The benefits of attending to design

I’m here in Battle Creek, Michigan working with 17 very interesting people who together are planning the 2009 Food and Society Gathering, sponsored by the WK Kellogg Foundation.   This is a repeat gig for Tuesday Ryan-Hart and Tim Merry and I, although last year we worked with Phill Cass, Toke Moeller and Monica Nissen as well.

Tuesday and I have been working over the design of this gathering all day today, preparing and chaging and shifting things, going over and over everything, making allowances for shifts in time, for different arrivals and so on, and tonight we’re set.   It brings home to me the importance of design.

This fall almost all the work I have done has consisted of design conversations with groups who are hosting meetings.   In every case, I have worked remotely with a team of people to co-create the design for our time together.   We have been very thoughtful about building in lost of breathing space in agendas, using processes that invite emergence and co-learning and paying close attention to sharing hosting and leadership around.

What I am learning as I do this over and over again, is how much time it takes to get it right, and what the payoff is for nailing it.   In my experience I have found that even designing short gatherings well and co-creatively takes at least double the actual time allotted for the meeting itself.   If you imagine being an athelete or a performing artist, the analogy is accurate; rehearsal takes time.   Even a five minute performance takes months of planning to do beautifully.   With this gathering, a 2.5 day conference on the food system with up to 600 people, hosted within a few days of pre-meeting activities, the design will take 4 days of face to face time with 21 people, and an additional 12 hours of webinars all together.   We’ll also meet as action teams virtually over the next six months in smaller aggregations to work on the design.   And that’s not logistics and invitations, just process design.

The payoff, I have noticed, is a gathering that is co-owned and co-hosted by a team of people who are highly invested in the process.   In fact the intensity of doing this work results in friendships that last beyond the work itself and often spin off into other ventures.   Quality is born in relationship and relationship takes time and undivided attention.   In the grand scheme of things, 5 days of work together isn’t a lot, but if we are to pull off this 2.5 day gathering again, every minute spent in quality counts.