Are Our Systems Really Broken?

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Kathy Jourdain

In my twenty years of consulting practice the idea that our systems are broken and need to be fixed has been ever-present. This was/is true of healthcare, finance, the environment and more. This has never been more true in my life time than right now when the question maybe is not about whether systems are broken but whether they are dying. Dying as part of normal, natural cycles of birth, growth, decay and death, including the last desperate gasps.

In the work I have been involved with over the last two decades (change management, systems thinking, strategic direction and culture shift), there has always been a curiosity and, more accurately, a fear about whether systems need to collapse entirely before something new emerges. We constantly want to fix things – systems, organizations and even (maybe especially) people.

Yet we know in times of crisis normal patterns of relationship can be interrupted; rules, policies, procedures and ways of working circumvented and results achieved faster than in normal, day to day circumstances where, even if the pace is fast, things do not seem to be accomplished quickly. These are conditions that consultants and organizations all over keep trying to replicate without crisis with varying degrees of success and more often failure.

Jerry Nagel and I often remind our clients that systems are perfectly designed to get the results they are getting and cultures are self-perpetuating. So, technically, the systems aren’t broken, but many are no longer delivering results we hope for or are satisfied with. Brexit, the US election, are perfect examples.

What happens, might happen, in total collapse? What ground would we stand on? How would we pick up the pieces and move forward? What if the collapse is so great there are almost no pieces to pick up – like the scenarios in the popular genre of dystopian novels and movies? In most works of fiction, no matter how desperate the aftermath of catastrophe, there are always some pieces to pick up.

Lately we have been using the 2 Loops of Systems Change, offered by Meg Wheatley and Deborah Frieze of the Berkana Institute, with our clients and there is an immediate resonance with the concepts and roles described.

Systems work in cycles – just like life itself. The length of time of the cycles may vary from a few years to decades to centuries and maybe even eons. There is a time of birth, growth, maturity, decay and eventually death. Think, for example, of farming. Originally it was hunter/gather, then people began to deliberately plant crops and farming in the form of small farms existed for a long time. It grew into industrial farming where it is almost impossible to sustain smaller farms. And we are back to a point where people want to track their food from farm to table, plant community gardens and eat organic.

New life is already being brought forth long before death, during the maturity or peak phase of a system. The seeds of the new already exist within the structures of the old.

Innovators, trail blazers and pioneers are always playing around with new ideas. Some of those new ideas seem completely off the wall to many who are still reveling in the old system and do not yet see the need for the new or innovation. Think energy. During the oil crisis back in the 1970s and 80s, there was speculation that oil had peaked. During that time, there were people and small companies experimenting with other forms of energy – solar, wind, water. It was slow going for decades, some of the experimentation was expensive and there was not a lot of support for ideas that seemed crazy or impossible to some, especially to those attached to the old system. Forty years later, many of these forms of energy are now more cost effective and environmentally friendly than oil. It was not easy to see or believe in this possible future at the time.

Embodying the 2 Loops of Systems Change

Innovators are often alone in their quests and many of their ideas fail. Since no idea is offered in complete isolation – others are also conceiving of ideas to address the same or similar challenges – a first step is in naming the innovators and beginning to connect them in networks. In this way they begin to learn with and from each other. They learn together through both success and failure and they are no longer in it alone.

As the need for innovation becomes more apparent and urgent, there are people within the mature or peak system who take notice and work within the current system to steward or champion the new ideas and the people who generate them to provide protection so this work can continue to advance. Sometimes the role is as a toxic handler – to keep the dysfunctionality of a system that is moving past its prime from interfering in the development of the new.

At the same time, one of the greatest roles in the mature system as it declines is in hospicing the old so it doesn’t completely collapse into chaos and so that that good is not thrown out with what no longer works. The biggest challenge in these days is who are the protectors, the stewards, the hospice workers? Will they/we be able to do this work or will the burden be too great, the rate of collapse now so swift that it will be a deep move into chaos?

As the tentative new innovations and ideas gain more strength and more form, as they begin to coalesce into new networks and communities of practice, it is critical to nurture the emerging life force that will influence and shape the new system. As momentum grows, this grows into a system of influence where choices become clear. Illuminating the choice between the old and the new gives curious and reluctant adopters of the new the opportunity to make this choice and as more and more people choose the new, the new system takes hold.

While I carry some anxieties in these early days of 2017 about our systems and our future, I also carry hope although I am not sure what it will take to release the old and gravitate toward the new. I do know 2017 is calling on us loud and clear to not be silent, to not just watch, but to stand up and be involved in the new systems that will call forth and support our humanity.

The pressing question in the days ahead is who are the innovators and trailblazers? How do we keep connecting people, ideas and networks in ways to build strength, momentum and opportunity? How can the old systems of influence, and people grasping for power, be prevented from crushing the new? And how do we create the stories of the new in ways that brings more people on board.

Are our systems failing us? The answer would appear to be yes. But not because they are broken, because they are coming to the end of their time. Will we be courageous enough to fight if necessary for what is waiting to be born?

What is it to be Worldview Aware?

