Detail from a quilt designed and made by the St. Andrews Anglican Church Women Quilter’s Guild. The quilt was made in 1967 in honour of Canada’s centennial year. Keen eyed observers will notice patterns in here that relate to that celebration. The quilt was on display at the Bowen Island Public Library earlier this year, on loan from Joyce Ganong whose mother, Isabel Faulks, was one of the quilters. Another reflection from the Complexity Inside and Out course we taught yesterday… Caitlin led us in a check in process that was about slowing down out seeing. Here’s a variation. Try …
Context changes everything. This used to be a forest. Alicia Juarrero is the source of so much great thinking on the role of constraints in complex systems. Her two books, Dynamics In Action and Context Changes Everything are brilliant discussions of the role of intention and how constraints shape complex phenomena. They are philosophical texts, and so are slow reads, but well worth the effort. You can find many videos of her sharing her insights on You Tube and elsewhere. She is generous with her time and enthusiastic about her work. Last week I sat in on a seminar she …
Tenneson, Caitlin and I are running a three day leadership course for MacEwan University here in Edmonton. It starts tomorrow and we are having a great conversation at Remedy chai cafe about why meetings matter for folks studying leadership. Here are some of the insights. —- Meetings are microcosms for leadership practice. They are places to encounter one’s own leadership gifts and leadership challenges. What you learn when you host a meeting is very much related to how you lead a team or and organization or a board. Meetings are a place to confront what’s real and meaningful. They contain …
I was going through some old emails today and found one from 2020 from my friend Susan Phillips in Minneapolis who shared a really moving message about the closing of an important Youth Leadership Initiative (YLI) back then. It relates to how to end a container. If you’ve been with me in real life you know that I like to end a gathering in a crisp and decisive way. I think it’s important to know when you are done, when the work is complete and when the next thing happens. So for years I have used a practice that I …
When we are teaching dialogue practice and participatory meeting design, I often draw on the example of organizational and team staff meetings. Every organization I’ve worked with has these meetings and they ae almost nearly the same: an endless re-iteration of what people are doing, and rarely nothing more compelling that an email wouldn’t take care of. There is rarely even time for discussion becasue you have to get through everyone’s update in the 30 minutes assigned for the meeting. So I often advise folks who want to bring more participatory culture to their organizations to focus on staff meetings. …