Take an English-based nonsense word generator, enter its output into ChatGPT, and invite the Ai to create definitions for the nonsense words and we might actually be able to finally make English as expressive as German!
Here are 20 imaginary words with definitions provided by ChatGPT:
- Foreseng: (verb) To predict or foresee an event or outcome.
- Ramboad: (noun) A type of plant with thick, fleshy stems and leaves used for nourishment and medicine.
- Pacitabspaw: (adjective) Describing a calm, peaceful, and serene environment or atmosphere.
- Biliters: (noun) Small, round objects made of metal, glass or plastic used for decoration or as symbols of good luck.
- Tremplundie: (verb) To shake or quiver intensely, often in reference to an object or structure.
- Sporhotter: (noun) A device or apparatus used for generating and distributing heat or warmth.
- Foursts: (noun) A dense, forested area or wooded land.
- Prologradiffix: (verb) To modify, alter or change the progress of an ongoing event or process.
- Calinewba: (noun) A plant with large, fragrant flowers used in perfumes and aromatherapy.
- Clobvidutic: (adjective) Describing something as dense, compact and heavy.
- Sepates: (verb) To divide or separate into distinct parts or entities.
- Callivitner: (noun) An individual with a calm and composed demeanor, often associated with wisdom and serenity.
- Perginstants: (noun) Small, persistent pieces or remnants that remain after a larger entity has diminished.
- Buentively: (adverb) In a manner that is active, energetic, and productive.
- Croidsidi: (noun) A type of animal known for its agility, speed and grace.
- Fulcully: (adjective) Describing something as full and abundant, often in reference to material possessions or resources.
- Adroman: (noun) A person who excels at and enjoys public speaking, storytelling or performing.
- Antlesely: (adverb) In a manner that is slow, careful and deliberate.
- Piectidyei: (noun) A small, decorative item or trinket, often made of precious metal or gemstone.
- Slocopridders: (noun) A type of machine or device used for cutting or slicing objects or materials.
Happy Friday!
Our latest iteration of Working with Complexity Inside & Out” is open for registration. The program will run online from April 13 – June 15, 2023 on Thursday afternoons, North America Pacific time.
For the past couple of decades, my partner Caitlin Frost and I have been helping individuals, organizations and communities become more responsive to the complexity that they face as times and contexts change around them. We do this through a variety of tools and supports including
- personal and group coaching so individuals can become more resourceful in uncertainty and ambiguity;
- Participatory dialogue to create the conditions for groups to make sense of their situations and develop creative and emergent responses to the challenges they face;
- Longer-term strategic capacity building that helps them work with influence so that these organizations can dance with the complex environments in which they are working.
In the course of this work we have been on a learning journey through bodies of work that include:
- Complexity-informed practice through the work of Dave Snowden, Glenda Eoyang, Cynthia Kurtz, Dee Hock and others who have pioneered the field of complexity in human systems.
- Approaches to participatory dialogue and leadership as developed by the Art of Hosting community and the communities of practice associated with complexity-informed facilitation methods such as Open Space, World Cafe, LIberating Structures and many more, where the emphasis is on creating a dialogic container and working with self-organization and emergence.
- Approaches to leadership capacity development rooted in neuroscience, mindfulness, and practical awareness tools such as The Work of Byron Katie that help us to look at and work with our minds as complex systems in their own right, requiring complexity-based tools to work with the stories and patterns that prevent us from actively and creatively engaging with complexity.
And over the past few decades Caitlin and I have developed an approach to our work which uses and builds on the work of these folks and also has developed some original tools to complement these approaches. All of this is offered in a nine week, cohort-based learning program called Working Complexity Inside & Out and registration for our 2023 spring dates, April 13-June 15, is open now.
The origin story of this program comes from Caitlin and I tracking eight key characteristics of complexity pictured above that show up in every context in which we work, from our individual lives to that large systems of our cultures and societies. In the program we introduce you to ten foundational practices to addressing and working with complexity, no matter at which scale you are working and we introduce you to theory, tools, and practices that are intended to spur on your journey in working well with complex challenges at every level.
We really love this program. It has been a fantastic way to combine our life’s work together, and no matter your level of experience, you will learn new tools, find some new rabbit holes to go down and be able to bring grounded challenges and problems you are working on into a supportive learning environment.
Much more information is available on the registration page. Please be in touch with any questions. We look forward to welcoming you into the cohort.
The Paul Klee Centre in Bern, Switzerland. An amazing room, even though it lacked natural light.