Posted on December 27, 2014 by Kathy Jourdain

Individuals, organizations and communities all have worldviews. They operate at least 80% unconsciously and impact how individuals, organizations and communities see and interact with the world, events, situations and other people or organizations. Worldviews influence relationships, communication, tension or conflict, decision-making and workplace cultures.

To be Worldview Aware is to feel, experience or notice that worldview(s) exist, individually, organizationally, in community and across stakeholder groups. It is knowing and understanding more about what is happening in the world, locally, regionally and globally, by being or becoming aware of worldviews – first your own and then, with curiosity and compassion, someone else’s.

An individual, organization and/or community that is worldview aware offers greater leadership potential and creativity that arises from the interaction of multiple worldviews, leading more often to innovative ideas or solutions and more diverse, welcoming, inclusive (work) places, more creative problem solving, planning and strategy development.

With some of our most entrenched issues and challenges in today’s world and the growing visibility of some of these issues growing (racism, discrimination, sexism, police violence as a few examples), Worldview Intelligence™ and becoming Worldview Aware may help us discover together pathways that do not currently exist. Letting go of what we know to discover what wants and needs to happen.

You can follow the conversation at our Linked In group and or our Facebook group.

Worldview Awareness – Imagining the Possibilities

Posted on September 2, 2014 by Kathy Jourdain

It might have been in 2005, when I took part in my first Art of Hosting (AoH) Conversations that Matter training on Bowen Island, that I first heard the term worldview, although I can’t be sure. Then and later, if it was talked about, it came in the context of a mechanistic worldview and a living systems worldview, comparing several points of each and recognizing that AoH operates from a living systems worldview. In my experience of AoH trainings, that was pretty much it until, in 2011, I started co-hosting with Jerry Nagel from the Meadowlark Institute in Minnesota.

Jerry was and is steeped in worldview awareness partly through working on his PhD dissertation that looks at social constructionist theory, worldview and the Art of Hosting and partly because of the deep and evolving practice he and we have been bringing around worldview in AoH trainings and beyond. Because of this, we have been developing a more comprehensive approach to worldview and worldview awareness than I had been exposed to before. Jerry and I, and friends and colleagues like Stephen Duns, Dave Ellis, Carolann Wright-Parks and others, have been adopting, exploring and adapting a worldview teach and practice in new, innovative and exciting ways.

What we have been learning from participants in the worldview awareness conversations in the AoH trainings we have led, is that the worldview conversation lingers in their awareness long after the training. In the evaluations we conduct a few weeks after each AoH training we do, participants often identify the worldview exploration as the most impactful part of the training. They state that the reflective space they are invited into about worldview(s), where it comes from, what their own worldview is and curiosity about others’ worldviews helps create an understanding of how to give voice and visibility to multiple worldviews and create openings for successfully leading different, more inclusive conversations on issues and challenges that routinely show up in organizations, communities and social systems.

If this can happen with a conversation over a couple of hours what more becomes possible with a deep dive into worldview awareness or worldview intelligence? This is what we are now on an inquiry to discover. It is what led to prototyping the first introductory day to the Transformative Power of Worldview Awareness in Halifax where we tested a few ideas and reaped enough ideas to inspire possibility for a long time to come. While the AoH conversations focused mostly on individual worldview, the conversation is now expanding to organizational and community worldview as well as creating the conditions for multiple worldviews to be welcomed into stakeholder dialogues and other places where the risks of engagement are perceived to be higher.

In the one day workshop in Halifax, participants came from a wide variety of places including provincial government departments like health and transportation, the school board, Nova Scotia Community College, Halifax Regional Municipality and community agencies. Quite a few had been involved in diversity and inclusion work for years – welcoming of diversity being one of the more obvious outcomes of worldview awareness – and others identified themselves as social change agents.

The learning environment was rich. Going into the day, Carolann, Jerry and I had so many choices of what to include in the one day and then during the day itself we had to make more choices. We know there is ample material for exploration in a variety of offerings. To say our imagination has been sparked would be an understatement. And we are quite inspired by the reflections shared by the participants in our one day offering, a few of which are below.

A snapshot of some of the participants at the first Introduction to the Transformative Power of Worldview Awareness Workshop.

“I had no idea what I was walking into but knew when Kathy’s name was associated with it, it would be a great ride. I am a change agent. People’s stories here today have influenced my worldview. It is important to understand the other person and their worldview. This is a wonderful tool to initiate the conversation if you want to be or are a change agent. If you can’t get to the conversation, you can’t get to the change.” Change agent, Department of Health, NS Government

“It’s been a helpful day. I feel very validated in my current practice – which for me is heart work not training. I love the worldview approach and have many new trinkets to take away to apply in my work.” Diversity Officer, Higher Education

“I am more ready to ask more questions to try to go deeper in understanding of the issues and challenges we face.” Diversity Officer, Municipal Government

“I came in frazzled looking for the magic bullet to questions I’ve been carrying alone for six years and I am now connected into a community engaged in this work. I have lots more questions but am optimistic there is another approach – through worldview awareness.” Social change agent at an NGO

“I walked in with some assumptions that proved wrong. One day is not enough. I work in isolation in an interesting system. Starting a conversation with a different entry point might help me impact change in the system.” Employment equity officer in a public organization

So… stay tuned. There is more to come. Looking at Minnesota this fall, Australia in the new year and more in Halifax too. We are exploring a comprehensive approach to worldview awareness: transforming differences into progress, seeing how growing worldview intelligence in an area that has not been explored to the same degree or depth that religious and scientific worldviews have been explored will generate social change methods and processes in situations that have challenged the best of what we know to date in engagement strategies and practices.

