This week I was in a gathering with 16 friends about the nature of hosting new organizational structures that arise from the hosting practices that seek to move groups to new levels of consciousness and collaboration. The gathering was essentially four days long, and at the end of second last day I had an interesting conversation with my friends Peggy Holman and George Por about the art of harvesting. “Harvesting” is usually thought of as a way of telling the historical story of a gathering, and as a metaphor it has some value in terms of expanding the idea beyond …
From my friend Roq Garreau: “Visioning means imagining. At first generally, and then, with increasing specificity, what you really want. That is what you really want. Not what someone else has taught you to want and not what you have learned to settle for. Visioning means taking off all of the constraints of assumed feasibility, of disbelief and past disappointments and letting your mind dwell upon its most noble, treasured, uplifting dreams. Some people, especially young people, engage in visioning with enthusiasm and ease. Some people find the exercise of visioning painful because a glowing picture of what could be …
I’ve just finished co-hosting the Art of Hosting training with my mates Tenneson Woolf, Teresa Posakony and Brenda Chaddock, We spent four days with 27 people learning the art of hosting and convening meaningful conversations. There is much that I learned in that, as I always do when I am teaching, but what seems most present for me this morning is Tenneson’s persistent quest to find the simplest way to host meaningful conversations. As a facilitator, I believe strongly that we should meet only when there is a need. It is best to hold a meeting when you don’t know …
For the past two years, I have been active in the Art of Hosting fellowship. This is a global community of practitioners dedicated to uncovering the new and emerging forms of meaningful conversation and organizational shape. Together we have been conducting trainings, working together on projects and deeply learning our patterns. Several of our mates in this fellowship have been working hard to bring about an online presence for our work, and today it went live. So I introduce to you the brand new Art of Hosting site, a place that describes what we are doing, how we are doing …
One of the decision making tools we teach in the Art of Hosting is called “Council.” In it’s essence it is a way of making a decision collectively which uses dialogue and conversation to get to a point where the decision is fully supported and meets the needs of the group. This kind of process can take a lot of time, but the quality of the decision is incredible. It leads to sustainable action, solid relationships and wisdom. There are a couple of other things required for making council a good process. First you need mates, people with whom you …