Category: Edited

New Zealand colleague and friend Glen Lauder just shared this with me — a map of what’s working relevant to the recent earthquake in Christchurch. Everything from welfare centers and portable toilets to free wi-fi hot spots and food retailers. It is a google map that anyone can add to and that anyone can access on the web.

Nobody was killed in this earthquake, 7.1 on the Richter Scale — a bright spot. Yet, there was extensive damage to buildings, property, old homes. Schools closed immediately. There was no public transportation. Many homes were without power and water (sample video; also aerial footage from The Press). There was much that wasn’t working. Aftershock and aftershock arrived. When I checked, after five days there had been over 300 aftershocks (timelapse video of strength, time, depth, location). And handful of those were themselves above 5 on the Richter Scale. As you might imagine, there was a lot of anxiety and stress. It was the headline that most New Zealanders were paying attention too.

With so much “not working,” one of the things I liked about this map is that it was an offering of what “is working.” Immediately useful. And for those of us using Appreciative Inquiry and other appreciative approaches, you can see the immediate attention to shifting energy. There is always something working. A long held tenet in this that I share is, “what we give our attention to grows.” It was so refreshing even to see the heading, “What’s Working” amidst so much that wasn’t.

Another thing I liked about it was that this was offered by a man living in Wellington, David Knight, who just wanted to help. He was a fellow citizen standing up to offer what he could. No assignment. Just moving quickly with what he could. This is the way that it is in self-organizing systems working with emergence. People working from a shared identity (in this case the identity of New Zealander, made immediately clear in the trauma of earthquake) to offer what they can (a map of what is working, help) that serves that identity (helps protect, strengthen). It is an order arising amidst chaos.

So much to learn in this about self-organization. And much about resilience.

It is a courageous and insightful group of people that chooses to gather for four days of learning together. Learning in conversation. In stories, remembering out loud. In inquiry, asking challenging questions together. In action, inspired by a collaboration and broadened thinking.

I remember five core threads of intention that were spoken by participants prior to arriving. These helped our design team of Martin Siesta, Deb Fischer, Dick Wagner, Mary Sullivan, Teresa Posakony, and myself shape the meta-design for our time together.

1. Deeper Conversations — About money. About integration into a higher life. About conversation itself and the way it can be used. About that which is beyond fear, scarcity, and limits.
2. Next Level Work — About women clients. About graduate curriculums. About post peak-oil realities. About a different world view.
3. Holding Good Meetings — Whether as chapter presidents or in working with families. Exploring how to do good virtual meetings. Education programs, and meetings in classrooms.
4. Practical Application — In work. In learning more about the power of story. About what is available in the Art of Hosting as an architecture for strategy. About practices to change in the financial planning profession.
5. Friendship — Appreciation for the unique opportunity to be with friends, colleagues. To be wise and intelligent together in the unique space of four days together.

Each of these intentions were addressed in one form or another in our time to meet in the Colorado Rockies of Estes Park. We met in the formats of World Cafe, Circle, Open Space Technology, and ProAction Cafe. As always, we set broad intentions to shape the whole of the time together and then followed the path of emergence and adaptation — working with money metaphors, music, dance, presencing with the land, telling stories.

A bit of the harvest is below, an offering to get a glimpse of the good work done by these people. And of the good beginnings that will no doubt, feed further good beginnings.

Invitation
Facebook Group (Thanks Dana, Marty)
Landscape Map
–Start here for 1 / 7 photos
–Start here for 1 / 2 groupings)
Photos
Day 2 Daily News (Thanks Teresa)
Day 3 Daily News (Thanks Teresa)
Day 2 Open Space Harvest Photos, Notes
Day 3 OS Nazrudin Harvest Photos
Aha Moments (Thanks Dottie — Start here for 1 / 10 Handwritten AHA Interviews)
ProAction Cafe Projects Harvest (Thanks Teresa)
Closing Circle Dialogue Poem Harvest — The Gift of This Time

It was a gift to meet yesterday with two participants from New Zealand’s Land and Water forum. A beautiful spring day in Christchurch, New Zealand. When I was in New Zealand a year ago, my friend and colleague, Glen Lauder, was helping to shape a years worth of dialogue ahead. Fantastic to come back and hear of what had happened.

