Tag Archives: Theory U

A Decade of More People “Stepping Up”, Engaging in Nova Scotia

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Stepping Up

Stepping Up Conference – 2015

On January 11, 2005 (what later become fondly known as J21 within Envision Halifax), I walked into a day long community gathering hosted by Envision Halifax, along with more than 100 other people, at St. Matthew’s Church Hall on Barrington Street, and my life and the way I work were forever changed. And, more than that, a movement began, sparked by a mission to “ignite a culture of civic engagement”.

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A visual depicting the Envision Halifax Leadership Journey – 2007 – which used Theory U as the journey and Art of Hosting as the “operating system”.

I had cause to think of that moment earlier this week when I walked into the new public library in Halifax for the Stepping Up Conference (#StepUpNS) hosted by Engage Nova Scotia, along with more than 350 other people in Halifax, even more gathered at 10 other locations in the province with an additional 500 or more people at their own computer screens following the live streaming.

A decade ago it was Envision Halifax. Something new and meaningful was sparked. Then a sabbatical to check back in with need, purpose and approach, some work in the background and the emergence of Engage Nova Scotia as a next iteration ~ different, stronger and with greater reach.

Danny Graham and Kathy Jourdain at an Envision Halifax public gathering where project teams shared what they were working on in that year (2007).

Danny Graham and Kathy Jourdain at an Envision Halifax public gathering where project teams shared what they were working on in that year (2007).

During the Envision days, Danny Graham and I had a chat about whether we were just “preaching to the choir” as many liked to say or was it something more? Maybe it was preaching to the choir, but I wondered then and I wonder now, is that so bad? Is that not a good starting place? I thought about this because I overheard someone remark at the Stepping Up conference that “we are only preaching to the converted”, since that is who shows up. That may be. But something happened over a decade to grow the number of “converted” in this province by at least 15 fold and probably more.

I was honoured to facilitate the group conversation focused on a new attitude. There were many gems of wisdom in that conversation including: expand your own bubble and do more of what you can, ignore naysayers and time how long it can take you to shift a negative conversation into a positive one. These gems are reflective of “new attitudes” sparking all over the province as individuals recognize their own circles of influence and focus their attention on what they can do and impact.

What struck me in a deep and meaningful way, reflecting over a decade is – more. More people in Nova Scotia are paying attention. More people are asking questions. More people are longing for a future that looks different than the past. More people are Stepping Up. And that is a very exciting ongoing evolution over just one short decade of quiet but growing change in and across our beautiful little province.

A decade ago and this week (and in many other places and times in between), Danny quoted a favourite poem of his:

If you always believe what you have always believed,
You will always feel the way you always felt.
If you always feel the way you always felt,
You will always think the way you always thought.
If you always think the way you always thought,
You will always do what you’ve always done.
If you always do what you have always done,
You will always get what you have always gotten.
If there is no change there is no change

Well, in Nova Scotia, if you stop a moment to reflect, it is clear that beliefs, feelings, thoughts and actions are changing. Thank you Nova Scotia, thank you Engage and thank you to everyone who played, and continues to play, a role in changing the future in the place I am delighted to call home.

Power and the Four Fold Practice

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 ~co-written by Jerry Nagel, President of Meadowlark Institute and Kathy Jourdain, Founder of Shape Shift Strategies Inc.~

“Power is the strength and the ability to see yourself through your own eyes and not through the eyes of another.  It is being able to place a circle of power at your feet and not take power from someone else’s circle.” – Lynne V. Andrews, Flight of the Seventh Moon

One of the underpinnings of the Art of Hosting Conversations That Matter is the Four Fold Practice. This is a set of practices that invite us to host self, others, processes or groups and to be in co-creation or community of practice with others. Serendipitously coming across the above quote in a little offering about the energy of the magician, generated a whole new level of reflection about power and the first two practices for us.

four-fold-practice

The first practice for the Four Fold Practice is to host yourself, to be present or have presence.  When you focus on and grow this practice you know your center and ground and the strategies, personal practices or disciplines that enable you to access this place within yourself.  You can then stay present more often in more and more challenging situations and you can find your way back to presence more quickly should you find yourself off balance for any reason – as we all do from time to time in the flow of life.  In essence, you become more powerful in presence because, like the above quote says, “power is the strength and the ability to see yourself through your own eyes and not through the eyes of another.” Your understanding of who you are is internally rather than externally validated.  For us, what this affirms is the benefit of having a regular practice of self-reflection, not as a process for self-criticism, but out of knowing self or seeing self.  This is a life practice.

