An interview on the Tao of Holding Space
Years ago I wrote a little book called the Tao of Holding Space which was an interpretation of the Tao te Ching as applied to Open Space Technology and the facilitation of other participatory...
View ArticleDefining facilitation in relation to difference
Over on LInkedIn, Bryan Stallings pointed to a 2017 post at the International Association of Facilitators site that contains a set of definitions of facilitation. I don’t remember contributing to that...
View ArticleLessons from facilitating babies
Im just coming back from a meeting this weekend on Vancouver Island where Kelly Poirier and I were working with some specialized health care workers who were meeting with Indigenous families around...
View ArticleBack to a live Art of Hosting, September 26-28, 2022 in Vancouver
Since 2004, the Art of Hosting has been offered every autumn on Bowen Island, British Columbia, where I live. I was a participant in the first one and since then have been on the hosting team every...
View ArticleWhat’s in the Parking Lot #3
Lots of good stuff coming through the pipe lately. Here are some links for your attention: AI is running our lives and we need to find ways to deal with it. A conversation with LamDa, an artificial...
View ArticleSupporting learners with ADHD in online sessions (and everywhere else)
I think I’m definitely feeling like my work is online for the foreseeable future. While I do have some face-to-face sessions lined up for the fall and winter, most of what I am going to continue to do...
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The Diamond of Participation
One of the earliest maps I ever discovered in my facilitation career was Sam Kaner et. al.’s Diamond of Participation. It has been a stalwart companion for more than 20 years in my work and forms a...
View ArticleUpdates and some shares
It’s been a fair few interesting weeks. A heavy work schedule with some important in person facilitations, combined with steady online work and teaching and an extended family health emergency is...
View ArticleA nice collection of facilitation resources
Courtesy of my friend and colleague Bhav Patel, here is a link to some great facilitation resources collected and curated by the ICA:UK crew. ICA is the global network of practice that has brought the...
View ArticleEnd of year reflections
Smelhmelhélch (Passage Island) at the mouth of Átl’ka7tsem (Howe Sound) before the snows came earlier this week. Some notes on 2023 while I have a moment to review them. The year began with the death...
View ArticleRoom requirements for participatory meetings
I don’t know why I have never done this, but a recent misunderstanding with a client has prompted me to get more accurate about the room requirements we need for good participatory meetings. Many of...
View ArticleUpcoming training in complexity, hosting, and other things
Working with Complexity Inside and Out We are getting excited about our Complexity Inside and Out program which starts on April 13 and runs to June 15, every Thursday in the afternoon for the Pacific...
View ArticleDon’t tell me how it’s going to go
That’s me, teaching something about living and dying systems from a decade ago. Years ago, I worked on a team with a client at a large US Foundation. We were planning a participatory process for a big...
View ArticleHolding space for self-organization
Four things conspiring here today. I had lunch with a friend/student, and we had a long conversation about what it means to “hold space.” This post from Michelle Holliday in which she finds herself...
View ArticleThe Four Fold Practice as a recipe for building dialogic containers
A few months ago, I was immersed in teaching complexity within the framework of the Art of Participatory Leadership program (AoPL). Essentially, AoPL is the application of the Art of Hosting within...
View ArticleUsing constraints in facilitation
Someone asked me the other day about how to use constraints in facilitation and I thought I’d jot some quick thoughts down here. Let’s start using terms from Cynefin. Group work falls on a scale...
View ArticleTheory and a case study: constraints at play in an emergent container
The three-domain version of Cynefin, originally published on Dave Snowden’s blog. I’m trying to organize my thoughts on containers, complexity and constraints that span a couple of decades of work and...
View ArticleImplementing participatory practice as a CEO
I love Phil Cass. He’s one of my closest friends in the world of the Art of Hosting and is a long-time collaborator. I’ve been lucky to work with him on some BIG work over the years, including a...
View ArticleThe annals of break-out groups
An interesting rabbit hole was opened for me thanks to Tim O’Reilly’s cheeky claim that the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt created the “unconference” in 1828. Through a link on the OSLIST...
View ArticleWhy complexity theory matters to me
A piece of public art in Berne, Switzerland. Two chairs facing each other in dialogue, but chained to the walls behind them so they can never meet. At the conclusion of Alicia Juarrero’s new book...
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