David Perenara-O’Connell, General Manager of Ngai Tahu Tribal Interests was one who shared stories. A lovely man with whom I felt quickly at ease. Hamish Cuthbert, a Sustainability and Resource Policy Manger was another. A man that I sense has deep commitment in him, and a similar ease in meeting.

The Land and Water forum is at the point of having learned well together, having asked many questions together among a group of 25 or so — all things related to water in New Zealand. For a year. What changes are needed? What needs to be preserved? Deeper relationships to water in this place? Use by industry to support a thriving local and national economy? It is visionary work both in content and in process.

I asked the two of them what some of their learning and appreciation was. A bit of that follows, and in that spirit of translocal learning, good stories to carry to inspire other groups and communities working on water issues.

-these are the beginnings of bigger reforms
-an increase in understanding, relationship, shared values, and a compatabiiity in those values
-the ability to overcome issues and great gulfs by being together
-respect for and appreciation of indigenous view

They had great questions that they were asking at this transition point. After meeting for a year, a significant report is now going forward to the Minister, after which broader public comment will be requested. How do we continue forward, supporting the spirit of how this was created? We talked a little about the importance of a core team of trustees, or working in the spirit of trusteeship to hold the whole (I know that Glen has been doing much helpful work with many on this — the calling out of the elder in the next generation of leaders and the deeper levels of letting go). The  importance of agreements to return back too. And how they might invite the public process in a deliberate way — perhaps cafes rather than speeches).

As we were wrapping up, I loved Hamish’s final clarity about the process of meeting for a year. “It was a bit like a small community. We could support each other. We could call each other out on misbehavings. We were remembering together something that is old in us.”

A gift to hear a year’s worth of change. It helps me to strengthen my patience for this scale of work, the kind of scale that is essential today in so many places.

“How can we close the cultural gap between the health care system’s need to ‘fix’ people and ‘personal responsibility’ required to live a healthy life?” This was a core question asked by Steve Prather and Sue Gardener at this month’s Practitioners Circle. Fifteen of us gathered. Steve and Sue hosted us well in the form of circle — a lovely setting of space, checkin, learning together, harvesting, and checking out. We are a group of practitioners supporting each other in applied use of participative leadership to projects that matter. Projects that participants come forward with, one per month, to work on with deliberateness.

Steve and Sue will offer a more extended harvest. For now, there was much that was rich for me in this.

Good questions like: Why do we believe we can’t prevent many of the ills that fall upon us? How do we broadly shift the story to one of wellness? What is the quantum shift that is possible if attended to from a shift in consciousness perspective?

Key issues, like: shifting the fundamental relationship between doctor and patient to one of partnering. Intuitive approaches to wellness.

I loved the story told by two physicians in the group. They spoke of what they saw in patients prior to surgery. They both spoke of being able to know intuitively of those patients that would get well, that would have an easier recovery. It was something they could see in the patient’s disposition or energy.

Good song: Thanks Ben for “every little cell…”

And we met again in the simple place of real story. Real inquiry.

Thank you to all.

Here are a few photos from the evening.

Steve and Sue harvest — “The question of  — who is responsible for supporting healthy living practices and responding to health problems? — is a big one.  In the U.S., our health care system has been publicly assigned to this task and most citizens expect the best from our medical care establishment.

However, there is another viewpoint that is useful to explore and may be more inspiring because it places responsibility where health originates; it looks to individuals for their awareness of the influences they have on their own health and cells.

Discussing these two perspectives in circle was highly energizing and allowed for deep conversations from the heart as we explored the question of “what could fill this gap?”  Enlightening perspectives were shared such as — heartful relationships with ourselves and others will help, core beliefs that become conscious will inform individuals, understanding that medical professionals are dependent on the good will of the body calls for healthy individual practices, offering a new story of conscious living opens the opportunity

for unlimited creativity, children can participate through learning easy jingles and creating fun, colorful art objects, through a simple question and real stories, valuable community conversation can move our civilization forward.”

Our next Practitioners Circle will be September 16th (third Thursday evening, 7:00 – 9:00).