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Art of Hosting Towards Healing

November 11-13, 2013
Zamboanga City


How can we host meaningful conversations to create and promote sustainable
peace together?















This workbook is intended to be a personal reference journal, to help you remember, focus and
deepen your learning. It shares the basic assumptions and our current understanding of the topic
and how the Art of Hosting practice can serve. It includes several tools and practices that the
community of practitioners has found simple and helpful and it provides you with different
resources i.e. books, links and information that can guide you further.


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Purpose of This Training
The three-day Art of Hosting and Harvesting Meaningful Conversations creates a rich
learning environment in which you will:

Explore and practice methods for activating collective intelligence and host meaningful
conversations whether it be with 3 or 1000 people,
Harvest what emerges into essential action steps,
Understand the theory behind participatory leadership methods,
Learn tools for project creation

Art of Hosting A Community of Practice
A growing group of practitioners is adding to the inspiration and evolution.
The Art of Hosting (AoH) is not a company or a trade mark but rather a community of
practice engaging in the Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter be it in the family, in
organisations or in large scale assemblies or summits.

This web or network of practitioners is connected across all continents serving the needs of
different communities in different contexts. It involves sharing learning and experiences of
what happens when we engage the collective intelligence in co-learning and co-developing
solutions to complex challenges.

We have learned that the principles of self-organisation, participation, ownership and non-
linear solutions are the key to both individual and collective discovery.

This is different and complementary to more traditional ways of working which are often
based on rational planning and full control of the process in order to ensure that planned
results are achieved. - Both approaches are needed.

Participatory Leadership is particularly useful in dealing with issues and challenges of a
complex nature.

The Art of Hosting is a four-fold practice that requires us to operate at four levels at once
individual, team, community/organisation, and global. These four levels are connected, and
learning at each of these levels informs learning at the others.

Individual
To connect to our own motivation and reason for choosing a different way of leading
To strengthen our individual courage to lead as hosts


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Team
To train the competencies of collective reflection and wise action
To practice co-creating, co-deciding and co-hosting strategic meetings, focus groups,
community conversations, etc.

Community, Organisation etc.
To experience working in unity with other leaders
To experience new organisational forms and work at co-creating relationships that
serve the needs of our organisation or community.

Global
To understand the bigger context that we are always part of
To benefit from knowledge and experience of a global or trans-local network of
practitioners and learners in this field.

HOW DO WE CONVENE STRATEGIC CONVERSATIONS THAT ENABLE US TO MEET THE
INCREASING CHALLENGES OF THE WORLD TODAY?

How do you explain participatory leadership in one sentence?

As formulated by the staff of the European Commission, practicing Participatory Leadership in the
day-to-day work of the Commission.

Imagine a meeting of 60 people, where in an hour you would have heard everyone and
at the end you would have precisely identified the 5 most important points that people
are willing to act on together.
When appropriate, deeper engagement of all in service of our purpose.
Hierarchy is good for maintenance; participatory leadership is good for innovation and
adapting to change.
Using all knowledge, expertise, conflicts, etc. available to achieve the common good on
any
issue.
It allows dealing with complex issues by using the collective intelligence of all people
concerned and getting their buy-in.
Participatory Leadership is methods, techniques, tips, tricks, tools to evolve, to lead, to
create synergy, to share experience, to lead a team, to create a transversal network, to
manage a project, an away day, brainstorming, change processes, strategic visions.


BASIC ASSUMPTIONS AND CORE PATTERNS

There is an emerging group of methodologies for facilitating conversation in groups of all sizes,
supported by principles that help maximise collective intelligence, integrate and utilise diversity
and minimise or transform conflict.

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Processes facilitated in this way tend to result in collective clarity and wise action - sustainable,
workable
solutions to the most complex problems.

The approach ensures that stakeholders buy into the process (because they participate in the
design and the process is by definition transparent) and make ongoing feedback, learning and
course correction a
natural and efficient part of life.

The Four-fold Practice
There are four basic practices that are key to the Art of Hosting and Participatory Leadership:
1) Being present (pre-sensing)
2) Engaging skilfully in conversations (participating)
3) Hosting conversations (contributing)
4) Becoming a community of practice (co-creating)

Being truly present, engaging skilfully in conversations, being a good host of conversations
and engaging with others in co-creation are all practices or skills that are easily understood,
but it takes continuous practise to hone these skills.

A practice means actively and regularly doing something to maintain or enhance a skill or
ability.

1. Being Present (Pre-Sensing)

...host yourself firstbe willing to endure chaoskeep the space or possibilities openstay
in the fire of the present...

Being present means showing up, without distraction, prepared, clear about the need and
what your personal contribution can be. It allows you to check in with yourself and develop
the personal practice of curiosity about the outcomes of any gathering. Presence means
making space to devote a dedicated time to working with others.

If you are distracted, called out or otherwise located in many different places, you cannot be
present in one. For meetings to have deep results, every person in the room should be fully
present.

Being present also means being aware of ones environment, other people and what impacts
you and how you impact others.

It is good practice to become present collectively as a meeting begins, be it through a
welcome, a good framing, through checking-in to the subject matter or task at hand by
hearing everyones voice in the matter or simply taking a moment of silence.

Invite a collective slowing down so that all participants in a meeting can be present together.


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2. Participate and Practice Conversations

...be willing to listen fully, respectfully, without judgment and thinking you already know all
the answerpractice conversation mindfully...

Conversation is an art. It is not just talk. It demands that we listen carefully to one another
and that we offer what we can in the service of the whole. Curiosity and judgment cannot
live together in the same space. If we are judging what we are hearing we cannot be curious
about the outcome, and if we have called a meeting because we are uncertain of the way
forward, being open is a key skill and capacity. Only by practising skilful conversation can we
find our best practice together.

If we practise conversation mindfully we might slow down meetings so that wisdom and
clarity can work quickly. When we talk mindlessly, we neither hear each other nor do we
allow space for the clarity to arise. The art of conversation is the art of slowing down to
speed up.

You can have a group of individually intelligent people but until that group knows what it knows
together, the group as a group is not intelligent
- Inspired by Peter Senge

3. Hosting Conversations
...be courageous, inviting and willing to initiate conversations that matterfind and host
powerful questions with the stakeholdersand then make sure you harvest the insights, the
patterns, learnings and wise actions...

Hosting conversations is both more and less than facilitating. It is an act of leadership and
means taking responsibility for creating and holding the container in which a group of
people can do their best work together.

You can create this container using the seven helpers (see later in this workbook) as starting
points, and although you can also do this in the moment, the more prepared you are the
better. The best preparation is being fully present.

The bare minimum should be to discern the need, get clear on the purpose of the meeting, prepare a
good, powerful question to initiate the conversation and know how you will harvest and what will
be done with that harvest, to ensure that results are sustainable and the effort was worth it.

Hosting conversations takes courage and it takes a bit of certainty and faith in your people.
We sometimes give short shrift to conversational spaces because of the fear we experience
in stepping up to host. It is, however, a gift to host a group and it is a gift to be hosted well.

4. Co-creating With OthersBecoming a Community of Practice


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...be willing to co create and co-host with others, blending your knowing, experience and
practices with theirs, working partnership.

The fourth practice is about showing up in a conversation without being a spectator, and
contributing to the collective effort to sustain results. The best conversations arise when we listen
for what is in the middle, what is arising out of the centre of our collaboration. It is not about the
balancing of individual agendas, it is about finding out what is new. When that is discovered, work
unfolds beautifully as everyone is clear about what they can contribute to the work.

In a truly co-creative process it becomes irrelevant who said or contributed whatthe gift is in the
synergy and inspiration when we each build on each others knowledge and the whole becomes
much bigger than the sum of the parts.

This is how results become sustainable over timethey fall into the network of relationships that
arise from a good conversation, from friends working together.

The collaborative field can produce unexpected and surprising results, especially in complex
situations where multi-layered challenges need to be met simultaneously.

From a Learner to a Community That Learns

As we learn to be truly present and engage in conversations that really matter we become learners.
As learners many doors are open to us.

As we begin to host conversation and connect with other hosts or practitioners we become a
community of learners or practitioners. As a community we own a much bigger capacity
than as individual learners.

As a community of individual practitioners or learners truly becomes a community that learns,
that is where we really enter the collective intelligence. We multiply our capacity and enter the field
of emergence.


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Divergence and Convergence

In entering into an inquiry or multi stakeholder conversation we operate with three different
phases in the processdivergent, emergent and convergent. Each of these phases are different and
it is important for a host to know where we are in the process and what is needed in each phase.

The three phases are different ways of thinking and working that is complimentary. They can be
likened to the three phases of breathing: breathing in (lungs expanding/diverging) holding,
breathing out (lungs contracting/converging). Divergent and convergent ways of thinking and
working are complimentary and different. The breath of divergence and convergence, of breathing
in and breathing out, is at the heart of our process design. Every process goes through several such
breathing cycles.

In the divergent phase, or Pre-ject, there is as yet no clear goal. This is a goal-seeking phase
where a clear and shared purpose gives the collective direction. Another driver in this phase is
asking the right questions.

If you close the divergent phase too soon, the level of newness or innovation will be less. Ideally a
group will stay in inquiry in the divergent phase until a new shared and agreed solution emerges, or
a goal is seen collectively.

Divergent Thinking: Typically generates alternatives, has free-for-all open discussion, gathers
diverse points of view and unpacks the problem.

The Divergent Phase Is non-linear and needs chaos time. It is process-oriented and needs
prolonged decision time. To host this phase well, it is important to focus on the process and allow
sufficient time, knowing that the next phases can go rapidly when this first phase is allowed to run
to term.

Convergent Thinking: Means evaluating alternatives, summarising key points, sorting ideas into
categories and arriving at general conclusions.

The Convergent Phase Is goal-oriented and focused, linear, structured and usually subject to time
constraints. It is focused on getting results and may require quick decisions.

The Emergent Phase: Between the divergent and convergent phase, is fondly known as the groan
zone, it is the phase where magic happens. It is the phase where different ideas and needs are
integrated. It may require us to stretch our own understanding to hold and include other points of
view. We call it the groan zone because it may feel messy, an uncomfortable stretch, but it is also the
phase where the new and innovative solution emerges.