The second practice in the Four Fold Practice is to participate by hosting another and allowing yourself to be hosted.  It is a reciprocal relationship when you are tuned in enough to feel the balance between listening and speaking for each of you, which does not necessarily mean equal time.  Sometimes you listen more, sometimes you speak more. Sometimes you need to host someone else and sometimes you need to be hosted. “It is being able to place a circle of power at your feet and not take the power from someone else’s circle.”  If you show up powerfully present you have no need to try to take away someone else’s power nor do you feel threatened by them because your sense of self comes from self rather than from needing anything from another.

“Knowing others is intelligence, knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power.” Tao Te Ching

This does not mean you cannot be in a space of shared power.  When you are truly powerful, you are also able to fuel the other person’s circle of power without lessoning your own, inviting and allowing them to step more into their own humanity and to bring it fully into the space between you and shared by you. Through this you build the relational field.  This is particularly important when you are part of teams, building the relational field to host groups and processes from a place of individual and collective presence and attention to what is present in the moment. It lends itself to the conditions for co-creation in a team or in a community of practice. It opens up the possibility to move into the generative space at the bottom of the U (from Theory U).  And this is where we often say magic happens – the magic in the middle.

“Magic makes it possible to use the limitless power of spirit to reshape the world in accordance with the fondest desires of the soul.” Donald Tyson, New Millennium Magic

This is part of the exploration we will be in at the end of January 2014 as we co-host with others Growing Hosting Artistry, to be offered in Minnesota. A sneak peek, since the invitation is not quite ready, is that we will explore world view as a lens to deeper work, what it takes from us as hosts to create containers for powerful work, become curious about new narratives that want to live in the world now, how to skillfully deal with shadow and projection, the impact of the relational field including among members of the team on our hosting artistry and how to design for the work at hand.  Hosting artistry begins with knowing self and our power and being in the place of centeredness with individual and shared power.

Jerry-me-others outside for opening ritual

Jerry Nagel and Kathy Jourdain – co-authors, co-hosts, friends and colleagues

Hosting From A Deeper Place – Working with Not Knowing and Emergence

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It was a long time in the planning, a conversation begun two years ago in earnest, a few twists and turns along the way with possible hosting team members and dates.  If you trust in the timing and flow of things, it was clear, Hosting from A Deeper Place: The Art of Hosting the Subtle happened in exactly the right timing at the end of February 2013 near Sao Paulo, Brazil at Espaço Arco-Íris.

The gathering was inspired by Marianne Williamson‘s quote from A Return to Love:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Since it was the first gathering with the specific intent of exploring what it means to host from a deeper place, the hosting team of myself, Narjara Thamiz, Gustavo Prudente and Jerry Nagel sensed the need to spend additional time together beforehand, preparing ourselves, preparing the field for what wanted to happen and we decided on three days.  In hosting work these days, there are typical patterns we draw on in our design process.  For this gathering, there were no particular patterns to draw on.  We felt in the not knowing of new patterns, of what wanted to emerge.  We were intentional in inviting ourselves to stay in our own not knowing about what exactly the gathering was and about what was to happen during those days together.

The purpose that emerged through our deliberate enquiry into a statement that would guide our design process was: Joining together in a learning field to deepen individual and collective capacity to host complexity.

We decided to draw on Theory U to map out our five days together and to incorporate the Four Fold Practice as fully and intentionally into each day as we could, looking for the interplay between hosting self and hosting others, and the dynamic relationship between the mystical and the practical and how that shows up in each of the four practices.

four-fold-practice

Day 1, started after lunch, beginning with a walk through the woods of the beautify retreat centre to ground us in the energy of the place, the energy and intention of our time together and then moved to a circle check-in.

The theme of Day 2 was hosting self and others into a deeper place, moving down the left hand side of the U.  We used body movement and guided visualization to invite an expanded sense of being, enquired about people’s experience with not knowing for a powerful world cafe and open space to invite “conversations would help me host myself and others to go into a deeper place”.

As people arrived this was the extent of the design development we had done as a team even after being together already for three days, holding ourselves in our individual and collective not knowing.  Days 3-5 were completely blank other than knowing the theme or intention for each day.  They needed to be that way, to tune into what wanted to emerge from and for the collective.