Many of my meetings involve being in both a circle configuration and gathered around small tables. It is possible to move table in and out, but for most meetings (and full day or more workshops) these room requirements will be ideal:
- The formula for an ideal room size is 100 square feet per person or 10 square meters per person. the more square the room the better. This allows us to set up a circle and a cafe space. If we are only doing one process (a world cafe OR an Open Space), then we can go with 75 square feet or 7.5 square meters per person. But more room is always better, especially in pandemic times.
- Good air filtration is important.
- Natural light is ideal. Windows on two sides of the room with empty walls on the other two sides is perfect.
- Room set up is a circle of chairs in one half of the room and a cafe space in the other side. The tables in the cafe space should be ideally 3×3 feet or 1×1 meter with four chairs around them. For a group of 40 people, we need 10 tables. Square tables work best. if squares aren’t available, 6 foot (2 meter) long rectangular tables work well too, and we can get 6 people around them if need be. Round conference tables are not helpful as people are too far apart and it increases the noise in a room.
- It is ideal to be able to tape posters on the wall using painter’s tape.
- Projection optional but useful.
- For groups larger than 40, and depending on the acoustics, a handheld microphone is helpful. I always assume there are folks in the room with hearing issues. 30-40 is the maximum for unamplified sound, and even then some people have very soft voices.
Typical materials we use in workshops and participatory events include these:
- Mr. Sketch markers, one marker per four people.
- Crayola markers, one package of these per 20 people.
- Plain white flip chart paper for the tables so people can write on it. One pad of 50 sheets per 30 people.
- Post it flipchart pads optional (these are expensive and not as useful as plain pads, but we do use them)
- Post-it notes Packages of 3×5 and 6×4 and assorted 2×2 square sizes are useful too. Important that these have the “Super Sticky” symbol on them which means they will stick to walls and hang vertically.
- Basic office supplies: Scissors, painter’s tape, ballpoint pens and name tags.
- Additional decorations for the circle centre, important organizational artifacts, nice fabrics, flowers.
- A portable bluetooth speaker for music.
For local events, I usually bring the markers and post it notes, letter sized paper, tape and bluetooth speaker, and ask the client to bring flip chart pads, office supplies and the organizational artifacts.
Put all that together well and you get a beautiful space with lots of room to move around and lots of materials to work with.
What is your essential list?
Nuu-Chah-Nulth and Kwakw’kwa’kwa’kw Elders and youth teaching together in the Kwagiulth big house at Fort Rupert in 2005.
Once a month, in our little United Church here on Nexwlelexwm (Bowen Island) I fill in for our not-quite-full-time minister by leading the service and offering a sermon. I’ve never published those sermons here, but why not? Here is today’s.
Reading: Matthew 4:12-25
We are well into the season of Epiphany and so this is the time of year that we contemplate Jesus’ ministry in the world and his early life. We get to witness a Jesus who is called from his work as a carpenter and who becomes an important and radical spiritual leader in his time. For the first 28 or 30 years of his life, things are somewhat uneventful, and although he shows some talent for interpreting scripture as a precocious child , he isn’t doing much else of note.
To set the stage, Matthew, whose terse words we will be studying this year, offers this text from chapter 4, which is the first time he writes about Jesus as a spiritual leader. The first few chapters of his book concern Jesus’ birth, the visit of the magi and the story of John the Baptist. With chapter 4 we get two important stories. The first, which we will hear in the first week of Lent, is the story of Jesus retiring to the wilderness of a 40 day retreat in which he meets the devil and wrestles with temptation. It is a story of a spiritual coming of age that echoes that of other great spiritual leaders, including Buddha, who sits under the bodhi tree struggling with his mind in the form of the temptress Mara as he approaches the great insights and liberation of Nirvana. Somewhere in this story of baptism, retreat and now calling, Jesus has gone through a similar transformation. He is not longer a carpenter.
Now these events are often told in a breezy narrative of what Jesus is up to, but as I read and meditated on the readings this week I was struck by how the simple structure of the story that Mark just read mirrors four deeper callings that I think are part of our work as Christians.
A calling is just something that one cannot ignore. It is a movement of Spirit that reaches deep inside and changes a person. It hits you like, well, like an Epiphany, which is to say that a calling is a manifestation of Spirit inside of oneself that changes behaviour. It can draw us towards a life mission, and an identity. It has the power to surprise, to give insight, to change one’s ways, and to ultimately align one’ purpose in life with the needs of the world.
What I also love about the way that this little story is told is that it also provides some simple guidance for ourselves, to act in tune with Spirit.