Working With Emergence

Put simply, emergence is the phenomenon of Order arising out of Chaos.

A more nuanced definition goes like this:

Emergence is higher-order complexity arising out of chaos, in which novel, coherent
structures coalesce through interactions among the diverse entities of a system. Emergence
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occurs when these interactions disrupt, causing the system to differentiate and ultimately
coalesce into something novel.

Participatory leadership works with emergent change processes. The work is done not by
traditional 'command and control' approaches, but by:

Setting clear intentions
Creating hospitable conditions
Inviting diverse people to connect

There are some catches to working with emergence, however that can be especially challenging to
leaders in traditional cultures.

Getting started is a leap of faith - the seeds of most great ideas are misunderstood, dismissed or
discouraged by others.

Success can be a hurdle since engaging emergence involves the unknown, it is risky.

Organisations are afraid to proceed without certainty.

Outcomes can be difficult to recognise when we encounter novelty, our first impulse is to try to fit
it into our existing frame of reference. Sometimes seemingly minor shifts can change fundamental
assumptions about how things work. Yet years may pass before we appreciate the implications.

What's most important is probably not on our radar screen organisations tend to measure
tangibles like 'number of projects launched and successfully implemented'. But the most powerful
fruits of emergent change processes tend to be intangibles, like trust and friendship. Self-organising
networks arise that can be catalysed into action if an intention of sufficient magnitude arises.

Not everyone makes the trip most of us have experienced situations in which others have dived
in, by we've chosen not to play. Are we missing something? Or is everybody else dangerously
deranged?

Death or loss is usually part of the mix perhaps fear of loss is the biggest reason why we resist
emergence. Few of us choose to experience emotional turmoil if we can avoid it, so we invent
strategies that bury the root causes of disturbance, perhaps inadvertently setting up a system to
die.

This section is adapted from Engaging Emergence turning upheaval into opportunity, by
Peggy Holman.


Practices for engaging emergence

Step up take responsibility for what you love as an act of service. This will enhance your
capacity to listen and connect.

Prepare embrace mystery, choose possibility and follow life energy. This will help you to
face whatever shows up with equanimity, if not delight!
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Host focus intentions and welcome. These practices create hospitable spaces for working
with whatever arises. Invite diversity to increase the likelihood of productive connections
among people with different beliefs and assumptions.

Step in inquire appreciatively (the more positive the inquiry, the more life-affirming the
outcome); open to the unknown; reflect, name and harvest.

Iterate change is never-ending. Let us not get lost in our routines!


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CORE METHODS

The following pages will give a short introduction to some of the core methodologies that are good
practice in participatory leadership. They are designed to engage a group of people (large or small)
in strategic conversations, where our collective wisdom and intelligence can be engaged in service
of finding the best solutions for a common purpose.

There are some basic principles or qualities that are common to all these methodologies, e.g.

They offer a simple structure that helps to engage small or large groups in conversations
that can lead to results.

They each have their special advantages and limitations.

They are usually based on dialogue, with intentional speaking (speaking when you really
have something to say) and attentive listening (listening to understand) as basic practices,
allowing us to go on an exploration and discovery together, rather than trying to convince
each other of our own present truths.

Suspending assumptions is a basic practice. It allows us to listen without bias (or with less
bias) and to examine our own present truths.

Circle is the basic organisational form, whether used as the only form (e.g. circle practice) or
used as many smaller conversation circles, woven into a bigger conversation, (e.g. World
Caf, Open Space)

Meeting in a circle is a meeting of equals. Generally all these methodologies inspire peer-to-
peer discovery and learning.

Inquiry or powerful questions are a driving force. Answers tend to close a conversation
while inquiry keeps the conversation going deeper.

The purpose of all this is to think well together, that is to engage the collective intelligence
for better solutions.

Facilitating these engagements or conversations is more like stewarding or hosting,
allowing the solutions to emerge from the wisdom in the middle. Hosting well requires a
certain proficiency in the four-fold practice of: being present in the moment to what is
happening, engaging in conversations with others, hosting conversations and co-creating or
co-hosting with others.

There are a number of conditions that need to be in place for engagement to work well. Any
engagement or strategic conversation needs to be based in a real need and has to have a
clear purpose. Any givens or boundary conditions need to be clear ahead of time. You may
also have defined success-criteria or have an idea of the outcome even if the concrete
solutions will emerge from the conversations.



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The Circle

The circle, or council, is an ancient form of meeting that has gathered human beings into respectful
conversation for thousands of years. The circle has served as the foundation for many cultures.
What transforms a meeting into a circle is the willingness of people to shift from informal
socialising or opinionated discussion into a receptive attitude of thoughtful speaking and deep
listening and to embody and practice the structures outlined here.


What is circle good for?

One of the beautiful things about circle is its adaptability to a variety of groups, issues, and
timeframes. Circle can be the process used for the duration of a gathering, particularly if the group
is relatively small and time for deep reflection is a primary aim. Circle can also be used as a means
for checking in and checking out or a way of making decisions together, particularly decisions
based on consensus. Be creative with circle and be ready for the deep wisdom it can uncover!

The components of the circle

Intention
Welcome Start-point
Centre and Check-in/Greeting
Agreements
Three Principles and Three Practices
Guardian of process
Check-out and Farewell
Tend to the well-being of the group remaining aware of the impact of our contributions


INTENTION
Intention shapes the circle and determines who will come, how long the circle will meet, and what
kinds of outcomes are to be expected. The caller of the circle spends time articulating intention and
invitation. Additionally, the centre of a circle usually holds a focus that can be supported by placing
the question in the centre or objects that represent the intention of the circle.

WELCOME OR START-POINT
Once people have gathered, it is helpful for the host, or a volunteer participant, to begin the circle
with a gesture that shifts people's attention from social space to council space. This gesture of
welcome may be a moment of silence, reading a poem, or listening to a song--whatever invites
centering.

ESTABLISHING THE CENTER
The centre of a circle is like the hub of a wheel: all energies pass through it, and it holds the rim
together. To help people remember how the hub helps the group, the centre of a circle usually holds
objects that represent the intention of the circle. Any symbol that fits this purpose or adds beauty
will serve: flowers, a bowl or basket, a candle.

CHECK-IN/GREETING
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Check-in helps people into a frame of mind for council and reminds everyone of their commitment
to the expressed intention. It insures that people are truly present. Verbal sharing, especially a brief
story, weaves the interpersonal net. Check-in usually starts with a volunteer and proceeds around
the circle. If an individual is not ready to speak, the turn is passed and another opportunity is
offered after others have spoken. Sometimes people place individual objects in the centre as a way
of signifying their presence and relationship to the intention.

SETTING CIRCLE AGREEMENTS:
The use of agreements allows all members to have a free and profound exchange, to respect a
diversity of views, and to share responsibility for the well being and direction of the group.

Agreements often used include:

We will hold stories or personal material in confidentiality.
We listen to each other with compassion and curiosity.
We ask for what we need and offer what we can.
We agree to employ a group guardian to watch our need, timing, and energy. We agree to
pause at a signal, and to call for that signal when we feel the need to pause.

THREE PRINCIPLES:
The circle is an all leader group.

1. Leadership rotates among all circle members.
2. Responsibility is shared for the quality of experience.
3. Reliance is on wholeness, rather than on any personal agenda.

THREE PRACTICES
1. To speak with intention: noting what has relevance to the conversation in the moment.
2. To listen with attention: respectful of the learning process for all members of the group.
3. To tend the well-being of the circle: remaining aware of the impact of our contributions.

FORMS OF COUNCIL:
The circle commonly uses three forms of council: talking piece, conversation and reflection. Talking
piece council is often used as part of check-in, check-out, and whenever there is a desire to slow
down the conversation, collect all voices and contributions, and be able to speak without
interruption.
Conversation council is often used when reaction, interaction, and an interjection of new ideas,
thoughts and opinions are needed.

Reflection, or Silent council gives each member time and space to reflect on what is occurring, or
needs to occur, in the course of a meeting. Silence may be called so that each person can consider
the role or impact they are having on the group, or to help the group realign with their intention, or
to sit with a question until there is clarity.

GUARDIAN

The single most important tool for aiding self-governance and bringing the circle back to intention
is
the role of the guardian. To provide a guardian, one circle member at a time volunteers to watch
and
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safeguard group energy and observe the circles process.

The guardian usually employs a gentle noise-maker, such as a chime, bell, or rattle, that signals
everyone to stop action, take a breath, rest in a space of silence. Then the guardian makes this signal
again and speaks to why he/she called the pause. Any member may call for a pause.

CHECKOUT AND FAREWELL
At the close of a circle meeting, it is important to allow a few minutes for each person to comment
on
what they learned, or what stays in their heart and mind as they leave.

Closing the circle by checking out provides a formal end to the meeting, a chance for members to
reflect on what has transpired, and to pick up objects if they have placed something in the centre.

As people shift from council space to social space or private time, they release each other from the
intensity of attention being in circle requires. Often after checkout, the host, guardian, or a
volunteer
will offer a few inspirational words of farewell, or signal a few seconds of silence before the circle is
released.

MATERIALS NEEDED

Chairs arrange in a circle people should be able to view each other without impediments
(i.e.
tables or desks)
Object for the centre this is to bring focus. It can be flowers, a poster stating the intention
or
purpose of the gathering or any other object that has meaning
Talking piece
Chime, bell or other instrument to call everyone to attention
Materials for harvesting conversation


This handout is a gift from PeerSpirit, Inc. an educational company devoted to life and leadership
through Circle, Quest and Story. Founded in 1994, PeerSpirit has taught circle process in the US,
Canada, Europe and Africa. It is a consortium consisting of Christina Baldwin, Ann Linnea and
teaching colleagues with areas of expertise in health care administration, religious/church
administration and congregational health, education, nonprofit boards, environmental and
community revisioning.
For more information: http://www.peerspirit.com/downloadable-gifts.html




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Appreciative Inquiry

Appreciative Inquiry is a strategy for intentional change that identifies the best of what is to
pursue dreams and possibilities of what could be; a cooperative search for strengths, passions and
life-giving forces that are found within every system and that hold potential for inspired, positive
change. (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987)
Resource: http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/

Assumptions

In every community something works
What we focus on becomes our reality
Reality is created in the momentthere is more than one reality
The act of asking questions influences the community in some way
People have more confidence and comfort to journey into the future when they carry
forward parts of the past
If we carry forward parts of the past, they should be what is best
It is important to value differences
The language we use creates our reality

What is Appreciative Inquiry good for?

