I’ve been slowly chewing on William Issacs’ book on Dialogue. I am surprised that I haven’t read it before.
AS well as reading the book, I have been subscribed to the del.icio.us tag on “dialogue.” Today in the aggregator, I found a great summary of the facilitation skills needed in Dialogue. From the paper:
“There are few facilitation skills more important that the ability to keep quiet. When I teach facilitation I always spend a lot of time on this particular facilitator skill. If you are a manager, trainer, or a leader in your field, there is a good reason why: you enjoy it. You enjoy being in front of a group, orchestrating consensus and creating the magic of teamwork. This is probably how you have fun.
The only problem for you is that facilitating a group to Dialogue means: not leading. It takes great discipline to describe the process, lead a discussion on the escape routes and then abdicate your control to the group. But the discipline of keeping your trap shut will pay off. If you let them, they will come up with better ideas than you ever considered. And those ideas will be their ideas. Groups implement their ideas much more readily that your ideas. This is the hidden power of Dialogue. It is the secret to creating ownership (an over-used term). The reason most leaders can�t do it, is because they can�t stay quiet long enough for their group to rise to the occasion. A good facilitator creates a vacuum of leadership perfectly shaped not for one individual, but for the whole group.”
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At OSonOS, my blogless friend Eric Lilius shared with us an insight from Emo Phillips that brought the house down:
I used to think the brain was the most wonderful organ in the body.
Then I realized who was telling me this.
I can’t tell you how much fun it was to finally meet Eric in person.
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Wendy nails some nice inquiry into the nature of Open Space practice:
What i have been working on links directly to Open Space practice. How to be Open Space rather than do Open Space. How to open more…and then more…and then more…How to be ever more present in the moment, more able to authentically issue and accept invitation…How to sit and hold this raw and tender heart without closing, without giving in to fear of judgement or blame, without attachment to any outcomes or reactions…How to be more absolutely direct in relating to the world, with actions springing from deep connection of intuition, heart, mind and body.
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I’ve been giving some thought to the home of the Open Space Technology practitioner community, openspaceworld.org. A few years ago Michael Herman and I reconstituted this site as a wiki with the intention that it would then be open to be edited by the community, and cared for by the community as well.
Alas, it seems that this did not take as well as we had hoped and constant spamming meant that we had to close the editing function. You can still have a password if you like, and edit to your heart’s content, but it’s one more step away from accessibility. And the result is that a small group of us, and mostly Michael, end up taking care of the site which was not the original intention of building the wiki
And so I’m wondering if there are examples out there of great sites that act as centres of gravity for communities of practice. The Appreciative Inquiry Commons comes to mind, as does The World Cafe site, two communities of practice I orbit within. I’d like ours to be collaborative as well as “heftier.” And not spammable.
So, thoughts?