The first calling is to withdrawal and contemplation and alignment with the light of God that shines through the soul of a person and turns their heart and mind and hands to acts of justice and compassion, the words of the prophet Isaiah. This comes on the heels of news that John the Baptist has been arrested, and will soon be killed. John is very much the pre-cursor of Jesus and this news provides the gravitas for Jesus’s choice. He knows that choosing to reveal himself will result in his death. His choice to act has a consequence from which he cannot escape and so he withdraws to rest and wait before responding to the call. Like the morning sky waiting for the sun to rise, Jesus withdraws to cultivate his light. It does not good to burn too brightly right out of the gate.
Discernment is a critical part of responding to a calling. A calling changes lives. Even on the micro-scale if we realize that we are about to confront a major decision in our lives, even burdened by urgency and overwhelming need, the first act should be to withdraw and consider the consequences. It’s not second thoughts so much as it is deeper thoughts.
The second calling is revealed in the simple statement ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ With these modest words, Jesus’ entire message of spiritual liberation is embodied and in saying it he has become a spiritual teacher. As we’ve learned before the word “repent” is the English translation for the Greek word “metanoia” and it is a terrible translation. “Repent” means to feel guilt, remorse and shame for something and it’s as far as you can get fro Jesus’ message of compassion and forgiveness. “Metanoia” means to change one’s life, literally to turn around. Jesus offers this as an instruction: if you have done something wrong, go back to that point and take a different tack, apologize, heal yourself, and you will find forgiveness because the “kindom” of heaven wants you to belong, wants you to be in relationship and wants you to be connected and whole. Like the Buddha, Jesus knows that life is hard and that we all walk around with shame and guilt and regret. He is not interested in doubling down on that, pressing on teh bruise and making you feel like shit. He is about liberation, and he is about giving you a simple pathway to addressing the burdens you are carrying. Simple in concept, tricky to execute. But to be left riddled with shame and guilt is literally NOT what Jesus said. So, “Change your life: stopping harming yourself and others and the forgiveness and love you seek – which is always there – will fill you with joy and healing.” That’s a better translation of the phrase.
The third calling is to community and movement-building, gathering the disciples around him in a core team to activate the mission of love and justice. The phrase “become fishers of people” is a reference to the sayings of multiple prophets who point to the rich and unjust people in the world who rule with cruelty. Jesus’ mission is to rally a group of people together to transform the society they are all living in. To practice radical love and forgiveness, to gather people together, to heal and feed, to support and care for one another. Once he is committed to this call, Jesus’s mission becomes gathering many people into a movement to make change.
Justice is not the work of a single person. We have just passed the annual commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and when I think about him, and Indigenous rights leaders here in Canada like Delbert Guerin and Simon Baker and Marge White and Khelsilem and George Manuel and Gisda’wa and Wedlidi Speck, I can see that the project of becoming a prophet, literally a social justice warrior, is not work to do alone, nor is it work that one can do part time. Jesus asks his disciples to leave their professions and engage in the work of world transformation alongside him.
A life’s calling has that effect on a person. Suddenly you know what you are made for and whatever you were doing before falls by the wayside as you fully commit yourself to the work of Spirit.
And finally we come to the fourth calling: the work of healing people and the world. It is not just enough to advocate for a more just world. The world cries out for healing and reparations and repair and reconciliation. We have damaged social relations, our connection to the planet and to our selves. In order to make change in the world, we need to heal and restore. You can see that no matter how you have healed – cooled your anger, broken your addictions, restored an ecosystem formerly devoid of whales, life floods back in. Joy and Spirit and wellness fills you. The “Kindom of God” surrounds you. Being healed is the name we give the way from guilt and disconnection to wholeness and life.
And so the readings give us a map of our calling, a checklist of things to do if we are to follow in the footsteps of Jesus as his followers. May we have ears to hear how our callings can contribute to a just and kind world.
A box of donuts that Joanna Vervoza-Dolezal, the starting centre back for TSS Rovers, brought for the Swanguardians on the last game of the season. Reciprocity in support.
Yesterday I had an informal call with a person who is leading up customer relationships for a large local company. The company is both a profit-making venture but also is a community institution and has a profile and responsibility beyond just the bottom line. We were talking about how the organization was stuck and the different approaches that the organization was taking towards customer relations when we stumbled onto an untapped area that may help to get the organization unstuck.
For organizations with double or triple bottom lines, the moment your focus moves beyond a financial return on investment, your customers and clients stop becoming ATMs and start becoming friends. Yes. Friends. The lines between your organizational life and the community become blurred. Social license becomes a reality, and that means that customers suddenly make decisions out of love and loyalty to the bigger vision which they can help co-create. They become non-material investors and shareholders in what you are doing. Your sustainability does not solely rely on making a profit. It relies on how those people that buy your services AND how they help shape and co-create your mission.
