So it seems that we are having a federal election here in Canada. I’m a little interested in democracy and as I\ve had two phone calls today, I thought I might as well keep some notes here about my experience with the local candidates. Today John Weston’s comapaign called me. Weston is running for the Conservatives here in West Vancouver – Sunshine Coast – Sea to Sky Country. So I’ll admit upfront that I’m prejudiced here – I haven’t ever voted Conservative, and that isn’t likely to change in this election. I did however find the experience …
I’m working a lot with communities of practice these days, or more precisely, teams and groups that aspire to becoming communities of practice. In seeking to be simple about the process of moving from a group to a deeper community, I’ve been designing meetings using this map, to ensure that we give equal weight to work, relationships and co-learning. In my experience, when we do that we set the conditions for a group to become more cohesive and to discover new learning and emergent solutions to the issues on which they are working. This is a design tool, a …
I have a stack of books I am working my way through this summer, and they are all written by friends. I think this is pretty remarkable actually. From the top down, here is what’s on my reading table: Finding the Sweet Spot by Dave Pollard. This one just arrived this evening, although I read a proof that Dave sent along. It’s typical of his writing, and will be a familiar tome for regular readers of his blog, How To Save The World. The book outlines a path for creating a life of sustainable work and enterprise using …
The thing about working as a facilitator and helping groups become acquainted with their own brilliance is that you really want to be able to leave a group once it can take care of itself. For me, my consulting practice is as much about building capacity as it is about doing work. Viv captures this beautifully today: So those of us working as facilitators are demonstrating how to tap into the wisdom of a group of people. How to hear what they are saying, build on each others’ ideas, and create solutions. The world needs a lot of …
I was working with a group yesterday that was making a number of small decisions as they worked their way through an agenda. The meeting was semi-formal and my role as facilitator was mostly to hold space and draw attention to process where appropriate. I let the group talk, asked questions from time to time and noted the decisions that they had made. As I was observing this group working, I noticed something interesting about their process. Frequent readers will know that I use the diamond of participation often as a map to organize and design meeting processes. …