Sometimes we describe what we do with practing the Art of Hosting as bringin participatory leadership to life. THis can be a major shift in some people’s way of thinking. To describe it, Toke Moeller sent this around a few days ago – an explanation of participatory leadership in one sentence.
| How do you explain participatory leadership in one sentence? |
o Imagine” a meeting of 60 people, where in an hour you would have heard everyone and at the end you would have precisely identified the 5 most important points that people are willing to act on together.
o When appropriate, deeper engagement of all in service of our purpose.
o Hierarchy is good for maintenance, participatory leadership is good for innovation and adapting to change.
o Complements the organigramme units with task force work groups on projects.
o Look at how well they did it in DG XYZ – We could be the ones everybody looks at.
o Using all knowledge, expertise, conflicts, etc. available to achieve the common good on any issue.
o It allows to deal with complex issues by using the collective intelligence of all people concerned & getting their buy-in.
o Participatory Leadership is methods, techniques, tips, tricks, tools to evolve, to lead, to create synergy, to share experience, to lead a team, to create a transversal network, to manage a project, an away day, brainstorming, change processes, strategic visions.
o Consult first, write the legislation after.
|
Traditional ways of working |
Participatory leadership complementing |
| Individuals responsible for decisions | Using collective intelligence to inform decision-making |
| No single person has the right answer but somebody has to decide | Together we can reach greater clarity – intelligence through diversity |
| Hierarchical lines of management | Community of practice |
| Wants to create a FAIL-SAFE environment | Creates a SAFE-FAIL environment that promotes learning |
| Top-down agenda setting | Set agenda together |
| I must speak to be noticed in meetings | Harvesting what matters, from all sources |
| Communication in writing only | Asking questions |
| Organisation chart determines work | Task forces/purpose-oriented work in projects |
| People represent their services | People are invited as human beings, attracted by the quality of the invitation |
| One-to-many information meetings | A participatory process can inform the information! |
| Great for maintenance, implementation (doing what we know) | When innovation is needed – learning what we don’t know, to move on – engaging with constantly moving targets |
| Information sharing | When engagement is needed from all, including those who usually don’t contribute much. |
| Dealing with complaints by forwarding them to the hierarchy for action | Dealing with complaints directly, with hierarchy trusting that solution can come from the staff |
| Consultation through surveys, questionnaires, etc. | Co-creating solutions together in real time, in presence of the whole system |
| Top-down | Bottom-up |
| Management by control | Management by trust |
| Questionnaires (contribution wanted from DG X) | Engagement processes – collective inquiry with stakeholders |
| Mechanistic | Organic – if you treat the system like a machine, it responds like a living system |
| Top down orders – often without full information | Top-down orders informed by consultation |
| Resistance to decisions from on high | Better acceptance of decisions because of involvement |
| Silos/hierarchical structures | More networks |
| Tasks dropped on people | Follow your passion |
| Rigid organisation | Flexible self-organisation |
| Policy design officer disconnected from stakeholders | Direct consultation instead of via lobby organisations |
| People feel unheard/not listened to | People feel heard |
| Working without a clear purpose and jumping to solutions | Collective clarity of purpose is the invisible leader |
| Motivation via carrot & stick | Motivation through engagement and ownership |
| Managing projects, not pre-jects | Better preparation – going through chaos, open mind, taking account of other ideas |
| Focused on deliverables | Focused on purpose – the rest falls into place |
| Result-oriented | Purpose-oriented |
| Seeking answers | Seeking questions |
| Pretending/acting | Showing up as who you are |
| Broadcasting, boring, painful meetings | Meetings where every voice is heard, participants leave energised |
| Chairing, reporting | Hosting, harvesting, follow-up |
| Event & time-focused | Good timing, ongoing conversation & adjustment |
Share:
Reading David Holmgren’s book on Permaculture right now, sitting on my front porch overlooking the garden that we have created using some of his principles. I love the permaculture principles, because they lend themselves so well to all kinds of other endeavours. They are generative principles, rather than proscriptive principles, meaning that they generate creative implementation rather than restricting creativity.