Appreciative Inquiry is useful when a different perspective is needed, or when we wish to
begin a new process from a fresh, positive vantage point. It can help move a group that is
stuck in what is toward what could be. Appreciative Inquiry can be used with individuals,
partners, small groups, or large organisations.

Problem Solving Appreciative Inquiry
Felt Need identification of the problem Appreciating and valuing the best of what
is
Analysis of causes Envisioning what might be
Analysis of possible solutions Dialoguing What should be
Innovating What will be
Basic assumption: an organisation is a
problem to be solved.
Basic assumption: an organisation is a
mystery to be embraced.


General flow of an Appreciative Inquiry process:

Appreciative inquiry can be done as a longer structured process going through 5 phases of:

Definition: Surfacing the focus for inquiring appreciatively.

Discovery: Identifying organisational processes that work well.

Dream: Envisioning processes that would work well in the future.

Design: Planning and prioritising those processes.
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Delivery: Implementing the proposed design.







The basic idea is to build organisations around what works, rather than trying to fix what doesn't.

At the centre is a positive topic choicehow we ask even the first question contains the seeds of
change we are looking to enact.

Appreciative Inquiry can also be used as a way of opening a meeting or conversation by identifying
what already works. What do you value most about yourself, work and organisation?

What is Appreciative Inquiry Good For?

Appreciative Inquiry is useful when a different perspective is needed, or when we wish to
begin a new process from a fresh, positive vantage point. It can help move a group that is
stuck in what is toward what could be. Appreciative Inquiry can be used with individuals,
partners, small groups, or large organisations.

Materials Needed:

Varies depending on how the methodology is used. For more information:
http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/



Discovery
Appreciate what is
Dream
Imagine what might
be
Design
Determine what
should be
Delivery
Create what will be

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World Caf

The World Caf is a method for creating a living network of collaborative dialogue around questions
that matter in real life situations. It is a provocative metaphor. As we create our lives, our
organisations, and our communities, we are, in effect, moving among table conversations at the
World Caf. (From The World Caf Resource Guide)
Resource: www.theworldcafe.com



Operating Principles of World Cafe:

Create hospitable space
Explore questions that
matter
Encourage each
persons
contribution
Connect diverse people
and ideas
Listen together for
patterns, insights and
deeper questions
Make collective
knowledge
visible etiquette


Assumptions of World Cafe:

The knowledge and
wisdom we need is present and accessible.
Collective insight evolves from honouring unique contributions; connecting ideas; listening
into
the middle; noticing deeper themes and questions.
The intelligence emerges as the system connects to itself in diverse and creative ways.


General Flow of a World Caf:

Seat 4-5 people at caf-style tables or in conversation clusters.
Set up progressive rounds of conversation, usually of 20-30 minutes eachhave some good
questions!
Ask one person to stay at the table as a host and invite the other table members to move
to other tables as ambassadors of ideas and insights
Ask the table host to share key insights, questions, and ideas briefly with new table
members, and then let folks move through the rounds of questions.
After youve moved through the rounds, allow some time for a whole-group harvest of the
conversations.
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What is World Caf Good For?

World Caf is a great way of fostering
interaction and dialogue with both large
and small groups. It is particularly
effective in surfacing the collective
wisdom of large groups of diverse
people. The caf format is very flexible
and adapts to many different purposes
information sharing, relationship
building, deep reflection exploration and
action planning.

When planning a caf, make sure to leave
ample time for both moving through the
rounds of questions (likely to take
longer than you think!) and some type of
whole-group harvest.





Materials Needed:

. Small tables (36-42), preferably round
. Chairs for participants and presenters
. Tablecloths
. Flip chart paper or paper placemats for covering the tables
. Markers
. Flip chart or large paper for harvesting collective knowledge or insights
. Posters/table tents showing the Caf Etiquette
. Materials for harvesting


This information was adapted from Caf to Go at www.theworldcafe.com




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Open Space Technology

The goal of an Open Space Technology meeting is to create time and space for people to engage
deeply and creatively around issues of concern to them. The agenda is set by people with the power
and desire to see it through. Typically, Open Space meetings result in transformative experiences
for the individuals and groups involved. It is a simple and powerful way to catalyse effective
working conversations and to truly invite organisations to thrive in times of swirling change.
Resource: www.openspaceworld.org


Principles of Open Space:

Whoever comes are the right people
Whenever it starts is the right time
Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
When its over its over


The Law of Two Feet:
If you find yourself in a situation where you are not contributing or
learning, move somewhere where you can.

Follow your PASSION & take your RESPONSIBILTY




The four principles and the law work to create a powerful event motivated by the passion and
bounded by the responsibility of the participants.

Roles in Open Space:

Hostannounce and host a workshop
Participantparticipate in a workshop
Bumble beeshop between workshops
Butterflytake time out to reflect


General Flow of an Open Space Meeting:

The group convenes in a circle and is welcomed by the sponsor.

The facilitator provides an overview of the process and explains how it works. The facilitator
invites people with issues of concern to come into the circle, write the issue on a piece of
paper and announces it to the group.

These people are "conveners." Each convener places their paper on the wall and chooses a
time and a place to meet. This process continues until there are no more agenda items.

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The group then breaks up and heads to the agenda wall, by now covered with a variety of sessions.
Participants take note of the time and place for sessions they want to be involved in.

Dialogue sessions convene for the rest of the meeting. Recorders (determined by each group)
capture the important points and post the reports on the news wall. All of these reports will be
harvested in some way and returned to the larger group.

Following a closing or a break, the group might move into convergence, a process that takes the
issues that have been discussed and attaches action plans to them to "get them out of the room."

The group then finishes the meeting with a closing circle where people are invited to share
comments, insights and commitments arising from the process.












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What is Open Space Good For

Open Space Technology is useful in almost any context, including strategic direction setting,
envisioning the future, conflict resolution, morale building, consultation with stakeholders,
community planning, collaboration and deep learning about issues and perspectives.

Open Space Technology is an excellent meeting format for any situation in which there is:

A real issue of concern
Diversity of players
Complexity of elements
Presence of passion (including conflict)
A need for a quick decision

Open space can be used in groups of 10 to 1,000 (and probably larger). Its important to give
enough time and space for several sessions to occur. The outcomes can be dramatic when a group is
uses its passion and responsibility (and is given the time) to make something happen.

Materials Needed:

Circle of chairs for participants
Letters or numbers around the room to indicate meeting locations
A blank wall that will become the agenda
A news wall for recording and posting the results of the dialogue sessions
Breakout spaces for meetings
Paper on which to write session topics/questions
Markers/Pencils/Pens
Posters of the Principles, Law of Two Feet, and Roles (optional)
Materials for harvest


22

The Pro Action Caf

The Pro Action Caf is a space for creative and action oriented conversation where participants are
invited to bring their call, project, ideas, questions or whatever they feel called by and need help to
manifest in the world.

The concept of Pro Action Caf is a blend of 'World Caf' and 'Open Space' technologies. It was first
conceived by Rainer von Leoprechting and Ria Baeck in Brussels, Belgium.

More Info on: http://sites.google.com/a/pro-action.eu/pro-action-caf-/how-to-become-a-
host/hosting-kit

What is Pro Action Caf Good For?

As a conversational process, the Pro Action Caf is a collective, innovative yet simple methodology
for hosting conversations about calls, questions and projects that matter to the people that attend.
These conversations link and build on each other as people move between caf tables, cross-
pollinate ideas, and offer each other new insights into the questions or issues that are most
important in their life, work, organisation or community.

As a process, the Pro Action Caf can evoke and make visible the collective intelligence of any
group, thus increasing peoples capacity for effective action in pursuit of good work. Pro Action Caf
can be used with a network of people and/or as a methodology for a specific group, organisation or
community to engage in creative and inspirational conversation leading to wiser and more
collectively informed actions.

Pro Action Caf is also a growing global community of people, groups, organizations and networks
that practice this conversational format.


General Flow of a Pro Action Caf:

Start with a quick check-in circle to connect to the purpose of the session and with each other. If
check- in has already taken place as part of a longer process, go straight to building the agenda.

You need 2 to 3 hours for a good Pro Action Caf. Invite participants step forward with their call
and in that way ask the community for the help you need to move your project into action. People
with a call stand up, speak it and write it on the agenda that corresponds to a numbered caf table,
other participants are invited to move around and engage around the themes proposed by others.

Dividing the number of participants by 4 gives the number of callers with projects that can be
worked. For example, with 40 people you can have maximum 10 callers each with a project. The
principle is first come first served. If you have fewer callers add chairs to caf tables but no more
than 5 at each table. During this process each contributing participant (those who do not step
forward) gets to support 3 of the different projects.

When the agenda has been created, invite the callers to go to their numbered caf tables. There will
be 3 rounds of 20 to 30 minute conversations in caf style, each guided by a few generic questions
to help deepen and focus the conversations:

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Round 1:

What is the quest behind the call /question/ project? - To deepen the need and purpose of
the call. Digging under the surface of what we know already.

Round 2:

What is missing? When the quest has been deepened, a discover question explores what could
make the project more complete and possible.

Round 3:

What am I learning about myself? What am I learning about my project? - What next steps will I
take? - What help do I still need? To help bring it all together for the caller and his/her project.

This 3rd round is in two steps:

First 20-25 minutes for the callers to reflect by themselves on the 4 questions above and harvest
their key insights.

Then a last round where 3 new contributors visit the tables to listen to the harvest of the caller,
their learning, their next steps, help needed, and then offer any insights and further support.

Between each round it is advisable to create short breaks for the contributors to have a drink, relax
together and get ready to support another caller in their quest/ project.

Last step is to meet in the circle and invite the callers from each table to share answers to these 2
questions:

What am I grateful for?
What are my next steps?

If there is time the whole group reflects shortly on: What applications do we see for
practising Pro Action Caf in our contexts?

