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How complexity principles can inform participatory process design

March 28, 2018 By Cynefin, Emergence, Facilitation 4 Comments

Ice floes in Prince William Sound. Complexity in action.

Sonja Blignault has been blogging some terrific stuff on Paul Cilliers’ work on complexity.  Specifically she has been riffing on Cilliers’ seven characteristics of complex systems and the implications of complexity for organizations. Yesterday I was teaching an Art of Hosting here in Calgary, where we were looking at Cynefin and then followed with a discussion about how the nature of complex systems compels us to make important design choices when we are facilitating participatory processes to do work in organizations. This is a cursory list, but I thought it would be helpful to share here. Cilliers’ text is bold. …

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Safe enough in Open Space

March 19, 2018 By Uncategorized One Comment

I’ve been deeply influenced over the years by Christina Baldwin’s principle that “no one person can be responsible for the safety of the group, but a group can learn to take responsibility for it’s own safety.” I too think that the principles of Open Space allow for the right balance for individuals to take responsibility for co-creating group safety.  What is remarkable is that safety is an emergent phenomenon in Open Space, a true artifact of a self-organizing system. Of course I have seen some real conflicts happen in Open Space, but what seems to mitigate them is the double …

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The year of living chaordically

January 25, 2018 By Uncategorized 2 Comments

  This is the year I finally turn my version of the chaordic stepping stones tool into a book. I’ve been intending to do this for a number of years now, and the planning guide that lives on this website (available for free in English and Spanish) is essentially the book treatment and summary.  The book itself will include a little bit of theory as well, based on my decade long dive into complexity work. It will also contains some stories, case studies and inspiration. As a part of preparing the book, I’m offering a four week online course starting …

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Remoteness as a colonization strategy

January 2, 2018 By Community, Culture, Featured, First Nations, Travel

I’ve been enjoying reading Adam Nicolson’s book “Sea Room” about the Shiant Islands in the Hebrides. The history of the small group of islands that he owns obsesses him.  He charts the archaeology and natural history of the islands, and the book is filled with the characters who are the real owners of the place – the crofters and shepherds that work the land as tenants witinn the strange Scottish systems of private land ownership.   Nicolson expresses some astonishment at the amount of activity that has taken place on the Shiants over history because they are considered so remote …

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Some things that work in real reconciliation dialogue

December 22, 2017 By Art of Harvesting, Art of Hosting, Facilitation, Featured, First Nations, Learning, World Cafe One Comment

We were working with a local government client last week in a meeting that had a very contentious subject matter focused on the return of land and uses of that land, to First Nations owners.  There was an important conversation as a part of this work that involved removing a structure that had some historical significance to the community but was seen as a mark of an oppressive history by the First Nations owners who could not contemplate it remaining on their land. It is a wickedly complicated issue right at the heart of what reconciliation really means: returning land, …

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