Dynamic Leadership Arising out of Chaordic Confidence

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Kathy Jourdain

When interactively teaching the Chaordic Path and inviting people to reflect on what highly chaotic or highly controlled environments look like and how people act and react in those environments, it is common for participants to address the down side of each of these – with quite a bit of energy and zeal. Then, at some point, someone will make a comment about the benefit of being in that kind of environment. For chaos they will often say something about creativity, for control they will often say something about predictability – the upside of each of these dynamic forces.

Then the key question we ask is, “What is the difference between control and order?” It always causes a pause as people reflect on what is different between these two. They speak about guidance rather than rigid rules, the opportunity for individuals to bring discretion to decision making within a framework, greater responsiveness, common understanding or collective clarity as hallmarks of the force of order. The space for an individual to bring everything they have to their role with enough clarity to know the scope of their authority, leadership and responsibility. When people don’t have clarity they ask for structure – it is a default. Clarity might mean structure and it might not – it might simply mean clarity which could be achieved through conversation or other means before creating structure which might not even bring more clarity.

There is a time and place for each of these forces (chaos, order and control) depending on context and whether the focus is on process, structure or human dynamics. Trying to address human dynamics issues through structure often increases the human dynamics issues. Yet clear structure and process is essential to many manufacturing processes. When getting on a plane, you want to know that the environment is controlled with good structure, process and procedure in order to get to your destination safely. And, if your house is burning down, you don’t want the firefighters standing around making collective decisions about what to do next – you want clear direct leadership, even as the firefighters have no idea of the chaos they are facing.

Knowing what state an organization, group or team is in can illuminate the leadership strategy that is most helpful to the task at hand. Sometimes the leadership being called for is to help people stay in the chaos a little longer rather than ease the pain, frustration or discomfort of being there, until clarity and the natural order begins to emerge. If things feel too habituated, stuck or stale, it might be exactly the time to introduce a bit of chaos through a well placed question, a suggestion to shake things up a bit or the introduction of a new initiative. In environments where control is pervasive, the opportunity might be to imagine how to care for the human dynamics or the relational field in a way that people can navigate with and through regulations, policies and procedures that were intended for clarity and consistency but have overreached into what we commonly call “red tape” or “jumping through the hoops”.

There is an upside and a downside to each of these experiences as represented by the infinity loop in the above diagram and inspired by Polarity Mapping. If we only focus on one or the other we either have an enamoured (upside) or jaded (downside) view of that particular force that then makes us less likely to be able to exercise the dynamic leadership that grows chaordic confidence. It is the interplay or movement through each of the polarities and an understanding of what is in each of the upsides and downsides that enables us to discern wise action. I certainly have a bias – that the place we are being asked to play and lead to address complex and entrenched problems is in the chaordic path. It is the skills AoH has been designed to foster and grow and it is an invitation into new patterns and practices of leadership. Being aware of the upside and the downside of each pattern enables a more complete picture with a greater variety of choices and options available to all.

The Chaordic Path: The Dynamic Inter-relationship between Chaos and Order

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Kathy Jourdain

One of the fundamental patterns used in Art of Hosting offerings – which for many of us includes our consulting practices or as practitioners in-house work environments – is the Chaordic Field or Chaordic Path. Like many of the patterns offered in AoH it is a helpful way to understand what is happening in the world, in our communities and organizations and within each of us individually. It gives us a lens through which to understand the increasing complexity in our environments and a pattern to work with to evoke collective learning and the real-time innovation necessary in a world and in times that are neither predictable nor stable and call for more flexibility as “more of the same” solutions are not addressing the challenges.

Originating with the work of Dee Hock in the development and evolution of Visa to an international network of financial institutions offering “one” credit card, Hock identified the patterns and forces of chaos, order and control that were at play in an animated process that came to the brink of failure at many points along the way. It was clearly experienced that the greatest breakthroughs and emergent ideas came at the intersection of chaos and order, in a system that was more commonly situated in the realm of control.

Just when things seem the craziest is often when new ideas spark, bridges are built, aha’s become apparent and a way out of chaos naturally appears. These patterns are evident in living systems, where a natural order exists, life cycles are vibrant and the greatest innovations happen at the edges. While not static, living systems can be stable – or be in order – for long periods of time until disruption comes in some form of chaos – destructive weather patterns or fires – destabilizing the system for a time before new order emerges.

While the chaordic path is the story of our natural world – form arising out of nonlinear, complex, diverse systems – it can also be the story of how our teams, organizations and communities pay attention to human dynamics and function. In our organizational systems, there is a tendency to want to meet chaos with control, to try to fix the situation or provide a ready made solution. Many of us as leaders and managers have been educated, trained and promoted to do just this. But increasing complexity means control, particularly as it relates to the human dynamics of a situation, does not often enough lead to a resolution of the problem and may, in fact, exacerbate the situation. Solutions and ways forward are more likely to arise out of accessing the collective intelligence and collective wisdom of everyone, which can, at times, be a “messy” process until new insight and clarity emerges.

