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What Vimy Ridge says about who we should be.

July 22, 2015 By Uncategorized

My kids approaching the Vimy Monument

My kids approaching the Vimy Monument

I’ve been holidaying in Europe with the family this month – England, France and soon to Estonia.  I haven’t been blogging, just soaking things up and relaxing.

But today the kids and I went to Vimy Ridge and it kind of keeps with the theme of some of the reconciliation posts I made here last month.

It is said that Vimy Ridge was the event that defined the young Nation of Canada, which was only 50 years old when 100,000 of it’s men, women and children (yes many many soldiers were under age) assembled on the slopes of Vimy Ridge and launched the first battle in the Arras Offensive in April 1917, a battle that would lead to the stalemate being broken and the eventual victory for the Allied forces a year and a half later.

Almost 3600 Canadians were killed and another 7000 or so wounded that morning.  That is nothing compared to the losses of 150,000 French and Moroccan forces that tried to take and hold the ridge in the years prior to 1917.  But for Canada, that was and still is, the greatest single loss of life in a day of military action.

Much is made of Vimy, especially these days when Canada’s military role has now fully evolved from peacekeeper to combat again.  Vimy is often evoked to draw on Canadian sentiment to gather support for our military campaigns overseas.  As we approach the 100th anniversary of that battle, I expect the sentiment to be further reinforced, especially by politicians.

But here is the thing.  You simply have to visit Vimy to really understand this: if Vimy defined the kind of nation we are then it is a nuanced and complicated thing.  For our greatest ever battle was not celebrated by a triumphalist monument declaring our greatness (in fact a staue stomping a German helmet was rejected in the design), but rather a huge sombre memorial to the costs of war, and the responsibilities of peace.  There is simply nothing to celebrate at Vimy Ridge.  If you were to read into what Canada is by attending that site you will see the kind of country Canada is: brutal and unrelenting in its pursuit of a military (or colonial) objective, but capable of deep reflection almost immediately afterward.  Perhaps it was because Vimy was not a final victory, but simply a small part of a much much larger effort that the commemoration there is as sombre and reflective as it is.  Or perhaps it was just an acknowledgement that war is a steaming pile of horror often for unclear objectives or far distant motives of power and politics divorced from the sacrifice that actual soldiers suffer.  Our current government parrots this same pattern, championing new military actions, while ignoring the needs of veterans who return from these wars physically and emotionally scarred for life.

The monument itself consists of a number of important figures with names like Sympathy of the Canadians for the Helpless, The Spirit of Sacrifice, The Breaking of the Sword, Canada Bereft and The Mourning Parents.  Inscribed on the eastern side of the monument are the names of Canadian soldiers whose remains were never found.  The monument itself stands at the site of the objective of the battle and for several hundred meters to the west, the ground is still chewed up with craters and trenches, off limits because there is still unexploded ordinance in there, along with the bones of hundreds of human beings, blown to pieces in the battle.  It is a place alive with suffering, terror and death.  There is nothing beautiful about it, except perhaps for the birdsong, or the flock of sheep that graze the craters or the pines trees that lean upward towards the ridge top, appearing out of the corner of ones eye like some many soldiers charging for the top.

It is a place that is deeply moving and powerful and it does say something about the kind of country we can choose to be.  For I wonder if we have ever really enacted the spirit of Vimy Ridge.  Of course we are a country that is a small player in the military world, but when we fight we are ruthless.  But we are also a country whose defining battle resulted in a reflection on our care for the helpless, on the practice of sacrifice, on the breaking of swords, on the deep mourning of what has happened in the name of Canada, and of the care for those who have lost children.  In this way, Vimy says something about our national need to reflect and reconcile our actions with a morality that is lost in violence.  I wonder if we have actually done that.  I wonder if we can see this as an invitation to practice these principles in an ongoing way.  I wonder if in the spirit of Vimy Ridge, if we are living up to the ideals that are emblazoned in that massive marble statue on top of a lonely escarpment in Pas-de-Calais.

