Drawing by ritwkdey I have been thinking a lot the past few weeks about the living systems vs. the mechanical systems worldviews. It’s interesting that there is a clear distinction between these two kinds of systems – a system is alive or it isn’t, at least in this point in time – and yet the way we humans think our way through being in these systems seems to fall on a continuum. My conversation with Myriam Laberge here has pointed this out. I initially wrote a post that put facilitating up against hosting as two words to describe different ways …
A stump in a forest hosts life in a living system Photo by alastairb * NOTE: I changed the title of this post to better reflect the both/and nature of this conversation, rather than the unhelpful either/or way I originally wrote it. At the Art of Hosting last weekend, it finally came to me – the simple description of the different between facilitation and hosting as I understand it. So here are a few simple metaphors and a more detailed meditation. At the simplest level, you can think of a party. A facilitator is like a party planner, or …
Photo by Darwin Bell Hyperlinks – follow these leads a thread. Haiku resources My friend Thomas Arthur, who weaves with gravity, posts Wooshclang! Richard Sweeney weaves with paper. A beautiful and complete list of what the world is made of. Does your disaster plan include conversation to mobilize quickly? Or is it still expert driven? Nice summary of Senge’s core concepts on Learning Organizations You, and many other living creature, have a billion and a half heartbeats to change the world. Change management myths. (Not including the myth that change can be managed, but still…) Doug’s blog: Footprints in …
Taholah, Washington If this article is any indication, the future of management will require more hosts and less bosses. Hierarchies are disappearing, top-down and centralized is giving way to distributed, and organizations are becoming more open and engaging of stakeholders. That is true everywhere in my experience, including here at the Quinault Indian Nation where we are reframing the tribal government’s strategic plan in several unique ways. First we have established a core team of stakeholders from the government and community who are willing to take responsibility for stewarding the plan. Second, the core team has proposed …
Seattle, Washington. This morning’s keynote was a four person panel presentation from the team that created the Boeing Operations Centre, which is the primary face of Boeing’s interaction with their customers, helping them with maintenance and servicing issues. The presentation was given by Peter Weertman, Bruce Rund, Bob Wiebe and Darren Macer. This post is a collaborative harvest of that keynote by myself, Tenneson Woolf and Teresa Posakony. One thing to notice about people that work at Boeing is that they almost always talk about their relationship to planes dating back to being kids, they take great pride in their …