4th aopl practitioners' gathering - report
DESCRIPTION
Report on the 4th gathering of practitioners of participatory leadership in the EU institutionsTRANSCRIPT
4th Participatory Leadership Practitioners’ Gathering Overijse – 14-16 November 2012
Report written by Helen Titchen Beeth; photos by Helen Titchen Beeth and Martin Büchele
A continuing journey
It is worth tracking the evolution of these practitioners’ gatherings over time. The Birst gathering (2 days in November 2011) was pitched as a ‘2nd level learning opportunity’ for alumnae of the entry-‐level participatory leadership seminars. What actually emerged was less a training and more an individual and collective inquiry. In that spirit, the three subsequent gatherings have gained in both depth, scope and impact. In March 20121, the theme was resourcing ourselves and being sustainable in our practice. Two new models were introduced into the Bield: the eco-‐cycle and transition management, and we experimented with what we have come to call the iterative learning cycle: • connection to purpose (why are we doing this, really?)• creating space for the collective to diverge, stay in emergence,
and then converge• articulating what is the new knowledge we now have.In June 20122, we set a sharper intention, to focus speciBically on systemic transformation, both as a topic of learning and as a collective inquiry into how our evolving participatory practices are serving the shift in culture in the European institutions (and beyond). As an innovation, we dedicated the entire 3rd day of the gathering to harvesting and collective sense-‐making. Thanks to the sharp focus of our shared intention, we managed to harvest out some very valuable insights, learning and resources for the community of practitioners at large. These are set out in the report of the gathering, which is recommended reading.
The intention for this 4th gathering was again to focus on systemic transformation, this time with the help of the Living Wholeness Institute, in the persons of Maria Scordialos, Vanessa Reid and Sarah Whiteley as the ‘external’ members of our hosting team, together with Maria’s ‘apprentice’ Odysseas Velentzas and former colleague Martin Büchele. ‘Internal’ members of the hosting team were Matthieu Kleinschmager, Ursula Hillbrand and Helen Titchen Beeth.
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1 http://issuu.com/iyeshe/docs/2nd_practitioners_gathering2 http://issuu.com/iyeshe/docs/3rd_aopl_practitioners__gathering_-‐_report
The ingredients for our gathering were rich and diverse:• Context – as always, the ever present context for our practice
was the EU institutions, but also the wider arena of Europe as a whole.
• Participatory methodologies – the surface level ‘tip-‐of-‐the-‐iceberg’ content of participatory leadership training, our tried and trusted World Café, Open Space, Appreciative Inquiry, etc. helped give form to the gathering.
• Process architecture – the invisible scaffolding and design that shape the intention and purpose of any gathering into a Blow that guides our collective meaning-‐shaping towards a useful and relevant conclusion.
• The Living Wholeness route map informed the design of our 3 days together, while the metaphor of the four rooms3 created a context in which practitioners at different stages in their practice, and with different degrees of commitment, could work together meaningfully.
• Mindfulness – Martin Büchele, an experienced practitioner and trainer of mindfulness, brought an intentional invitation to practice mindfulness into the mix.
• Harvesting – building on previous gatherings, as much store was set by capturing and processing our insights as by having the conversations themselves.
• Land and nature – So many participatory leadership happenings have taken place at the Interinstitutional Centre in Overijse that the place has become an omnipresent participant and host. It is a privilege to be able to move throughout the space offered by the centre. The trees, in particular, become ever more
welcoming. Their beauty and majesty somehow invite us into greater realness and depth.
Design for the 3 daysOur design for the gathering was inspired by the Living Wholeness route map, (which is usually travelled in a process lasting 8 days):• Day 1 – arriving, orienting and creating a learning ecology• Day 2 – beneath the surface• Day 3 – manifesting and creating formAs usual, the hosting team came together the day before the start of the gathering to Binalise the design and ‘sense into the Bield’. Much of what we spoke about then came back in some form or other during the 3 days.
33 http://issuu.com/iyeshe/docs/lwi-4rooms-sm-1
Try as we might, though, we could not settle on a design stretching beyond the Birst day, so our landscape contained more white space than structure! This turned out to be a feature of working with Living Wholeness: you can’t ‘design’ for the mystery process, you can only keep sensing together for that minimal next step…
Day 1 – Arriving, Orienting & Creating a Learning Ecology
Arriving on the morning of the 1st day, we were some 40 people in the opening circle.
