You’ll forgive my lack of posting from Kiluea this past week. I certainly had intended a detailed account of our gathering, but things went to such a deep level that words and time kept failing me. THis was one of the most tranformational experiences of my life, and one of the most difficult, challenging and exuberant facilitation experiences I have ever had. It will take me a while to get the story straight, so forgive me if it trickles out. I met fear in a new place, above my heart. A fearless heart was born, but it was birthed in …
Last night we arrived in Kona, on the dry side of the big island of Hawai’i. We overnighted there and woke early in the morning for a swim in crystal clear waters at Hapuna Beach. About 9am we hit the road, taking the Saddle Road over the island between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, the twin 13,000+ volcanoes on this island. As you crest the top of the pass between them, the clouds coming up from Hilo-side start flying overhead, and rain showers start. We drove down to Hilo and then back up the south flank of Mauna Loa to …
On my way to Hawai’i, the big island to co-host a gathering called Beyond Sustainability: Creating a Community of Leadership based on a Platform of Reverance. This gathering has been several years in the making, and over the last two years I have been deeply involved in the design of the work, finding myself stopping and starting as we find the best way to bring high powered people together to connect existing work, explore indigenous worldviews and creating some coherent results that may positively affect the values that underlie consumer society. It is a hugely audacious reach that we are …
I’ve been trolling through Geoff’s harvest of our Open Space conference last month in Melbourne and just enjoying the memory of working with friends. Our friend and conference cartoonist Simon Kneebone drew our hosting team. We call ourselves The Slips. The term is from the cricket world and has two purposes. First it signals that this is an all-Commonwealth team, which is lovely, and second, it’s a large cordon and nothing gets past us. From right to left, our members are Anne Pattillo from New Zealand who is our wicket keeper, Aussie Viv McWaters at first slip, Johnnie Moore from …
Alex has a great post today on his Top 5 reasons to celebrate mistakes at work. I’ve been hearing lately from many clients about the need for us to loosen up and accept more failure in our work. The pressure that comes from perfection and maintaining a failsafe environment is a killer, and while we all demand high levels of accountability and performance, working in a climate where we can fail-safe provides more opportunity to find creative ways forward that are hitherto unknown. So to compliment Alex’s post, here are a few ways to create a safe-fail environment: 1. Be …