Human to Human

In late August a team of us (Toke Moeller, Helen Emerson, Glen Lauder, Mary Alice-Arthur, Peter Cowley, Jacqueline Benndorf) completed hosting an Art of Hosting training in New Zealand. There were 92 participants. For three days we had been through much learning together about hosting and harvesting conversations as a strategic approach. Conversational leadership as a strategic approach.

On the fourth day, two participants, Peta Joyce and Viv Maidaborn, hosted us in collecting content insights and gems from the full days together. I loved the commitment they brought to noticing what we could know together that was different from what we knew individually.

The headlines as principles for practicing conversational leadership are listed below. They are tips and insights for all of us as practitioners. They were born from the essential commitment of noticing what is emerging, a core competency in all conversational leadership.

Principles for Practicing Conversational Leadership

1. Give and Take What Matters

2. From Trust, Action

3. Notice Interconnection

4. Don’t Be Too Hard On Ourselves

5. Share Responsibility

6. Create Our Own Best Living Space

7. Be Bold and Playful

8. Do One Thing Differently That Makes A Ripple

9. Clarify Intent, Hold Opposites

10. Celebrate the More of Me that is Available Because of Us

I’ve also written an article and posted it here that includes:

– short paragraphs of description for each of the principles

– a next level harvest on more principles that emerged from the community of participants

– links to additional resources including the design overview of the event, Wordle Illustrations of the principles, and related blog links

Living and working in networks and communities of practice makes a lot of really helpful information available. Emails. Websites. Stories. Reports. No shortage whatsoever of great stuff.

My friend Chris Corrigan has taught me what to do with this. He gives attention to several RSS feeds and provides links on his blog to that plethora of good stuff. He calls it “From the Feed.” Go see and subscribe if you haven’t already. I’ve picked up many gems from those posts that I’ve used and forwarded to clients and friends.

I’m beginning to play with that practice today. I’d name two containers for these links.

– stuff that is just interesting. Lots of room in that.
– stuff that furthers the practice of hosting conversations that matter, or as my colleagues and I explore in Berkana as core brand issues: 1) in support of healthy and resilient communities, 2) in support of emergence, and 3) in support of life-affirming leadership.

The intent is not more mass of information. It is more sharing of information / tools through good relationships centered in an identity of leader as host.

Abraham-Hicks Emotional Guidance Scale — A list of 21 emotions intended to move to the energy of joy. Each of these serve as an interesting base from which to ask powerful questions. E.g., What brings you joy? I’ve asked this kind of question and seen it shift a group. Similarly to ask something “lower” on the list. E.g., What do you fear?

Six Degrees of Separation from Reality — A blog post by Tom Atlee of the Co-Intelligence Institute on the seriousness of global climate change.

The Shield — An exercise shared by Max Neill from the Art of Hosting listerv on helping groups to check in with imagination and dreams.

Feeling Connections — A blog post by my friend Ashley Cooper who just moved from Seattle to North Carolina. Ashley has a gift for noticing and inviting wholeness. She offers some guided meditations too. Her blog is a good read. Subscribe here.

Quotes

– “Far more powerful than any dogma is an awakened organic collective and its capacity for contagion. That’s what makes it so terrifying to the status quo.”
Louise LeBrun, friend of my AoH Colleague, Allister Hain in Ottawa.
– “If I took psychadelic drugs I’d be in Google Earth all the time.”
Wayne Knox, a colleague in men’s work in New Zealand
– “The call, rather, is to enter the flow more deeply. To become the instrument of knowing in action. We are the harvest, and it us the universe’s deep yearning to know itself whole that is it’s immanent volition.”

Glen Lauder, hosting colleague in New Zealand

Monica Pohlmann’s poem below immediately touched me. She shared it last summer at an Art of Hosting training near Calgary, Alberta. Monica describes very well the experience of moving to a new world view. More of her work is on her website.

New Country

I have already moved to another country.
Already think in a new language.
Borders crossed and boundaries now much expanded.

I have caught a glimpse of how big life is
and how much bigger I could be.
Capacity threshold so much larger than I realized.

How to translate this to the motherland?

I loved there authentically.
Still do.
But I think in a new tongue now
and must claim on this new land the life that is truly mine.

I met Diana Durham April 2008. Her poetry is beautiful. Her spirit is irrepressible. Here website is here. She emailed this poem a few days ago. Loved it.

Light Hearted

the molecules of glass
match the frequencies of light

which is why we have windows
and not dense dim rectangles
of other matter
to look through darkly

and how we can see, while still
indoors, the grass and green leaves
of gardens;

when we go outside it is the same
but unframed, larger, wider
views of plane-trailed skies.

so is our heart the framer
of all clear sight, its frequencies
know light and that something
larger lies beyond

which is why when they match
we no longer take ourselves
too seriously, seeing that
light always makes us lighter.