Where we got to in this conversation was that the organization needed to find ways to allow customers and clients to offer something back. Rather than going out and catering to their needs constantly and trying traditional marketing methods of giving the illusion of being a part of something, customers and clients of the organization need to have a chance to be meaningfully involved. In fact there are probably at present lots of people who are trying to give back and be involved but haven’t been seen because the organization has no way to receive their gifts. This is a real shift for how this organization has grown to see its customers. As the connection to social license fades away, customers increasingly get seen as people to be catered to, responded to and served. On the surface that seems a noble customer relations strategy, but when challenges are met, there are very few people with a meaningful investment in the organization to help repair it and set it back on track. Customers can just walk away at any time. And if you have customers who have bought into the social bottom line but you are only chasing the dollar, those ones will feel the lack of reciprocity first. When they leave its hard to get them back.
Why? Because people want to give. They want to be a part of something. They want to do something meaningful with their lives, their time and their money. We love a good product, but we also crave being a part of making it. Witness the way Apple for example has created a Distinguished Educator network. This is a way that educators in schools who love Apple products can help create new applications for these products in their schools. These folks are often cutting edge front-line teachers who are exploring pedagogy and using technology in a way that supports good learning theory. They are no longer customers. They are helping the company grow its brand, for sure, by working with schools but they also helping Apple find new ways to use their technology in service of education and learning.
As the Chair of the Board of Rivendell, a non-profit spiritual retreat centre, we’ve been exploring this angle through fundraising. We are an organization that has been generously supported by a Foundation throughout our whole existence and we have decided that we want to start doing fundraising not because we need financial resources, but because we want to create a different relationship with the community of people who love and support us and for whom our organization has made a deep impact in their lives. None of us on the Board are skilled at fundraising, and for all of us the prospect of doing it is terrifying. So we decided to learn together. We worked with a friend of mine who specializes in fundraising in these kinds of situations and he said his job is not parting people from their money but rather “helping people with money them heal by giving them a way to make meaning.”
Heal from what? Partly from a world that has completely commodified us either as a customer or as a unit of productivity. I think humans have a deep need to give and to be a part of something, but those of us who live in capitalist market-based societies are primarily valued as transactions. Everything we do is tracked for the benefit of dominating our attention and ultimately our wallets. But when I am offered an opportunity to provide a gift of time or money because it enters me into reciprocity and relationship, suddenly my life has the meaning I have been seeking. It is truly healing to give a gift and have that gift received.
To refuse an authentic gift is dehumanizing to both the giver and the receiver. Over time, losing the opportunities to provide gifts causes us to lose touch with what fundamentally makes community.
You cannot build communities around transactions. If your organization has a social bottom line at all and your entire customer relations strategy is transactional, I reckon you will always fail on this score. I think many companies who start out with a social bottom line leave it behind if they can’t figure out how to do it and revert to the single financial bottom line. That is enabled with customer management systems and managers who are trained in this type of work. Through our Art of Participatory Leadership training, we seek to teach leadership practices that enable social sustainability through enabling contribution. I’d love to know if folks are seeing this meaningfully taught in MBA programs or inside other institutional management and business programs.
The sustainability of an enterprise with an implicit or explicit community mandate rests in the ability of the enterprise to create spaces for people to give and co-create. That leads to co-ownership which can be material – like with our TSS Rovers FC community-ownership model – or more intangible, like the feeling of connection people have to helping create a space for spiritual renewal at our Rivendell retreat centre. Our sustainability depends on financial security and community. TSS Rovers FC needs to make a profit to survive, but we cannot do that without a community of people investing their time and talent over the long term to create an organization that is about developing humans, whether on or off the pitch. We encourage folks to offer what they can to the enterprise with two principles:
- Assume your talents are needed and;
- Proceed until apprehended.
The result at Rovers is that we have a happy patchwork of folks who offer expertise, enthusiasm, money and sometimes just an extra body to move things around. We even have a tradition of our players helping to set up the stadium and prepare the supporters section before they begin their warm up routines. We try to provide opportunities for everyone to experience gifting, because that is fundamental to the game of football anyway. Giving, receiving, offering space and time, and enabling your team mates to succeed is what secure victory on a football pitch and so we try to bring that ethos into our lives off the field too. That is how we go from being a successful football club to being a place that makes better humans and builds community whether you come to a match, in cleats, boots, shoes, sandals or bare feet.
Think about that. In the place where you are involved as a formal or informal leader, how are you enabling people to give? How are you receiving and holding the gifts and intentions of those in your orbit who are already giving to you? How are you enabling reciprocity to build community and sustainability?