My friend Tom Atlee has been a remarkable documented of the lessons from the #Occupy movement. Since I was at Wall Street two months ago I have continued to be astonished at the creativity, leadership and communication styles emerging from the movement.
Today though, Tom has a long post on perhaps the most astonishing event yet. Following the well publicized pepper spraying of students at UC Davis, a remarkable non-violent action took place to de-escalate the situation. Take the time to read the whole post and watch the full video. It is moving, inspiring and possible ground breaking in the way police and protestors can be invited to work together to keep peace. It is the essence of real time chaotic action.
Working with a client tonight who is beginning a process of trying to find some questions for moving forward. The client is a group of churches who are exploring how they might collaborate to undertake their joint mission together. There are a number of factors at play, and the environment they are working in is diverse.
Tonight, with a few short hours, we’ll do a little story gathering. We’ll begin by exploring an uncontextualized Cynefin framework and then invite small anecdote circles to form around the question of “What are the challenges and role of our Churches in this region, in this time?” I’ll invite groups to explore this question using stories. The idea is to gather anecdote fragments in each circle and then explore contextualizing a framework to give us a sense of the work that might lay before us, should people choose to work more collaboratively. I am hoping that, despite a short time together, the exercise will open some inquires, especially in the complex space, that people might be interested in pursuing.
I have often had calls from clients in the past that begin “we are having a lot of communication problems in our organization. We think it is a good time to do some strategic planning.”. My common response to that is to point out that those two statements do not go together.
If you engage in strategic planning, especially if that planning is looking at working with organizational structures, and you haven’t dealt with communication, interpersonal and power issues then there is a strong likelihood of those unspoken dynamics being built into your organizational structure. Silos get created for many reasons, among them the fact that people sometimes don’t want to work with each other.
I had a meeting with a client yesterday, with whom I am working on Friday. His organization is in great shape. They have a rolling five year plan which has no targets in it, but only a series of strategic objectives. He creates targets on a yearly basis or as funding comes in. The board is in good shape and the organization is providing good service to its members. In our meeting yesterday we were able to think about setting aside a third of our planning time to have a blue sky conversation about the future of the organization, the changing environment and some new philosophical frontiers for the group. It feels easy, even though this is an organization that works in financial administration. We don’t have to consume energy fighting political battles and power dynamics, and we can instead look outwards.
People often deride the relational aspects of organization life as “soft”. They aren’t. They are the underlying architecture that makes core business lines possible and that ensures quality in every offering.
Action comes from a accepting offers. When an offer comes to you you can accept it or block it. Blocking it kills the action. Accepting it moves it forward. When we are working in complexity, waiting for the failsafe plan leads to inaction because there are more blocks than acceptances. In contast diving into a safe fail mindset means committing to action and refining it as you go.
This is the essence of improvisation: accept, commit, develop, offer. A simple four stage cycle for action planning
We have just been through a challenging municipal election here on Bowen Island. At issue was a referendum on whether we wanted to see a National Park established on the Crown Lands on our island. Also in the air was a level of distrust and animosity between some citizens and some of the candidates and the incumbent council.
In the midst of things I made it a practice to see what it would be like to actively facilitate quality of conversation. This meant a number of things for me. It meant finding kindness for those who not only thought differently than me, but who actively took aim at me with ad hominem arguments. It meant finding factual bases for assertions about the past, while paying attention to how speculation about the future could be held in respectful and non-fearful ways. It meant challenging the idea that there was a massive rift in the community (natural considering the use of a yes/no question on a complex topic).
Subsequently, it has meant holding space for grief and outrage from those of my friends who felt hard done by (our Island rejected the Park and elected Councillors that many of us didn’t vote for). It has also meant inviting people to check their gloating, that somehow this was a victory that actually privileged one world view over another. It didn’t. It was really about small differences in the larger scheme of things, which were inflated because the choice we made was one of those that, had we voted yes, would have radically changed the view of our future.
The thing about living on an island is that you know where your boundaries are. Holding space within those boundaries, where differences are exacerbated by our closeness to each other is the most challenging work of hosting. Being an active member of the community, with opinions and thoughts but also equally interested in the meta-level of conversational quality and resourcefulness is challenging, but that was the learning journey I was on for the past few months, and one I continue on. Being active and hosting within the field is fraught with difficulties. What gets me through is a practice and focus on that sweet spot.
For me it comes back to the balance for ensuring that the community is working, learning and tending to relationships in equal measure.