When facing new challenges that cannot be met with the same way we are currently working – cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them – new ways of leading and operating need to be learned and utilized to shift the shape of our experience with intentionality. It is during these times of uncertainty and increased complexity, where results cannot be predicted, that wise leaders invite others to share their collective and diverse knowledge to discover new purpose and strategy and decide a way forward.

It is in the phase of not knowing, before we reach new clarity, that the temptation to rush for certainty or grab for control is strongest. We are all called to walk this path with open minds and some confidence if we want to reach something wholly new.

“At the edge of chaos” is where life innovates — where things are not hard wired, but are flexible enough for new connections and solutions to occur. To lead teams, organizations and communities on the chaordic path, leaders need “chaordic confidence,” to have the courage to stay in the dance of order and chaos long enough to support generative emergence that allows new, collective intelligence and wiser action to occur.

This can be a beautifully dynamic process. To be in it with awareness and intentionality also means to take care of value judgments or beliefs often brought that one of these modes of being or operating – chaos, order or control – is better or more valuable than the others. There is a place, a role and a time for each. A subsequent post will explore the upside and downside of each, recognizing that a flow and dynamic movement between each of these modes of being may be the leadership discernment needed for long term success.

Long Term Impasse at a Manufacturing Company Resolved With Two Hour World Cafe

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Kathy Jourdain

Alanna Kennedy turned heads in our opening circle at the March 2014 Art of Hosting offering in St. Paul, Minnesota when she said she had recently hosted a World Café with welders at Emerson, the manufacturing company where she is a production manager. It was so successful she then did one with shippers. A true life long learner (see about Alanna at the end of this post) and a third generation in manufacturing, she is not looking for what can’t be done, she is looking for how results can be achieved and success rates improved. And in both of the Cafés she hosted, the outcome had immediate impact.

In the case of the welders, there was a long term debate surrounding the criteria by which to measure and know if an individual welder was working within and meeting quality guidelines. Everyone had a different idea. In a way, the welders and the supervisors and engineers were speaking different languages with different worldviews. They were not able to hear each other across the worldviews and across assumptions of what they thought they knew about the other. The World Café method was an invitation into letting go of what they thought they knew and into becoming curious about what might be possible.

The original debate was about one measurement only – quality errors. Welders resisted, speaking also about the individual signature of each welder and in some instances unclear written processes. There was a limiting belief, common in many places with many different work groups, that the welders, if left to their own devices, might want to negotiate for the greatest flexibility possible. Welders know, like many trades and professions, that the quality of work of any one individual reflects on the quality of the whole. They want high standards.

Alanna, being on the lookout for what works, sees opportunity in many processes and programs intended to address improving quality and operational standards. Some forecast the failure of rate of programs like Lean and Lean-Six Sigma to develop lasting cultures of continuous improvement to be as high as 60%. She calls this “fake lean”. Overall, she says these programs are great at addressing the structure and technology questions for continuous improvement. However, they are lacking in the methods and tools to support the cultural and social development, or people questions, required to develop and sustain, through time, cultures of continuous improvement. Alanna believes all change starts with social interaction. Change happens and work gets done through people, through the social systems. Enter the Art of Hosting Conversations That Matter, which she found through Action Learning, with an emphasis on working with human systems, recognizing that the wisdom is in the room with the group most directly affected by the proposed change and that there are a few processes specifically intended to elicit the collective intelligence.

After attending a World Café workshop offered by Jerry Nagel of the Meadowlark Institute in Minneapolis, Amy Lenzo of the World Cafe Community and others, Alanna brought fifteen welders from across the three shifts together for two hours in a world café process. They were paid for their time even if they were off duty during the World Café and they were invited into a series of conversations about criteria for assessing a welder’s work. For this particular Café, managers were present but supervisors and engineers were not invited. What emerged in two hours was a resolution to the long impasse and a structure that never would have emerged without this café conversation process.

The welders identified three distinct categories of standards: welding skills, manufacturing processes and the individual signature of the welder. This is a more comprehensive structure than what was proposed by supervisors and engineers and a structure welders were willing to hold themselves and each other accountable to because they want their counterparts to uphold a certain level of professionalism on behalf of the whole. The results were captured in a document that reflected the conversations and that document was approved by HR and executive managers. The end result was the resolution of a long term impasse with a better quality of result than had been previously considered possible.

Alanna then did a World Café with shippers who needed new work stations. Others in the organization had been trying to design a new work station for the shippers but many of the shippers hadn’t been included in the initial planning and they were obviously stalling. They did not like the proposed design. Alanna rounded up shippers from all three shifts for a two hour World Café process. There were three tables of five people. The shippers changed tables, circling around design ideas, sharing what would and would not work until three new work bench designs that they believed would support their needs were developed. In the harvesting, the shippers were able to share their ideas and the reasoning behind their designs with the engineers. The shippers had the opportunity to engage in a different type of dialogue. Again, a resolution to an impasse was obtained within a couple of hours by using the world café process.

