Author: Tenneson Woolf

One of the teachings that I’m really loving offering is “12 Principles for Creating Healthy Community Change.” A week ago with Teresa Posakony at an Illinois Art of Hosting. At other Art of Hosting trainings in Japan and Nova Scotia. Working with core leadership teams. Each principle is accompanied by a few questions to help focus leadership and social engagement. One of the reasons I love these is I feel a deep embodiment of them. I’ve been living in, applying, and learning some form of these principles with many friends through The Berkana Institute since the early 90s.

These principles were created by friends and colleagues, Margaret Wheatley and Nancy Margulies. They are part of an Engaging Community Toolkit created in partnership by The Berkana Institute and Neighborhood Centers Inc. When I use these, I introduce the principles as “principles for freedom in design,” whether working with teams, communities, or movements. A bit of what is underneath choices of engagement methodologies and practices. I introduce the questions as “questions to get started.” Great for many things including process reflection, staff meetings, setting group norms and agreements, and working with community movements at scale.

Last week I shared these with a group at the Edmonton Art of Hosting. There were about 15 people that showed up to learn. I shared stories. Asked questions. Offered applied practice. Explored together. The check-in and check-out from this group is representative of what I’ve seen in myself and with many others as they explore these principles. It shows a kind of hunger and appreciation for the simple that they can use. To get a bit more of that flavor, a few of the words spoken in Edmonton are below:

Check-In: What brought you to this group?
-appreciation of the invisible
-desire to use in the work I’m doing
-desire to spark change
-longing to be released from the recipe of forms
-desire to use with my board
-appreciation of knowing at the “gut” level
-welcome of more tools
-freedom, my yearning for it
-applied possibility

Check-Out (after an hour together — yes, short, but a powerful touch): Please share a bit of what you leave with / appreciate…
-the spark of yes
-awareness
-tools for a community of practice
-clarity of common sense in need of common practice
-“failure in the middle” — I want to learn more
-good to feel the identity of us as human beings
-I could use this with my exec team over 12 weeks
-this is good scaffolding
-this is ultimate garden preparation for fertile soil
-a checklist to breath and get grounded

Loving offering this. Loving exploring with people. Loving seeing the birth of the simple in people and in myself. Loving the work that is getting done that supports healthy change.

Thanks all in Edmonton.

I just completed a day with a growing core team in Klamath County, Oregon. Yesterday, we were a total of 10 people. Lovely people. Leaders in the community. Mostly, providers of health services. Colleague Steve Ryman and I worked with Klamath Health Partnership CEO, Bob Marsalli to design the day. Our work yesterday was primarily

• to build relationships to help hold the intention of transformation
• clarify the central purpose
• take next steps on convening a community event for 50

Our central purpose that we arrived at was, as community, “How might we together improve heath and access to health services in Klamath County?”

Our design was simple. Some contexting from Bob. Some explanation of how we would work together, building on the earlier exploration of team that had happened two months ago. We invited people to speak some of what they knew as pioneers (or stories of pioneers) and what they knew of engagement. It was a great energy to begin with. We deepened the inquiry into the project by using The Flow Game, a simple round of inquiry to understand more of what was involved in this project. And then we asked people simply: What do you need to be well in this project? Great sharing.

After lunch, our time was committed to sharing the 5 Breaths, a model for architecting change at scale. And then the first level of shaping language for an invitation and a list of who we would hope to have in the room to join this inquiry.

It was a powerful day. A good dive.

Bob introduced it as “Pioneers of the Possible.” A great invitation for all of us. He spoke of his recent journey to Southern Utah, and learnings of the Pueblo people and the kiva. “Out of the kiva to do. Back to the kiva to learn.” A great way to think about this core team. Good gatherings to center the work. Then clear steps of action that bring the work into a level of being and usefulness to the community and each other.

I always pay attention to reflections and appreciations in a closing circle. A couple from this group stay with me. “This is not an ask for trivial work.” “It has been a personal day, which I didn’t expect.” “It is refreshing to see the possibility of things I’ve been cynical about for a long time.” “I always leave more hopeful. I feel like I’ve been meditating all day.”

Gratitude to this team and the work we are supporting on heath and wellness.

I am grateful to have worked last week with 43 beautiful people in Nova Scotia, Canada. Our focus was the Art of Social Innovation. It was a very skilled and experienced set of practitioners.

Most had a basic understanding of hosting and participatory leadership. Most had a next level understanding of the methodologies, mental models and practices and how they connect to large scale social innovation and change across regions, communities, nations, trans-locally. Most had understanding of the models we were using in social innovation, like 5th Paradigm of Organizing, U Theory, Two Loops (taking Social Innovation to Scale), 5 Breaths of Design. Most were peers cracking new levels of work in their spheres of influence.

A summary for me of what was unique about this is that we were a group of practitioners learning next levels to work deliberately with everyone: across teams, networks, professions, geographic boundaries. Learning in the spirit of Clay Shirky’s work, with “here comes everyone.”

There was much that happened that was rich. A few of those are below, offerings of harvest. Gratitude to all. An extra thanks to cohosts, Tim Merry, Kathy Jourdain, Sera Thompson, and Greg Judelman.

Held By Windhorse — Poem / Rap after being hosted on the land.

Inspirations After Day 2 — A few sparse thoughts from midway through the event.

Social Media Harvest — Real time blogging and posting from participants, hosted well by Greg Judelman and Thomas Ufer.

Who’s That Man in the Hockey Mask — Spontaneous Video Humor Haiku Harvest / Susan Szpakowski Poetry

Check-out Circle — Reflections from closing in our last circle.

Everything is Energy — Blog post of inspiration through Stephen Duns.

Photos — A few that worked out well. People. Flipcharts. Scenery.

Collective Learnings Harvest — From a final World Cafe on what we now know of the landscape of social innovation, as well as the dragons / questions that are good to be aware of.

Invitation — As posted on ALIA’s site.

1. It is scientifically supported.
2. Collective intelligence is real.
3. Field work is real.

These are the summary points that Stephen Duns of Deakin University in Australia offered last week in an Open Space session on a Quantum View of Social Innovation. We were together at the Art of Social Innovation. I appreciated the story he shared, including the above summaries. Clear. Simple. It was very helpful for me, adding to how I’ve been trying to make sense and articulate concepts of entanglement, healing, wave and particle nature, and a few other things about hosting.

Stephen’s starting point: everything is energy. It is supported from physics (see Arnold Mendel’s work). From psychology (see Jung’s work on cross generation knowing and the collective unconscious). From biology (see Sheldrake’s work on morphic fields and morphic resonance).

Stephen went on to describe the 100th Monkey observation. Feeding monkeys sweet potatoes that inevitably would get sand on them. They were gritty in the mouth. One of the monkeys discovered that if she washed the sweet potato in the creek, the grit was gone. For a time, some washed. Some didn’t. At the point of 100 monkey’s washing, in kicks the important part. All of the monkeys wash the sweet potatoes. Not just those locally, but also on neighboring islands. The intelligence carries in a field.

Hearing this story again had particular meaning for me. Throughout this gathering, a few of us had been talking about “energetic architecture.” It feels to me that many of us are hosting from the level of supporting the 100th Monkey, the moment in shift when intelligence of how takes a quantum leap.

Thanks Stephen. All. It’s all energy. Scientifically supported. Real.