 

Practical reconciliation

June 7, 2015 By Uncategorized One Comment

Yesterday I read Taiaiake  Alfred’s provocative essay on reconciliation entitled: “Restitution is the real pathway to justice for indigenous peoples.” This will probably be a tough read for many people who are bought into the mainstream notions of reconciliation: that it’s about a state level response to specific actions without confronting a fundamental shift in the nature of the relationship  The idea of restitution is a powerful one, and today I’ve been thinking about what that means and why it is exactly the kind of call that should drive home the practical expression of reconciliation.  And I’ve been looking for hidden examples of where it is already occuring.

Today we are preparing to welcome our third Indigenous Focus cohort for the Leadership 2020 program.  This is a program that was developed by community service agencies working in child and family services.  The program ran our first cohort with leaders from this sector and they quickly recognized that they needed to train with their colleagues in the Ministry of Children and Family Services.  So we have run 8 cohorts now, seven of which have been blended cohorts with folks in the community and the ministry training together  Three of these cohorts have had an indigenous focus, which is to say that we are focused on the specific issues facing indigenous people and communities.  Participants are from many different backgrounds, ethnicities and communities but they are all working with indigenous children and families.

So that’s the context for this post.

Today my colleague Wedlidi Speck told me a story that fits in with Taiaike’s ideas, that give a clue about indigenous forms of reconciliation and restitution.  Back in the 19th century sometime, there was a massacre on the Central Coast.  Bella Coola warriors came and killed many people from the Kwikwasut’inuxw tribe.  In addition to killing many of the men, they took slaves to use and trade with other tribes. One of these slaves, Caribou Jack as he became known, was returned to the Kwikwasut’inuxw.  When he was freed, he was provided with a Kwikwasut’inuxw canoe that had been stolen and he paddled safely down the coast back to the survivors, where he was taken in and cared for.

What stands out for me in this story was how the people that released him (said to be Tsimshian) returned him freely, but also provided him with his own possessions, in good condition, which he used to get safely home.  There was no guilt in the story (and Taiaiake  writes about why).  But this was as much an act of restitution as anything.  The word in Kwa’kwala used to designate this return is “u’mista,” a word later used to name the cultural centre in Alert Bay.  The word is defined this way:

In earlier days, people were sometimes taken captive by raiding parties. When they returned to their homes, either through payment of ransom or by a raid, they were said to have u’mista. The return of our treasures from distant museums is a form of u’mista.

As a result of this restitution, it became possible for the tribes of the central and north coast to create agreements and relationships together.  Real ones.

In the work we are doing with child and family services workers, we see this happening every day.  The child welfare system is a fraught place for the practice of reconciliation.  At its worst, the system perpetuates colonization, and it is often roundly criticized for the role it plays in continuing the policies that were started in the residential school system.  And that is the story we often get, because criticizing the system and calling for its dismantlement gets a lot of airtime.

But there is a much different story that happens as well.  When it works – and that is largely up to the individual workers that make it work – the system can help restore community and families such that children can return.  The return of a child and the restitution of health and wellness to a family and a community is one practical expression of the kind of thing that Taiaiake  is writing about here.  And the fact that the people we are welcoming to Bowen Island this afternoon are right at the forefront of this work is humbling, whether they are working in family support, mental health, child protection, addictions and youth justice.  To see indigenous and non-indigenous people working together to figure out ways of engaging with better practices, with major systemic shifts and with a strong heart of justice is powerful.  It is an untold story of where restitution and reconciliation is happening every day.  A society that steals children unconsciously is fundamentally unjust, and everyone of these workers who is coming to this learning actively works to address that injustice.  It is not easy and making a mistake is dangerous.  It is not work for the faint of heart, or for those lacking courage.  But it is necessary and when it gets done well it is transformative

This is not perfect, but it has informed my views of reconciliation and helps me to see ways in which Taiaiake ‘s essay calls us to a deeper ground of engagement and personal involvement with the project of restitution in service of justice.  It’s a deep honour to see these folks struggle with it and it puts and invitation out to others.  How do you engage in the call for restitution?  How can you support the work that others are doing and where can you personally do that work too, at whatever level?