Was it worth paying the shippers and the welders for their time? Was it worth a two hour investment of time to call upon the collective intelligence of the group most directly affected by the changes? Was it worth the risk of bringing social technologies to a manufacturing organization? The results speak for themselves.

Many people who have attended an AoH training or are aware of the methodologies like world café, open space technology, circle practice, appreciative inquiry will often say, “That’s really great, but it will never fly where I work.” That’s why Alanna turned heads when she said she worked in manufacturing.

When asked how she might respond to people who say, “It will never work here”, she offered, “You have to careful. I used it where we were stuck and had been working on an issue. In preparation, I bought each of my colleagues a set of books – circle, open space, world café and action learning – and put them on their desks. I talked to them. I first gained the support of my peers.”

She was strategic in her approach. The need, purpose and intention for the café were clear. She knew who she needed to have in the room, and who not to have. She knew the result she was after in each case – eye on the outcomes – and she understood the conditions that would lead to the generative conversations necessary for success. She had the confidence to take, what for some people, is a risk. “A critical piece to understand is that all change is facilitated and begins with human interaction. If you don’t address that, you won’t get the desired results, no matter how good the plan or the technology.”

Why does AoH work? “Because it is not about mimicking what some other company or some other people did to achieve success. It is about adaptive solutions generated from the people and systems most affected.”

About Alanna Kennedy

Alanna Kennedy

Alanna loves the manufacturing world. She describes it as “a unique social laboratory” which is why she deliberately returned to this world after completing her PhD. She is a “hands on” manufacturing professional formally trained and experienced in operations and materials management with an active interest in the research and development of social systems within organizations as they pertain to the development and sustainability of cultures of continuous improvement.

Her 2011 doctorate in Organizational Development with an emphasis on successful cultures of continuous improvement with a focus on the facilitation and implementation of Lean, Six Sigma, and SEAM (Socio-Economic Assessment of Management) methods is from the University of St. Thomas, MN, where she also completed her MBA in 1990 with a concentration in operations and systems excellence including the use of lean methods. Her undergrad BA is from the Indiana University Bloomington in Cultural Anthropology and Psychology (1980) with a concentration in social systems and the application of macro economic theory in non-western societies.

She is certified in lean methods by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. She is CPIM certified by the APICS organization in production scheduling and inventory management, and is a licenced instructor for the global quality standards of electronics with the IPC Association. She is also a licenced Brain Gym instructor, a kinesiology based program which uses physical movement to improve focus, learning and over all performance, combining it with Action Learning and Brain Gym and observing amazing, accelerated results for people working with stress and goal setting.

She will continue to pursue her curiosity about the integration of AoH practices and patterns with continuous improvement philosophies by doing a deeper dive into some of the individual methods and identifying opportunities for application in industrial environments.

Worldview, Practice and Action – Taking Whole – Guest Blogger Jerry Nagel

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Kathy Jourdain

Authored by Jerry Nagel (originally published at Growing Hosting Artistry on January 12, 2014)

In Art of Hosting trainings, several of my colleagues and I have been offering a short teaching on worldviews and the importance for each of us to understand what our own worldview is. I often link it to elements in the Art of Hosting workbooks that I feel are an expression of an AoH worldview such as seeing the world as a complex living system and not a machine.

The simple teaching has two components – an explanation of worldview impact using the Ladder of Inference from systems thinking and an explanation of worldviews in The Rules of Victory: How to Transform Chaos and Conflict – Strategies from the “Art of War”. (Gimian & Boyce, 2008) The text known as the Sun Tzu and more popularly as The Art of War offers a framework for action that contains three components – View, Practice and Action. Central to view is the idea that the world is an interconnected whole. Seeing the world this way informs one’s Actions in the world and the Practices used to manifest (act) the View of interconnectedness. In the Sun Tzu this idea is referred to as ‘taking whole’.

The diagrams below show how our worldviews impact the actions we take in the world and, that as we act in the world, our worldviews are impacted and potentially changed; that patterns and practices like those offered by the Art of Hosting are the tools or methods we use to bring our worldviews to action; and that as we act in the world what we learn impacts the methods we choose to manifest our worldview. If the methods we choose to manifest our worldview are not congruent with that worldview, then our actions will not ring true with people. They will see us as not acting in a way that reflects the worldviews we claim to hold. This simple explanation has proved quite thought provoking for AoH participants.

A worldview can also limit us, because it could close us off to new knowledge if we only see the world through our existing knowledge and assumptions. (Jenkins, 1999) Importantly for many of us, our worldview offers us a way to understand the world that gives us “a feeling of being home” and that reassures us that our interpretations of reality are right. (Heibert, 1997)

One tool from systems thinking that helps visualize how easy it is to get trapped in one (world) view and close off the possibility of seeing other perspectives is the Ladder of Inference. The process depicted follows a flow from the bottom of the ladder up to the top. We ‘see’ data in the world and go through a process of sense-making that then informs the actions we take. What the Ladder of Inference shows us is that the beliefs (worldviews) we adopt can influence what data we see. The result is that we begin “seeing only what we want to see.”