Flow of our retreat

The theme of Day 3 was Hosting within a Deeper Place at the bottom of the U.  At the end of Day 2, as a hosting team, we recognized the divergence of our own world views in this work from more practical to more mystical.  Wanting to be in service of the people there rather than any of our own individual needs, we invited any who wished to join our hosting team meeting.  When they arrived, first we asked them why they came to the meeting and then we asked them what going deeper meant to them.

I’m not sure we realized we carried an expectation that going deeper somehow meant diving into shadow and fear until someone spoke about how the Marianne Williamson quote had sparked goosebumps and shivers, imagining illuminating our light.  It was one of those moments when shift happens and everything seems to open up.  The design for Day 3 began to emerge and by the time we were done and names appeared next to each design element, I realized I’d hosted myself out of hosting.  A beautiful and disconcerting thing at the same time.

The design for Day 3 began with movement to begin the embodiment of light and playfulness and set the stage for a guided visualization, after which there was a short period of time for reflection through silence, art, poetry, journaling or being in nature – whatever called to each one.  We moved into appreciative triads with the following questions:

  1. Tell a story of a time when stepping into your deepest fear liberated powerful things in your life?
  2. What is the gift you have you don’t fully acknowledge?
  3. What are you learning about your own talents, gift and light?
  4. Who must you step into being in honour of your fullest potential?

This was followed by three hours of silence, including a silent lunch and then back into our triads, paired with another triad to reflect on what we are learning about our hosting now, followed by a long check out circle, people wanting to share reflections and insights gleaned throughout the day. Celebration, story telling and music around the fire at night.

The next day, Day 4, was clear.  Open space all day.  A world cafe at the end to harvest the day.  The field was now hosting itself.  Noticing synchronicities. Hosting from within and out of a deeper place.  This day seemed to invite the deep mystical to show up in many different forms and conversations.  The field was ready to be in this exploration.  And always we carried the curiosity of how does this inform the practice, how does it translate into the practical.

Day 5.  Getting read to go home.  Saying good byes. Departures. Hosting out of a Deeper Place.  Gently.  For re-entry.  More embodiment.  A visualization of taking it home. Back in our triads.  “When I leave here, how will I balance and integrate my knowing with my internal and external worlds? And what help might I need?”  Then an embodied harvest of our days together, angel corridor and collective poem.  Moments of pause and silence.  Nobody wanting to break the circle.

A field alive with all that had flowed in and emerged over our days together, still deeply curious about the mystical and the practical of hosting.  A clear swirling around hosting self as central, core to all the other practices in the four fold practice, core to hosting from a deeper place.

A group so connected and field so alive it continues to spark and shine across North and South America.  Connected in depth.  Connected in love.  Connected in journey of work that calls each of us to step in, lean in further, challenge ourselves in how we show up so we invite others to show up differently and more fully.

The stories of impact are already emerging and we imagine it will only be in the weeks to come that we more fully understand the impact of this gathering on our individual and collective hosting capacity, especially as we work in more and more complex situations.  We plan to touch back in with deliberateness to harvest more, to learn more, to understand how we host from a deeper place and what it means when we are able to do so.

Half Way Through 50 – Deepening In

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I’m half way through being 50. Well, maybe a bit more than half way but it is summer and I think the whole summer can count as half way if I want it to. And it’s not that I’m trying to resist or sugar coat the reality of linear time moseying along at sometimes frightening speed. I’m excited about being 50 – and for what comes after that.

Recently I have had the awareness of how much this year is a U journey for me. Maybe every year is, but it is particularly prominent this year.  There are three big chunks of Theory U – sensing, presencing and realizing. They do flow, but they are also iterative and there are many U journeys within overall bigger, longer, more expansive U journeys. And thank goodness for that.

I was excited to recognize I am in the presencing phase.  I felt invited to more fully relax into the summer and the continual unfolding of my journey, of me.  The transition to realizing energy will arrive as I go to California in late August, the first of many trainings with good people in varied environments.  Even as the energy shifts, sensing and presencing will continue to be a rhythm in each day, each experience, each movement.

So, what does this mean for me to feel the presencing energy of these moments this summer? And why the heck is it even important? In a post from a few months ago on turning 50, I wrote:  “This is a time for me to break old, limiting patterns, to step more fully into what is mine to do, to completely embrace my purposeful path and live into all that has been on my own edges for awhile.”  The ability to do this is activated,  amplified and accelerated by presencing.

Part of presencing is being in stillness.  The summer has been providing me with this opportunity.  The stillness that comes from not too many meetings or other obligations and lots of choice along the way about where to tune in time and attention.