End the Pro Action Caf with a collective gesture to appreciate the work done and the gifts
offered and received.

Materials and Set-Up:

Ideally create a large circle in one part of the room and enough caf tables with 4 chairs in
another part (if the size of the room does not allow this, then participants will move the
tables and chairs themselves as soon as the agenda is created).

Dress the tables with flipchart paper, colour pens and markers as basic caf set up.

Prepare the matrix for the agenda setting of the session with the right amount of sessions
according to the number of participants divided by 4.

Have fun and do good work together.
24

Collective Story Harvesting

Storytelling is humankind's oldest knowledge management tool and still one of the most effective.
Our stories contain both the experience and learning that can grow our capacity to function in our
complexifying contexts.

Collective harvesting allows us to track many threads or aspects of a single story simultaneously.
We can practice targeted listening, group learning and collective meaning making, as well as
offering a tremendous gift to the story holder. Group harvesting is an ideal way to surface the many
insights, innovations an a-ha's that dwell beneath the surface of our stories, using the full wealth of
the diverse perspectives present in any group in order to enrich the experience and understanding
of the group as a whole.


Preparation Phase

Allow enough time - You need to allow at least 90 minutes for the whole process. If you're working
with people who haven't done this type of process before, keep the storytelling to around 30
minutes so people don't get overloaded. If you want to maximise the learning around a story, you
may want to work on the interplay between story, harvest and learning for half a day, a day or even
longer.


Select the story with care

You will need a story that is relevant to the purpose and the context or system you
wish to serve with this exercise. Ideally it should have enough complexity, scale and
duration to make it interesting.

The best people to tell the story are those who are directly connected to it. It can be
more interesting to hear from more than one person involved in the story. More
voices add depth and richness, as well as a variety of points of view.

The story does not have to be an often-told one, or polished in any form. In fact, this
process can be used to help polish a story and enable the storytellers to focus and
refine it for different audiences.


Take care with your invitation

Be intentional about how you invite the story holders to come and tell their story. Stories respond
to invitation, and when a heartfelt invitation is present, often a story will come out in a whole new
way and offer new learning to those telling it. A group harvest is a gift to those telling and those
harvesting, and should be offered as such.

Select the threads

Decide on the threads you want to harvest. Ideally, this should be agreed with the story holders and
the listeners, depending on where they want to focus their learning. Take as much time as you need
to discuss exactly what you want to get out of this process and what will happen to the harvest
25

afterwards. You'll need at least one person harvesting each thread you've chosen, and more than
one person can harvest the same thread simultaneously.

Possible threads to choose from:

Narrative thread* - The thread of the story people, events, stages. You might also
capture facts, emotions and values that are part of the story.
Process* - What interventions, processes, applications, discoveries happened?
Pivotal points* - When did breakthroughs occur? What did we learn?
Application - What can we learn from this story about application in our own or
other systems?
Taking change to scale What can we learn from this story about taking change to scale?
Questions What questions arise from this story that we could ask of any system?
When things just came together What where the times when the right people showed up
and things just flowed naturally? (Synchronicity & magic)
Specific theme Harvest the story using a specific theme (like participatory
leadership) and see what it tells you.
Specific participatory leadership patterns e.g. the eight breaths of process design:
where did each breath occur during the story? The 5th organisational paradigm:
Where did new forms of governance and working occur? Core team/calling team:
What did we learn about holding the centre of this work?
Principles What principles of working can be gleaned from this story? What principles of
complex living systems were reflected in this work?
Challenges encountered and how they were overcome
The story field* - How did the field of the system's story change? Can you name the
story or metaphor the system started with and what it moved to?

Threads marked with * might be foundational to any harvesting process.

Identify other possible harvesting modes

If you have other talents in your group, around graphic facilitation/visuals, poetry, music, mind
mapping, art, etc., you might also want to invite harvest in this form. Each of these will add a greater
richness, diversity and enjoyment to the harvest.

Suggested process

Framing and introduction: Welcome people to the session. Make the invitation publically to the
storytellers. Explain the harvesting threads and ask for volunteers.

Storytelling: Ask the storytellers to tell the story and the group to harvest. Be clear about the
time allocated for the storytelling. (It can be helpful to use a chime to let the storytellers
know when they have 5 minutes left)

Collective harvest: Give the storytellers materials to do their 'harvest of the harvest'. Ask each of the
harvesters to report on what they found. Take at least as long for this as for the storytelling. Each of
the harvests will have more depth than can be told during a first round. It might be helpful to have
more than one round of harvest, or for the rest of the group to question each harvester to draw out
additional insights.
26


Response from the tellers: What were the gifts to you from this group harvest? What are you taking
away from this session?

Closing the session: Thank the storytellers and the harvesters. Any final remarks about what will
happen to the harvest now that it has been heard. Is there enough here to return to it again and see
what else surfaces? Do you want to come back as a group and hear the next version of the story?

Materials and set-up

Room set-up: Ideally create a large circle with the storytellers as part of the circle. You may
need some small tables for those harvesting onto flipcharts (or they may be OK sitting on
the
floor).

Supplies: coloured pens and other art supplies.

Equipment: Recording equipment if you want to video the process and its results.

Camera to photograph any graphic harvests there might be.

What else is collective story harvesting good for?

For the story holders

Collective harvesting is an ideal input both for taking stock of the learning so far in a project and for
polishing a story so that it can be told to another audience. Having external ears listen to your story
can help to surface things you havent seen or havent taken notice of during the time you were
living in the experience. Often an experience is so complex and moves forward with such speed that
it is almost impossible to see how it all fits together from the inside.

We suggest using a collective harvest to take stock at regular intervals during a projects life. Being
well witnessed can be both a blessing and a relief to people whove done the hard yards holding the
space for something to happen. Good witnessing enables insights about the key pivotal points in a
story to surface, as well as helping other emotions to be heard and released. Deep listening can help
a story to identify its protagonists strengths and gifts, as well as the supports and barriers they
faced in contributing those gifts. It can also support a story to rise above the personal to reveal
insights about the local context it happened in and even the wider systemic context.

Just as external eyes can help us see something we know well in a new light, external listeners can
help story participants to see their own experiences in a new light, often revealing what has not
been seen from inside the story. Even such a simple thing as naming what has not been named
before adds immensely to the learning.

Specific feedback can also help a team to know what to focus on in polishing their story. Often there
are so many details held by the team, that a listener can be overwhelmed. Harvesting can help to
bring whats important into sharp relief, supporting a story to become more focused and more
potent.

For the Listeners and Harvesters
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If storytelling is a skill that is both inherent to humans and one that can be polished with practice,
then so is listening. Listening is the companion skill to storytelling; indeed the story arises in the
space between the teller and the listener. In essence, a story needs a listener to become what it can
be. We dont often get the opportunity to listen well, especially with a specific purpose, and to
provide a necessary feedback loop to those within a committed project. Group story harvesting can
provide such a practice and feedback loop, strengthening the community around a project shared in
this way.

Harvesting is also a skill that needs practice, and it is important to experience the wide variety of
ways a story or an experience can be harvested, each bringing its own richness, much as another
facet brings sparkle to a gemstone. Purposeful harvesting is both a good experience and an
excellent way to practice. Story listeners and harvesters may want to debrief afterwards on their
experience, surfacing their challenges and learning as a way for the group to become more skilful in
the future.

For the wider community and networks

Harvests of projects that have gone to scale, as well as those that have faced many challenges are a
valuable contribution to the wider community and beyond, helping us to increase the learning
within our networks. Sharing practice stories is one of the quickest ways for principles and
practices in any field to be understood and integrated.


The strengths of Collective Story Harvesting

It can deal with complex realities and bring simplicity as well as surface understanding and
learning from complexity.
It is a harvesting of current reality how we got to where we are now?
It creates a rich learning field.
It creates a strong connection and shared understanding between those involved in
the process.
It is a gift to the storytellers and others, with lots of resonant learning happening.
It is a simple, but powerful tool that can be used regularly to take stock, capture
learning and refocus the field.

Applying collective story harvesting

There are many ways to apply collective story harvesting:

Systemic story harvest for applied learning: a group focuses on one systemic story to harvest the
learnings and apply them to its own work. As in the process described above, a systemic story is
told, the group harvests threads and discusses the learnings. This works equally well for a practice
group or a working team hearing a story from another organisation or system and then applying
the learnings to its own practice.

Full system team building/strategy session: Harvesting an organisation or group's own story for
learning, teambuilding and strategic enhancement. Working with the story in this way brings the
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group into a collective field of meaning. Vision or mission statements can be enhanced and
integrated, strategic plans can be invigorated1.

You can find a suggested process for this variation in document '110914 Collective Harvesting of
AoH Practice Stories.pdf' under the Collective Story Harvest heading at:
http://artofhosting.ning.com/page/core-art-of-hosting-
Practices.

Many stories/collective learning: Harvesting a variety of stories simultaneously in small groups,
then converging the learning across the full group. A variety of stories are selected that offer
different aspects to the group. Participants attend and harvest the story that most interests them.
Collective meta-learning is harvested by the full group.

Creating a new field of work or practice: Telling the story of the wider context up to now in
order to set the scene for the new work or practice field to arise in find its potent focus. This
process might also be used for systemic evaluation.

Adapted from the document of the same name by Mary Alice Arthur, which can be found at:
http://artofhosting.ning.com/page/core-art-of-hosting-practices

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The real voyage of discovery lies not
in seeking new landscapes, but in
seeing with new eyes.
Marcel Proust

Dialogue A Conversation With A Centre, Not Sides

Participatory Leadership practices are all about dialogue. In many contexts especially
professional ones - what we know of conversation equals debate and discussion. A basic skill we
need to develop is how to recognise the difference
between debate and discussion on the one hand, and
dialogue on the other. This is so that we can recognise
which one we are engaged in at any moment and learn
how to switch between them in order to use which ever
form serves best for our purposes.


The art of thinking together

Fundamentally, the difference lies in the choice between thinking alone and thinking together. In
our society, we are much more used to thinking alone, and this draws us into discussion and debate,
where we find ourselves defending our views and sustaining our positions against opposing views
and positions.