If we are in a time in the Western world of co-creating a new narrative of wholeness, then as hosts it becomes important for us to not only clearly know what our worldview is, but to understand that within our own contexts and within other contexts there could be greatly different worldviews. (Shire, 2009) In other words, given the depth of invitation to step into dialogue (discourse) that we are asking of people, we should remember that our worldview could be much different than someone else’s within our community or local cultural context. And, that people we are working with that are from other local contexts may have differing worldviews within that shared construct.

In thinking about our world today it is fair to say that, “The presence of a multitude of alternative worldviews is a defining characteristic of contemporary culture. Ours is, indeed, a multicultural, pluralistic age.” (Naugle, 2002) Thus, as we practice dialogue in our world in order to find ways forward, we must develop the capabilities to work in the multi-varied and rich system of many worldviews. To do so, however, requires skill and practice and the capacity to hold paradoxes or multiple truths all at the same time.

Learning to effectively communicate (host/facilitate) in a different or new cultural milieu is a deep-level process. It involves connecting at more than an intellectual level with the ‘host’ culture. It involves connecting at a heart and spiritual level. If worldviews are a matter of the heart, then to enter into effective communications within a different or new culture means opening up one’s heart as a host/facilitator to a space/place that connects heart to heart. This involves capacities to be vulnerable, to respect difference, to be curious and to sit in the space of the unknown or unknowing (i.e. nonjudgment), and to be self reflexive regarding one’s own thoughts, reactions, and carried in thinking about another culture. It also involves recognizing the limiting role our language can play when hosting, which will help each of us as hosts to hold our own and invite others to hold their opinions about another’s worldview much more lightly. This is a core part of the artistry of hosting.

References

Hiebert, P. (1997) Conversion and Worldview Transformation. International Journal of Frontier Missions. 14(2)

Jenkins, O.B. (1999) Worldview Perspectives, http://orvillejenkins.com

Shire, J. (2009) The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog. Nottingham, UK: Inter-Varsity Press.

Naugle, D. (2002) Worldview: The History of the Concept. Cambridge, UK: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Explaining Art of Hosting for Beginner’s Wanting to Know What It Is

Posted on June 24, 2012 by Kathy Jourdain

Every place we go has its own tone, texture and timing. It is part of what makes Art of Hosting – or in the case of California in August 2012, the Art of Participatory Leadership and Social Innovation – so hard to define. “We” being whatever configuration of hosting and calling team has coalesced around an identified need or opportunity. Every training is different because every place is different, every group that responds to the call is unique.

People who are just coming across Art of Hosting want to know, what is it? One way to think of it is, at its core, a set of patterns and practices that help us be successful in complex circumstances. Developing skill in using these patterns and practices is particularly helpful now at a time when long term strategic planning doesn’t work anymore (if it ever did) because we don’t know and can’t predict what ten, five or even two years down the road will look like. One thing many of us have a growing awareness of is that what has worked in the past – strategies, practices, principles – doesn’t seem to work anymore – if it ever did.

The world is providing us with increasing complexity – in the environments in which we operate, our communities and in our organizations, especially as things seem to move faster and faster. Social innovation is a response to this increasing complexity. Rigid protocols have limited application in complexity. Complexity calls for a different set of leadership skills – skills that tune in and are responsive to emergent circumstances. Complex systems share behaviours that cannot be explained by their parts. This requires a different set of frameworks to see and understand it. In the Art of Participatory Leadership we draw on world view, chaordic path, divergence/convergence, the 2 loops of systems change, theory U and other frameworks as lenses through which to think about complexity and social innovation. Social innovation looks for an alignment of circumstances that makes action possible – the relationship among elements.

One of the names we use for this type of experiential learning is the Art of Participatory Leadership because it also calls forth a new set of leadership skills required to deal with complexity and social innovation, quite different from how we think about traditional leadership. Participatory leadership focuses on participation and engagement strategies, knowing from experience there is wisdom and knowledge that exists within a group, a team, an organization, a system. When we make it visible in a group, it moves into the realm of collective wisdom, knowledge and understanding leading to a different kind of action and ultimately different results.

Participatory leadership connects well in high pressure situations. Some of its core characteristics are curiosity or non-judgement, staying in the space of not knowing, generosity or openness, a belief that conversations matter and that good conversation leads to wise action.

It is not a quick fix or a magic bullet for problems that have existed and have been evolving over long periods of time. However, there are often very immediate results for individuals as they examine and reflect on their own leadership practices. This is also why we encourage teams to participate so they have a new common language and are more able to hold each other accountable to create a path of behaviour change and organization practices that will be sustainable.

A core element of the Art of Participatory Leadership is for each of us to deepen our own capacity to effect transformation – in ourselves and in a complex world.

Where have these practices and patterns been used? In community, private sector, academia, healthcare, and educational settings as well as social change efforts around the world. The stories are only just beginning to be documented because many of us have been deep in the work rather than the writing about the work. Stories are alive in Nova Scotia, Ohio, Minnesota, Europe and Brazil and many, many more places.

Art of Hosting is also a global self-organizing community of practitioners who use these integrated participative change processes, methods, maps, and planning tools (like circle practice, appreciative inquiry, world cafe and open space technology) to engage groups and teams in meaningful conversation, deliberate collaboration, and group-supported action for the common good.

