Category: Edited

“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.

Some harvest below from friend and host of our recent Practitioners Circle, Lorrie Gaffney. I love her call to remember the importance of meaning constructed in the group. And I love the place of vision and compassion from which I see her living.

Practioners Circle:  Kayenta Compassion

What a joy it is to write this, holding the gift of faces, gathered around a circle, sharing heart and mind.  Starting with “behold” is most often for me, so I can keep a piece of you – which makes me smile just writing this.

Learning can come in many unexpected forms but it leads toward where it needs to go regardless.  Some of the things I learned from our time together:

I often think abstractly and speak metaphorically and can find myself surprised when I realize I’m not “speaking the same language”.  For example, the word “shopping in Kayenta” to me means exploring the amazing amount of creative expression in the art village – I’m in awe at the limitless ways people find to share the ways they see the world.  But of course by putting that in the description for the meeting people had a different concrete image of what that typically entails.  Similarly, Silence, Celebration and Sharing, mean “ways of being”, more than activities, to me.  In silent contemplative prayer with a group of people I have experienced all three in a way more powerful than I have ever experienced any one of those separately.  Each of those words can have very different meanings that include specific activities.

With my bias, I came to the circle “assuming” we would dialogue about a general vision –not the concrete details.  I know the details are essential for success and it is out of love and compassion that people want to offer those knowing they can make or break the outcome.  And there will be a time I have to seek out the practicalities and write concretely, but for now I just want to build a strong foundation because what I’m offering is based on a deeply spiritual approach to life that is counter-cultural.   A market economy is at the heart of our way of life.  We don’t even consider another way (unless we know people in 3rd world countries who approach money and giving very differently and have experienced their teachings).

Even though I broke one of the 4 Agreements “Don’t Make Assumptions” (from a popular book some years ago), I have heard some very helpful wisdom that has helped clarify foundational  pieces.

1. Purpose of Renewal/Recovery – Important for those in compassionate work as compassion is an emptying or giving of ones’ self.
2. Spirituality in Action describes the type of compassionate work I am inviting to renew/recover
3. Invitation – I thought I wanted it broad – but it is really for those intentionally living out compassion as central to one’s spiritual journey
4. Definition of compassion varies:  two components essential for me:  empathy & meeting needs“identifying deeply with the value of another and acting to meet needs or improve life”
5. Just do it:  have fun inviting groups and encouraging their input in the weekend
6. Being Curious… open to what honors the stated values and purpose

I appreciate the gift of you… individually unique voices… yet somehow all quite the same where it matters!

Lorrie Gaffney

• Leaders as hosts (not heros) – an article I’m using a lot from colleagues Meg Wheatley and Deborah Frieze: http://bit.ly/eMTPp4
• Clarissa Pinkola Estes: One of the most calming & powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up & show your soul
• A gathering in the spring for youth and the young at heart that involves friend Edgard Gouveia Jr. Consider it: http://bit.ly/fvi6gz
• From a local friend on the challenges of fresh water and our relationship to it — fact sheet from Johnson Foundation: http://bit.ly/hprbto
• RT @SMHoenig: RT @spreadingJOY: Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly. ~Rose Franken #nuggetsofJOY
• RT @dfrieze: “If this world does not have a place for us, then another world must be made.” Zapatista saying
• RT @katiaroha: Great resources in education + online: 100+ Online Resources That Are Transforming Education – http://on.mash.to/fvAUI1