While discussion is a powerful mode of exchange, it has its limitations because it focuses on:

. Either/or thinking
. Closure and completion
. Controlling the outcome.


Discussion can easily move into debate, whose root means "to beat down". This often creates
frustration and bad feeling among people who need to work together.

Dialogue is based on the assumption that in every situation there is an underlying wholeness. Not
only is there is room for all perspectives, but unless all perspectives are expressed, held and
honoured, that wholeness cannot fully emerge and be seen.


Defend or suspend

Learning to dialogue is about learning to make conscious choices, and so it is a path of personal
development. We can transform any conversation into a dialogue by choosing to suspend rather
than defend.

Suspending means listening without resistance (we dis-identify from our own starting position).
This leads to reflective dialogue, where you can explore underlying causes, rules and assumptions,
to get to deeper questions and framing of problems. From here, it is possible to enter generative
dialogue, where together you can invent unprecedented possibilities and new insights. A collective
flow emerges which is energising and enlightening.

We are inquiring together into what matters.



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Four basic skills

Dialogue requires four basic skills: listening, respecting, suspending and voicing. A little unpacking
shows that these simple words contain an enormous harvest of wisdom and depth.

Listening

What does it take to really listen?

Developing an inner silence. It is hard to listen when our minds are full of our own inner
dialogue. Learning to listen is learning to be present. We must learn to notice what we are
feeling now.

Recognising that much of our reaction to others comes from memory it is stored reaction,
not fresh response. In this case we are not really listening, we are simply "downloading"
from memory of what we already know.

Learning to distinguish between the inferences we make about experience and the
experience itself. Stick with the facts, don't jump to conclusions.

Following the disturbance when we are emotionally triggered by something we hear, we
tend to close down and act out. Instead of looking for evidence that confirms my point of
view, I can listen for the source of the difficulty in myself and in others.

Listening while noticing resistance this helps us to become conscious of the ways in which
we project our opinions about others onto them, and distort what is said without realising
it.


Respecting

What does respect look like in practice and how do we learn it?

Honouring boundaries Treat the person next to you as a teacher what do they have to
teach you that you do not know? Look for what is highest and best in the other and treat
them as a mystery that you can never fully comprehend.

Assuming coherence look for the whole. The new physics proposes that human beings are
intimately part of the overall fabric of life. However, we are conditioned to see only parts,
and to assume that the parts comprise the whole. The holistic view suggests that the whole
precedes the parts.

Respecting polarisations to enable dialogue, we must learn to respect the polarisations
that arise without attempting to fix them!

Supporting the people who challenge different viewpoints must be integrated, or
disturbances will continue. Dialogue requires willingness to hold the space open for inquiry.

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Learning to hold tension when a group can hold the tension that arises without reacting to
it, its capacity for dialogue rises to a whole new level.

Suspending

What becomes possible when we suspend our certainties?

Dialogue is possible only among people who can be surprised by what they say.

Recognise and embrace what you do not already know.

The first step is to disclose: we make available (to ourselves and others) the contents of our
consciousness so we can see what's going on.

The next step is to become aware of the processes that generate our thought.

Observing our thought processes, we transform them.

Suspension asks us to refrain from fixing, correcting and problem solving in favour of
inquiring into what we observe.

At the core of inquiry is the question. A really good question creates a tension in us that we
must learn to tolerate suspend the search for answers and see what emerges.


Voicing

What happens when we speak what is true for us?

Simply ask: what needs to be expressed now? What is it that people together are
endeavouring to say here?

Finding our authentic voice requires willingness to speak in the circle without knowing
what we will say.

Let there be silence make space to let the meaning bloom.

Speak to and from the centre, recognising that it is not only about interpersonal
relationships, but that there is something larger at stake.

Mastering these four skills would be basic to becoming a fully-fledged adult in an enlightened
society. May it one day come to pass.



(Inspired by the book 'Dialogue' by William Isaacs)



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Practising Dialogue

The following practices can radically shift the quality of any conversation, whether with one person,
or in a small circle or with hundreds of people. Like any skill, they need to be practiced regularly to
become natural in any context. Practice them and invite others to practice them with you. As part of
creating a hospitable environment for the conversation to take place, you may want to display
(some of) them in the room where you are hosting a participatory session, to serve as a constant
reminder to participants, and/or to print them on small cards to put on the tables where
conversations will take place.

Suspend judgements, assumptions and certainties - It is not about knowing who is right or wrong. It
is about exploring together and surfacing what we do not know or see yet.

Focus on what matters - We have no time to waste on what doesnt.

Accept that divergent opinions are OK - We do not always need to reach a consensus.

Innovation and new solutions come from putting different perspectives together.

Speak one at a time and speak with intention Say what you mean and then stop

Listen with attention Really seek to understand what is being said

Be aware of your impact on the group we each contribute to a good dialogue. We can be aware
that we do not monopolise the speaking time and make sure everybody can be heard.

Contribute with your mind and heart - Bring your full self into the room. Allow yourself to be both a
professional and a human being.

Listen together for insights and deeper patterns or questions is an invitation not to remain at the
surface of what you already know but to listen to the meaning underneath the meaning.

Slow down- Slowing down helps to foster more reflection and create spaces for silence, where
inspiration is often born

Link and connect ideas - This is how we can learn and surface what do not know yet, and see the
connections and patterns.

Play, doodle & draw It can be helpful to use a large sheet in the middle of your group as a space to
capture the results of your collective reflection.

Have fun! What if enjoying ourselves was the key to improving our learning and performance?


33

ESSENTIALS OF PROCESS DESIGN

Seven Little Helpers

In one of the early Art of Hosting Trainings, after having spent three days exploring mental models
and conversational tools, one of the participants asked Toke Mller, one of the facilitators, what you
need as a minimum to host a strategic conversation. The answer was:

1) Be present!
2) Have a good & powerful question?
3) And have a stonea talking piece, which is the simplest structure or tool that can be used to
create intentional speaking and listeningall other conversational tools and methods are just more
sophisticated versions of the talking piece.


Over the years, these initial three tools have expanded to include seven helpers that are the source
of good conversational design. At the bare minimum, if you use these tools, conversations will grow
deeper and work will occur at a more meaningful level.

These seven helpers bring form to fear and uncertainty and help us stay in the chaos of not
knowing the answers. They help us to move through uncomfortable places together, like conflict,
uncertainty, fear and the groan zone and to arrive at wise action.

1. Be Present
2. Work together with mates
3. Have a good question
4. Invite intentional listening and speakinge.g. have a talking piece
5. Harvest something useful
6. Make a wise collective decision
7. Act wisely & follow up

Be present

Inviting presence is a core practice of hosting, but it is also a key practice for laying the groundwork
for a good meeting. There are many ways of bringing a group to presence, including:

Start with a moment of silence or a prayer, when appropriate, or..
Check in with a personal question related to the theme of the meeting, or..
Pass a talking piece and provide space for each voice to be heard, or ..
Or simply start by hearing everyones needs, concerns or wishes for the topic or meeting
you are entering.
Start well. Start slowly. Check everyone in.



34

For more information
consult The Art of Harvesting
booklet available from Monica
Nissn or Chris Corrigan
Have a Good Question

A good question is aligned with the need and purpose of the meeting and invites us to go to another
level. Good questions are put into the centre of a circle and the group speaks through them. Having
a powerful question at the centre keeps the focus on the work and helps groups stay away from
unhelpful behaviours like personal attacks, politics and closed minds.

It is wise to design these questions beforehand and make them essential pieces of the invitation for
others to join you. As you dive into these questions, harvest the new questions that are arising.
They represent the path you need to take.

Use a Talking Piece

In its simplest form a talking piece is simply an object that passes from hand to hand. When one is
holding the piece, one is invited to speak and everyone is invited to listen. Using a talking piece has
the powerful effect of ensuring that every voice is heard and it sharpens both speech and listening.
It slows down a conversation so that when things are moving too fast, or people begin speaking
over one another and the listening stops, a talking piece restores calm and smoothness. Conducting
the opening round of a conversation with a talking piece sets the tone for the meeting and helps
people to remember the power of this simple tool.

Of course a talking piece is really a minimal form of structure. Every meeting should have some
form of structure that helps to work with the chaos and order that is needed to co-discover new
ideas. There are many forms and processes to choose from but it is important to align them with the
nature of living systems if innovation and wisdom is to arise from chaos and uncertainty.

At more sophisticated levels, when you need to do more work, you can use more formal processes
that work with these kinds of context. Each of these processes has a sweet spot, its own best use
that you can think about as you plan meetings. Blend as necessary.

Harvest

Never meet unless you plan to harvest your learnings. The basic rule of thumb here is to remember
that you are not planning a meeting. You are instead planning a
harvest. Know what is needed and plan the process
accordingly. Harvests don't always have to be visible;
sometimes you plan to meet just to create learning. But support
that personal learning with good questions and practice
personal harvesting.

To harvest well, be aware of four things:

1) Create an artefact. Harvesting is about making knowledge visible. Make a mind map, draw
pictures, take notes, but whatever you do create a record of your conversation.

2) Have a feedback loop. Artefacts are useless if they sit on the shelf. Know how you will use your
harvest before you begin your meeting. Is it going into the system? Will it create questions for a
future meeting? Is it to be shared with people as news and learning? Figure it out and make plans to
share the harvest.
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3) Be aware of both intentional and emergent harvest. Harvest answers to the specific questions you
are asking, but also make sure you are paying attention to the cool stuff that is emerging in good
conversations. There is real value in what's coming up that none could anticipate. Harvest it.

4) The more a harvest is co-created, the more it is co-owned. Don't just appoint a secretary, note
taker or a scribe. Invite people to co-create the harvest. Place paper in the middle of the table so
that everyone can reach it. Hand out post it notes so people can capture ideas and add them to the
whole. Use your creative spirit to find ways to have the group host their own harvest.


For more, refer to The Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision Making.


Make a Wise Decision

If your meeting needs to come to a decision, make it a wise one. Wise decisions emerge from
conversation, not voting. The simplest way to arrive at a wise decision is to use the three thumbs
consensus process. It works like this:

First, clarify a proposal. A proposal is a suggestion for how something might be done. Have it
worded and written and placed in the centre of the circle. Poll the group asking each person to offer
their thumb in three positions. UP means I'm good with it. SIDEWAYS means I need more clarity
before I give the thumbs up DOWN means this proposal violates my integrity...I mean seriously.