 

Reconciliation: a practical guide for non-indigenous people

June 2, 2015 By First Nations 6 Comments

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission reported out this week. It has finished its work, listening to the stories of the survivors of Indian residential schools, promoting dialogue and healing and urging Canadians to understand what is implied by reconciliation.

For many Canadians, the TRC’s work will receive a minimal passing notice in their day. They will have heard of it, they will probably know something of the history of residential schools, but they are unlikely to know how the legacy of residential schools plays out in contemporary society. Most non-indigenous people think it was “all in the past.” For most non-indigenous Canadians, residential schools was something that happened to others, who suffered injustice at the hands of people who are long dead.

So if you are a non-indigenous person, what does reconciliation mean to you? I think it’s important to understand that Canada was founded on two parallel strategies: brute force colonization and agreements meant to uphold the “honour of the Crown.” It’s kind of crazy. If you are an indigenous person you’re never quite sure if Canadian society is here to live up to its obligations or smash you in the face, because since the very beginning to the present day, one hand is offered in peace and the other is a fist.

And here’s what you need to understand if you are a non-indigenous person. If you are a Canadian, you are a treaty beneficiary, end of story. No matter if your family arrived in 1532 or last Tuesday. If you have Canadian citizenship you personally benefit from the treaty relationships that, over time, have made it possible for Canadians to own land, to develop resources, to use water, to hike in the forest, to grow things and make money. In exchange for the ability of the Crown to permanently occupy and use these lands, and therefore give you personally that same right, treaties created a relationship that is just as permanent with indigenous nations. If you are an advocate of “tearing up the treaties and starting over” then you are obligated to return your private land and all the wealth you have generated from Crown lands to the bargaining table. Because the very fact that you can live in this legal frameworks is a result of you personally being a treaty beneficiary. Yes, even in places where there are no treaties.

So the first thing you can do to advance the cause of reconciliation is to understand that you benefit from treaties, and that you personally have rights and responsibilities to First Nations that flow from this relationship. Some of these responsibilities are exercised through governments, but you pay for them personally with your taxes and that is as it should be. So remember this and remind others that Canada is a land founded on relationships and legally binding contracts and you have a duty to uphold the honour of the Crown’s end of the bargain. Not only governments. You, also.

Secondly, understand that First Nations are still to this day experiencing the brutal fist of colonization. When you see socio-economic statistics that talk about homelessness, addictions, abuse, diabetes and suicide rates that are far above the national average, understand that you are seeing colonization in action. When you see the rates of missing and murdered indigenous women and you see government’s luke warm response to this crises, understand that these girls and women are taking the full force of a society that still propagates violence against indigenous people with much impunity. When you hear of First Nations being steamrolled by global corporate interests like mines and tar sands operations and pipelines and fish farms against their consent and will, you are witnessing the same dynamics that were at play in the “dark days” of colonization and western expansion. If you think it was wrong then you must see that it is wrong now. Thankfully First Nations have more and more rights recognized in the Canadian court system and so it is harder and harder to be subjected to this kind of colonial activity. But you have to understand that this is not First Nations stopping economic growth: it is indigenous peoples using the Constitution of Canada to resist the abusive power of colonization. It deserves respect and support, because when Nations do this, they are operating within the legal framework of the country that gives you your own rights. To diminish their ability to do so would weaken the rule of law that benefits you.

Understanding that these two dynamics are at play is a practical, critical thing that all Canadians can do to make reconciliation real. And you can think about these things, see how they personally play out in your own life and address those who say that “treaties need to be redone” or “Indians get stuff for free” or “all that violence happened in the past” or “it doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

We have to fundamentally restructure the relationship in Canada but it does not start with governments. it starts with you and me. Take this moment in time to take a step closer to real reconciliation and help the TRC’s process actually have a legacy. Don’t wait for other people to create that legacy for you.