At any rate, reading today about the principle of Design from Patterns to Details and in the opening to that chapter he writes:
Complex systems that work tend to evolve from simple ones that work, so finding the appropriate pattern for that design is more important than understanding all the details of the elements in the system.
That is a good summary of why I work so hard at teaching and hosting important conversations in organizations and communities. Very often the problems that people experience in organizations and communities are complex ones and the correction of these complex problems is best done at the level of simple systemic actions. Conversations are a very powerful simple systemic action, and serve to be a very important foundation for all manner of activities and capacities needed to tackle the increasing scale of issues in a system. Collaboration, dialogue, visioning, possibility and choice creating, innovation, letting go of limiting beliefs, learning, and creative implementation are all dependant on good conversational practice. If we use debate as the primary mode of communicating, we do not come to any of these key capacities; in fact debate may be the reason for these capacities breaking down.
Conversation between people is a simple system that is relatively easy to implement and has massive implications for scaling up to more and more complicated and complex challenges. The ability to sense, converse, harvest and act together depends on good hosting and good conversation.
Share:
From a fictitious conversation that Dave Pollard hosted between two competing sides of his personality – the expert and the generalist – comes this gem on invitation and teaching:
Your job as an ideator is just to articulate the idea, as coherently and compellingly as possible, which is generally best done by telling a story. It’s not your job to research its plausibility, to become enough of an expert to know whether and how to make it happen. You just tell the story. Then the responsibility for implementing is left to each person to accept, or not. If the idea has wings, then people will do what they must to make sure it is implemented. No lists of who will do what by when. The experts will show up if the invitation is well-crafted and well-offered. And they’ll be open to new ideas if they sense, among the invitees, an appetite for it, a hunger. In which case, if it can be made to work, they’ll make it work.
Share:
Was listening on the beach yesterday to a good talk by Joseph Goldstein about four reflections that bring the mind to dharma. These relections are used by Buddhists to become mindful in everyday life. Mindfulness – individual and collective – is a resource in short supply in the world. A lot of the hosting work I do is about bringing more mindful consciousness to what groups are doing. These four reflections are useful in that respect.
From a dharma perspective, the four reflections are:
- Precious human birth
- Contemplation of impermanence
- The law of karma
- Defects of samsara
On their own these are esoteric terms, especially if you are not familiar with the Buddhist world view. But in practice they look like this:
- Be aware of possibility. What is possible right now? What is the gift of the present moment? If we were to think about what we could do right now, what would be the most valuable thing we could do?
- Everything changes. What we are experiencing right now will pass. We cannot know what will come, so we must prepare to be agile rather than prepare to be stable. Can we be as flexible as the changing nature of the world around us? If no, we risk being locked in an old operating system.
- Action brings results. And in a complex system, cause and effect cannot be isolated. Therefore what matters is awareness, and consciousness about what we are doing in every given moment. What are the things we do habitually that get us into trouble? If I intervene in a group now, what effect might that have over the long term? Be aware of motivations and try to stop acting habitually.
- We keep ourselves locked in repeating patterns. What are the patterns and behaviours we need to let go of to free us up for creativity, innovation or real change? What are the things we are doing now that limit us from doing anything differently.
In some workshops I have used these concepts to bring a deeper set of questions to work we are doing. For example, with a group of Native radio stations with whom we were trying to determine their impact, we kicked off a conversation with the question”If you were to disappear tomorrow, what would your community miss?” This dealing with one’s death is a great way to determine the impact you are having now, and it truly leads to a deeper reflection on what is going on.
