards a particular group, stakeholder, answer or direction.

The facilitator’s neutrality does not equate in my mind with being a mechanic; it is a role adopted on behalf of and in service of the whole system towards its greatest ongoing good. Within that role, it is still possible for me to 'lead from the emerging field' and to 'host consciousness' - in other words, to discern what is emerging, to sense the questions that need to be asked, to have the courage to name patterns, call behaviours, and to suggest changes in process direction - all in service of the group's larger health and wholeness. Up until now, I have called this "masterful facilitation", or "servant leadership"; it requires complete detachment from the outcomes, and no investment in being right, looking good, or making a difference. I am willing to also call it 'hosting' so long as in doing so, I am not agreeing to a dichotomy that I do not believe truly exists between facilitating and hosting.

I suggest that a true disservice will be created Chris, by fostering this distinction in the field. Instead, I would invite you to view hosting as the endpoint of the facilitation continuum – representing the deeper intention and commitment of the goal of facilitation – to host the highest and wisest good of the whole. Along this continuum, the student starts with technique and method, and as s/he gains experience and wisdom, is increasing is able to act as a true servant leader - courageous as a warrior, gentle as a midwife - a humble host who understands one’s self as an integral and inseparable member of the larger whole.

To which Chris responded on November 28th:

Thanks all for these comments. Myriam, you are right I think to call me on the dichotomy. I think this post was generated out of a call to see things like that, and I acknowledge that the raw dichotomy itself does a disservice to the continuum you point to so beautifully.

On one level our language doesn’t matter, and on another level it does. I don’t mean for this post to be a call to see oneself as one thing or the other - I will call myself a facilitator for a long time to come. Nor am I seeking a conflict between communities of practice that use one term or the other, because there IS no conflict there. I do, however think that language does belie some hidden cultural assumptions about things. I am inspired in this regard by Meg Wheatley’s practice of trying to exorcise mechanistic language from her vocabulary and see where that leaves us. We can certainly shift the meanings of words depending on how we use them, but to me it’s interesting to note what does pass for “facilitation” in the wider world and to see the assumptions that many people who are not facilitators hold about the work we do. In my experience, more often than not, the general population has a view of facilitation that is mechanistic or arises from the dominant mechanistic worldview - come and help us solve the problem, make things easier, make things run smoother. You are the guy with the tools…come work with us. It might not be how I actually show up, but the ground of expectation is set there.

You speak of “masterful facilitation” as a term to describe this shift from a beginning in facilitation to the practices I am also writing about. The only quibble I would have with this is the light implication that we move there from a place of being a student facilitator showing up with tools and techniques. It charts a path from technique to wisdom. I wonder if there isn’t another starting point. What if people were introduced to this field not through techniques and tools but rather through processes of presence? If the core practice of a masterful facilitator is leading from the field why not begin a path that is about learning how to be in that field first, how to work from within fields as a servant leader or a host? This is something I am trying hard to do with the people I run “trainings” with. Can we find our core capacities in being rather than in doing? What if we began the journey that way? Of what service could we then become? What implications would this path have for learning the art?

In practice of course, the dichotomy doesn’t matter and I agree wholeheartedly with the idea of a continuum. Those of us that do this work offer ourselves to the world in numerous ways, and that is all good. We are needed in the world in a diversity of ways. There really is no language that works for me to describe the kind of work I am doing with people, and any attempt to choose words comes with all kinds of implication. I have to be careful not to call myself a facilitator if the expectation is that I will behave in certain ways as a result. And calling myself a host in most contexts is even worse, because most people don’t even know what that means.

Although, like here, it is the conversation that might matter rather than the label. Thanks for these thoughts and for showing up in here with such strong and generous energy. Chris

And to which I then replied on November 28th:

Chris,

You ask, “what if people were introduced to this field not through techniques and tools but rather through processes of presence? If the core practice of a masterful facilitator is leading from the field why not begin a path that is about learning how to be in that field first, how to work from within fields as a servant leader or a host?”

What I meant about the ‘do be do be do’ comment earlier is that whether to start with presence or technique may be a conversation that does not lend itself to a ready or obvious answer. In our practice retreat Wise Action/Lasting Impact, we do both together - that is, strive to help participants learn to attend, or “be present to” in your language, both the ‘outer’ and ‘inner’ work of facilitation “as” they learn various facilitation methods/techniques.