Presencing is also about letting go and letting come.  Being in the stillness allows not just the witnessing of this but the embodiment of it.  I feel it fully in my body and in my spirit, in my being.  I sense the deep movement I am in and know with that sense of deep knowing that I am embracing my path, my unfolding and yes, my living into what has been on the edges.

It is evidenced by how fast I have been spinning into and out of turmoil in these last few months.  Faster than I ever have before.  I’m learning how to be in it without being overwhelmed by it or projecting it onto someone else – trying to make my experience someone else’s fault; enquiring into my experience to understand what is mine to own, what is projection from someone else, what I need to let go of and grab hold of, what is mine to learn.  I feel a bit of joy and anticipation in it and am not needing to rush into the next phase.  When I feel my anxiety rising because my book still needs editing and is sitting waiting for me and I don’t yet know how I will publish it or any other of a myriad of things I’m in the middle of, I breathe, let go of following those thoughts into the future of doom and trust the book’s energy will invigorate me in the right moment.

Work opportunities arrive, some land, some flow away.  Trusting the right things will show up.  Seeing where the invitations are, the openness, the readiness for me, what I have to offer and my journey.  Seeing where the energy isn’t.  Feeling how it is guiding my path.  No need to try to grab everything that might be within reach but being intentional about moving with the flow of what is mine to do, where I am needed, where I’m not.

I’m witnessing the evolution of my own spiritual growth, my knowing who I am.  I find myself leaning in, not jumping to conclusions, not lashing out at others but sharing my experience and my questions, and breathing through experiences that would have spun me out not even that long ago.  At the end of each of these periods of turbulence, I come out more grounded, more deeply connected to my core and my purpose and less attached to people, places and things – ready to let go of anything that hooks me and anything where the energetic openness is not available.

Trusting the guidance from the subtle realms and feeling more deeply connected – with a sense of, “of course this is how it is, how simple, easy and available.”  Opening more fully.  Yes, the journey to open heartedness and somehow even more than that.  Surrendering with joy and delight into the shifting shape of my world.

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

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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.

One AoH Training Does Not a Practitioner Make

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From the last few Art of Hosting trainings I have co-hosted there are two things that I am increasingly aware of: what it means to be a practitioner of the Art of Hosting and the value and contribution of stewarding to the field and the learning and growth of all.

People come to Art of Hosting trainings hungry for any number of things: to learn more about the methodologies and practices, to connect into a sense of community, to find refuge from the craziness of the worlds they live and work in, to deepen their own self leadership, to find new ways to be in the world, to discover mates they can work and play with in the world, because they have been part of a process somewhere that has drawn from Art of Hosting and they want to learn more and many more reasons I’m sure.  And they go away refreshed, curious, hungry for more and a bit hesitant around how they can bring this back to their life and work.

Two things I am aware of: to really be a practitioner of an Art requires practice and one Art of Hosting training does not a practitioner make.

The Art of Hosting field is incredibly rich and diverse and linked to so many other fields: World Cafe, Circle Practice, Open Space Technology, the Chaordic Field, Theory U, Appreciative Inquiry and more.  When we call a three for four day training, the breadth and scope of the days is shaped by the intended purpose and the people who show up – responsive to the collective need of the group, no matter whether it is a public or client offering.  There is no such thing as a set agenda.  It is a fluid process that the host team and the participants all contribute to.  It also means that the host team is having to pick and choose among the vast array of possible offerings that could flow into the training.  It is not possible to do them all.

All of these things – the hosting team, the purpose, the participants, the choices made within a training ground – contribute to the look, feel and shape of each training, while some underlying things always remain – paying attention to the field, holding space for co-creation and emergence, recognizing the interplay between the dynamics in the field and the learning needs of the group, between self hosting and collective hosting.  No two offerings are ever exactly the same, even if the same hosting team is in place – because the hosting team is also in its own learning individually and collectively and because of the responsiveness to each new training ground.

One Art of Hosting training offers a slice of the Art of Hosting field, even if it is a large slice.  Another Art of Hosting training will show different nuances, different strengths, different emphases and be just as relevant and meaningful as a reflection of the field.  If we leave an AoH training believing this is the way it is – and the only way – we will have missed something fundamentally important – that a key underlying principle is responsiveness to need, co-creation which influences the flow of any training or practice ground, paying attention to what’s in the space and what’s wanting to happen.

