Category: Facilitation
-
Two experiments in collective decision-making
Introduction I’m interested in how to tap into the collective intelligence of a group, for example, in decision-making. Two weeks in a row I’ve facilitated two different workshops which had the specific aim to make decisions in two separate but related areas. In both cases the needed decisions were long overdue. In one case, with…
-
Book Review: Generative Scribing
Generative Scribing: A Social Art of the 21st Century by Kelvy Bird is, as the title says, a book about generative scribing, which is a visual practice and an art form, functioning in the moment, across boundaries, as a device for social seeing.1 The primary value of generative scribing is in-the-moment collective sourcing and reflection.…
-
The fine art of shutting up
“If people do not wish to be helped, leave them alone.“ 1 “The most important thing is passion. … The passion that the person has for her own growth is the most important thing.“ 2 “Planning is the kiss of death of entrepreneurship.“ 3 “We have discovered that the miracle of the intelligence of local…
-
Holding space
Heather Plett writes here what it means to “hold space” for people, and how to do it well. It’s something all of us can do for each other. She writes (my emphasis in bold). “[Holding space] means that we are willing to walk alongside another person in whatever journey they’re on without judging them, making…
-
A wide-ranging hangout with Simon Robinson
Simon Robinson, co-author of Holonomics: Business Where People and Planet Matter, shares in this wide-ranging hangout his view on holonomics, wholeness, leadership, change, human values, and the dynamics of seeing deeply. Simon says that there’s lot of talk about collaboration, co-creation, sustainability, and sharing, but that these are just words if there’s no authenticity and…
-
Self-organization is the real operating system
Here are quotes of Daniel Mezick from an email to the World wide Open Space Technology email list March 20, 2015. (My emphasis in bold.) Harrison you once said recently: “The real operating system is self-organization, Daniel. Everything else is an app. Open Space included!” I’ve just recently integrated this idea more fully into my…
-
Dynamic facilitation
Jim Rough and Rosa Zubizarreta has written a Manual and Reader for Dynamic Facilitation and the Choice-Creating Process on evoking practical group creativity and transformation through generative dialogue. The manual covers the groundwork, basic elements of the facilitator’s role, how to get started, key aspects of the different meeting stages, and applications. The reader part…
-
What Wikimedia can learn from the Quakers
Sue Gardner has written three blog posts on what Wikimedia can learn from the Quakers. Gardner is interested to see what values and practices the Quakers and Wikimedians share, and whether there are things the Quakers do, that the Wikimedians might usefully adopt. There is a reading list about Quakers in Gardner’s first post, an…
-
Beliefs influence results
Peggy Holman writes in Open Space Technology: A User’s NON-Guide, pp. 48—50, that different methods can work in a given situation but what matters most are the beliefs of the facilitator. “My belief (and I don’t have sufficient empirical evidence for it to be more than an opinion) is that while method may be one…
-
Facilitating an Open Space
Harrison Owen wrote the following on the OSLIST Email Community in April 17, 2014: “So in the peculiar situation of facilitating an Open Space: Why do we do it? Doubtless each person will have to answer that one for themselves, but I am very clear why I take on the role of facilitator. My purpose…