Quoting directly from our program materials (download brochure - Wise Action/Lasting Impact) “outer facilitation is helping participants through the agenda in accordance with the purpose, principles and other articulated norms for working together. Inner facilitation is being present and attending to what is actually emerging, and being willing to change the design to best serve the group.” We go on to further help participants distinguish (and practice) these dual foci of facilitation, and provide these two lists to help clarify what to attend to:

Outer Facilitation During Event: Constantly Ask – What Will Serve the Group Now?

Help participants pursue or explicitly revise the purposes and goals that brought them together, and the norms and agreements for how they want to work together.
Stay focused on the agenda, framing questions and exercises from the methods selected within the time available.
Coordinate activities and contributors (as appropriate to the method/process chosen).
Model a spirit of openness, curiosity, respect & care.
Collect group results/data for harvest; display group work/progress.

Inner Facilitation During Event: Constantly Ask - How Can I Nurture Emergence?

Be fully present to the unfolding field. Attend to what is unfolding in real time versus original agenda.
Continually ask: how can I best serve the whole for collective wisdom to emerge?
‘Dance’ flexibly with the design in response to group energy.
Anticipate and be transparent about the ‘groan zone’ or other bumps. If/when it happens, be willing to stand in the creative tension to foster emergence.
Demonstrate commitment to responsiveness, detachment, collaboration, co-design.”

I am grateful to you Chris for the opportunity you are providing to help clarify thinking about these two terms.

All the best,
Myriam

Convening Strategic Conversations Around Emerging Crises

2007-11-26T19:37:00.000-08:00

Tom Atlee of The Co-Intelligence Institute and his daughter Jennifer Atlee, have initiated a very interesting conversation through the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation listserve on how to convene strategic conversations around emerging social and environmental crises to enhance how consciously our societies evolve, even as: 1)impacts arise faster than our understanding; 2) action lags behind understanding; and 3) time to think about issues — and resources to address them — decline as disasters increase. “How, they ask, "do we rapidly evolve models of inquiry to meet demands of the time?” or, from an evolutionary perspective “How can we enhance the potential evolutionary power and wisdom of conversation in times of crisis and catastrophe?” This conversation is worth following, and will hopefully lead to some tangible action on the part of the dialogue and deliberation, Nexus for Change, Art of Hosting, and 0ther related communities.

Adam Kahane - Facing Complex Issues

2007-11-22T11:58:00.000-08:00

As an organizer of the 2007 C2D2 Vancouver Nov. 12-14 conference - Facing Complex Issues Together, I wasn't sure how much inspiration and new insights I would be able to take away. To my delight, two opportunities presented themselves for me to interact with and learn from Adam Kahane. Here are some of the 'golden nuggets' I retained from his talks:

Sun Tze in The Art of War teaches the importance of solving tough problems without destorying the system, or 'taking whole'.

Co-creating a better future requires both love and power. Love is the act of listening from a place of deep attending, compassion, and empathy - as if what is being spoken is sacred. Power is the capacity to achieve purpose and to act together. The most important outcome of a multi-stakeholder meeting then, is for people to find and commit to what they have energy and will to act upon together. (For an in-depth elaboration of his new thinking representing the last 15 years of his work, replete with case examples, see Adam's article, The Language of Power and the Language of Love, in Fieldnotes.)

Quoting Martin Luther King Jr., "Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change. ... What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love."

We can deceive ourselves with easy answers such as, "we're sure this is doing some good", "talk is work", and delay taking action until later when we hope all will see what we need to do. As long as we're not acting, says Adam, then we can imagine that we are in agreement. It is not until we actually start to 'do something' to transform and change current reality that we can actually determine whether there is in fact sufficient will to act. Action is the litmus test of whether we've had "good talk". The imperative then, especially in the face of complex issues like climate change where Mother Nature (and not humanity) is in charge, is to act together much sooner, learning by doing and by prototyping, in an ongoing process of action and response.

The important questions to guide how we design our work in facing complex issues include: 1) How can we work systemically, generatively and participatively? 2) How can we move from downloading (what we know); debating (our positions) to reflective dialogue and presencing for real learning and understanding? 3) How can we put our purposes together first then decide on our ideas for acting together? 4) How can we become bilingual in the language of love and power?

Wise Action/Lasting Impact

2007-09-21T15:54:00.001-07:00

These complex times call for meaningful involvement of people, tapping their collective intelligence and wisdom to co-create solutions that serve the common good. "Engaging Communities and Organizations for Wise Action/Lasting Impact: How to Convene, Design and Facilitate Meaningful Conversations Around Complex Issues" is a new program that I have designed and co-lead with my dear friend and colleague Brenda Chaddock.