Share:
My friend Tenneson Woolf sent along a glimpse of the wholeness that is an Art of Hosting gathering. Tenneson and I work a lot together doing these things, and this is the best version of what happens over four days:
1. Arrival. Coming Present. Feeling Shared Purpose.
The intention of this first time, often in an evening, is to help people arrive. Show up. Begin to see each other. Begin to see more of themselves. To open participants to being in the event context, in the learning space, and in the community for the next period of time. To begin to feel, beyond words, a sense of shared purpose. Some of this is letting go of what participants bring to the room. For many, we carry pretty big to-do lists wherever we go. We are committed to speed and efficiency. The intent in this first period is to find another way into the accomplishment that we want. It has the feel of slowing down, so that we can speed up. It is about moving deeper so that from that depth, we might work faster and in more sustainable ways. It usually involves a welcome by the sponsor. It usually involves overall sharing of context – the process we will be in over the next days. It usually involves a question, “Why did you choose to come here?” I’ve seen it work very well with a circle. I’ve seen it work very well with a world café. I’ve seen people at the end of this first evening delighted and surprised by how close they feel to other participants in such a short period of time and by how clear the purpose is.
2. Deepening In. Dreaming. Indentifying Questions.
The intention of this second time, often a full day, is to deepen in. To begin to note the many layers of assumptions, questions, and beliefs that are part of the work we do. It is increasingly rare for any of us, individuals or teams, to take time to imagine what our work could also be. And yet it is increasingly common for us to need better ways to do our work. Many of us are accountable in our doing within very demanding deadlines. Many are without time to pause and look more broadly at the purpose and the practicalities of our work and how we must innovate our working together. Or what new insights we have learned through our experience. Or what conditions have changed in the world that require us to adapt some of our previous plans. I have seen this work very well, again in circle and café, and also in appreciative inquiry. I have seen it work well in open space, particularly when the invitation is to stay conceptual rather than tactical. It is a time to ask questions like, “What is going on in the world that makes this work important?” Or, what are the core questions that if given attention would further strengthen our ability to do the work that we know matters and that we care about? Or what are the images of the future that we can see that we want to begin building in the present? I’ve seen people in a mix of places by the end of this day. Some are full – without any plenary speakers, there is a lot of information that has been shared and created. Some are tired – listening in conversation is hard work. Some are elated – they feel the quality of learning, work, and relationships that is beginning to spark new images of possibility. And some are frustrated – to let go of a personal viewpoint amidst a sea of other viewpoints can be a real challenge to individual or shared identity.
3. Listening. Letting Come. Doing the Work.
The intention of this third time, often another full day, is to roll up our sleeves and get to work. It is the kind of work that many crave, and that some arrive ready to do on the first evening. However, doing the work on this third day is very different than if done on the first night. Work on this day comes from a greater sense of community, and thus sustainability. It comes from a greater sense of colleagues who have come to see each other at more rich and more whole levels. Work on this day comes from the process of seeing our own opinions and beliefs change as we have been actively learning with others. It comes from a sense of shared story, of enriched sense of purpose. It comes from a place of shared commitment rather than obligation. I have seen this work very well in open space formats. People name the topics that they most care about. Others self-select into joining them, and they get to work. I have seen teams uniquely united on this day. The response I often here from participants is surprise at how quickly things moved and how detailed and practical they were. Whereas the previous day felt more conceptual, this day is more tactical and leaves people feeling a great sense of tangible outcome.
4. Taking it Out of the Room. Action at Home.
The intention of this last time, often a half or two thirds of a day, is to further solidify what participants take with them to apply in their local settings. For some it is asking a few more questions. For some it is setting a clear intention. For some it is connecting with a few more people. For some it is listening to one more teaching or model. I have seen this work well with knowledge cafes, circles, and action open spaces. It is a time to help people clarify their next first steps, whether in content, process, relationships, or strengthening fields. It is also about taking the surprise, the reawakened memory or strengthened sense of community and applying it. Practicing it. Doing the work in our local places of work and community. It is about a commitment to action, wise action that is simple, clear, and sustainable. And it is a time to close well, often with simple ritual, to seal the learning space that we have had together. I have seen many people share heartfelt expressions of love and appreciation here. It is what happens when we realign with our deepest sense of purpose.