Back in November, I worked with my mate Teresa Posakony on a two day gathering the object of which was to work to apply brain science to policy questions on the prevention of adverse childhood experiences. On the first day I facilitated an Open Space event that brought together reserachers and brain scientists to discuss their findings and on the second day, we had panelists and Teresa ran a half day cafe to look at the implications of the research for policy making. I composed a poem at the end of the day.
As a part of the experience, we were shown a powerful video of the still face experiment, a test to see how infants respond when their care givers break the connection with them. It is very very powerful. Here it is:
Later in the day one of the panelists, Jennifer Rodriguez, referred to this video by saying that collectively, “society is the still face” when it comes to our children and youth.
That was the hook I needed for the poem, which was also informed by the words I saw and heard during the cafe. I read the poem and got a generous standing ovation.
Today I got an email from our clients which was sent by the researcher you see in the video, Dr. Ed. Tronick. Dr. Tronick was responding to our client, who sent him the poem and the recording of me reading it:
I really am quite moved by the poem and your comment about how much impact it has. When I began this work in my lab I had no idea that it might one day be so useful in getting children and families what they so desperately need. I love the poem – I will get it up in my office somewhere, especially what it brings together and the rhythm of it. Please tell Chris how much I appreciate it. It is just amazing. And more important than the SF or the poem is the work you and everyone at the conference are doing.
It is not enough to do work in the world without adding as much beauty as we can. The power resides in the songs, the poems, the images that we use to capture our collective experiences and to throw a light on how important they are to us as human beings.
Enjoy the harvest.
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One of the things I love about my mate Geoff Brown who lives in the lovely Airey’s Inlet, Australia, is his incredible willingness to be playful and creative in his facilitation work and especially in his harvesting work. He is one of the few that gets how important the harvest is – at least as important as the hosting. In this great post, Geoff shares his recent experience with Open Space and with a fantastic harvest that captures that creative brilliance of the group he was working with: The day after Open Space
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From our recent Art of Hosting on the banks of the Ottawa River, in Arnprior Ontario.
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Flipcharts. Let me count the ways that we are tyrannized by them:
1. Power accretes around a flipchart. The next time you are in a meeting, see if you can tell where the front of the room is. It’s likely that, even if you are in a circle, the “front” will be where the flipchart is. As I wrote this I am in an Open Space meeting where people are gathered around flipcharts, and rather than organize in tight circles, several groups are arranged in semi circles facing one person holding a marker and writing on the flipchart. This defeats the purpose of a conversation in which every voice is equal. Who controls the flipchart, controls the story. Be very careful about having an easel stand in the room. People are easily silenced and controlled by them at a deep unconscious level.
2. We have to write everything down. Having a flip chart in a meeting seems to demand that everything spoken gets written down for all to see. This does not facilitate a good flow in a conversation, and it is rarely a useful harvest of a discussion. In free conversations, not everything is useful, not everything is weighted the same, not everything matters.
3. Flipcharts are linear beasts. Unless you use a flipchart creatively, such as by mind mapping or the way Jim Rough does it in Dynamic Facilitation, flipcharts are useless linear beasts. Most people simply write lists of points on them, in sequential order and when the page is full, they flip it over and keep writing. Wisdom disappears over the fold, every point is given equal weight and conversations tend to proceed in linear ways rather than emergent ways.
4. Renting easel stands is a scam. Hotels charge exorbitant rates to rent a flipchart stand. It is not un common for these things to go for $50 a day and at one hotel I worked at, the Sheraton in Atlanta, they charged $170 for a flipchart stand with half a pad of news print paper on it. NEVER rent them. (Look at this scam!)
5. Post it flipchart pads are a bigger scam. If you use flipcharts in any kind of creative way you will have already discovered that the overpriced post-it flipcharts are incredibly confining. You can only hang them one way, it is difficult to cut them into smaller pieces, it is awkward to roll up notes at the end of a meeting because everything sticks to everything else. Give me a pad of 75 sheets of large white paper, and I’m happy. I can cut them into quarters for Open Space topics, or tape them on a wall together to make large murals, or cover cafe tables with them. Seventy-seven dollars for a pad is plain wrong.
So what is a GOOD way to use flipcharts and easels?
1. Put the paper in the middle. In small meetings, say in a board room, take the paper off the easel stand and put it flat on the table. If possible, allow everyone access to the paper so that multiple notes can be taken. Putting the harvest tool in the middle of the table allows everything we are doing to be directed towards the centre. This is the basis of the way we harvest in World Cafe and it is brilliant. It democratizes the harvesting tools in a powerful way. Your conversations WILL be different.
2. Make a mind map. Get used to taking notes in a non-linear way. Mind maps are much better ways to capture the essence of a conversation because the group can see linkages and watch the emerging whole of the conversation.
3. Use easels to make signs. Easels are useful for static signs pointing out times and places, instructions and so on. The moment they become the focus of attention, you will notice that they play on different levels. The note taker is above the group, and the notes are elevated. In improv we call this a status game. So neutralize the status. Use easels for signs.
4. See what you can do with tape, scissors and paper. Tape helps you make flipchart pads bigger by taping several sheets together. Scissors help you make flipchart pads smaller. In these three tools you have everything you need to scale your work.
5. Learn how to do graphic recording. The Grove teaches this skill. And what I love the best about the graphic recorders I work with is how they quietly listen and create harvests without being a dominating presence in a room. even though the murals they create are huge, their presence is small as they are working, allowing groups to focus on conversation and listening rather than “speaking to the record.” Also, learning to use basic graphic recording tools such as icons, diagrams and pictures helps make your own notes less linear, more meaningful and more useful in general for a group.
So, banish the easel, liberate the pads, be creative, be aware of power. Have fun.
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A beautiful extended reflection on the methodology of study in a coast Salish context from author Lee Maracle:
The object of ‘study” from a Salish perspective is to discover another being in itself and for itself with the purpose of engaging it in future relationship that is mutually beneficial and based on principles of fair exchange. We study from the point of view, that there is something unknown to be discovered, that all life contains something cherished, but hidden from us and that if we observe from as many angles of perception that we can rally, engage one another in exchanging observations, and consider the internal dynamics governing the behavior of the being observed from the perspective of its perfect right to be, we will understand it in relationship with ourselves. We do not believe we can fully understand the being under study, but we can come to see it clearly enough to engage it in relationship.
This process is a collective process, requiring many different sets of eyes, many different points of view. This is because if we examine something from one subjective angle [and all human observation and thought is subjective] then we will only understand an aspect of the being under study and we are very likely to engage in huge errors, leap to absurd conclusions based on subjective assumptions and so forth. We engage one another in this process on the presumption that all points of view are valid, but they must be POINTS OF VIEW, not biases. The points of view are accepted. They are never right or wrong, just different. No argument, attempt to persuade one another is useful here and thus we do not need to compete to see who has the best eyes, the clearest vision. The process of discovery requires different points of view, different sets of images, and different perspectives about the being under examination in order for the collective to be able to discuss it’s possible internal dynamics. We first see how it moves, see how it conducts itself, mark its sense of movement, its sense of time and being, we connect its conduct to its own being and then we connect its movement to its desire, its sense of time to its longevity and its behavior to its condition and its history.”
When we do this, we come to see that the end result is a powerful story, a long lasting relationship and this fosters, beauty, hope, heart and song.
via transCanada.ca / Keynote Speakers and Other Participants.
This is a gorgeous inspiration for the power of collective harvesting.