A couple of great days in Montreal

May 26, 2015 By Art of Harvesting, Art of Hosting, Conversation, Evaluation, Facilitation, Learning, Travel, World Cafe 3 Comments

Just about to leave Montreal this morning for Toronto and north to Thornbury, Ontario to visit family.  I was here for the conference of the Canadian Evaluation Society, where I participated on a panel on innovative dialogue methods (and yes I noted the irony in my remarks) and later led a World Cafe where I presented some of the sense-making processes I’ve been working on.  I was here on the recommendation of Junita Brown who has been in some good conversations with evaluators around the use of the World Cafe for evaluation purposes.  Originally Amy Lenzo and I were scheduled to host a cafe here that was much more ambitious: a plenary cafe with the participants to explore the learning field of the conference.  Through various machinations that was cut back to a panel presentation and a very small world cafe at the end of the day with 16 people. The conference was one of those highly scripted and tightly controlled affairs that I hardly ever go to.

The session before us was a case competition where student teams were responding to a mock RFP from Canada World Youth to evaluate an Aboriginal Youth leadership Program.  Not a single team had an Aboriginal person on it, and every single presentation was basically the same: full of fundamental flaws about what constitutes success (“Did the youth return to their communities”) or what constitutes a cultural lens (“We are using a medicine wheel to understand various parts of the program).  One group of fresh faced non-Aboriginal students even had the temerity to suggest that they were applying a decolonizing strategy.  Their major exposure to indigenous communities was through a single book on decolonizing methodology and some internet searches about medicine wheels.  It was shocking actually, because these were the students that made the finals of this competition.  They looked like fresh versions of the kinds of evaluation firms that show up in First Nations certain they know what’s going on.

To make matters worse, the case competition organizer had a time mix up with the conference planner meaning that our panel started 30 minutes late which gave me very little time to present.  As I as doing a a cafe directly afterwards I ceded most of my time to my panel colleagues Christine Loignon, Karoline Truchon who did a very interesting presentation on their use of PhotoVoice.  It was clear to me at the conference that the practitioners among us had a better grasp of complexity theory, power  and non-linear sense-making than any of the professional evaluators I met.

I presented most of the work that I have been documenting here over the last few months, and later led a small group through a cafe where we engaged in the creation of a sensemaking framework and used a pen and paper signification framework.

By far the better experience for me was hanging out with friends and colleagues.  On the first night I arrived I had dinner and drinks with my friends from Percolab: Paul Messer, Samatha Slade and Elizabeth Hunt.  We ate fish and chips, drank beer and whisky and caught up.  On Sunday I met Jon Husband for lunch on the grass at McGill with his delightful godson and then joined the Percolab folks for a visit to the new co-operative ECTO co-working space on Mount Royal in the Plateau, followed by a barbeque with family and friends.

And Last night, after my presentations a great evening with Juan Carlos Londono and Lisa Gravel. We had dinner at Lola Rosa and spent hours going over the new French translation of the GroupWorks Pattern Language Deck.  This was a brilliant time.  I learned a bunch of new French words and most fun of all we discussed deeper etymology, nuance and the limitations and benefits of our respective languages in trying to convey some of the more esoteric practices of hosting groups.  The new deck has some beautiful reframing and some names for patterns that need some work.  But it’s exciting to see this translation and I always love diving into the language.

I really do like Montreal a lot and in the past number of years come to love it more as I have lost my inhibition about speaking French.  the more French I speak, the more French I learn and the more the heart of the city opens up.  Many English Canadians have the idea that Montreal is a cold hearted city to English speakers, but I find that isn’t true at all.  Just offer what you can in French and people open up.  And if you’re lucky enough to sit down with lovers of words like the friends I have, your learning explodes.

Off for a couple of days to visit family and then home to Bowen Island for a series of small local facilitation gigs, all of which will tell me something deeper about my home place.

