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The new politics in North America

December 2, 2008 By Collaboration, Leadership 2 Comments

I can’t speak for Mexico, but this fall has had a transformative effective on the other 2 countries in North America.

First, Barack Obama.   And now here in Canada, the prospect of a progressive coalition unseating the newly elected Conservative minority seems like a more and more likely possibility.   So what gives?

First of all, the general mood of both countries has shifted to the progressive side of things, although in Canada, a weak Liberal leader and a screwy representational system left the Conservative party with 37% of the vote and the majority of seats and thus the first shot at forming government.   Certainly Obama’s leadership, vision and message has grabbed a hold of the American left in a new and energizing way and it seems like much of the centre right opposition to his leadership has simply vanished, leaving bitter neoconservative right wing idealogues stewing in their jealous regret.

Now both the Obama administration there and the progressive coalition here are trying to do things differently.   That begins by reaching out to unlikely friends.   In Obama’s case he appoints Clinton and some Republican and bipartisan picks to his Cabinet.   Here in Canada, Stephane Dion, the man who penned the Clarity Act which drove a fairly effective stake into the seperatist movement in Quebec, has reached a pact with the NDP to govern (with six NDP Cabinet ministers), assisted by a deal with the seperatist Bloc Quebecois who have agreed to support him on confidence votes at least for the next 18 months.

Three months ago none of this would have seemed possible.   Obama’s election seared possibility into the minds of everyone, and in Canada, the Parliament, which had been completely hobbled by Conservative tactics in its last session vowed to bring in new levels of decorum in the new session.   Stephen Harper, the Conservative prime minister, then did a 180 degree turn on that commitment, tabling an economic statement in the House last week to deal with the economic crisis but which contained a slew of ideological poison pills.   To adopt it, the Opposition parties would have had to vote against workers rights to strike in the public service, and against the public funding that political parties receive on a per vote basis.   That such a statement was made when the Canadian economy is in its worst shape in decades was simply too much for the progressive majority inParliament and they vowed to introduce a non-confidence motion, defeat the government and form their own.   All the ground work has been laid for that now and we await the next moves of the Conservatives who may yet suspend Parliament to prevent the change in government.   Imagine that.   A party forming a minority government suspending Parliament to protect itself from a coalition representing a majority of votes and seats in the middle of an economic crises that needs a new government budget and economic policy.   That would truly be the most self-serving of political acts, risking Canada’s economic position for a few months of limited power, for the Consertaives would surely be defeated in the House at the first opportunity.

Now as a progressive minded person, all of this has made me a little giddy and a little nervous.   I am truly captured by the notion of politics being done differently (even though on our side the reason for it is much more opportunistic than in the States).   I have been imploring my American progressive friends to remember the significance of Obama’s election and remember that what he has set out to do will be hard work and will anger and alienate many people IF people become preoccupied with the day to day struggles and appointments and policy statements.   It’s akin to doing major surgery – Obama has the chance to remove a malignant pox on American politics but to do so means making friends with people and ideas that are anaethma to his supporters.   But stick by him and have faith that the patient will survive.

My friend Alison made the same prescription this morning for us north of the border too.   If we are to have this coalition and we are to make it wotk, we must argue its ideas with conviction but at the end of the day support it at the cost of a disunified progressive poltical sphere, ripe for the splitting by the Conservatives.

If this works, in both countries, the potential benefits are enormous for everyone.   The Nothern 2/3 of North America will have a steady, progressive and creative hand on the rudder during this huge economic crises, politics may never look the same and the right wing in both countries will have a chance to reinvent themselves away from the ideological orientation of their previous incarnations, and towards a new conservatism that brings something to the table other than derision and fear mongering.

We have a chance here to seize something.   Crisis.   Danger.   Opportunity.   Political leadership will be remade in the next couple of years, and its about time.   Hang on.

Harvesting from long germinating seeds

December 1, 2008 By Art of Harvesting, Emergence, First Nations, Flow, Leadership, Open Space One Comment

Prince George, BC

Four years ago less a month I was running a huge Open Space event here in Prince George, in fact in the building that right outside my hotel room window.   Called “Seeds of Change” the event was a kick off for the urban Aboriginal Strategy, a community driven and led process intended to begin and seed projects that would make a difference in the lives of the urban Aboriginal community in this northern city of 80,000 people.

One of the participants at that event was Ben Berland, who was at the time working with the Prince George school district as an Aboriginal coordinator.   Ben had a vision of doing something really different within the education system here in PG.   He built upon a long standing recommendation to start a different kind of school.   He attracted a number of interested folks at the Open Space and moved his project idea forward.

A couple of years later, a task force was struck to study options for systemic change in the school system and one of their recommendations was to establish a primary Aboriginal Choice School within the school district.

The choice school idea is based on some very successful models in Edmonton and Winnipeg.   Getting it rolling has been a lot of work for many people here in Prince George, but tonight was the first of four consultation cafes we are running with four inner city school communities to find out what it would take to make a choice school successful in this city.

Ben, who is now working with the local Carrier-Sekani Tribal Council showed up tonight to hold some space with us and help run some small group conversations.   When he saw me the first thing he did was to remind me that this whole idea – four years in germination – had started at the Seeds of Change event.

This whole choice school initiative is a huge undertaking and it feels like in many ways the community here is just beginning its work, starting to engage in earnest with the complexities of finally implementing the idea that gained momentum across the street four years ago.

Things take time.   It’s interesting that we know that and we forget it at the same time.   We crave immediate results for our ideas.   When we forget that things take time, we forget everything that has gone on to take us to the point where we are finally able to start something and we forget the people that laid the groundwork for things.   So tonight I am sitting here grateful for Ben’s reminder about where things come from, and what it takes for big shifts to happen.   It takes hard work, and a firm conviction and most of all, it takes time.

From the feed

November 28, 2008 By Uncategorized

This week in the feedreader:

Helping along the narrative aesthetic

November 27, 2008 By Stories

Jack Ricchiuto was writing about narrative the other day:

We need to start reviving the narrative aesthetic where stories are more fields of countless possibilities than linear in nature, where the possibilities of meaning are more infinite than finite. We need to stop calling sound bites stories, which they’re not. We need to call stories the narratives that evoke a sense of wonderment more than conclusion.

Stories are dear to my heart and storytelling is a practice that seems more and more about who I am.   I think one way to help people become story tellers is to practice inquisitive listening with them.   When I run AI interviews for example, I often invite people to practice being Elders.   I invite them to tell a story the way an Elder tells it, with a lesson buried in it.   And start from the beginning and give over the sense of what it was like to be there.   For listeners, I invite them to practice being students and learners, listening to the storyteller as if that person was telling you something of great wisdom and importance.

When we enter into this kind of relationship, we create a storyfield that deepens our inquiry, our learning and our relationships.

Tenneson Woolf: How Are You Navigating in the Time of Dramatic Change?

November 27, 2008 By Flow, Invitation, Practice

Tenneson Woolf from a harvest poem called How Are You Navigating in the Time of Dramatic Change?:

I sound like I don’t know what I am doing, but I do know.

I find my way in the immediately infront, the next simple elegant step.

The next simple elegant step describes my approach to action.   Recently, in our little consulting firm we have adopted a project status process that involves writing down only the next step for each of our projects.   When you take the to do list and write it as one thing to do only, one elegant next step, it invites consciousness and beauty and elegance and simplicity to the work.   So I am becoming more conscious about filling in the little box that says “Next step” and taking a moment each time to find the clarity that is needed for that next step to invite more.

Navigating this drama with intention, consciousnes and invitation.   Creating more of all three.