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Seven Little Helpers for dialogue and action: Part 6 – Act

August 23, 2019 By Art of Hosting, Being, Design, Evaluation, Facilitation, Featured, Improv, Leadership, Practice 5 Comments

Part six of a seven part series on the Seven little helpers for dialogue and action Part 1: Presence Part 2: Have a good question Part 3: Use a talking piece Part 4: Harvest Part 5: Make a wise decision 6. Act The sixth of our seven little helpers is simple: Act. If you have taken the time to plan, talk, and harvest, you owe it to yourself and your group to honourably act on what you’ve learned. Now it’s easy to get consumed by the cult of action, and to assume that every encounter needs to have a week …

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Seven Little Helpers for dialogue and action: Part 5 – Make a wise decision

August 21, 2019 By Art of Hosting, Being, Collaboration, Complexity, Conversation, Design, Emergence, Facilitation, Featured, Leadership, Power, Practice One Comment

Part five of a seven part series on the Seven little helpers for dialogue and action Part 1: Presence Part 2: Have a good question Part 3: Use a talking piece Part 4: Harvest 5. Make a wise decision I’ve always thought that the essence of good leadership is the ability to make a decision. It requires a certain kind of courage, especially when it seems that there is a zero sum game at stake. It also requires a high degree of emotional intelligence and compassion and empathy, especially when the decision you have to make could result in harm …

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Seven Little Helpers for dialogue and action: Part 4 – Harvest

August 15, 2019 By Art of Harvesting, Art of Hosting, Being, Design, Facilitation, Featured, Leadership, Practice, Stories, Youth 5 Comments

Part four of a seven part series on the Seven little helpers for dialogue and action Part 1: Presence Part 2: Have a good question Part 3: Use a talking piece 4. Harvest Back in 2008, SIlias Lucius, Monica Nissen and I gathered at Phil Cass’s house in Columbus, Ohio and talked about the Art of Harvesting. Monica developed this practice because she found herself often as the “secretary” in participatory processes, typing up notes, clustering ideas, graphically recording landscapes, and generally making sense of the conversation. This was great for her, but she realized that the group was deprived …

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Seven Little Helpers for dialogue and action: Part 3 – Use a talking piece

August 13, 2019 By Art of Hosting, Being, Culture, Design, Facilitation, Featured, First Nations, Leadership, Organization, Power, Practice One Comment

Part three of a seven part series on the Seven little helpers for dialogue and action. Part 1: Introduction and Presence Part 2: Have a good question 3. Use a talking piece Think about any conversation you have ever had. If it ws a good conversation, there was a purpose or a question or a topic that was compelling and interesting to the people taking part. You may have found yourself “leaning in” and listening with curiosity, offering your own stories and perspectives, finding commonalities and exploring difference. In our natural setting as human beings, conversation sis easy and a …

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Seven Little Helpers for dialogue and action: Part 2 – Have a good question

August 12, 2019 By Art of Hosting, Being, Design, Facilitation, Featured, Leadership, Practice 9 Comments

Part Two of a seven part series on the Seven little helpers for dialogue and action Part 1: Presence 2. Have a good question One of the most common questions I get asked is “how do I come up with a powerful question?” My answer is “it depends.” There are some great guides to there to making great questions, (like ORID, Strategic Questioning or The Art of Powerful Questions) but when it comes down to it, my own practice is fairly intuitive. Here are a few guiding principles I use when creating good questions. Know where you are in the …

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