Author: Tenneson Woolf

There are many definitions of hosting that my colleagues and I are evolving into. I laugh when I remember back to an event earlier this year, where, at the start Chris Corrigan offered a definition and named it as one of 87 that we would offer in the coming three days together. He laughed. I laughed. We all did. What makes humor funny is it’s truth.

Here’s a definition that I like from the Community of Practice in Upper Arlington, Columbus, Ohio:

“Hosting is an emerging set of practices for facilitating group conversations of all sizes, supported by principles that:

– maximize collective intelligence;
– welcome and listen to diverse viewpoints;
– maximize participation and civility;
– and transform conflict into creative cooperation.”

What I like about this is that it comes from many years now of work in the area around conversational leadership. I also like that it names as practice in form and in value of some very basic things that most systems want. It’s good, direct language.

I also would add a bit further through another lens. Hosting is what we do to create basic conditions so that the energy of people in the room can co-mingle and entangle. Co-mingle is to mix, to invite a shared wholeness and creation. To entangle is to become a new entitity and remain as such in some manner. It is an emergent entity. I heard Edgar Mitchell, founder of IONS speak this recently, “resonance is nature’s way of transfering information.” Hosting, from this view, is about giving us access to each other’s resonance. It is often in the form of conversational practices that are deliberately focused on particular questions. However, it is more — the silence, the play, the shared inquiry, the poetry, the agreements, the listening, and the like — each creates additional ways to come into a shared resonance. From the living systems view of “people support what they create” this means that hosting is about creating conditions so that this resonance sharing can happen, and thus support of what is created.

Hard to find words for it. But I sense it is what is happening and what is most promising when I think of how we respond to the challenges of this day. Or when I try to make sense of why so many past AoHs have gone so well — in client systems and in open-enrollment learnings.

I have used variations of this journalling process now in several events. The source comes from Otto Scharmer’s work and The Presencing Institute. I typically use them to invite a level of personal sourcing, and to clarify intentions. Everything from 10 minutes to a couple of hours. Colleague Martin Siesta hosted a sweet version of this last week in Colorado working with financial planners. It was followed by time in wilderness and then a partner discussion.

The full questions and context are here.

The questions in brief, follow:

[ 1 ] Challenges: Look at yourself from outside as if you were another person: What are the 3 or 4 most important challenges or tasks that your life (work and non-work) currently presents?

[ 2 ] Self: Write down 3 or 4 important facts about yourself. What are the important accomplishments you have achieved or competencies you have developed in your life (examples: raising children; finishing your education; being a good listener)?

[ 3 ] Emerging Self: What 3 or 4 important aspirations, areas of interest, or undeveloped talents would you like to place more focus on in your future journey (examples: writing a novel or poems; starting a social movement; taking your current work to a new level)?

[ 4 ] Frustration: What about your current work and/or personal life frustrates you the most?

[ 5 ] Energy: What are your most vital sources of energy? What do you love?

[ 6 ] Inner resistance: What is holding you back? Describe 2 or 3 recent situations (in your work or personal life) where you noticed one of the following three voices kicking in, which then prevented you from exploring the situation you were in more deeply:

Voice of Judgment: shutting down your open mind (downloading instead of inquiring)
Voice of Cynicism: shutting down your open heart (disconnecting instead of relating)
Voice of Fear: shutting down your open will (holding on to the past or the present instead of letting go)

[ 7 ] The crack: Over the past couple of days and weeks, what new aspects of your Self have you noticed? What new questions and themes are occurring to you now?

[ 8 ] Your community: Who makes up your community, and what are their highest hopes in regard to your future journey? Choose three people with different perspectives on your life and explore their hopes for your future (examples: your family; your friends; a parentless child on the street with no access to food, shelter, safety, or education). What might you hope for if you were in their shoes and looking at your life through their eyes?

[ 9 ] Helicopter: Watch yourself from above (as if in a helicopter). What are you doing? What are you trying to do in this stage of your professional and personal journey?

[ 10 ] Imagine you could fast-forward to the very last moments of your life, when it is time for you to pass on. Now look back on your life’s journey as a whole. What would you want to see at that moment? What footprint do you want to leave behind on the planet? What would you want to be remembered for by the people who live on after you?

