Unhurried Conversations →

Johnnie Moore, reflecting on four years of unhurried conversations:

There’s a lot more going on when we talk to each other than an exchange of information. There’s a dance of conversation, where we viscerally respond and reflect to each other. There’s more happening than any transcript could convey.

There’s some really insightful and useful stuff here. I’ve been lucky enough to experience this simple talking-piece process as a participant a couple of times and really enjoyed it.

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Yarning Circles →

Isabella Higgins, writing for the ABC:

The school has embraced the morning yarning circle, a practice that has been used in Indigenous cultures for generations, where students can share their ideas and feelings.

There are many forms of the check-in process — a simple practice that gathers people’s attention and focuses everyone. I haven’t heard the term ‘Yarning Circle’ used before. Love it! The circle is deep in all of our bones.

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How Complexity Principles Can Inform Participatory Process Design →

Chris Corrigan:

… the nature of complex systems compels us to make important design choices when we are facilitating participatory processes to do work in organizations.

Chris has also picked up on Sonja Blignault’s terrific posts on Paul Cilliers’ work on complexity. I’m a big fan of Chris’ work and appreciate these type of reflections on his own experiences working with complexity, and his astute observations. Inspiring stuff.

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The Narcissism of Employee Engagement →

Simon Terry:

The discussion is unreal: The only facts in a discussion are the satisfaction survey results. Much of the rest of the discussion is belief, assertion and opinion with little to ground that in the real world employees experience.

This resonates strongly with my own experience. It became clear to me especially during the time I was deeply involved in narrative inquiry work.

Something I learnt very early on from Shawn has stuck with me. If someone starts a sentence with “I think …”, you’re not going to hear a story. Once you notice it, it’s hard to unhear.

Even when you ask people questions that encourage them to recount their experiences and provide specific examples (aka stories), they often state their beliefs, assertions and opinions instead. Perhaps this has something to do with psychological safety, or the comfort of rationality? Whatever the cause, it seems to be ingrained in our culture.

There are some great ideas in this post for changing this dynamic. It’s not easy, but when you can engage people around their own, real world experiences (stories) to make sense of complex situations, it can be effective and powerful.

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Seven Implications of Complexity for Organisations →

Sonja Blignaut:

My last post was about Paul Cilliers’s 7 characteristics of complex systems. In this post I want to explore 7 of the implications of complexity that he thought was important for those working in and on organisations.

I’m loving this series of posts on complexity theory and its implications for organisations. Great stuff.

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Immersing Myself in Liberating Structures

A few weeks ago, I hosted an Introduction to Liberating Structures event for the Victorian Facilitators Network (VFN). It was a fun night, filled with energy and enthusiasm. More importantly, I learnt a lot. I first heard about Liberating Structures via Nancy White, who I hold in such high esteem. I was inspired by her own experiences and decided to explore this further. Hosting the VFN…  
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Story and Narrative →

Cynthia Kurtz:

So “narrative” draws its meaning from the act of communication (for teaching and for persuasion), while “story” draws its meaning from the recounting of events (for inquiry and for exploration).

A long, yet worthwhile read. I always learn something new and interesting from Cynthia’s posts. This one looks at the etymology of the words ‘story’ and ‘narrative’. People are often confused about what these terms mean, and she does a great job of breaking it down and explaining the difference.

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Less Big Thinking, More Small Actions →

Lee Ryan:

Perhaps the deeper lesson here is that the most radical acts are deceptively small and intimate. Less about “driving change”, less about arguing and trying to motivate. More about paying real attention in a time-starved world? What might this look like? How might we experiment with new forms with groups both inside and outside organisations?

This is an excellent article, which is also a prelude to the Radical Acts event in Melbourne next month. I’m so excited to be going and I’m looking forward to spending time with this group of people to explore what improvisational theatre can teach us about radical versus conventional approaches to change.

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Exploring Liberating Structures

I’m hosting a Liberating Structures immersion event for the Victorian Facilitator’s Network on Monday 19th February 6pm – 8.30pm. This will be an opportunity to explore some easy structures, practice them together and see what we can learn. Anyone interested in alternative ways to approach and design how people work together is welcome to join us. To book a place, please register or g…  
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