
Several years ago I made it a goal to work wth more collaborators than clients. I think I did it again this year. These days there is a beautiful blend between those with whom I collaborate and create projects and those whom I call friends.
I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to my partners this year, who make me way better at what I do. Happy New Year to all.
- Caitlin Frost, my partner in business and life.
- Tenneson Wolf
- Bronagh Gallagher
- Caroline Rennie
- Lily Martins
- Helen Kuyper
- Avril Orloff
- Rowan Simonsen
- Amy Lenzo
- Phil Cass
- Dawn Fleming
- Annemarie Travers
- Jennifer Charlesworth
- Rebecca Ataya
- Matt Mayer
- Cheryl DePaoli
- Rob SInclair
- Sam Bradd
- Corrina Keeling
- Trilby Smith
- Kelly Poirier
- Kris Archie
- Stina Brown
- Joie Quarie
- Edward Wachtman
- Ciaran Camman
- Teresa Posakony
- Amanda Fenton
- Yurie Makihara
- Samantha Slade
- Paul Messer
- Hélène Brown
- Cedric Jamet
- Elizabeth Hunt
- Eleanor Snowden
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I was always a social justice minded kid. But on December 6, 1989, when I was 21, my lifelong support for the feminist struggle was cemented.
Every year I publish the list of women who died that day and whose deaths changed the lives of so many of us.
Never forgotten are:
• Geneviève Bergeron (born 1968), mechanical engineering student
• Hélène Colgan (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
• Nathalie Croteau (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
• Barbara Daigneault (born 1967), mechanical engineering student
• Anne-Marie Edward (born 1968), chemical engineering student
• Maud Haviernick (born 1960), materials engineering student
• Maryse Laganière (born 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique’s finance department
• Maryse Leclair (born 1966), materials engineering student
• Anne-Marie Lemay (born 1967), mechanical engineering student
• Sonia Pelletier (born 1961), mechanical engineering student
• Michèle Richard (born 1968), materials engineering student
• Annie St-Arneault (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
• Annie Turcotte (born 1969), materials engineering student
• Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (born 1958), nursing student
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I’ve been deeply influenced over the years by Christina Baldwin’s principle that “no one person can be responsible for the safety of the group, but a group can learn to take responsibility for it’s own safety.” I too think that the principles of Open Space allow for the right balance for individuals to take responsibility for co-creating group safety. What is remarkable is that safety is an emergent phenomenon in Open Space, a true artifact of a self-organizing system. Of course I have seen some real conflicts happen in Open Space, but what seems to mitigate them is the double wall of the container.
What I mean by that is that meetings in Open Space happen within break out groups within the larger container. If a break out group breaks down, participants are still held in the larger space. I have seen very few instances where people in conflict left the bigger container, even if the exercised the law of two feet and left their breakout space. Most often a kind of “neutral ground” emerges in Open Space: near the agenda wall, around the coffee table, sometimes outside on a nice day. These emergent neutral spaces provide participants with a chance to discharge, relax, calm down and get their wits about them. The facilitator never has to do anything, in my experience, but just keep holding the space.
I don’t like the idea of safe space though, I prefer the term “safe enough” space, or even “brave space.” For many marginalized people the idea of safe space is always a myth, and there is no way that we can guarantee it will emerge in Open Space. So instead I encourage people to take a bit of a risk and enter into “safe enough” space, so that they can learn something new and let go of whatever it is they are holding on to.
I remember an event I did once on Hawaii with indigenous Hawaiians and well heeled Americans looking together at the values of reverence and sustainability. At one point, one of the Americans, a person with a net worth in the millions of dollars, asked the group that we commit to safety in the space. This raised the ire of the senior Elder in the room who snapped (and I paraphrase) “You have no right to safe space! Your desire for safety has imperilled the entire world. We do not live safe lives as a result. Our lands are colonized, our food supplies are depleted and our oceans are in danger of no longer providing for us. There is no safe space here. You must learn to live with risk and take responsibility for your role in creating it.”
When we are invited into risk together, everyone giving up safety according to their means, the possibility for real relationship exists in the shared challenge to our well held worldviews.
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This is the year I finally turn my version of the chaordic stepping stones tool into a book. I’ve been intending to do this for a number of years now, and the planning guide that lives on this website (available for free in English and Spanish) is essentially the book treatment and summary. The book itself will include a little bit of theory as well, based on my decade long dive into complexity work. It will also contains some stories, case studies and inspiration.
As a part of preparing the book, I’m offering a four week online course starting in a couple of weeks. If you have a project that you are working on and you want to bring this tool and some peer coaching to make it better, please join us. We have discounts for teams and we will even be able to provide you with real time design space where you can work together on the project idea.
I’d love to have lots of voices and eyes on the project as we go ahead, so if you have advice about writing books, ideas for publishers who might be interested, stories of chaordic design, criticisms about this way of doing things or any other ideas to share, I’m all ears.
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In his book Sea Room Adam Nicholson describes meeting John MacAuly, a Hebridean boat builder who has just built a boat for him to sail across the Minch to the Shiants.
“And do you think I’ll make a good sailor of her”
“If you had another life,” John said.
“Ah yes,” I said reeling a little. “I suppose one needs to know these things instinctively.”
“No,” he said. “You need to be entirely conscious of what you are doing and why you are doing it.”