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Better decision making

December 4, 2017 By Collaboration, Conversation, Emergence, Facilitation, Leadership 4 Comments

At the end of a couple of weeks in Europe and being here in Glasgow during this past week has heightened my sensitivity to how democracy, devoid of deliberation and focused only on numeric results, has been hijacked and rendered ineffective for making complex decisions related to governance of complex issues.  The UK is currently paying the price for a ridiculous decision made in June of 2016 to leave the European Union.  Whatever you think of the merits of Brexit, there can be no denying that the method for doing so has been deeply flawed both in its democratic implementation and the subsequent negotiation. Britain is currently mired in apolitical, constitutional and economic mess of its own making.

So how to we make better decisions together?  This video has some very interesting hypotheses that combine complexity science with deliberation practice.  It’s worth reflecting on.

Learning from indigenous voices on twitter

November 1, 2017 By Featured, First Nations

The other day a friend asked me who is doing good writing that can inform her own journey with reconciliation.  She is a very involved white woman, doing work with universities and indigenous communities and even she was having trouble finding good resources to keep her learning going and share with others.

I couldn’t point her to sources for a couple of reasons. First, the world is moving really quickly, and good articles and papers that are written are often out of date fairly quickly. But more important, to get published, a writer often has to sanitize the outrage, emotional cost and downright tiredness that comes with being a visible indigenous voice in this world.

I am convinced that you cannot understand what reconciliation really needs to be unless you are immersed this emotional edge. The work of repairing, honouring and building relationships between settler and indigenous people in Canada is hard work and requires a lifetime to undertake.  This is not easy, it will never be easy and there will be a mix of joy and anger, surprise and offence. It is worthy work.

For me, this is where twitter is immensely helpful.  Twitter has amplified indigenous voices without sanitizing the raw, daily reality of living in country where the IDEAL of reconciliation is so far away from what is actually happening.  For non-indigenous people, listening is important but so too is action.

These twitter accounts are some of the best I have in my feed at the moment. They are honest, thoughtful, engaging, and powerful voices. They will connect you to other voices in the indigenous twitter sphere and they will illuminate the news and events that escape the attention of the main stream media.  Following their accounts and their networks expands my horizons every day.

@KimTallBear (Dakota) a Professor and a supporter of indigenous science and technology.

@apihtawikosisan (Metis) Chelsea Vowel is a writer and mother who has made a name for herself busting myths about indigenous people and issues. Her writing is real, honest and forthright.

@Terrilltf (Blackfoot).  Terrel Tailfeathers mostly retweets lots of resources and perspectives. He helps me find new sources and voices.

@rjjago (Kwantlen). Robert Jago is an uncompromising writer and an entrepreneur who tweets lots of impactful threads about settler – indigenous relationships.

@indigenousxca A shared twitter account that features a new indigenous host every week, usually a person in academia. Amazing diversity of voices and perspectives here.

@RussDiabo (Mohawk).  I have known Russ Diabo for many years. He is an expert in indigenous law and title and is a brilliant commentator on politics and policy matters affecting indigenous communities and nations. He publishes an occasional First Nations strategic bulletin

@APTNNews is Canada’s national Aboriginal Peoples Television Network.  Covers news in indigenous communities and national issues from the lens of impact on indigenous peoples.

@UBCIC is the twitter account of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs that tweets out articles and perspectives on issues facing BC indigenous communities and beyond.

 

EDITED: to add @Indigenousxca.

Learning a craft

October 28, 2017 By Uncategorized

In his book Sea Room Adam Nicholson describes meeting John MacAuly, a Hebridean boat builder who has just built a boat for him to sail across the Minch to the Shiants. 

“And do you think I’ll make a good sailor of her”

“If you had another life,” John said. 

“Ah yes,” I said reeling a little. “I suppose one needs to know these things instinctively.”

“No,” he said. “You need to be entirely conscious of what you are doing and why you are doing it.”

Pick up the unclaimed portion of joy

October 5, 2017 By Being, Bowen, Featured, Flow 9 Comments

Another two friends died yesterday. They were well known men in our community and both part of the hosting world on our little Bowen Island, integral to providing experiences for visitors that allow us to provide well hosted learning experiences for people here. They didn’t always do it loudly, but they left legacies that are so important to what we are able to do here.

It has been a really strange few months with 9 deaths of people I know to various degrees; from close friends to intimate strangers. Two from suicide, one from a heart attack, the rest from cancer. Several “before their time.”  It’s numbing. There are moments I’ve lost count of who has died since July.

