Peggy Holman just sent me my copy of the Second Edition of The Change Handbook, the definitive reference for large scale systemic change processes. The second edition is much different from the first, covering much more territory than simply methodologies and approaches to change (although it does that amazingly). The book contains 68 chapters written by some 95 contributers (including yours truly as well as fellow blogger and friend Nancy White), and extends the investigation of these methods in to some of the areas that Peggy and I and others have been looking at for the past few years, including new forms of organization and what change means in the 21st century. It’s a monumental effort, a tremendous resource of inspiration, ideas and a definitive “state of the field.”
Between the covers of this book you will find articles on dozens of tools, including the ones I use like The World Cafe, Appreicative Inquiry, Open Space Technology, ICA Technology of Participation, divergent-emergent-convergent design, Cirlce practice, dialogue and many others.
The publication of the second edition will be accompanied by a gathering in March at Bowling Green University in Ohio. Called “Nexus for Change” the conference will bring together most of the contributers in the second edition and anyone else who is interested for a few days of dialogue about where to go from here. There is a small possibility I’ll be there, if my schedule loosens up.
The book will be widely available from the publisher and the usual slew of online book stores
[tags]changehandbook[/tags]
Picture a field in which someone has planted wheat.
We imagine the harvest from that field to look lkike a farmer using equipment to cut down the wheat, thresh it, and seperate the seeds from the stalks.
Now imagine a geologist a biologist and a painter harvesting from the same field. The geologist picks through the rocks and soil gathering data about the land itself. The biologist might collect insects and worms, bits of plants and organic matter. The painter sees the patterns in the landscape and chooses a pallete and a perspective for work of art.
They all harvest differently from the field, and the results of their work go to different places and are put to different uses. But they all have a few things in common; they have a purpose for being in the field and a set of questions about that purpose, they have a pre-determined place to use the results of the harvest, and they have specific tools to use in doing their work.
What’s useful to note is that, despite the field being the same, the tools and results are specific to the purpose and the inquiry.
It is like this when we meet. There is much we can do, but a well thought through inquiry helps us to sift all that we might learn in the meeting to that which serves our purpose. When we can design questions that open up our curiosity, think through how we might use the results of our work and use the tools appropriate to the task, we can go deeper into our tasks and acheive emergent, innovative and better quality results.
So just try this for the next meeting you are a part of. Give some time before hand to create a little inquiry: “What am I curious about in this meeting?” Think in advance how the results of that inquiry will help you work better, and decide on at least one way in which you will use what you have learned. See if that doesn’t create just a little more engagement and createa little more momentum for the results.
Photo by Hector
We have come to the end of a very busy year, and one which has been incredibly rich in terms of experiences, partners and projects. And so, as I do at every year end, I’d like to acknowledge the my clients and partners for 2006:
Clients
- Association for Community Education of BC
- British Columbia Academic Health Council
- Beloit College Leadership Institute
- Berkana Institute
- Boeing
- Greater Vancouver Centre for Aboriginal Business
- Centre for Sustainability at the Vancouver Foundation
- First Nations Summit Chiefs Health Committee
- Child and Youth Officer for British Columbia
- The Dalai Lama Centre
- Department of Fisheries and Oceans – Pacific Region Consultation Sectretariat
- Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
- Elections Canada
- Assembly of First Nations, BC Regional Vice-Chief
- Knowledgeable Aborignal Youth Association
- BC Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance
- First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, Health Canada
- The Kettering Foundation
- The International Association for Public Participation
- M’akola Group of Societies
- BC Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation
- Federal Treaty Negotiation Office
- Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia
- Prince George and Greater Vancouver Urban Aboriginal Strategy
- Department of Western Economic Diversification
- Orton Family Foundation for Placematters06
- Justice Institute of BC
- Caring, Helping and Nurturing Children Every Step, PEI
- Sliammon First Nation
- Soowahlie First Nation
- Treadlight Productions
- Fraser Regional Aboriginal Planning Council
- Vancouver Island Aboriginal Transition Team
- World Fisheries Trust
- Business Alliance for Local Living Economies BC
Partners
- Vince Verlaan
- Chris Robertson
- Patricia Galaczy
- Toke Moeller
- Sera Thompson
- Tim Merry
- Tennesonn Woolf
- Teresa Posakony
- Brenda Chaddock
- Michael Herman
- Dan George
- Tawney Lem
- Leslie Varley
- Lyla Brown
- Caitlin Frost
- Rob Paterson
- Peggy Holman
- Mark Jones
Work this year has taken me across BC, to Vancouver, Victoria, Parksville, Port Alberni. Nanaimo, Campbell River, Kelowna, Penticton, Merrit, Chilliwack, Prince George, Terrace and Prince Rupert. I’ve worked in Ontario, Nova Scotia and (by phone) with people in PEI. I’ve also travelled to the States, doing some work in Wisconsin, Washington and Colorado.
On the training front, with partners in the Art of Hosting community, we have offered programs in Parksville, BC, Yarmouth Nove Scotia and Bowen Island BC. This coming year, I’ll be working with Art of Hosting mates in Ottawa, Vancouver Washington, Columbus Ohio and on the Navajo Nation.
I also offered an Open Space practice retreat this year with my long time friend and partner Michael Herman here on Bowen Island, and did some other training work at Beloit College in Wisconsin, at the forum on sexually exploited youth in Kamloops, bC and at Boeing in Renton, Washington.
And of course, I published a book this year, the Tao of Holding Space, which will soon be available in print. Check this space.
It has been a rich and beautiful year nad I wish to offer a deep acknowledgement to my clients, friends, teachers and partners for the good work we have done together.
This coming year, Caitlin and I will be incorporating our business, Harvest Moon Associates. Harvest Moon is simply one way the work of our family manifests out in the world. To get off on the right foot, we’re taking a couple of weeks to hang out in a a nice warm and sunny place for a while, so blogging will be light here and the office will be closed until January 15.
Have a happy new year and thanks for reading along in 2006. I hope I will cross paths with more of you in 2007 and that we might find some ways to play together and make cool things happen.
Photo by Oxyman
Okay, so for more than 50 years we’ve known that Santa has been tracked by NORAD on Christmas Eve, but this year it seems like he might be having a bit of trouble getting off what’s left of the polar ice cap.
But seriously… the news from the north is not good.
[tags]arctic, global warmng, climate change, santa[/tags]
Eighteen years after the event, I still choose to remember the women killed at the Ecole Polytechnic in Montreal. Many of these women were my age, they were my contemporaries, they were students when I was a student and their murders touched many of us very deeply. So, as I have done every year, i invite you to join me in remembering these fourteen women and all women who have been murdered by men.
- Geneviève Bergeron (b. 1968), civil engineering student.
- Hélène Colgan (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
- Nathalie Croteau (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
- Barbara Daigneault (b. 1967) mechanical engineering student.
- Anne-Marie Edward (b. 1968), chemical engineering student.
- Maud Haviernick (b. 1960), materials engineering student.
- Maryse Laganière (b. 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique’s finance department.
- Maryse Leclair (b. 1966), materials engineering student.
- Anne-Marie Lemay (b. 1967), mechanical engineering student.
- Sonia Pelletier (b. 1961), mechanical engineering student.
- Michèle Richard (b. 1968), materials engineering student.
- Annie St-Arneault (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
- Annie Turcotte (b. 1969), materials engineering student.
- Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (b. 1958), nursing student.