Mental Model Shift

There was a bit of a conversation happening last week on the Art of Hosting list serve. It’s a global group of practitioners connected by a few things that include a medium (list serve), some shared purpose (applied participative leadership practice), and a desire to learn together (from just beginning to multiple years of experience). It’s a comforting kind of list to me — definitely disturbs any thoughts of being alone. And it’s a wise group of people. People know stuff and are willing to share.

The conversation last week that caught my attention was on mental models. One person named a workshop that she was creating. She asked for examples of mental models. One participant, Lori from California (whom I don’t know) offered these five gems, each of which I relate to. I love her clarity of “from this to that.” I also love some of her invocation of entrepreneurial spirit.

  • I have to do it all myself ~ I have lots of support around me
  • I have to work for a company ~ I can be successful as a contractor/freelancer
  • If others don’t value me, I have no value ~ When I value myself with confidence others are drawn to me
  • The government (or organization, etc.) should solve that ~ I can do something to create a solution or improvement
  • I have no power in the situation ~ I always have power in the way I perceive, my attitude, and my choices – where I choose to focus.
 Just a bit of conversation. And some good wisdom.

From Drip to Torrent

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The rain is falling in Seattle. It is what happens in September. I can feel summer letting go, giving way. What has been glorious, sunny days, are now in their inevitable yielding. Cloudy, and sopped in.

Thornton Creek, near my Seattle home, sometimes a mere drip in the hot summer, quickly turns to a raging torrent, making it’s way under the bridge in the back yard. The creek is only three feet wide where I am. However it can go from an inch deep trickle to four foot deep “be careful” in an instant, catching volume from upstream tributaries.

I don’t know how long the season of rain will last, but it is that, a season. Not just a sporadic shower on a day.

I’m told that when the rain comes, the salmon can begin to smell home. It is one of the things that stimulates their epic journey from ocean, to lake, to river, to stream —  back to where they were spawned. Amazing, right. I’m also told that the salmon have made their way near this part of Thornton. Restoration efforts have been on-going — they might even go beneath the bridge some day. Thornton makes it’s way to Meadowbrook Park and eventually to Lake Washington. Then Lake Union. Then the Pacific. It’s a journey.

I loved hearing the creek this morning. And feeling wonder in it, and thinking about the salmon that might just find their way here.

Why Talk — An Exercise

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In working this week with Paul Horton (co-host) and a group of 25 public health leaders, I created an exercise called Why Talk. The version below was 45 minutes. I would love to try it in 90 minutes. My hope in offering “Why Talk” was to help people find more clarity on the story that they hold (or can choose) for hosting participative process.

Intro — I shared a story of a colleague who has been asking when to invite participation and when not to. I also shared the importance of underlaying story of participative leadership — reason and purpose that is beyond, “it’s nice.”

Private Journaling — I had them use a folded piece of paper to list five reasons that they know in themselves or that they’ve seen in others about why NOT to talk. Could be anything — takes too much time; makes me nervous, etc.

Partner Conversation about Why NOT Talk — I gave them five minutes. There was a lot of energy.

Popcorn Harvest — With the full group. I wrote their responses on a flip chart.

Private Journaling — On the next page of the folded piece of paper, list three reasons that are honest, succinct, and real about why talk. Again, could be anything — to get information, to build relationships.

Partner Conversation about Why Talk — Different partner than the first time.

Popcorn Harvest — As before. However, I realized that I wanted a bit of further nuancing. I asked them about “why engage with a group” to see if that would shift responses. People generally felt it did — shifted the attention from personal to the value of the group, which is really what I was hoping to bring forward.

Further Prompts — I asked what their description would be with particular personalities. Why engage with the group when you are talking with someone who really gets it. With someone who is really cynical. With someone who is really busy. With someone who is really gooey appreciative. Trying to help participants identify what is honest for them.

Four Pillars — I offered what I have found to be my most helpful versions of Why Talk, or Why Engage The Group.

People support what they create. This is a principle that starts to lead to action. It’s easy to get that people want to act together. People want to do good. Talking together creates essential condition for that action to occur in a more sustainable way. So does listening. So does harvesting.

Who we are together is different and more than who we are alone. This is one that I learned over and over with Margaret Wheatley. Since the early 90s she has been encouraging people to see systemically, knowing that engagement with one another gives us access to the magic, or difference, of who we are together. It is a person of “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”

If you want a system to be healthy, connect it to more of itself. This is a biological principle that I connect back to Humberto Maturana, the Chilean biologist and philosopher. Talking and listening are part of that, right. Telling stories. Sharing observations. Asking questions of each other. To create a healthy system, which is the work of leadership.

If you want to go faster, go alone. If you want to go further, go together. This is an African proverb that I learned in my early days with The Berkana Institute, where we were encouraging process to help us go together. To help us remember a kind of belonging together. Talking, listening, harvesting creates belonging.

It was fun to create this and offer it. Helping people move a litter further from imposing a set of tools to understanding a story on which to clarify intent and that have freedom to create and use tools with more purpose.

H O L Y

In the work I’ve done with faith communities over the last ten years, I have particularly appreciated clergy and lay people who are able to be in the seriousness of the work, and, the playfulness of the work. Ministry, be it formally leading a parish or growing an organic farm, is serious, right. I think of it as the work and life of deepening souls together. That’s individually and collectively. I love it that this deepening can be simple — we are just creating a pattern of asking questions together and being honest together. It is deeply satisfying to me to be with people who give real attention to matters of spirit.

A few years ago, while planning for an event, it was my friend and colleague Erin Gilmore, a pastor within the United Church of Christ tradition, that named, Holy Mischief-Making. She was riffing off of a “strategic mischief-making” reference that I was speaking. It seemed, just for a moment, that the cheekiness and naughtiness of mischief-making was attached to holy. Holy, with the divine. Holy, what matters when we are older and beyond the rush of the days. Holy, that which is real from deep within. I love the way that Erin smiled when she said it, and the way we both laughed out loud — “you just said that, right?”

Last week, I was reading a piece that a friend and colleague wrote, Ivy Thomas. Ivy has been among other things, a Conference Minister for the United Church of Canada. Ivy was rewriting basic agreements for The Circle Way into the context of using Circle at church. What she came up with was the acronym, “HOLY.”

Hold stories in confidence.

Open to the needs of others and yourself.

Listen with compassion and curiosity.

Yield to moments of silence.

Good, right. Simple (which so often is a form of holy to me). Clear. An invitation to practice (not a checklist from which to chastise). Thank you Ivy, for your seriousness and playfulness balled in to these statements. Ivy’s full pamphlet on using The Circle Way in faith communities will soon be available on The Circle Way website.