[ 11 ] From that (future) place, look back at your current situation as if you were looking at a different person. Now try to help that other person from the viewpoint of your highest future Self. What advice would you give? Feel, and sense, what the advice is—and then write it down.

[ 12 ] Now return again to the present and crystallize what it is that you want to create: your vision and intention for the next 3-5 years. What vision and intention do you have for yourself and your work? What are some essential core elements of the future that you want to create in your personal, professional, and social life? Describe as concretely as possible the images and elements that occur to you.

[ 13 ] Letting-go: What would you have to let go of in order to bring your vision into reality? What is the old stuff that must die? What is the old skin (behaviors, thought processes, etc.) that you need to shed?

[ 14 ] Seeds: What in your current life or context provides the seeds for the future that you want to create? Where do you see your future beginning?

[ 15 ] Prototyping: Over the next three months, if you were to prototype a microcosm of the future in which you could discover “the new” by doing something, what would that prototype look like?

[ 16 ] People: Who can help you make your highest future possibilities a reality? Who might be your core helpers and partners?

[ 17 ] Action: If you were to take on the project of bringing your intention into reality, what practical first steps would you take over the next 3 to 4 days?

A bit from colleague, John Kesler, with whom I have worked a bit to support the evolution of health care in Utah…

The overview is here. The large change priorities follow…

Vision 2010 Sub-Committees

“Large Change” Priorities

Quality and Safety

• Support the IHI 5 million lives campaign. The Campaign’s goal is to protect patients from 5 million incidents of medical harm from December 2006-December 2008. The effort aims to enlist 4,000 hospitals in a renewed national commitment to improve patient safety faster than ever before.

Seamless Technology

• Support the creation of a universally accepted and accessible clinical records exchange tool

• Reduce “fragmentation” in the system and simplify exchange of clinical data.

Access and Affordability

• Link the various conversations related to access and affordability in the State of Utah—the Governor’s Plan, UMA’s committee, Healthcare Coverage Coalition, Salt Lake Chamber, Michael Leavitt plan, other conversations, etc.

• Support a Shared Values Model for a New System:

–A strong public health system

–A reformed insurance market that delivers essential core coverage

–A reformed healthcare delivery market that creates incentives for increasing value

–Systems that fully support the delivery of high quality care

–Transition bridge for existing community and volunteer clinics

Engaged Workforce

• Continue to support and pursue initiatives to support academia. Work in partnership with the Utah State Office of Education and Dept. of Workforce services to promote health sciences careers and “fill the pipeline” for future healthcare needs. Work in partnership with UONL and academia to initiate the USPIN proposal to streamline clinical placements for nursing students.

• Increase interaction with other sub-committees in the areas of safety, wellness and diversity. Focus on efforts to improve employee wellness in our hospitals, both physicially and emotionally, working toward the goal of “Treating the employee better than they treat the patient.”

• Further define levels of professional competence in the healthcare workforce.

From Berkana’s most recent enewsletter, an invitation to reinvent that is true for all of us, and one that I am in with dear friends.

Berkana as a Self-Organizing System

Berkana is reinventing itself, and we’d like to share our new direction with you.

Since 1992, when Berkana was founded, we have been learning about how to create the conditions for self-organizing to happen. During this time, we ourselves have operated in a somewhat traditional form: as a nonprofit institute with staff, offices and professional leadership. The gift of today’s challenging economic environment has been to call us far deeper into the experiment in self-organizing.

For all of us working to create social change, we are confronted with the paradox that there is less money available but more need than ever for the kind of work we do. The nonprofit model Berkana has been working in is proving to be unsustainable, and we believe it is time to invent a way to do our work that is flexible, resilient and adaptive.

Fortunately, we know a little something about flexible, resilient and adaptive systems. The organizational model that we plan to experiment with is a self-organizing system that invites many people throughout the Berkana community to step forward with the leadership they wish to offer. It calls for entrepreneurship, creativity and ingenuity. It requires that many people engage in a whole new level of effort around the actions they wish to commit to.

We invite you to learn more about how self-organizing can harness our collective creativity and commitment for building healthy and resilient communities.