As each person indicates their level of support for the proposal, note the down and sideways
thumbs. Go to the down thumbs first and ask: what would it take for you to be able to support this
proposal. Collectively help the participant word another proposal, or a change to the current one. If
the process is truly a consensus building one, people are allowed to vote thumbs down only if they
are willing to participate in making a proposal that works. Hijacking a group gets rewarded with a
vote. Majority rules.

Once you have dealt with the down thumbs, do the same with the sideways thumbs. Sideways
doesn't mean no but rather I need clarity. Answer the questions or clarify the concerns. If you
have had a good conversation leading to the proposal, you should not be surprised by any down
thumbs. If you are, reflect on that experience and think about what you could have done differently.

Act

Once you have decided what to do, act. There isn't much more to say about that except that wise
action is action that doesn't over-extend or under-extend the resources of a group. Action arises
from the personal choice to responsibility for what you love. Commit to the work and do it.

Stay Together

Relationships create sustainability. If you stay together as friends, mates or family, you become
accountable to one another and you can face challenges better. When you feel your


36

relationship to your closest mates slipping, call it out and host a conversation about it. Trust
is a group's most precious resource. Use it well.

Powerful Questions

If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I would use the first 55 minutes to
formulate the right question because as soon as I have identified the right question I can solve
the problem in less than five minutes.
Albert Einstein

While answers tend to bring us to closure, questions open up to exploration.

Asking the Right Question
Asking the right question is the most effective way of opening up a conversation and keeping it
engaging. A high-quality question focuses on what is meaningful for the participants, triggers our
curiosity and invites us to explore further.

When inviting people into a conversation that matters, it is helpful to have an overall questionone
that itself embodies the purpose of the meeting. This is the key question or the calling question for
the conversation. The calling question is best formulated together with key stakeholders.

The conversation may include other questions than the calling question. The questions you
chooseor that people discover during conversationare critical to its success.

Some guidelines for choosing questions:

A well-crafted question attracts energy and focuses attention on what matters. Experienced
hosts recommend asking open-ended questions, not ones that have a simple yes/no answer.
Good questions invite inquiry and curiosity. They do not need to promote action or problem
solving immediately.
Youll know a good question when it continues to surface good ideas and possibilities.
Check possible questions with key people who will take part in a conversation. Does it hold
their attention and energy?


A powerful question:

Is simple and clear
Is thought provoking
Generates energy
Focuses inquiry
Challenges assumptions
Opens new possibilities
Evokes more questions


A powerful question focuses Attention, Intention and Energy

37

The Art of Harvesting
How many good conversations and crashing insights are lost because they are never recorded,
shared or acted on?

What if we were planning not a meeting but a harvest? When we
understand the process of meaningful conversations as a series of
connected phases (breaths), we see that each must somehow feed
into the next, and the oxygenation of the greater system requires
the fruits of the conversation to leech out into the wider world.
When approaching any meeting in this spirit, we must become clear
about why we are initiating the process. The Art of Hosting and
the Art of Harvesting dance together as two halves of the same
thing.

Harvesting is more than just taking notes. To get a sense of the
complexity of this art, let's begin by picturing a field in which someone has planted wheat. How can
that field of wheat be harvested?

We first imagine the harvest from that field as a farmer using equipment to cut down the wheat,
thresh it, and separate the seeds from the stalks. The farmer might store the grain, further refine it,
sell it quickly or wait for the price to increase. Now imagine a geologist, a biologist and a painter
harvesting from the same field. The geologist picks through the rocks and soil gathering data about
the land itself. The biologist might collect insects and worms, bits of plants and organic matter. The
painter sees the patterns in the landscape and chooses
a palette and a perspective for work of art.

They all harvest differently from the field.
The
results of their work go to different places
and
are put to different uses. But they all have a
few things in common; they have a purpose
for being in the field and a set of questions
about that purpose, they have a pre-
determined place to use the results of the
harvest, and they have specific tools to use in
doing their work. Despite the field being the
same, the tools and results are specific to the
need, purpose and inquiry.



Who should do the harvesting?

Whoever does the harvest will enjoy the fruits of it.

Having harvesting can sometimes be an afterthought like in the case of a farmer who is so focused
on preparing the field and growing the crop that he forgets about the harvest.


38



Going through all the trouble of preparing the field and tending the crops without harvesting is
insane! Picking the fruits - recording and transcribing - can be done by most people and can easily
be delegated. But making sense of the multitude of input, noticing the emerging patterns, finding
the seeds/questions to feed forward, is where the fruits of the harvesting really lie. This meaning
making is best done with the stakeholders, those who own the project, know the content and need
to act on it.

Individual and collective harvest

Individual harvest can be done through reflection, journaling etc. The individual harvest enhances
individual learning and the individuals contribution to the collective inquiry.

Some of the best experiences of harvesting have been when the stakeholders themselves have done
it together, collectively.

Harvesting collectively seems to have a greater potential for emergence and yields more than
harvesting alone. It becomes the next level of conversation, a meta-level, where we make sense
together.

If the stakeholders cannot do the harvest, gather a good, inspired and diverse harvesting team and
plan a way to feed the harvest back into the system.

If you cannot get a team but you are inspired to do it, give it your best shot. Feed it back into the
system and see if it stirs.

The Cycle Of Harvesting

There are eight stages of harvesting, elucidated in the companion book to this one. Briefly
they are:

Stage 1: Sensing the Need

Sensing the need may at first be intuitive or very basiclike sensing hunger, but once the sensed
need becomes conscious one can act on it.

We sense that we are hungry and from there we plant a garden, knowing that the work of planting,
cultivating and harvesting lies before us but that the end result meets the need for sustenance. The
need is not complicated; it is real and clear and it speaks deeply and inspires invitation and action.
Everything begins from this need, and the way we respond to it and invite others to do so will
contribute to the harvest that we take away at the end of the day.

Picture a field in which someone has planted wheat.

When we imagine that field being harvested, we probably see a farmer using equipment to cut
down the wheat, thresh it, and separate the seeds from the stalks. Now imagine a geologist, a
biologist and a painter harvesting from that same field. The geologist picks through the rocks and
soil, gathering data about the land itself. The biologist might collect insects and worms, bits of
39

The quality of the field determines
the quality of the yield.
Otto Scharmer
plants and organic matter. The painter sees the patterns in the landscape and chooses a palette and
a perspective for a work of art.

They all have different needs and will harvest differently from the field. The results of their work go
to different places and are put to different uses. But they all have a few things in common: they have
a purpose for being in the field and a set of questions about that purpose; they have a pre-
determined place to use the results of the harvest, and they have specific tools to help them do their
work. It's useful to note that despite the field being the same, the tools and results are specific to the
purpose and the inquiry.

The need translates into a clear purpose and some defined outcomes. These two fix points
can offer the coordinates for a good harvest.

Stage 2: Preparing the Field

In some cases the person taking the initiative to work on a
given issue (the "caller") makes the field ready by creating
awareness of the need. Others with a similar need will
recognise the call.

In preparing the field (sending out the call, giving the
context, inviting etc.), we set the tone of the whole process. The seriousness and quality of the call
will determine the quality of what we reap. The work of readying a field for planting can take a
whole year during which we condition the soil, clear the rocks and prepare things. What we are
doing here is actually harvesting a field so that the seeds can be planted. - In other words: start
thinking about the
harvest from the very beginningnot as an afterthought!

The quality of the field is set with the invitation that arises from the need. The quality of the
invitation springs from the presence and awareness of the initial conversation. There is seriousness
and a depth that is communicated in the process from the beginning.

This work looks like preparing ourselves and inquiring into the capacity of the system to actually do
the work we are asking it to do. Preparing ourselves as hosts is part of preparing the field.

Stage 3: Planning the Harvest

Planning the harvest starts with and accompanies the design process. A clear purpose and some
success
criteria for the process of the harvest itself will add clarity and direction. What would be useful and
add value, and in which form would it serve best?

Translated into a simple checklist, it becomes:

What is your intention?
Who is going to benefit?
How can you add most value to the work at handhow will the harvest serve best?
What form or what media will be most effective?
Who should host or do the harvesting?
40

What is the right timing?


In other words, part of planning the harvest is also to know for whom, when and how you need to
use it.

Which harvest formats will serve you best? Are there templates, sheets, colors, drawings, audio or
video recordings, etc. that can be used as harvesting aids?

In his book Out of Control, Kevin Kelly describes how, the seeds or plants that enter an empty
ecosystem in the early phases after a desert fire determine what the ecosystem will be like, and
what kind of plant habitat you will end up with.

In all beginnings and all endings, be careful! Tao Te Ching

Stage 4: Planting the Seeds

The questions around which we structure the hosting become the seeds for harvesting. All
gardeners and farmers know that planting seeds depends on the season and the conditions. You
cant just plant whenever you want to. You plant once the conditions are right to maximise the
yield. In hosting practice, this means being sensitive to timing when asking questions.

In sowing the seeds that will drive the inquiry (identifying and asking the strategic and meaningful
questions) you determine the output. So in planning the harvest, ask yourself What is it that this
process needs to yield? What information, ideas, output or outcome will benefit us here and now,
and what might take us to the next level of inquiry?

The process itself is an on-going one. With each part of the process, you harvest something. Some of
it you need to use right away, to help lead you into the next process. Some of the harvest you will
need later. So part of planning the harvest also involves knowing for whom, when and how you
need to use it. Another part of the planning is asking yourself in which format the harvest will serve
you best.

The most powerful seeds are powerful questions. A powerful question:

Is simple and clear
Is thought-provoking
Generates energy
Focuses inquiry
Challenges assumptions
Opens up to new possibilities
Evokes more questions

A powerful question focuses attention, intention and energy.

Stage 5: Tending the Crop

Protect the integrity of the crop. Nurture it as it grows, weed it and thin it to keep the strong plants
growing and get rid of all that will not nourish or serve. This involves a combination of feeding the
41

field and letting it grow. But it also involves just sitting in the field. Holding space for what is
emerging and enjoying it.

