General Learning • Tenneson Woolf

May 3, 2016

Check This One Out

I arrived yesterday to Portland, Oregon. My iPhone told me it was 88 degrees. On May 2nd. That’s hot. Beautiful. But a bit alarming too in this global shift of weather. I took my black sweater off immediately.

I was picked up from the airport by my friend and colleague Jessica Riehl. We know each other from meeting three years ago at an ALIA conference, at which we became rather instant friends. I love Jess’ way of living with questions in the world. And being able to laugh in them too. She’s someone that I appreciate for her facilitation instincts, her artful eye, and her great graphic illustration abilities.

Jessica and I are part of team hosting “Transforming the Way We Lead: An Art of Hosting Intensive” the next three days at Portland State University. I’m anticipating that gathering, 45 of us, to be a quality engagement with questions, laughter, and art. It’s a group of participants that care, of course.

In staying with Jessica, yesterday that meant picking up her three year-old Darwin from his preschool. It’s been a while since I’ve been with three year-olds for any length of time, but it was a phase that I loved with each of my three kids. Darwin is a sweet kid. He’s at that age of asking questions (many levels of why) and just enough mimicking that is adorable. One of the first things he showed me at his house was his Hot Wheels collection as I got down on the carpet with him. “Check this one out. Check this one out too.” He had a lot of them. Each time, I laughed. Each time I smiled with him and his beautiful innocence.

The other thing about Jess’ house, a two story with a high vaulted ceiling and a couple of ledges over the living room, is that Jess and her family have two cats. Buttercup and Yeezy (sp?). I’ve been enjoying watching these two cats come in and out of the room I’m staying in. Jess tells me it is “their room” — I really am the guest. One of the things that amazes me about my host cats is that they like to sit on the ledges. At the tope of the stairs, on a six inch wide ledge, with a 12ish foot fall, they seem so comfortable. I’m walking carefully by them, not wanting to unintentionally excite them or disturb them in a way that would make them fall. “It’s OK, we’ve got it,” they seem to say back to me reassuringly.

When I imagine my way into today, first designing with our team, and then hosting the group the remainder of the week, it’s clear to me that I hope for the kind of sweetness that I see in Darwin and the kind of confidence I see in these cats, Buttercup and Yeezy. What’s crazy is that I believe this is totally possible. Sweetness and confidence on ledges. It’s just that the group will likely be less about Hot Wheels and more about leadership. And, well, there are always ledges in leadership. But maybe they just don’t need to be feared.

May 2, 2016

Cumulative Blame

Most of us know a bit about cumulation. It is the building up of something that gives it more strength or volume that if it had been left alone or ignored. Laundry, if left undone for a month, is no longer a simple load. Weeding the garden once a year is, well, likely to be a garden of weeds rather than vegetables in my area.

I’ve been in many environments in which there appears to be a cumulative blame. It hasn’t been easy to put my finger on it, but I recently got a new insight to understand this. It’s not regular blame for one instance or another. It’s not isolated blame. It’s cumulative in that the pile of “perceived wrongs” is so high that blame becomes the operating system. It’s harsh, right. And needs interruption.

This is one of the reasons that I like Appreciative Inquiry as a methodology and way of being. Appreciative Inquiry is one of the best ways I know to breakthrough the harshness that is blame. When shaped with the right question, it can move that operating system from blame to learning. That’s the essential interruption that helps a group reclaim what it is all about. I use questions like, “What are you learning about what is difficult here?” “What are you learning about yourself in this challenging time?”

Brene Brown, though I don’t know her personally, has been a kind of teacher for me about blame. In one of her talks she tells a great story that concludes, “Blame is simply discharge of discomfort and pain.”

And there is a lot of pain in many systems today, isn’t there. Pain of complexity. Pain of being overworked. Pain of shortage of funding. Pain of management systems that command and control. Pain of needing to disassociate work from life. Pain of feeling you shouldn’t take a day off, even though you are sick. Pain of larger systems in collapse. That can be a big list.

I’ve written before about not blaming each other for complexity. That kind of not blaming, that not contributing to a cumulative blame, requires discipline. I continue to learn about this.

Another teacher and friend, Margaret Wheatley once shared three things about being in complexity that have remained with me. First, stay awake. Second, dwell in complexity. Third, pay exquisite attention to relationships. Again, nothing about blame there. Just staying awake and in relationship. Even to discomfort. So that weeding the garden, which does need to happen, is twenty minutes here and there rather than a whole weekend.

April 28, 2016

Modified Open Space Technology

I learned something recently in hosting a group in what I would call a “modified open space.”

The client had already set up the room of tables. It wasn’t classroom style, but it was eight large rounds with eight chairs at each. Fortunately there was ample space around the sides of the table — lots of wall space. The intent was to use the tables as the meeting spaces. It was quite tight.

OK, no problem. I’ve worked with these modified formats before. I scoped out a few hall spaces that would be easy to pull a few couches and chairs together at. It would give people some room to talk and some space to move. Check.

I have experience invoking the spirit of open space technology, even though we couldn’t start in a round. Did it on this occasion too. Market place set up on the wall. Posters for principles and roles on another wall. Good.

Here’s what I noticed. When the market place was opened to populate, a noticeable amount of talking was taking place. Yes, some of it was about topics to host. Yes, some of it was about people conferring on topics. But there was a lot of chatter, something near “bad behavior” I would say. The attention to people announcing their topics felt very low.

Fast forward, the open space worked well. Ten groups convened. They scribbled notes and insights on some harvest templates. The energy in the room shifted, as I love when it does, to the people owning their process. Good, right.

However, my takeaway learning and assertion is that the opening circle in open space creates a different kind of relationship among the larger group. There is an accountability to each other that is different when sitting in the circle than when sitting at already separated tables. There is a different or decreased feeling for the whole of the group working together as a group when at separated tables than when in that opening circle.

It won’t be the last time that I do a modified open space. I’m ok with experimenting and breaking form. However, if I were teaching it for people who want to learn the process, oh boy, I’d point to the importance of the artistry of open space in that opening circle, not just the mechanics of creating that bulletin board.

April 26, 2016

The Quiet of Little Brook

Little Brook

In Seattle, this little creek meanders its way through the back yard of my partner, Teresa’s home. In a rainstorm, it can be a swift current to be careful with — watch your little ones. However, often, it is a simple creek, with simple babbling sounds and a tiny waterfall.

I’ve sat near this creek many times and in many different spots. It is the quiet that I so love to have there. To empty my mind, welcoming the many thoughts to pass just as the water is passing near me.

I know that not all moments in life are meant to be spent near these meandering creeks. But some of them are. They are for me. It helps me to feel in my body the memory of quiet, or flow, that I value remembering in many non-creek moments.