It really does take a number of trainings to have a more fulsome understanding and experience of AoH and what’s possible and really understand how AoH contributes to the shifting shape of the world.  We become practitioners when we practice and learn from what we practice.  The next post will explore some ways that practice shows up and how to ask for and offer support in the practice and a future post will look at the questions and observations that have been occurring to me about the role and importance of stewarding.

Prototyping Collaborative Leadership at Capital Health – Infusion

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In March 2007 Capital District Health Authority (CDHA) in Halifax, Nova Scotia took on a planning process called Strategic Quest.  A significant component of Strategic Quest included public participation in an unprecedented way, shifting the shape of awareness and thinking at Capital Health.  The results were revealing and the impact continues to reverberate throughout the organization today, strongly influencing ongoing public participation in a number of areas and inviting collaborative leadership as a strategy to accomplish many of its goals.

One initiative I was involved with where Collaborative Leadership was an essential part of the process was Infusion: a gathering in November 2008 of 70 leaders from across North America, in our local community and within Capital Health, convened to inform what bold and unique leadership development within Capital Health could look like.

The planning process for Infusion, championed by Lea Bryden and led by Shape Shift Strategies, invited and modeled collaboration, shared leadership and shared responsibility.  A diverse group of people from across Capital Health were invited into the planning process.  Many identified the planning process itself as a leadership development opportunity as they experienced collaborative leadership in new ways, stretching beyond their original assumptions about how and what they could each contribute to this unusual event.

Achieving clarity of purpose was the first task.  It required a significant investment of time – several meetings.  It was a difficult task because there were multiple overlapping components all alive and unfolding as we were in this planning process.  We stayed in the conversation until sharp clarity was achieved and then rest of the planning process unfolded rapidly because it was guided by this clarity of purpose.  We also actively worked with Theory U in the planning process and for the event itself.

The planning process always had a forward momentum, even when people missed meetings.  As they came back in, they found their place in the process and continued to contribute constructively.  They could step into and out of the flow of the process without having to back track and rehash decisions made when they were not present.

The two day Infusion event drew on the talents of everyone on the planning team.  Invited guests: leaders from a vast array of backgrounds, many of whom were leadership consultants, were asked to bring their knowledge and expertise in a participatory way.  It was at times a challenging field to hold.  The team was able to hold its ground as we went through the fire of chaos, adjusting design in the moment and holding space for some anger and frustration that unexpectedly arose within the group because of the collaborative leadership we had been growing throughout the planning process.

Infusion did not end in a nice tidy wrapped up bundle and Lea Bryden, myself and the team were good to leave it that way while taking away the gems that guided the development of My Leadership – a truly unique leadership development initiative inside of Capital Health with a bold vision and goals that has since had 500 leaders complete and won a number of regional and national awards.

 

A 1500 Day Collaborative Journey

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In November 2006, the Council of the College of Registered Nurses of Nova Scotia (CRNNS) embarked on a 1500 day collaborative journey, the likes of which they could hardly imagine was possible at the time.  What was clear was that the College had a vision and a mandate to grow inter-professional collaborative practice (IPCP) from pockets here and there across the province to a more widespread practice as one of the responses to a health care system in need of shifting the way services were delivered.

They knew this was not a mandate that could be achieved alone and they weren’t quite sure how to invite other professions into the conversation.  They contacted an Art of Hosting colleague of mine who invited me into the process and we worked with a team from the College to begin to clarify the work.

Early on we identified that this would likely be a long term process that would use Theory U to define the journey and Art of Hosting as the operating system. Before the journey could even begin, others needed to be invited into the conversation so that other people and organizations could identify what contribution and what level of support or commitment they were willing and able to offer.

The College hosted its first assembly in November 2006 to announce its mandate, speak what they were hearing in the system and being called to do, invite a broad array of health care professionals into conversations using processes like Appreciative Inquiry, World Café and circle which many participants experienced for the first time ever that day.

Out of this assembly a core team of about twenty-five people and financial support from a broad range of health organizations self identified to commit to a multi-year process that included two Art of Hosting retreats (one a sensing retreat and one a presencing retreat) to train the core team, deepen their understanding of the purpose and principles of the work and identify a strategy to move this mandate forward.  We called on Art of Hosting colleagues doing similar work in Ohio and in England to come and also support this initiative, bringing with them a wealth of experience and weaving in the stories from other places that increased the anticipation of successfully shifting the shape of collaborative health care in Nova Scotia.