Introducing the theme of systemic transformation and the work of the Living Wholeness Institute
As we have been introducing the participatory leadership approach into the EU institutions, we can see a spectrum of change: • we see incremental change, introducing new elements into a
speciBic context (like a check-‐in, or a talking piece) without creating any fundamental shift,
• we see dynamic/disruptive change, which requires quite some energy to hold, and calls for some courage and trust from the callers – for example, taking a participatory approach to a stakeholder conference, rather than going with the standard format,
• as the crisis deepens and our discomfort with the status quo grows, we see more clearly the need for (and inevitability of) transformational (systemic) change. This is radical change that goes to the roots, shifting the whole system to a new form. Humanity has never sought to achieve this intentionally before. This level of change will call for a shift in our basic assumptions about life and society.
The Living Wholeness route map describes the journey to systemic change. It rests on 4 anchor points:• Working with what we know (the visible)• Working with what we don’t know, but can feel is coming (the
invisible)• Working with the individual (know thyself)• Working with the collective (‘philotimo’4)
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4 From Wikipedia: Philotimo is the feeling of not being able to do enough for your family, society and your community; it is expressed through acts of generosity and sacriBice without expecting anything in return. Philotimo is to get more satisfaction from giving than from taking.
The all-day check-in
With the purpose of starting to create our ‘learning ecology’, we checked in with the question “What from my European root system connects me to why I care to be here in these days?”
A s t h e c h e c k -‐ i n proceeded, it became clear that something was already happening that had not been planned for in the design – no way were we going to be Binished by lunch time, let alone by the coffee break! So the hosting team l e t go o f the planned programme and allowed the process to
unfold at its own rhythm. Part of what the Living Wholeness pattern brings to the practice of participatory leadership is learning to listen and sense for what wants to happen.
What happened was a day spent in circle, spinning and weaving a complex and soulful tapestry of story lines that took on a life of its own as the day progressed. A very rich learning ecology indeed! Some of the essences and elements present included:
• roots and nature – roots take many forms, including rhizomes and tumbleweed, and nature was present not only in the centre of the circle but in the place that hosted us.
• indigenosity and wildness, the ancient roots and deep lineage of humanity on the European landmass
• the merging of cultural streams on many levels – from ‘Participatory Leadership meets Living Wholeness’, to the mixing and weaving of nationality and identity. From the unfolding story we started to see war as an agent of evolution: how many of us wouldn’t be here if the European wars hadn’t happened?
• the inexorable Zlow of destiny, glimpsed through the many layers of history, from the slow movement of deep history to the turmoil on the surface of political, economic and organisational life
• it’s the polarities that create living wholeness – peace and war, light and shadow, life and death.
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We just had time at the end of the day to collectively make sense (in small groups) of all we had heard:
From our check-in circle, what have we heard that we collectively care about and want to do something with?
We clustered our Bindings into the following shapes:
Healing – people, systems, places. Acknowledging suffering and fragmentation, and moving from fragmentation to integration and wholeness. Acknowledging, too, the potential generativity of conBlict, including wars.
Opening the space – seeing diversity as a good thing. Holding our differences and trusting that things will happen. People feel empowered to act.
Community – strengthening the sense of belonging.
Rebellion
Fear – many of our roots are in stories of the war. This reBlects our unacknowledged fears: fear of change, of the unknown, of the future; fear as a cultural issue. How to transform this fear?
Listening – what prevents us from deeply listening? Speaking – speaking out and being heard.
Stories – the power of stories to build community.
Humanness – placing people in the middle, giving space to the human element, from human resources to relations.
Connection – solidarity and empathy, connecting passion and commitment. We are all connected.
Being real – working from/with the heart; bringing in the soul and showing up as your whole self; bringing more trust and authenticity to work; be true to yourself.
Vision – we need it!
Roots and identity – reconciling our roots with our European identity; roots as a process.
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Day 2 – Beneath the surface
The intention for our second day was to move away from our habitual professional focus on action, drop below the surface and engage with what we don’t know – for the purpose of informing the next level of our work. We were invited as individuals to engage in whatever practices would help us to travel through unknown territory: meditation, journaling, nature, conversation – restoring the value of ‘dialogue’, which means, literally: ‘meaning 6lowing between us’.
Introducing the Living Wholeness route map
Maria, Vanessa and Sarah told the story of how they came to create the Living Wholeness route map, and the route map itself was reBlected in the story they told – the one illuminating the other. The only way the route map can really be understood is through story; it cannot be set out in linear bullet points: the whole journey happens at each phase. We show you the graphic here, with the headlines and key points, and strongly recommend that you read the story in the appendix!
