Category: General Learning

When I was in graduate school in the early 90s, I remember a reference point to a management strategy — Management by Wandering Around. It immediately caught my attention. Wander. Follow curiosity. Get to know people. Explore the system. Cool, right. I don’t remember if all of that was in the official description that I read, but that’s where my brain went with it!

The last two days for me have included a lot of wandering. A friend and colleague that I trust and love, Glen Lauder, is staying with me for a few days. Glen lives in New Zealand, and has been the central point of the two trips I’ve been able to take to New Zealand in 2009 and 2010. He’s on a return from some engagements in Boston, headed back to New Zealand.

Glen gets the value of wandering. When he arrived two days ago, we were both quite clear as we said our first hellos to each other and drove 40 minutes from the Salt Lake City airport to my home. We could do some work. We are in fact planning workshops together. We’ll get to that. But for these days, our only job is to wander together. It means take walks with my dog Shadow. It means prepare and eat simple foods together. It means meet my kids and get to know each other. It means play some games. It means take some naps.

It sounds like holidays, doesn’t it. It is. But here’s the kicker. In the wandering, particularly conversationally, and in the ample spaciousness, we get to share what is holding our respective attention. We get to wonder. We get to ask questions. We get to just be authentic together. And in that authenticity, is a geiser of movement, projections from inner perception brought forth to outer worlds of potential tangibility.

There is something freeing in me to say, “it’s our job.” There is a work ethic in me and the people I come from that values having a job. Sometimes to a fault of constant doing and planning. Reframing “wandering” to our job, is both productive and delightful.

I realize as I write this today that a part of me doesn’t want to make wandering utilitarian. Wandering just to wander, without languaging it to a greater use is important too. It’s worth noting for now — oh yah, doing it again.

Now it’s time to move to the wandering of making a smoothie and enjoying more friendship.

 

More stories like this. And less stories like that.

When I was a kid, my Grandpa on my father’s side always began his stories with, “On a dark and stormy night, once upon a time there were three robbers….” It was cue for my sister, me, and my aunt who was almost our same age to huddle in, giggle with excitement, and get ready to be a bit scared. Grandpa would then proceed to make stuff up that would, in fact scare us, mostly for fun, and I suppose to do a bit of covert parenting through the morals of the stories.

Stories are fun, aren’t they.

Creating story, or narrative, is also some of the most fundamental leadership work that I get to do. With teams and organizations. Sometimes it is visioning — what is the story of who we want to be around here? Sometimes it is problem solving — what is some of the story of what is happening here? Sometimes it is discovery — what is the story we are telling ourselves that is shaping this work? Sometimes it is consciousness building — what other stories might we choose to move our work forward, and do you get that it is a story?

Story often connotes something we make up. It isn’t really real, right. It’s a departure from what is really happening, the stuff that we must certainly return our full and undivided attention too. It’s true, yes. Sometimes. Except when it is not.

The good news of the tenuous nature of story is that we do get to make it up. We have choice. One of the most powerful questions I’ve ever encountered was when I was doing research on metaphors. “What is the most fruitful make-believe?” It wasn’t asked as a marketing question. It was asked as a fundamental believe and invocation about who we are together and what we are up to.

The relevance of this for me lays in a self-organizing systems framework that I learned with Meg Wheatley in the early 90s, and have since practiced. The gist of it is this.

• Organizations are living systems.
• Living systems have the capacity to self-organize.
• Self-organization occurs around an identity (a narrative).
• Identity is a choice (and arrived at through engagement and participatory practices).
• Choice of identity, when supported by well-tended relationships and an attitude of openly exchanging information, avails us to self-organization. We get order for free, so to speak.

So, there is a good body of work, and a good body of theory in this kind of work.

One of the ways this is brought down to some simple application is by asking questions and inviting dialogue around stories. I heard it most recently from Bhav Patel, a friend on the Art of Hosting list serve. What kind of stories do we want more of? What kind do we want less of? It’s a great way to wade through the complexity that exists in most organizations and to reset the compass to find our way together.

More stories like this. Less stories like that.

 

This post is companion to yesterday’s post. It is more from Jerry Nagel who recently completed his PhD dissertation on Art of Hosting world views. It’s a blurry line between values and principles. I’m fine with that.

As I did yesterday, below are Jerry’s words in red, for which I’ve added a few reflections, particularly when I think of these principles as connoting a kind of action.

Principles:

• Conversations matter and conversation is the way we think, make meaning together and build strong relationships that invite real collaboration. Conversation is action. It’s not the only action, but it is action. Many leadership conversations have focused on the results, and in capitalist systems, the returns. Denying conversation as action (“why are we wasting time; we should get to the real work”) is like denying the hike up the mountain as part of the hike. It’s not just about arriving at the peak. Corny as metaphor, but true, no?
• Meaningful conversations lead to wise actions. We seek to explore what can be done rather than what cannot. See the above. Conversation is just about being nice. And it isn’t just about talking. At it’s best, it is giving attention to shared identity, from which collective, and hopefully more sustainable choices of action can be made.
• We work from a place of appreciation and not judgment, bringing play and improvisation to imagining new ways to go on together. Again, the appreciation isn’t just about being nice together. That’s too pejorative and condescending. Appreciation is often an act of honesty and humility — pretty good practices for working well together — embedded within a complex environment. It’s easy to blame and oversimplify. That’s too often associated with heroism. Appreciation here is for honest acknowledgement that most of us live in complex environments that require interrupting reductionism.
• Curiosity and judgment do not live well together. If we are judging we cannot be curious. They actually fight together. And not just like brothers in a tussle. Sometimes like street fighting. Rough. People get hurt. It’s a great value to say, be curious, or to practice no blame. I find what makes that possible is compassion for a person’s choices. I may hate the choices, but I can still honor the fact that someone chose them with deliberateness, consciously or not, to likely fulfill a need. Curiosity is about seeing bigger pictures.
• Hosting meaningful conversations opens up the space for collective inquiry and finding collective intelligence. We shift from individuals being responsible for decisions to being relationally responsible to each other. Ooh, I love “relationally responsible.” Hearing stories is a learning strategy. Asking questions is a learning strategy. I tell clients that these are two deliberate approaches that we will engage together, so as to give us a better chance of accomplishing what we most long for.
• We work to co-create in friendship and partnership. It was a long time ago that I heard Chris Corrigan say, “friendship is our business model.” That’s not soft stuff. That’s just real. And, OK, enjoyable and natural.
• We listen from a place of not knowing so that we “are more open to other(ness), to multiple voices, and to possibilities”. Yup, always. This one needs a particular value attached to it. For me, I’ve lived with ones like these: “there is always more not know that there is known about any given situation; in every statement of truth there is more that is not true about it that there is true about it.” Not knowing is a commitment to being real together.
• We show up to our work fully present, not distracted, prepared, clear about what is needed and the contributions we have to offer. This is great self work, isn’t it. Freeing ourselves from fears and contractions. Opening ourselves to curiosity, love, and expansions. I love feeling that I have some of this in me, gained over a life of paying attention. It’s a bit humbling, or aggravating even, to realize that all of that present living is tip of the ice berg. I used to feel this when I first learned to speak Korean. I learned it quite well; well enough to know that there was much, much more to learn.
• The practice is the work. Enough said. This is gold.

Recently Jerry Nagel, friend and colleague, offered a statement of values and principles embedded in an Art of Hosting worldview. These were what he discovered through many interviews with practitioners. Jerry was writing his PhD dissertation, for which I got to be a reader and reflective partner.

One of the things I love about Jerry is that he is committed to seeing a meta level. That takes discipline. Worldview has always been at the root of it for me. It’s always felt a bit silly to me to get too serious about the surface of behaviors absent awareness of world view. Jerry is one who gets that.

As posted, Jerry name values as “statements of importance.” His principles connoted a “kind of action.” I’ve included just the values below because, well, I want to hold them spaciously. They are statements (in red) that deserve more than a speed date. With each, I’ve included a few of my reflections.

Values:

• Being curious is essential and being curious means being willing to step into a place of not knowing. Yup, there it is. Being curious. “Be present, be curious” has been a kind of mantra for me over the last ten years. It doesn’t always mean not knowing, but it does mean a kind of relationship with not knowing. A relationship to be familiar with.
• Diverse perspectives open up new possibilities. All the voices from all local forms of life are welcome and invited into the conversation without fear. This one is worth unpacking too. I wonder sometimes if many of us just fear diversity. Or fear the letting go that is required to explore another person’s certainty. Or resist inclusion because it is inconvenient. I do, sometimes. Or I know that feeling in me. There is a rather high cost to these barriers, isn’t there. Absence of sustainability is high on that list.
• We create and hold space for a multiple of local realities to be in dialogue with each other in different but equal relationship. It’s not every day that we get to do this. Nor perhaps need too. But there are some days when this is an absolute must. I’ve heard Jerry say it a number of times, that “the practice is the work.” Creating and holding this kind of space is a practice for a lifetime!
• As practitioners we work toward the common good. We are committed to making the world as a whole a better place. It’s an inspiring value, isn’t it. The world as better place. I would add that this common good occurs simultaneously to the world inside of us, and, to the world outside of us. Movement and attention within each feeds the other.
• We believe in human goodness. We work to support personal aspirations. I relate to this one from my early work with The Berkana Institute in the 1990s. We stated it slightly different — we “rely” on human goodness. Count on it. There are people everywhere in the world that want good and want to offer good. This reality sometimes is obscured by tragedy, pain, injustice.
• We work in the place of emergence without preconceived notions of what must happen, instead allowing what wants to come forth to emerge. We trust in the not knowing. We trust in the generative field of co-creation. Yup. I count on three anchors this way. Emergence. Self-organization. Life, and organizations, as living systems.
• Participation by all is central to the work. It may not be by all. But the movement to more inclusion and an interruption of the mindset that is isolation feels very needed. Very central.
• We take time to be aware of our own prejudices and habits and take time to reflect on our (re)actions as part of our ongoing learning as hosts. This takes courage, doesn’t it. And friendship. I’m reminded of yesterday’s post, inspired by Tuesday Ryan Hart, Relationship is the Resolution. Her and another colleague made their learning public.
• We practice generosity. We share what we know and invite others into the field of co-learning. I’m grateful to know some people who really embody this. Chris Corrigan comes to mind. Many in the Art of Hosting practitioners group. I continue to learn about what this means.

Indeed, a few important things. Thanks Jerry.