I’ve been working with the Sliammon First Nation up the coast a little ways for over a year now. Sliammon is in the process of reviving traditional governance structures and practices but they are giving them a modern day tweak to work with the existing Indian Act governance structures and the realities of governing a modern community in a resource rich territory. The process we have been animating is called “Sijitus” which means “advisory” in the Tla’amon language. Traditionally Sijitus was a gathering of family heads who met to provide direction and advice for the community’s leadership. Sliammon has revived …
Peter Frost 1939-2004, teacher, friend and my father in law. My father-in-law passed away early this morning after a battle with melanoma. It’s very hard right now to write about him as I risk getting a shock from the tears falling on my keyboard. You may have known or heard of him through his professional work and exceptional teaching at the University of British Columbia in the Sauder School of Business. Most recently he had devoted his professional life to the development of the idea of toxin handlers in organizations. He was immensely proud of the book he wrote last …
“I found my way to you” Just a few words I want to record here. Probably more to report on that later.
All kinds of gems floating my way this morning. Here’s one from Matt Webb at Interconnected: “The trick’s to find the middleground. Don’t go with the flow, passively, but garden it. The flow is part of the self. Who was I talking to who told me how fish swim? They use the water around themselves, the vortices and turbulence, they use the properties of the water to propel themselves. They get more than 100% mechanical efficiency because they don’t swim through, they just swim.”
My buddy John Engle had a nice piece written about him in the Hershey Chronicle, his hometown newspaper. It describes his work in Haiti over the years, using Open Space Technology to facilitate transformative learning and leadership. From the article: “Good leadership is learning how to graciously share power,” Engle said. “We’re practicing different methods in Haiti that help people share power. It could be in a classroom, it could be community leaders. These are grassroots strategies for nurturing habits and practices which will enable democracy to take root. Democracy cannot be imposed from outside. It needs to grow from …