Wise Action is a practically-focused, skill-building program for people who want to gain confidence in the process of convening, designing, and facilitating the engagement of a community or organization. It is for people who are in positions where they are already asked to be the guide in the overall process of engagement, and to lead in a whole journey from the call to the plan for action. The program is for facilitators and practitioners who want and need to understand the bones beneath the experience of hosting inquiry and conversation, to the methods, the principles, guidelines that often are tacit knowledge to a skilled facilitator. Wise Action is a blend of formal teaching, action learning, experiencing, understanding the key elements of each methodology, of design principles, and of blending methods to achieve a desired result.

The dates of our next offerings are January 18-21, 2009. A 3.5 day residential practice retreat on Bowen Island BC at the magnificent Rivendell Lodge (download PDF flyer - www.breakthroughsunlimited.com/wise-action.pdf). Register: myriam@myriamlaberge.ca

Understanding Complexity

2007-09-13T15:29:00.001-07:00

Since last fall, I have been busily engaged with a group of volunteers across the country organizing the next Canadian conference on Dialogue and Deliberation - Facing Complex Issues Together, coming up in Vancouver BC, November 12-14, 2007 (do register if you haven't yet done so!). Here are some key research pieces I compiled to help us understand complexity.

Adam Kahane, author of Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities identifies three types of complexity: dynamic, social and generative. Dynamic complexity relates to the lags that occur in time and space between the actions taken by organizations (causes) and their consequent social and/or environmental impacts (effects). Social complexity arises from the diversity, multiplicity, and interdependence of stakeholders from different social, economic, political, geographic or other systems. Generative complexity arises from encountering issues, realities, problems and opportunities that have never before been faced by human beings, and where past solutions and methods no longer work or cannot be applied. Adam Kahane will be a guest panelist at C2D2.

Dr. Brenda Zimmerman (co-author of Getting to Maybe: How the World Is Changed) says that understanding whether an issue is simple, complicated or complex is critically important to how we go about addressing it. Solutions to complex issues require involvement of multiple views to gain as much of the whole picture as possible; dialogue methodologies are very helpful here. At best, it is important to recognize that we will likely only ever arrive at 'good enough for now' solutions to complex issues. At any time, dynamic, social or generative sources of complexity may cause today's solutions to become ineffective or irrelevant. A good example of this is the case of BC's interior pine forests. Hard-come-by plans to manage the forests sustainably have been dramatically altered by the arrival of the pine beetle due to climate change. The beetles are decimating the pine forests and transforming the landscape, ecology and local economies at a rate beyond anything previously envisaged. Such is the nature of complex issues.

Simple - the issue is known; there is certainty of the same outcome every time; e.g., a recipe, a puzzle; an oil change.
Complicated - the issue is knowable, even if very difficult technically; there is a high degree of certainty of the outcome; e.g., putting a spaceship on the moon; organizing a Live Aid concert.
Complex - issue is unknowable; there is uncertainty as to the outcome; e.g., raising a child, achieving sustainability, reducing world hunger, addressing homelessness, reducing drug use. etc.

(Definitions extracted from Dr. Zimmerman's PowerPoint presentation, "Complexity, Mental Models and Ecocyle/Panarchy" delivered in Ottawa, 2007.)

Tapping Our Collective Capacity

2007-09-13T11:24:00.000-07:00

In June, I had the fortunate pleasure to attend Otto Scharmer and Peter Senge's workshop, The Art & Practice of Presencing: Human Purpose & the Field of the Future at the Omega Point Center in Rhinebeck, NY (US).

Weaving together the experiences and stories from their two groundbreaking books, Presence: An Exploration of Every Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society, and Otto's new book, Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges, the workshop underscored how any profound change process, whether in a personal, organizational, or social setting, is the result of a journey that includes both tangible and intangible dimensions. This journey begins with the realization that novel, innovative and sustainable solutions require a higher level of consciousness to be tapped than that which created the current situation.

So many of our current attempts to address the complex issues before us fail dismally, suggests Otto, because of the 'blind spot' in our collective leadership and everyday interactions to the source from which effective responses and action actually come into being. A shift in the quality of leadership intention and attention is required from:

downloading (listening to reconfirm what you already know), to
factual listening (noticing to disconfirm what you know and notice what is different), to
empathetic listening (redirecting your seeing through another's perspective), and finally to
generative listening (connecting to a deeper realm of emergence; the emerging field of future possibility).

There are practices to help leaders develop a new consciousness and to tap collective leadership capacities to meet challenges in a more conscious, intentional, and strategic way. These involve developing an open mind, an open heart and an open will. The Presencing Institute has recently been launched to help refine this social technology, and make it available to change makers, innovators and communities.