This morning I’m listening to a lecture from Naheed Nenshi, the mayor of Calgary, who recently gave the Lafontaine-Baldwin lecture on “Doing the Right Thing.” Nenshi shares his thoughts and stories on citizenship and on how that is changing in Canada. And he doesn’t pull punches. The lecture is divided into two parts. The second part talks about citizen action, but the first part talks about our history of racism. There is a deep thread of racism that runs through Canadian society. As a white skinned man, I grew up hearing racist chatter. “Privilege” in Canada – being an “Old …
Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission reported out this week. It has finished its work, listening to the stories of the survivors of Indian residential schools, promoting dialogue and healing and urging Canadians to understand what is implied by reconciliation. For many Canadians, the TRC’s work will receive a minimal passing notice in their day. They will have heard of it, they will probably know something of the history of residential schools, but they are unlikely to know how the legacy of residential schools plays out in contemporary society. Most non-indigenous people think it was “all in the past.” For most …
Thinking of friends and especially the Elders and survivors in Alert Bay today as the residential school is torn down. I was in a meeting today where we were discussing ethics and the social contract that Canadians have with one another and here’s the thing: if you are a Canadian, whether born here or recently arrived, you are bound to an ongoing relationship with indigenous peoples. It is impossible for you to own land or to benefit from the taxes paid by those who have exploited resources without being directly connected to the original relationships that founded this country. This …
Innovation does not come without discarding ideas, trying and failing. In complex systems with complex challenges, failure is inevitable and desired. If we need to prototype to sense our way forward we have to have a mindset that can handle failure. On Saturday at the Art of Participatory Leadership in Petaluma my new friend Shawn Berry convened a session on failure and through listening to stories ranging from small prototoyping failures to business breakdowns and even deaths, I noted a few patterns that are helpful for groups and people to address failure positively nd resourcefully Frame it up. In North …
Yesterday was wonderful. We spent the whole day around a fire on MacKenzie Beach listening to three stories and reflecting back what we learned. Pawa’s father Moy and uncle Tim both told stories of growing up in a traditional family and village. For me Tim’s story of getting stranded with his brother in a rowboat was powerful and contained all kinds of teachings about leadership, knowledge and practice. In the afternoon we did the same with Admire’s story from Zimbabwe, the story of what is happening at Kufunda Village. A full day of deeply listening to stories, harvesting lessons …