The collaborators included: Annapolis Valley Health, Capital Health, College of Licensed Practical Nurses of Nova Scotia, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia, Dalhousie University, IWK Health Centre, Nova Scotia Association of Health Organizations (now Health Association of Nova Scotia), Nova Scotia Department of Health, Pharmacy Association of Nova Scotia, Registered Nurses Professional Development Centre and the Pictou County Health Authority.  The team included people from many of these organizations and was itself inter-disciplinary.

In between the two retreats, the core team embarked on a series of sensing strategies to broaden their own understanding of the health care system in Nova Scotia, identifying challenges and opportunities without assuming they already knew all the answers.  One purpose in this was to also engage a more stakeholders and learn from them what would capture their support, interest and imagination.  Seven group interviews and thirty five individual interviews were conducted, designed to elicit their private voice more than their public voice.  It is in the private voice that deep despair and incredible hope both reside.

The information that came back from these interviews was powerful.  So powerful it was used to invite back a large assembly of stakeholders in May of 2008 to hear the results and, most importantly, to hear the voices of the system spoken back into the room.  In response, somebody said, “What we are seeing is a crisis of the soul.”

We asked people: “What would you do that you’ve never done or dreamed of doing to change the future of healthcare?” They responded:

  • Change the way we deliver health care
  • Change the focus of health care
  • Change education of practitioners
  • Change what we say to communities
  • Change governance of health care
  • Change relationships and how we work together

We asked, “What should the purpose of the health care system be?”  To which they responded:

To create and maintain holistic, accessible support and care so that Nova Scotians may live well in a place they call home.

 

To facilitate and empower the individual and the community to create and maintain

optimum health as defined by the individual.

 

The purpose of the healthcare system is evidence based, person-focused, preventative, holistic, and uses a collaborative approach to optimize the health, safety, wellbeing and environment of people within their communities.

People made commitments that day and the College made a commitment to check back in later with their last assembly to acknowledge and celebrate progress.  That day happened in June 2010.

Six champion collaborative practice teams currently providing services in Nova Scotia were invited to present at the Assembly, modeling the way and illuminating the steps to successful collaborative care in Nova Scotia.

Have all the ideas identified in May of 2008 been implemented?  No.  But in 2010, there was far more collaborative care in Nova Scotia than there was in 2006 when the College began its quest and invited in collaborators, retaining its willingness to be a champion of this work and, at the same time, “letting it go” so that it could be co-created throughout the whole journey with those who stepped forward to share the leadership and responsibility of this work in Nova Scotia.  Other initiatives focusing on Collaborative Care also emerged during this time helping to expand awareness and the field of practice and this does not lessen the impact of the Inter-Disciplinary Collaborative Practice initiative in generating impactful responses to a system in need of change.

Some things have fundamentally changed.  Some things are still to come.

Shifting the Shape of Climate Change

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I have been following the news  of the climate change talks in Copenhagen – mostly through friends of mine who are there – with growing interest.  I have never really been a big believer that government or our political leaders are going to lead us to the solutions to the problems we face in the world – big or small.  The culture they operate in – largely one of debate, negotiation and posturing – is very entrenched and makes it particularly difficult for them to shift.

If I only paid attention to the political conversations, it would be very disparaging indeed.  However, the conversations  that most capture my attention are around inner climate change.  This is something we can all do something about – and must do something about!

This morning on Facebook, my friend Mitch Rhodes wrote: “at a gathering in Copenhagen, Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke about being on the winning side. With our hearts and minds we must firmly believe we are on the winning side and shift to that place with conviction and dignity. It’s an inner struggle as much as an outer struggle.”

He also posted: “Many activists/protesters have anger in their hearts. A theory U-activist holds the power of love in their heart and facilitates the emergence of a just future. Gandhi comes to mind as an example.”

I have been a proponent of Theory U since I first came across it in 2005.  I say yes to being a Theory U activist, holding the power of love in my heart.  The way to shifting the shape of the world in a conscious and intentional manner is by each of us putting our stake in the ground, changing our own thoughts and behaviours and understanding that our actions make a difference in the world and to the world – no matter how big or small.  By our thoughts and actions we will attract others who are also willing to shift and by doing so, we will build a larger and larger field of resonance for the greater shift we want to enact in the world.

Will you be lost in the apparent hopelessness of this large scale global crisis or will you contribute to healing the world (and self to as it turns out) fully, with your heart, mind and soul, firmly believing you are on the winning side, shifting to that place with conviction and dignity?  I will meet you on the winning side!