Extending the Four Fold practice of the Art of Hosting

May 21, 2015 By Art of Hosting, Facilitation, Leadership, Practice One Comment

The four of us on the Art of Hosting Beyond the Basics team are all global stewards of the international Art of Hosting community of practice.  We have all attended or hosted at least two of the global stewards gatherings and we have been deeply involved in the creation and growth of the Art of Hosting community over the past decade.

As such, the Art of Hosting is our lineage.  It’s where we met.  It’s the most important community of practice in our lives and it continues to shape our work.  And Beyond the Basics is very much rooted in the Art of Hosting.

A couple of weeks ago in Minnesota while we were preparing our teachings I saw clearly how we were extending what we know about the Art of Hosting.  It’s not just that Beyond the Basics focuses more on how the practice of participatory leadership extends past meeting facilitation into longer term and broader strategic initiatives.  It’s that our work builds upon the Four Fold Practice of the Art of Hosting the simple pattern that lies at the heart of this approach to facilitation, leadership and community work.

The four fold practice was the first pattern that gave rise to the Art of Hosting.  It is simply an observation that great conversations happen when people are present, when they participate, when they are hosted well and when they co-create something.  Some of the originators of the Art of Hosting, people like Toke Moeller, Monica Nissen and Jan Hein Nielsen began asking the question, what if these patterns became practices?  And in that moment the decades long inquiry that is the Art of Hosting was born.

Our Beyond the Basics offering refers to these practices, but only now have I seen what we are doing.  Toke has always called the four fold practice “The Basics” and I have no need to creat new basics.  But I can see now how deeply rooted we are in extending and deepening them.

Be present. For all hosts, personal practice is essential.  Whatever you can do to bring yourself to be present with a group serves the group.  In the Beyond the Basics offering, Caitlin is a deep  practitioner of The Work of Byron Katie which is a powerful personal practice that we all use to get at what keeps us stuck, to address what we are afraid of, and to help us become resilient and quality hosts of uncertainty, complexity and confusion.  The first clarity we need to address is our own, and we do that with the Work.

Participate. It is impossible to be a part of a participatory process without participating.  And it is impossible to affect a complex system from the outside.  Understanding how systems works helps us to be more effective participants in the strategic work we are called on to lead and host.  Using theory from the science and sociology of complex adaptive systems creates a more powerful way to see and understand and leverage people’s participation in their own work.  through teaching Cynefin and working with harvesting methods that are sense-making based, we extend the practice of participation to move beyond the acts of listening, speaking and learning and into the realms of sensing, interpreting and decision making.

Be a host, so everyone can make a contribution.  Tim’s work with his Collaborative Advantage model extends this practice of hosting beyond the methods that for the core of the Art of Hosting practice. While we are deep practitioners of World Cafe, Circle, Pro-Action Cafe and Open Space, we know these methods alone are not enough to host large scale strategic change work.  We need a framework to understand the levels of transformation that need to be hosted and the key design pieces (such as power, results and capacity) that need to be addressed so long term change can continue to be hosted from within systems and organizations.

Co-create.  It is one thing to say “just work together” and quite another thing to do it when our communities and organizations are soaked in differences.  Where power, privilege, race, economic opportunity and all kinds of other differences are at play we need a set of practices that can bring us to deeply transformative shared work.  Tuesday has been developing this framework for many years now and it is taking form in a way that has fundamentally changed my own approach to co-creation.  Moving to a place of shared work is taking co-creation beyond the basic level of just doing things together.

In our AoH Beyond the Basics offering we are addressing this extension of our lineage with teachings and reflective practice that help participants to dive more deeply into the four fold practice.  You don’t have to have come nto an Art of Hosting to understand or work with what we are sharing, but if this framework makes sense to you, the three days we spend togther will help challenge and deepen your practice in these areas.

We would love to have you join us this July in Leicester, UK or in October in Kingston Ontario.