“Many others have written their books solely from their reading of other books, so that many books exude the stuffy odour of libraries. By what does one judge a book? By its smell (and even more, as we shall see, by its cadence). Its smell: far too many books have the fusty odour of reading rooms or desks. Lightless rooms, poorly ventilated. The air circulates badly between the shelves and becomes saturated with the scent of mildew, the slow decomposition of paper, ink undergoing chemical change. The air is loaded with miasmas there. Other books breathe a livelier air; the …
One of the quotes I keep rolling out all the time is this one from Christina Baldwin: No group can prove itself safe by the definition of one member; it can only prove itself healthy and responsive to the the needs of different people over time Christina Baldwin, Calling the Circle, p. 172 I sometimes reframe this quote as “No one person can be responsible for safety in a group, but a group can learn to take responsibility for its own safety.” For a group to work well, especially if it is confronting challenges, uncertainty, complexity, or conflict, it needs …
Euan Semple was the first person I ever linked to on my blog. Today he posts a little reflection on his blogging practice: …I’ve always said, my blog posts are mostly memos to self. They are for me to react to the world around me and to see those reactions placed before me for inspection. Yes inspection by others but mostly by me. Being concerned about whether or not people like what I have written affects how I write. I guess this process mirrors our struggles to identify our true selves in the rest of our lives. The draw of …
The other day on the Art of Hosting facebook group, my friend Cedric Jamet asked folks for some materials about the four fold practice, which is the basic essence of the Art of Hosting. Toke Moeller weighed in with his latest posters from a session he was leading with graduate students in sustainability leadership. Toke was, of course, one of the originals who put the four fold practice together and like all good generative frameworks, it has changed over time and it gets expressed in different ways depending on context. But the essence is that it balances self-awareness and focused …
Our Complexity Inside and Out course is now in full swing and after 3 of 7 sessions we have covered some of the basics that make up our understanding of complexity theory and some of the core practices to affect change in complex systems, both inner and outer. One of those strategies of course is through shifting constraints. To work with self-organization and emergence in a system, finding the constraints that enable behaviour and creating different ones can have the effect of shifting the behaviour. Not always of course – we have to pay attention and monitor what we are …