The hosting and calling team for this first Art of Participatory Leadership and Social Innovation in California: myself, Jerry Nagel, Ann Badillo, Sherri Cannon, Dana Pearlman and Mia Pond will weave stories of where this work is alive in the world into these three days of co-created emergent design and process – a little taste of what we do in the world and what is possible.

Hosting Lessons from the Field – Inviting Innovators and Pioneers in Health Care

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Kathy Jourdain

It is just the beginning of 2012 and already the year has been rich in hosting lessons from the field, diving deep into new levels of awareness around hosting subtleties. It began in Utah early in the month, hosting Healthier Health Care Systems Now with Tenneson Woolf, Steve Ryman and Marc Parnes.

Marc Parnes

Marc, who is a physician, gynaecologist and host from Columbus Ohio, started us off on day 2 with a story intended to set the tone and challenge of the day. He told of what was to be a routine surgery he was doing on a woman. When he opened her up and looked inside, what he saw not only surprised him, it alarmed him. Things that were not supposed to be stuck together were. He could not see the path for the surgery. He was not able to see his way. He did not know how to proceed with the surgery as he stared at this jumble of internal organs.

All eyes were on him as he then he stood up in our circle. We could feel the anxiety of that moment. Standing there, Marc planted his feet shoulder width apart, just like he did on the day of the surgery, to ground himself. As he closed his eyes, he described doing exactly this as he stood beside the woman on his operating table. Then, with his eyes closed, he reached into the woman and began to feel his way around, searching with his hands for the openings he could not see with his eyes.

When he finished, he knew what to do. He opened his eyes. He could now calmly begin the surgery, having expanded his vision of what was possible by “seeing” with other senses. The surgery was successful.

There was a collective sigh of relief in our circle.

We began to reflect on what Marc’s story had to do with innovation in health care, what it had to do with hosting.

After coming through the first day, we checked in as a host team and invited the voices of others who showed up to participate in the design process. We tracked our day around purpose and intention. We felt good about the design and flow of the day and we felt we had challenged people beautifully in our opening circle on day 1 by asking them to speak to the pioneer and innovator inside of them that had responded to the invitation, but not to speak too deeply to their work, promising that would come later. We sensed that though the day had been good, something was missing. With reflection, we realized we were still on the ground of old territory and familiar conversation, not the new conversations we had invited people into.

The invitation was to be in a different conversation about health care. The challenge for this group was to move into what would be a new conversation for each of them. This amazing group of individuals carry in them irrepressible dreams for healthcare systems that thrive; for simplicity that doesn’t deny the complexity, yet responds well to it. They continue to have high hopes for healthier healthcare despite having been in many, many conversations about shifting the systems within which they work and play. Those who responded to the HHS call were already innovators and pioneers in health care. Maybe the new conversation was not a collective conversation about a new global vision about health care but was about individual systems of influence and what was at the edges of their own learning that might be new territory.

Our challenge, as a hosting team, we realized, was in making sure we really did travel to new territory – not an easy challenge given the experience of the people who came.

We continually scanned what we knew that could invite people into new territory. We brought play into our process – a beautifully renewed learning edge. Collaborative play, allowing us to see and experience our learning beyond the cognitive or intellect. Then, through reflection, seeing our patterns in work and relationship in whole new ways. Allowing inspiration to enter in.

At the end of day two, despite traveling much ground in the day, there was still a sense of restlessness in our hosting team that took awhile to fully sense into. Something edgy. Something still not quite arrived at.

Checking in as a host team and, like the day before, with others interested in our design process, we recognized that we were happy with our design and the flow of the two days. We briefly wondered if we should be satisfied with where we were and consider how to enter and close our last day well. Yet there was something we still had not quite arrived at. Something about the new conversation we hadn’t quite dug into.

We reflected on what we knew from our Art of Hosting experiences that would push the edges of where we were. If we were looking for a groan zone or acupuncture point in our process, normally we would look to a point in day two. But this timing did not show up in day two. Were we willing to push our own learning and hosting to bring in something even more edgy in the morning of day three?

We knew we would not get to where we wanted to go through another conversational or intellectual process. We decided to invite this group of physicians, health care administrators and others into a guided visualization process, to invite them to explore their own future journey in healthier health care now. Following the visualization, we invited them into drawing or illustrating some representation of their experience in the visualization process, followed by a conversation with a partner to really dive into this experience in depth.

The experience was intense and provocative. It shifted the shape of some individuals. It shifted the shape of our gathering. It broke the pattern of the old and invited a new pattern. The World Cafe that followed was amazing. It was sparky. Ideas flowed quickly. There was a new quality that had entered into our space.

Once we saw it, experienced it, we could name it. We had shifted from conversations that came from the head to conversations that now came from a deeper place. The conversations were now embodied. People began to look at their own path and their own systems of influence rather than at points of the system too far beyond their own systems of influence to have any real impact. We were in new territory. We observed that embodiment shifted the conversation to deeper and more meaningful places.

As a hosting team we agreed to continue to push the edges of this group, knowing we still had a whole day ahead of us, even though if we had planned a visualization process, we would likely have planned it for the end of day two. But sensing where we were, knowing what we were aiming for, keeping our essential calling questions close, we pursued our purpose and intention. We continued to host potential right up to the moment of preparing to close our circle.