During the process, enjoy seeing your work unfold in all its complexity. The more you can welcome
the growth you are witnessing, the higher the quality of the harvest. Now you are in the pulse of
noticing both the quality of the field and the quality of the crops. This is where we engage in
conversation and explorationwhere the richness of the harvest is born. The richer the
conversation or exchange, the richer the harvest!

Stage 6: Picking the Fruits

The simplest way to harvest is to record what is being said and done, the output of the
conversations, etc. This creates a record or collective memory.

Recording can be done in words:

Your notes, which will be subjective
Transcripts of output from conversations recorded on tapes, etc., which will be objective.
The participants themselves documenting key insights, which will be objective


Recording can also be done with pictures/photographs/video/film:

Pictures evoke and recall feelings, atmospheres, and situations.
Or you can video the conversationrecord both verbally and visually

It is helpful to give some thought in the planning phase to how you want to harvest. What
kind of records, templates etc. will help you gather the relevant information or knowledge?

Stage 7: Preparing and Processing the Fruits

Creating a memory is the first step. As we pick the fruits or seeds for processing, some will be used
right away, some will be used for further processing and some will be used as seed for the next
season.

The second step is making collective sense and meaning. This is where we add value and make the
data useful. There are many ways of doing this. The general idea is to take the many bits of
information and transform them into holonswholes that are also parts of greater wholes.

Things that can help in this process:

Harvest in a systemic way. Ask collectively: What did you notice? What gave sense
and meaning to you? Notice the patternsthey indicate what is emerging
Use metaphors, mental models and stories to make complex issues simple
Use drawings and graphics to make complex issues manageable and visible

Meaning making can also happen in a conversation at the next level.


42


Harvesting from the past:

You may look back and ask:
What did we learn?
What made sense?
Where are we now in the journey?
What are the next steps?

Harvesting in the present:

What are we sensing?
What are we noticing now?
What patterns are emerging? Etc.

Harvesting for the future:

You may also look forward: look for the issues or questions that you know will feed the next
inquiry and feed those back into the system.

Harvesting for emergence:

What question could shift us to the next level?

Stage 8: Planning the Next HarvestFeeding Forward

Most harvesting is done to bring closure to a process or bring us to the next level of
understanding. More importantly, it helps us to know collectively, to see the same picture
and share the same understanding together. These are the fruits of the harvest.

Summary of The Art of Harvesting version 2.6.; written by Monica Nissen and Chris Corrigan with
input from the Art of Hosting Community of Practice. The full article can be downloaded from the
Art of Hosting website: www.artofhosting.org

A few comments:

The above reflections mainly concern collective harvesting.

Individual reflection and harvest will raise the level of the collective harvest. During
learning processes, individual harvesting can be done intentionally, by using a journal as a
learning tool.

Web-based tools open up a whole world of possibilities that are not dealt with here.

Harvesting the soft is much more subtle and subjective than dealing with the cognitive
or more objective, tangible parts. A qualitative inquiry into what we have noticed, what has
shifted or changed in our relationships, in the culture or atmosphere may give us some
information about the softer part of the harvest.
43

For the most effective harvest, these eight steps should be planned beforehand, as part of
designing the whole process.


Harvesting & Convergence Methodologies

There are many ways to collect the result of important conversations and to make sense of them.
Here are some of them. Be creative and adapt them to your context and needs.

Harvesting a check-in circle by dedicated harvesters:

When you open a process and invite a group to check in for example in circle, it usually is delicate to
ask people to write on cards because you need them to become present to themselves and to the
process first. So, a good solution is for a pair of dedicated harvesters to write in turn the
contribution from everyone. They should ideally sit next to each other with a card of stack and a
marker each so they can complement each other and avoid duplications. After the circle they may
display the cards on a board or a flipchart and cluster the contributions by meaning to surface the
patterns.

Cards Harvest after a World Caf or in Circle:

After a Caf session, you may invite each person in the room to identify their key insights or
questions inspired by the conversation they have just taken part in. A good way of then collecting
the cards/insights on a board or a wall paper is to ask anyone to start with one (and only one) item
and for the others to attentively listen and add to this item something similar or close. This way, the
participants themselves create some natural clusters of meaning. Ideally, as a host, let the group
make sense themselves or have a dedicated host by the board helping with the clustering (to avoid
getting trapped into the content). You can propose the same process in circle with cards dropped
on the floor and clustered in real time.

Sharing results collected on flipchart sheets

Certainly one of the most often used ways of converging the reflections after any type of process
(Open Space, World Caf, Ritual Dissent). The hosts of the sessions or spokespersons of the
groups bring their flipchart into the group (usually in circle) and speak in turn what their key
findings are (issues explored, solutions identified, next steps). Keeping the discipline of the
speakers when time becomes short can be a challenge!

Exhibition/Maxi-Gallery Walk after an Open Space session

With large groups it is more difficult to apply the flipchart technique above because of the time
needed for it. You can organise an exhibition style in one or two rounds where you invite each
session host to very briefly (30 seconds to a minute max.) share their key insights, more as a way of
pitching their session for more people to join the more in-depth sharing moment that follows. Once
each session host has spoken, you apply Open Space principles again and people can go to learn
from and contribute to the session(s) of their choice. This enables the host to enrich his/her harvest
with new perspectives.



44

Harvesting templates for Open Space or Pro Action Caf sessions:
Pre-defined templates can be suggested for session hosts to collect the key results of Open Space or
Pro Action Caf sessions. It can be made available on a sheet of flipchart or - ideally - on an
electronic template when laptops are available to type in the results in real time. The results will
then be presented by the hosts to the plenary, projected on screen and inserted into the report of
the process.

The following templates may inspire you to create your own.
Template 1:
Title: What is the issue, question or project?
1. Give a short summary of our key points and insights
2. What actions / next steps do we recommend?
3. What will we do ourselves within our sphere of influence?
4. What help do you need and from whom?
5. Who participated in the session?
6. Who is the contact person?
7. Who is willing to help move this forward?

Template 2:
Title: What is the issue, question or project?
1. Problem statement
2. Why the problem exists
3. What happens if the problem is not fixed
- in the short term
- in the long term
4. Recommended solutions
5. Expected benefits
6. Who participated in the session?
7. Who is the contact person?
8. Who is willing to help move this forward?

Having a check-out circle harvested by the participants themselves:
A good and swift way of checking out of a process is to invite participants to identify their key
learning from the process, write it on a card, drop it on the floor in front of them so you can see
when everybody is ready and then hear what is on the card (and nothing more). This Art of Hosting
allows a group of 100 people to check out in less than 10 minutes. And you collect all insights
afterwards.

Taking pictures during a participatory process:
Taking pictures helps to focus one's attention on the process and to better sense what is happening
as the process as it is unfolding. It also helps to memorise people's faces. It is very much
recommended to systematically take pictures of all pieces of harvesting, in case they would ever get
lost. If you take pictures of the conversations, always ask for permission to everyone and mention
the use you intend to make of them.

Creating a newsletter / harvest letter / report of the process:
Such a harvest letter will contain all results of the process. It will serve as a living memory of the
process, especially when it can be illustrated with pictures. This always has a very positive impact
on the participants, especially if it can be delivered swiftly after the event. It can also inform those
who could not be there. And above all it will be an invaluable source of information for the follow-
45

up. Depending on the context and the needs, you may produce a shorter version with the key
insights (sort of executive summary) and an extensive version with all detailed results. Important:
ideally you should plan for a dedicated harvesting team during the process and the newsletter
could be delivered the day after. If that is not possible, always plan time in your Calendar to create
it, otherwise it will become a burden afterwards and risks to never be issued eventually, which
would create a very negative impression. Again, develop your own template and enjoy yourselves
while doing it!

Landscaping
A landscape is a visual representation of a participatory process. It includes both what we are going
to do during the process and how we
are going to work together.
To many practitioners, this is 'the
signature' of the participatory
leadership approach.
In the preparation phase by the
hosting team, drawing a Landscape is
very effective to make visible the red
thread of a process, and how each step
will build on each other. There Art of
Hosting may be several interactions
needed.

It needs not be very graphically
advanced. Simple 'clouds' already help
to have a more visual representation
of the inner logic of the process. And in any case, the graphics should not hide the content but
support it.

During the participatory process itself, a Landscape is a good way to raise people's curiosity about
the process as soon as they enter the room, to present the process at the start, and to have a
dedicated and visible space where to harvest the key results of conversations. Sometimes, this is
enough as a memory or even report of an event. It also helps to easily bring the latecomers into the
process. You can also use it at the end of the process as a way of checking out, by inviting
participants to add their key learnings or 'A-ha' moments with post-its or markers. After the
process has ended, many people
enjoy hanging the landscape on the
wall of their offices or corridor again
piquing the curiosity of anyone
passing by.
Using a landscape in this way can
create a coherent visual memory
based on key insights, at the same
time as offering an overview.

Graphic Recording
Graphic Recording is an advanced
harvesting technique. Also called by
some Strategic Illustration, it
46

consists in representing graphically and in real time the outcomes of conversational processes or
more traditional conferences. It enhances the attention and retention of the audience and
illuminates the key insights and patterns presented or discovered which can be reflected back to
the group and seed their next reflections. The graphic records are also a vivid memory of an event.

It can have various degrees: from simple symbols and keywords organised in a structured way on a
flipchart sheet in the middle of a small group to most advanced versions with fully fledged
drawings.

Group Harvesting of AoH Practice Stories
Storytelling is one of the most powerful knowledge management tools of the Art of Hosting
community. Contained in our stories is both the experience and learning that will grow our
capacities to use the Art of Hosting practice in ever more complex spaces. As the depth and scale of
our work increases, our practice stories offer us guideposts for innovation, process development
and how to create robust containers for conversations that really matter. During August and
September 2010 we began to experiment in Art of Hosting trainings with combining storytelling
and harvesting to build our capacity in both these mediums; we were hosting the harvest. Group
harvesting enables us to track many arcs of a single story simultaneously, meaning we can practise
targeted listening and group learning, while offering a gift to the story holders, as well as the group
as a whole in the form of collective meaning making. Group harvesting is an ideal way to surface the
many insights, innovations and Ah-has that exist beneath the surface of our stories and to take
learning around our practice to a deeper level.

