Books
- Cynefin: weaving sense-making into the fabric of our world. A compilation of writing from complexity practitioners celebrating the 21st birthday of the Cynefin framework. I contributed a chapter on teaching Cynefin using embodied exercises.
- Dialogic Organization Development. A text book featuring researchers and practitioners writing about a radical shift in working with organizational development from a dialogue-based perspective. I contributed a chapter on “Hosting and Hosting Containers.“
- The Tao of Holding Space. The essence of Open Space Technology facilitation is known as “holding space.” This book explores the practice of holding space by reinterpreting the Tao te Ching. While written for Open Space facilitators, it has wide application across a number of facilitation approaches. You can order a beautiful copy of the book from me directly for $30 Canadian. This book is also available as a free download. It is also available in Chinese.
- Open Space Technology a User’s Non-Guide Edited by Chris Corrigan and Michael Herman (.pdf). A companion to Harrison Owen’s Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide, this book is an edited conversation between 37 Open Space Technology practitioners. The book is available for free.
- The Change Handbook. The definitive guide to facilitating large scale change. I contributed material to the Open Space Technology chapter and experiences with mixing and matching methods.
- The Age of Conversation. If ideas are the currency of our times then this is, undoubtedly, the Age of Conversation, for without the art of dialog, the cut and thrust of debate and discussion, then the economy of ideas would implode under its own heavy weight. Instead, the reverse is true. Far from seeing an implosion, we are living in a time of proliferation – ideas build upon ideas, discussion grows from seeds of thought and single headlines give rise to a thousand medusa-like simulations echoing words whispered somewhere on the other side of the planet. All this – in an instant. In what began as a half dare, the editors, Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan challenged bloggers around the world to contribute one page – 400 words – on the topic of “conversation”. The resulting book, The Age of Conversation, brings together over 100 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators in a ground-breaking and unusual publication.
Interviews, podcasts and talks
- “Support is Life” an interview I did with Tenneson Woolf on our work, learning, curiosity and connection.
- A playlist of short videos on working with complexity in trauma settings. These interviews recorded by Laureen Golden for a series called “Looking at Systems with a Trauma-Informed Lens” taught at Portland State University.
- Introduction to Participatory Narrative inquiry. A short interview where I talk about using story to make sense of the world.
- You Belong to Everything. A talk I did for Creative Mornings Vancouver on what “home” means to creative settlers living and working on stolen land.
- In our most creative moments we feel invited into working together. A ninety minute podcast with Marcus Jenal in which we discuss complexity, Cynefin, and facilitation.
- Learning Matters: A Bridge to Practice. An interview in which I speak about participatory leadership, connected learning and the Art of Hosting. And futbol.
- Supporter Culture in Lower Mainland of BC. A podcast interview on my involvement with a supporter group for a local futbol team in Burnaby, BC.
- Evaluation Games With Friends. Appearing alongside Nora Murphy Johnson and Andy Johnson on Eval Cafe to talk about time, justice and uncertainty.
- Nobody Said It Was Easy: Where Evlautaion and Facilitation Collide. A podcast interview at Eval Cafe on evaluation, facilitation and complexity.
- The Power of Circle and Story to Transform our Workplaces and Communities. A wide ranging interview covering consultation and facilitation practice with Stefan Morales.
- Circle and Story. From the Working Together Podcast, an interview about my development as a facilitator.
- The Two Loops Model of Change in Churches. A webinar given to the Edge Network of the United Church of Canada in 2014
- My history in the Art of Hosting, recorded in Estonia in 2014.
- A short interview on group sizes and configurations.
- Leadership is possible from everywhere, a conversation with Dave Pollard for Peak Moment TV
- Some thoughts in using World Cafe and Open Space Technology as a trailer for a dialogue course I teach.
- Open Space Meetings – from March 2010 an interview with me and two of my colleagues on using Open Space instead of traditional conference formats.
- Harmonious LIving. Interview on The Phoric Podcast.
- Living and Enjoying Open Spaces with Chris Corrigan – a profile from my university alumni magazine, published in June 2007.
- The Tao of Holding Space – An interview about my ebook and my facilitation practice published in Fieldnotes Issue 12, from the Shambhala Institute.
- How To Save The World. Dave Pollard interviews me in 2007 on Open Space, homeschooling and action.
- On unconferencing – a podcast conversation with Johnnie Moore and Rob Paterson on the future of unconferencing from July 4, 2005.
- Free to do our work (.pdf) – An online interview on empowerment, freedom and Spirit hosted by Doug Germann at Footprints in the Wind in March 2003.
Papers and articles
- Hosting Interactive containers: A key to working in complexity. An update of my paper, published in Japanese in the Journal of the Organizational Development Network of Japan, vol. 3, 2020.
- Hosting Dialogic Containers: A key to working in complexity – published in OD Practitioner in 2016
- Six observations about seeing – a paper on the leadership capacity of seeing the world around us.
- Language and Leadership for Dialogue – a paper on useful language and leadership practices for convening dialogue
- Open Space and the Legacy of Education (.pdf) – A paper that uses John Taylor Gatto’s “Seven Lesson Schoolteacher” essay to explain why people experience freedom shock in Open Space.
Online publishing
Since 2001 I have published two weblogs of my own. They contain a wealth of my writing and thinking.
I have collected some of my most significant writing from over the years on a page called A Collection of Life’s Lessons.