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The VALUE of invitation

May 22, 2017 By Facilitation, Featured, Invitation

This month I am in the middle of delivering another very cool online offering with Beehive Productions on the art of invitation. It’s a three session program focusing on the practice of invitation as it relates to participatory meetings, longer term participatory strategic initiatives and even organizational design.  Michael Herman will be joining us next week for the “Inviting Organization” module.  He’s really the guy that got me thinking about invitation way back in 2000 when I first came across his work as an Open Space colleague. While Rowan and Amy and I were thinking about content we discussed some …

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Privilege, beauty and evaluation

April 20, 2017 By Evaluation One Comment

I’ve been for a beautiful walk this morning in the warm mist of a spring day in the highlands near Victoria. It was quiet but for the cacophony of bird song, and everything was wet with mist and dew. This is the greenest time of year on the west coast, and the mossy outcroppings and forest floor were verdant. There is a beauty in what is, in any given moment. I’ve been thinking about this as I have been struggling with watching people be evaluated in their work recently.  My daughter is a jazz musician, training her art in a …

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The literacy of messiness for philanthropy

April 14, 2017 By Cynefin, Featured, Philanthropy 3 Comments

A couple of years ago I wrote a post that was critical of the way in which the Representative for Children in Youth in British Columbia drove practice changes among social workers. In short the reason had to do with apply too much order (rules and checklists) in a complex space (social work practice). At a certain point, when you are trying to prevent deaths that have occurred in the past, you end up outlawing all but the deaths that will surprise you in the future. We look at reviews of child deaths as if they were expected and predictable …

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Teaching frameworks for practitioners

April 12, 2017 By Art of Hosting, Learning, Practice 7 Comments

Reflecting these days on some two day courses I have coming up, including one on complexity and social change, one on invitation practice and one on Open Space. Each of these courses is workshop to introduce people to a practice or a set of practices, as opposed to techniques and skills. In each of these workshops people will come away with an ability to go into the practice, literally as artists. These are not technical trainings designed to download procedures and methods.  They are courses that will leave you ready to practice, ready to make mistakes and learn as you …

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The myth of managed culture change

April 11, 2017 By Culture, Cynefin, Featured One Comment

For a long time I have known that the idea that culture change can be managed is a myth.  A culture is emergent and is the result of millions of interactions, behaviours, artifacts and stories that people build up over time. It is unpredictable and results in surprise.  The idea that a “culture change initiative” can be rolled out from the top of an organization is not only a myth, it’s a hidden form of colonization. And worse, the idea that people need to be changed in the way the boss determines if we are to become the kind of …

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