Author: Tenneson Woolf

Last week was learning-filled for me at the Art of Hosting Boston: Getting Our Important Work Done Together. Teresa Posakony and I were invited to join an inspired local team — Sibling duo, Deb and Jon Gilburg, Carla Kimball, Sky Freyss-Cole, Naava Frank, and Ginny Wiley.

I loved the strength and experience of this team. Being with people that can dive deeply into the science and simplicity beneath the magic of shared, collective space. I loved the experience of inviting a format that helps bring out the best of people in the room. The way that the “we” feeds into an expanded sense of individuals. I loved the friendship. I loved the start of a local Community of Practice.

A few harvest pieces below:
–Closing Poems, Pictures, Objects, and Clay
–Photo Collection (including individual shots on the poems)
–Photo Collection from Madeline Snow (placed into PPT document)
–Audio Reflections on Bridging Language (from the group – 12 minutes)

This visual illustration from Sky.

This last piece took place on the last day. It included suggestions for translatable definitions of the Art of Hosting, as well as some helpful and playful discussion.

Boston Art of Hosting
Group Reflection on Bridging Language
(Hosted by Amy, Leith, Karl, Peggy, Lee…)
January 28, 2011

What is the hosting?

– Innovative ways of collecting data and ideas.
– A way to help people deal with change; a set of tools for dealing with change.
– Creating a social architecture to have strategic conversations in order to create innovation and change.
– One of the best practices for convenors who pride themselves in what they do.
– A way to share, hold, and deal with complex challenges so that a larger group of people are invested in solving problems together.
– The how of bringing communities together, including in large forums.
– Four words: Ways to help groups. “Well, you know how people spend a lot a lot of time in group meetings and have a hard time getting things done. I help with that. Which means that groups will be able to _____.”
– Imagine if you went to a meeting and everyone was engaged and from that everyone was involved. I can help with that.
– It isn’t about changing the language. It is about framing that allows the conversation to begin.

I so enjoyed this book, written by Garth Stein, a Seattle author. What a treat to read a novel! The book was loaned to me by Ginny Wiley, whom I worked with last week. Just the right timing for a couple of airplane reads and a few hot baths. Just the right mix of delight to hear a story told by a dog, Enzo, and deep-hearted concern of human beings in the reality of human life. A story of family, of conviction, of humility. Background themes intelligently woven in from the world of car racing. Laughter in the beginning. Aches in the middle. Tears in the end for me.

There is one passage at the end that felt like a signature. It makes it seem like the book was much about racing. This paragraph was, for me, about wholeness. Just keep learning this one.

“I know this much about racing in the rain. I know it is about balance. It is about anticipation and presence. I know all of the driving skills that are necessary for one to be successful in the rain. But racing in the rain is also about the mind! It is about owning one’s own body. About believing that one’s car is merely an extension of one’s body. About believing that the track is an extension of the car, and the rain is an extension of the track, and the sky is an extension of the rain. It is about believing that you are not you; you are everything. And everything is you.”

“Today, many people are beginning to touch the potential of a new kind of collective leadership – a way of leading together that is collaborative, intelligent, and generative.”

This is part of the framing that Diana Durham and I offered last Saturday at a pilot workshop in the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the town in which Diana lives. Diana is a writer and author of a book about how Arthurian mythology gives us a set of “operating instructions” to find our way back to the deeper aspects of collective leadership. She knows a bunch. And she is lovely to work with / think out loud with. I offered some structure on the social architecture for meeting to help create a container in which we could interact with this place of passion for Diana.

I’m quite drawn into what Diana shares at many levels.

One level is the simple power of story. The Arthurian Quest and Grail Quest stories are compelling. They contain what have become archetypes in contemporary life.

That’s the second level — the way that such archetype is embedded like DNA in many societies. “When we hear it, we aren’t learning it. We are remembering it.” This is what Diana and I have talked about often.

And a third level is the invitation that the myth creates for collective leadership today. I can’t translate the mythology — I count on Diana for the beginnings of this. But the contemporary narrative is something like this. “These times are complex. We can’t quite sort it out. Our best way of sorting it is with attention to wholeness in ourselves and our teams. These are fundamental challenges for leaders of today. When we can reclaim a sense of the whole, or re-integrate a sense of the whole, we can lead much more capably.” Well, that’s a beginning anyway.

Quite enjoying and welcoming the next creations with Diana that could grow into a workshop or two.

• At the train station in Alewife, MA. On my way to #AoHBoston. Meeting team and designing today.
• RT @katiaroha: There are over 20,000 species of edible plants in the world yet fewer than 20 species now provide 90% of our food.
• Participants arriving through the snow for #AoHBoston. Follow us here: http://yfrog.com/gygn1ooj
• Jon welcoming and inviting at #AoHBoston: LEAN IN to getting our important work done through collaboration, creativity, and action.
• Framing for me at #AoHBoston: I don’t know what to do. But we do. Tap the intelligence of this group and this field.
• Teresa framing at #AoHBoston: At the core of AoH = What does it take for me to be personally present and have courage amidst wild change?
• #AoHBoston: 3 years ago at these Essex tables working with a wild idea: a movement for wholeness at Disciples of Christ. What wild here now?
• Teresa at #AohBoston: Circle is for listening with each other, further into each other, and further into our selves.
• #AoHBoston: On relationship to power and impact on work — Are you clear on your intent with the resources that you have?
• Carl on intent and identity at #AoHBoston: “It’s always fun ’til someone looses an I.”
• Deb at #AoHBoston: Instead of creating co-learning, shine a light on what is already happening.
• Gabrielle at #AoHBoston: “If you are afraid to be wrong, you’ll never be right.”
• #AoHBoston: It is not ours to live a life that is a perfect plan. Yet it is ours to live as practice and offering.
• On two loops at #AohBoston: Thenew is in the birth of new systems.
• On to Seattle after a full week at #AoHBoston, recovering from a slip-on-the-ice concussion, and a great pilot workshop with Diana Durham.