How does group harvesting of practice stories work?
First, you need a good story about a change process that was run using Art of Hosting principles
and practice ideally one that has enough complexity, scale and duration to make it interesting. In
our Art of Hosting community, we have the stories of the European Commission, healthcare
projects in Columbus , Ohio and Nova Scotia, the UK FinanceLab and Annecto in Melbourne,
Australia as some key examples of this type of story, but any systemic story will do.

It is best to have those directly connected to the story on hand to tell it, and it can be more
interesting to hear from more than one person involved in the story. More voices add depth and
richness, as well as a variety of points of view.

The story does not need to be an often-told one, or polished in any form. In fact, this process can be
used to help polish a story and give the storytellers input on how to focus and refine the story to be
told to different audiences.

Weve found that group harvesting takes time at least 90 minutes is the minimum time needed. If
you are working with a group of harvesters during a training or with people who havent done this
type of process before, then keeping the storytelling to around 30 minutes is advisable, otherwise it
is easy for listeners to become overloaded. If you are working with a practice team or your purpose
is to create maximum learning around a story, then you may want to work on the interplay between
story, harvest and learning for a half day, a day or even longer.

Preparing for group harvesting:
First check with your storytellers and make them an invitation. Stories respond to invitation and
when a heartfelt invitation is present, often a story will come out in a whole new way and offer new
learning to those telling it. A group harvest is a gift to those telling and those harvesting, and should
be offered as such.
47

Next, decide on the arcs you would like to harvest. Ideally this could be agreed with the
storyholders and the listeners, depending on where they want to focus their learning. As in any Art
of Hosting process, you are planning for the harvest. Take as much time as you need to discuss
exactly what you want to get out of this process and what will happen to the harvest afterwards.
Youll need at least one person harvesting each arch youve chosen and more than one can harvest
the same arch simultaneously. Here are some to choose from:

Narrative Arc*: The thread of the story people, events, stages. You might also harvest
facts, emotions and values that are part of the story, etc.
Process Arc*: What interventions, processes, applications, discoveries happened?
Pivotal Points*: When did breakthroughs occur, what did we learn?
Application: What can we learn from this story for application in our own or other
systems?
Taking Change to Scale: What can we learn from this story about taking change to scale?
Questions: What questions arise from this story that we could ask of any system?
Synchronicity & Magic: What happened during this story that pointed to synchronicity and
the magic in the middle?
Specific theme: Harvest the story using a specific theme, like collaborative leadership, the
art of participation, etc., and see what it tells you
Art of Hosting pattern arc: The 6 Breaths: Where did each breath occur during the story?
The 5th organisational paradigm: Where did new forms of governance and working occur?
Core team/calling team: What did we learn about holding the centre of this work? There
may be others as well.
Principles: What principles of working can be gleaned from this story? What did we learn
about participatory practices? What principles of complex living systems were reflected in
this work?
The StoryField*: How did the field of the systems story change? Can you name the story or
metaphor the system started with and what it moved to?

We are suggesting that the arcs marked with * might be foundational to any harvesting
process.
If you have other talents in your group around graphic facilitation/visuals, poetry, music,
mind-mapping, art, etc. you may also want to invite a harvest in this form. Each of these will
add a greater richness, diversity and enjoyment to the harvest.

Suggested process:

Framing & Introduction: Welcome people to the session. Make the invitation publically to the
storytellers. Explain the arcs and ask for volunteers.

Storytelling: Ask the storytellers to tell the story and the group to harvest. Be clear about the time
allocated for the storytelling.

Group harvest: Give the storytellers materials to do their harvest of the harvest. Ask each of the
harvesters to report in on what they found. Take at least as long for this as for the storytelling. Each of
the harvests will have more depth than can be told during a first round. It might be helpful to have
more than one round of harvest, or for the rest of the group to question each harvester to draw out
additional insights.
48


Response from the tellers: What were the gifts to you from this group harvest? What are you taking
away from this session?

Response from the group: What were the gifts to you from this group harvest? What are you taking
away from this session?

Closing the session: Thank the storytellers and the harvesters. Any final remarks about what will
happen to the harvest now that it has been heard. Is there enough here to return to it again and see
what else surfaces? Do you want to come back as a group and hear the next version of the story?

Materials and set-up:
Ideally create a large circle with tellers as part of the circle. You may need some small tables for
those harvesting onto flipchart, or they may be fine harvesting onto the floor. Youll need plenty of
coloured pens and other art supplies may also be helpful.
You may want to have recording equipment on hand if youd like to video the story and the results.
Its also helpful to photograph graphic harvest.

What else can be done with a group harvest?
For the Storyholders
Group harvesting is an ideal input both for taking stock of the learning so far in a project and for
polishing a story so that it can be told to another audience. Having external ears listen to your story
can help to surface things you havent seen or havent taken notice of during the time you were
living in the experience. Often an experience is so complex and moves forward with such speed that
it is almost impossible to see how it all fits together from the inside.

We suggest using a group harvest to take stock at regular intervals during a projects life. Being well
witnessed can be both a blessing and a relief to people whove done the hard yards holding the
space for something to happen. Good witnessing enables insights about the key pivotal points in a
story to surface, as well as helping other emotions to be heard and released. Deep listening can help
a story to identify its protagonists strengths and gifts, as well as the supports and barriers they
faced in contributing those gifts. It can also support a story to rise above the personal to reveal
insights about the local context it happened in and even the wider systemic context.

Just as external eyes can help us see something we know well in a new light, external listeners can
help story participants to see their own experiences in a new light, often revealing what has not
been seen from inside the story. Even such a simple thing as naming what has not been named
before adds immensely to the learning.

If you have harvesters who are expert in body-based knowing or intuition systems, such as
constellation work, these can also add a rich understanding to the harvest. Those who are story or
narrative practitioners can add a reflection using mythology, metaphor and other story forms.
Specific feedback can also help a team to know what to focus on in polishing their story. Often there
are so many details held by the team, that a listener can be overwhelmed. Harvesting can help to
bring whats important into sharp relief, supporting a story to become more focused and more
potent.

For the Listeners and Harvesters
If storytelling is a skill that is both inherent to humans and one that can be polished with practice,
then so is listening. Listening is the companion skill to storytelling, indeed the story arises in the
49

space between the teller and the listener. In essence, a story needs a listener to become what it can
be. We dont often get the opportunity to listen well, especially with a specific purpose, and to
provide a necessary feedback loop to those within a committed project. Group story harvesting can
provide such a practice and feedback loop, strengthening the community around a project shared in
this way.

Harvesting is also a skill that needs practice, and it is important to experience the wide variety of
ways a story or an experience can be harvested, each bringing its own richness, much as another
facet brings sparkle to a gemstone. Purposeful harvesting is both a good experience and an
excellent way to practice. Story listeners and harvesters may want to debrief afterwards on their
experience, surfacing their challenges and learning as a way for the group to become more skilful in
the future.

Harvests of projects that have gone to scale, as well as those that have faced many challenges are a
valuable contribution to the wider AoH community and beyond, helping us to increase the learning
within our network. Sharing practice stories is one of the quickest ways for the principles and
practices of AoH to be understood and integrated.

Please share your group story harvests on the AoH Ning site. Contributed by Mary Alice Arthur,
Monica Nissn & Ria Baeck, October 2010

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Trauma Healing

Trauma
It is something that shatters your beliefs about yourself and your world

VIOLENCE often creates TRAUMA.
TRAUMA leads to more Violence.

Types of Trauma
On going and structurally induced Trauma
Societal or Collective Trauma
Historical or Generational Trauma
Secondary Trauma
Participation-induced Trauma

Levels of Trauma
Intra/Interpersonal trauma
Intra/Intergroup trauma
Intra/inter organizational trauma
Intra/inter national trauma

Kinds of Trauma
Environmental (disaster)
Sickness (epidemic, cancer)
Man made (war,violence)

Effects of Trauma
Physically numb
Emotionally numb
Perceptually confused
Thinking unusually
Remembering unclearly
Dreaming differently
Spiritually crushed

Acting in (turning trauma energy in on oneself)

Substance abuse
Overeating or not eating
Self-mutilation
Depression
Anxiety
Workaholism
Physical ailments
Suicide



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Acting out (Turning trauma energy out on others)
Domestic abuse
Child abuse
Gang activity
High risk behaviors
Aggressive behaviors i.e. Bullying
Repetitive Conflicts
War


#12 Possibility of
reconciliation #11 Integrating trauma into
new self/group identity
Establishing justice #10
Negotiating solution
Establishing justice
#9 Acknowledging responsibility,
restitution, creative justice
#8 Choosing to forgive
#7 Engaging the
offender
#6 Tolerance,
coexistence
#5 Committing to take
risks
#1 Finding safety, breaking
free
#2 Mourning, grieving
#3 Accepting the reality
of the loss
#4 Reflecting, understanding
root causes, acknowledging
the enemys story, facing own
shortcomings*
Trauma Healing Journey
Safety
Acknowledgement
Reconnection
BEGIN
HERE:
Aggressio
n, Harm


52

Project Design (Stepping Stones)

1. Need: What is the compelling reason for doing this work?
2. Purpose: What is the simplest and most powerful question we could keep at the core of our
work?
3. Principles: How do we choose to operate together? What principles drive our work?
4. People: Who are the people in our core team? Who else needs to be part of our work?
5. Concept: What will our work look like? What are the possibilities?
6. Limiting Beliefs: What beliefs/assumptions, both seen and unseen, may be influencing our
work?
7. Structure: What action will we take and what resources do we need?
8. Practice: What is our ongoing practice? How do we sustain our work together?
9. Harvest: How do we capture and communicate the fruits of our work together?


ProAction Caf:
Step One: Idea/project marketplace (enough questions to have three listeners to each
question/project owner)

Step Two: 3 rounds of question with question host remaining in place and the three listeners
rotating groups

a) What is the quest behind the question? ( 20 minutes)
b) What is missing/what is needed? (20 minutes)

c) What has been learned, what next steps?

Step Three: Plenary Harvest question/project hosts share what they have learned and ask for
further support if needed.