Chris Corrigan Menu
  • Blog
  • Chaordic design
  • Resources for Facilitators
    • Facilitation Resources
    • Books, Papers, Interviews, and Videos
    • Books in my library
    • Open Space Resources
      • Planning an Open Space Technology Meeting
  • Courses
  • About Me
    • Services
      • What I do
      • How I work with you
    • CV and Client list
    • Music
    • Who I am
  • Contact me
  • Blog
  • Chaordic design
  • Resources for Facilitators
    • Facilitation Resources
    • Books, Papers, Interviews, and Videos
    • Books in my library
    • Open Space Resources
      • Planning an Open Space Technology Meeting
  • Courses
  • About Me
    • Services
      • What I do
      • How I work with you
    • CV and Client list
    • Music
    • Who I am
  • Contact me

Art of Participatory Leadership, day one

December 2, 2009 By Chris Corrigan Art of Harvesting, Art of Hosting, BC, Leadership 3 Comments

IMG_5572

Toke and I along with our Estonian colleagues, Piret, Robert and Ivika, began our three day participatory leadershipworkshop today.  We were join at Altmoisa by 20 young-ish leaders who have been training together since the summer in the Art of Hosting and who have been using participatory meeting methodologies in the places of work.  Tis workshop is intended to take the exploration of those practices deeper, and extend the learning that comes from hosting into the realms of leadership.

This is the first Art of Hosting workshop I have done in a language different from mine.  Although most participants speak English (and I speak no Eesti) a few need whisper translation to follow along and Toke and I have someone whispering in our ears when others are speaking.  It’s going well, and I’m getting used to connecting with the speaker rather than the translater when folks are sharing thoughts and insights.

In the opening circle, which was around the questions of Who am I today and What has been a recent example of participatory leadership, I made a long poem harvest from the stories that were shared.  It’s clear here that people are both pressed for time, and feeling the need to feed a hunder in their organizations and communities for more participation.  Like everywhere, when folks get a taste of participation, they want more of it, and most folks are here to continue their learning and sharpen their skills in offering.

One thing Toke and I are doing is trying to reduce all of these concepts and practices to basics. What are the basics that you need to host participation, whether in a meeting, and organization or a community?  We riffed today on the four fold practice of the art of hosting, and explored the basic practices of being present, cultivating participation, being purposeful and practicing co-creation.  We taught for a while, combining a little aikido in with our work and then the group met in triads to crack questions for their learning agenda together.  We taught a little more and then went into a cafe to ground our learning, discovering where these basics show up in our lives and work and what the next level is regarding cultivating a deeper practice of these ways of working.

I like this idea of going back to basics, teaching the essence of practice and then having people find out how those things can take root and grow in different ways in their own lives.  It is a lovely way to take what ones learns as a host and extend it to other parts of one’s life, whether its parenting, living in community or be a participatory leader.

Share:

  • Mastodon
  • Bluesky
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
  • Pocket
  • Telegram

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Share
  • Tweet
Art of Participatory Leadership, day two
Into the Estonian countryside

3 Comments

  1. Stuart Reid says:
    December 2, 2009 at 11:35 am

    Thanks for posting this; it will be interesting to follow along with the course.

    And I really like the ‘Day 1’ poster – if I were a participant, that would be enough for me to get a sense of the shape of the day.

    Looking forward to day 2!

    Cheers,
    Stuart Reid

  2. raffi says:
    December 2, 2009 at 11:46 am

    ditto, chris.

    just posted these links within the aoh section of the russian-speaking Insight network:
    http://intertraining.ning.com/xn/detail/3616458:Comment:6959

    warmly,
    raffi

  3. Viv McWaters says:
    December 2, 2009 at 4:02 pm

    Hi Chris – thanks for posting this. Little do you know that it is informing the shape and design of a program that I’m helping a friend grapple with (while I’m in India and she’s in Australia) and you’re in Estonia – maybe we need a new word to capture this level of serendipitous, international, collaborative inspiration thingy enabled by blogging what we’re doing? (Oh, and it’s inspired me to blog my Indian gig) Cheers, Viv

Comments are closed.

Find Interesting Things
Events
  • Art of Hosting November 12-14, 2025, with Caitlin Frost, Kelly Poirier and Kris Archie Vancouver, Canada
  • The Art of Hosting and Reimagining Education, October 16-19, Elgin Ontario Canada, with Jenn Williams, Cédric Jamet and Troy Maracle
Resources
  • A list of books in my library
  • Facilitation Resources
  • Open Space Resources
  • Planning an Open Space Technology meeting
SIGN UP

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
  

Find Interesting Things

© 2015 Chris Corrigan. All rights reserved. | Site by Square Wave Studio

%d