It isn’t over until it’s over. We know that. I have often heard it said in a hosting team. And this time we lived it fully with a trust in each other, in what we were sensing and our willingness to flow with what was there. Even as I write this, it is hard to describe the exact edge we were on or the truth of our experience. But I’ve been reflecting on it a lot. These reflections flowed into the last couple of weeks in Brazil, during Warrior of the Heart and a local Art of Hosting stewarding gathering, where we danced with flow to the most amazing degree – letting go of design to sense into what was alive and needed in any given moment. More reflections on that later.

For now, the richness of the host team learning in Utah stays with me, embodied in my own experience in the best of ways. I feel myself growing my capacity in hosting in the most delightful of ways, brought out by those I have the privilege to host with. This year has started off so rich in learning, it makes me deeply curious for what the rest of 2012 will bring.

Innovators and Pioneers in Systems Change

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Kathy Jourdain

In Utah for Healthier Health Care Systems Now (January 11-13, 2012), we used the 2 Loops Model of Systems Change as one of the framing references for why we were gathered. It is a tool and a framing to understand the work we are individually and collectively in that shifts the shape of health care. The two loops model looks like this:

The first loop represents the old system, the one we often name as the dying system. The second loop represents the new system, the one we keep claiming we want, the one we think cannot emerge by fiddling with the old, the one we believe is needed to bring our current systems out of crisis.

The problem is, when we begin to think about the complexity of something like health care, where there are so many jurisdictions, so many players, so many interlocking systems, trying to imagine what this new system or systems could be becomes paralyzing. The conversation often becomes philosophical and theoretical. It largely comes from an intellectual and cognitive place focused on all the things that need to shift that are outside our circle of influence.

Some of the frustration in being innovators inside of systems is that the systems begin to push back on the work in small and large ways, leading to the exhaustion, frustration and disillusionment so many leaders in health care experience. This is all part of the old narrative. Of course this showed up in our conversations in Utah to greater and lesser degrees depending on the questions, depending on who was in the conversation at any given time. Any time we were in that conversation, thinking about the new system, it didn’t feel like a new conversation.

So, how could we be in conversation about Healthier Health Care Systems Now without focusing on the second loop or the new system? Well, by remembering who we are – pioneers and innovators in health systems – working under the first loop – in the in-between spaces – championing the new or being championed. We began to focus in on and explore new questions: Where are the edges of my work? What is the new territory I could begin to walk when I go home? How can I draw on the resources in the room to expand my thinking, even turn it upside down and on its head – like the person who relies on gift economy in her practice, for her livelihood? What more becomes possible in generative spaces with other innovators? This was a different conversation, in tone, texture and energy. This one did not come from the head. It was embodied in a whole new way – the beginnings of a new narrative of health.

The awareness of the old narrative and of the stuck places infiltrated us in the best of ways at the end of the first day of our three day gathering. Someone suggested what we needed to do was create a vision of the new. Ordinarily I might agree. In this case though, that didn’t feel right. It felt like it would take us further off track given that our roomful of people were geographically stretched from coast to coast across two countries with countless “systems”?

So, without taking our eye off the intention of shifting the narrative of health, we refocused on innovating and pioneering and guerrilla tactics of hosting, collaborating and co-creating, engaging those around us in this journey that is health. We didn’t leave with a specified vision of the new system. We left heartened in our respective journeys, knowing the way to the future is through new processes, deeper conversations and finding our way with as many of our friends and colleagues as we can attract, engage and embolden along the way.

As we continue to shine the light on the experiments already underway, the successes, the challenges and the “failures”, and tap into the individual and collective resilience that is fighting to emerge, we can remember it is a journey that will shift and change as we go. We remember life actually wants to help and it wants to heal. If we focus on how to expand our individual systems of influence and share those stories with our friends, our collective system of influence automatically begins to expand. What seems like isolated work informs pockets of work elsewhere and we grow an energetic field that is part of the new, part of the second loop and is fueled by everyone stepping into innovative, courageous and pioneering ideas and projects.

I still can’t see what that second loop is for health care – other than it is about health and it is healthier. I’m not sure anyone who showed up for this conversation can see the second loop either. But I am absolutely sure that the innovators and pioneers are already prototyping what’s possible, what’s new, and in this work more and more of the new and the new narrative will show up. I am reinvigorated by what’s possible, by the people who continue to explore these questions, who challenge the status quo, despite possible personal risks in doing so and know that there are better and more healthy ways to engage health care.

I and my hosting mates are committed to convening more of these conversations with people compelled to be in them to grow the field. We envision large gatherings of people convening in new ways, continuing to innovate our way into the new system(s) so that maybe one day we will wake up and see in front of our eyes what we once thought impossible – a new generative system of health resilient enough and healthy enough to be sustainable in unexpected and beautiful ways. If we take our eyes off the urgent need for something that feels impossible and put it in the places where possibility thrives… well, what more is there to imagine or say?

Steve Ryman, Tenneson Woolf, Kathy Jourdain, Marc Parnes

: 2 loops of systems change