I have been thinking lately – especially reflecting on the suicides – that perhaps my job might be to pick up the unclaimed portion of joy that my friends left in the world. It is a crazy world. There is suffering all around us and I understand the idea that “remaining normal in an insane world is insane.”  Yet I feel strongly how life moves in me and through my friendships, and communities. I feel immense gratitude for fleeting moments and I realize that I am at times a fierce practitioner of play. Whether I’m playing soccer with my son in our local recreational league, playing music with my daughter and friends, creating workshops, supporting my local soccer teams by singing with hundreds in support of our players – I feel the intense surge of life that comes with the portion of joy that is left to me to claim.

These days I sing for Kay and Dan, the two Shannons, Kieran and Chris, Matthew and the three others (wow, I just remembered one more.)  I sing and play for me, find sensemaking in a crazy world in the presence of connections with friends and strangers over the long cadence of lives intertwined or the fleeting moment of random encounters on the buses, sidewalks and trails.

Bernie de Koeven, a master practitioner of play, who himself is dying publically, shared this quote from a comment on his blog followed by his own reflection:

“Speaking of the very end, I recently read a modern classic, Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death. It explains culture (which I think includes play) as an outcome of this denial. In a sense then, we should not “be calm and carry on” to the very end, but arbitrarily, playfully, insistently dedicate ourselves to the never-ending. I think this is what many people mean by “love” and maybe what Bernie means by play.”

So we have on one side love and play; and on the other, the dead and dying; the somber and despairing. We mustn’t let ourselves get confused by any of these. Love and life, after all, are manifestations of each other. Love is the invitation to life. As is play. It’s all a matter of perspective, don’t you know. From this side, it’s all so obvious: love, play, life. Fear. Dread. Death.

You stand here. The rest there.

Feel the embrace.

So that’s where I am these days. I know the world is crazy right now. I know it’s hard to find the good in the news but you won’t find it there because the news asks you to be only a passive consumer of the world’s pain and joy. What we need to do is rise from our seats and participate in the world as fully as possible. Life is the ultimate infinite game. The joy we seek is located in the little interactions and small kindnesses initiated or received; in play.

My wish for all of us is that we can claim the portion of unclaimed joy that others have left for us, and especially those who rode who claimed more than their share of suffering and rode it to their their end. I know clearly what they want for us, those they loved and whom they left behind. It is to continue living.

I’m here, playing, hunting joy, embracing it when it comes. Not always finding it, but cultivating the eye that sees it in the small and subtle currents of living. And you’re there too, doing your thing, but now reading this and playing along, at least in this moment.

The origin of Pro Action Cafe

September 22, 2017 By Uncategorized

Over the years the Art of Hosting community of practice has developed some methods for large group process facilitation that have become standards alongside the methods we have imported into our work, such as Circle Way, Open Space Technology and World Cafe.

One of these, Pro Action Cafe, is one of my go to methods for hosting small and rapid fire project development.  Ria Baeck, one of the co-developers of this method along with Rainer von Leoprechting shared the Pro Action Cafe origin story on the Art of Hosting list, and so here are her words and observations, for posterity:

Quite some years back – Rainer will know the date – I was hosting my ever first World Café in Brussels; in a back room of a real café. One of the participants was Rainer. He had been hosting what he called Pro Action groups of change agents in the Eur.institutions. It is was structured as groups of 10-12 people who came together one evening per month. As there were more people asking to join, he felt the pressure on his evening time. Being in this World Café, he realised that there was a key in scaling the number of people, being present at the same time.

So, we joined our forces to find a way of how the purpose of his Pro Action Groups could be blended with the key features of the World Café. We actually had a meeting in Mechelen, a Flemish city, and walked around… I remember it as a collective sensing of how we could blend the piece of Open Space – where people bring there own topics and questions – with the element of World Café, where people mix and are talking about the same question in each round. That’s how we came up with the 3 rounds and its 3 questions.

We then started in Brussels with regular Pro Action Cafés, with some food and drinks right after office time, and then diving into the Pro Action Café. All kind of questions came forward, from very, very personal to very professional and more. This open Pro Action Café is still going on in Brussels, although there have been different hosting teams holding it over the years.

Some people come and join to just see what Participatory Leadership is about – as Art of Hosting is called within the Eur. Institutions. I guess that it started to travel the world through one of the hosts, working with Toke and Monica in the Eur.context. Ursula or Helen probably know more here.

Amazing to see it travel to so many places and situations. Something I could have never imagined up front. Lesson here is: don’t hold back when you feel passioned to do something, you never know where it will have some impact.