Testing the readiness – notice your feeling of disturbance or inspiration: what’s calling you? How much risk are you ready to hold?
Arriving and orienting – keep returning to this thing that calls you. Explore it, start experimenting, take your time. Who else is with you in this inquiry at this stage?
Creating a learning ecology – don’t do everything yourselves, invite others in. Those who answer your call with curiosity will be the right people. Keep prototyping and invite them to do so too.
Beneath the surface – prepare to be surprised, much of systemic transformation is out of control. Surrender and stay connected with your inspiration and intention.
Translating the new narrative – what does our collective discovery mean to me as an individual?
Transforming – bringing insights and discoveries to light through serial prototyping to give shape and form. What can I take from this?
Transporting – bringing the new forms into the collective: what needs to be closed so that the new can open? What does it mean to live this with others?
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Open Space
Open Space Technology provided the container for our individual and collective exploration into unknown territory. The guiding question was:
From beneath the surface, what do I/we need to inquire into now?
The following sessions were called:
• What taboos can we identify that stand between us and meaningful (purposeful) work?
• Is it time to let go?
• What is stopping us and how to act on it?
• What is possible when we choose to lead from vulnerability?
• What really calls me that needs to be held and nourished?
• How to allow the European Commission to be a human living organisation?
• How do we hold hands in the unknown?
• What would it take to turn the European Commission into a successful brand?
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• Imagine what could happen if we gathered around a governance pattern of participation?
• How to become an artist in abandonment?
• How do I bring participatory leadership into my daily life and work?
• How to navigate fellow human beings to Bind out what their purpose in this life is?
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As a departure from the usual ‘cognitive’ feed back of sessions to the whole group, our convergence took the form of a collective human sculpture that you had to experience to comprehend!
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Sensing into tomorrow
After the group checked out for the day, 16 of us remained in circle to share our impressions of the day and feel our way collectively forward to the last day, with the theme ‘manifesting and creating form’. What wanted to happen tomorrow?
In our conversation, there was tension between various polarities – I mention them here because they also come up in the wider system, when we are preparing and hosting events and processes:
• our tendency in the Commission to go quickly to manifestation, rather than staying in the unknown until clarity emerges
• wanting the chaos and disturbance of radical change, versus the peace of deep contemplation
• desire to return the focus to the individual versus remaining in the collective until its voice is fully heard
• recognising the difference between ‘not knowing’ and ‘denial’. There is great denial in our system, fear of emotion/pain that leads us to project onto scapegoats (PIGS)
As the conversation drew to a close, we could see how our circle was collectively ‘illuminating’ on behalf of the whole, the way the spider senses what is going on around her through the subtle vibrations in her web. We saw a need to feed forward what we had seen to the whole group the next day.
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Day 3 – Manifesting and creating form
Maria’s ‘feed forward’ and framing of the day was foundational in creating the space for what happened on this Binal day of our gathering – which was nothing short of transformative.
“We have been dancing a r o u n d ‘ s y s t e m i c transformation’ and creating new ‘cultures of living’. From our check-in on day 1, we went to the root. You have to go there to systemically transform. A culture is based on ‘assumptions’ (=roots). During these two days, we have begun to feel the transformation inside us. We
have had moments that have touched the root level.
Yesterday after closing, we sat together in a smaller group to sense what was going on. We saw awakening – and fear of full awakening: a continuation of denial. We come in, then pull back. We cannot transform the cultures by changing the system ‘out there’. We have to be systemic ourselves! That means transforming inside ourselves. Until we feel our own transformation inside us, we can do nothing.
The headline for today is ‘Manifestation and Creating Form’ – giving form doesn’t have to be projects and results. Can we instead look more closely at what is transforming in us? Can each of us leave these 3 days more clearly knowing the roots we stand on? And from that place, what can we create?
What is it that we fear? What do we feel calling us? It’s about participating with all of ourselves. There is no leader. No one else to
6ind the way forward! We are asking to participate and we fear it. How do I stand to participate? The word “crisis” in Greek actually means ‘taking a stand’. So this is about discerning what you want to stand for. Today we are moving to the ‘crisis’ point in this way: and it doesn’t have to be heavy!
For our check-‐in, Odysseas led us in a traditional Greek circle dance, after which we went into conversation in triads.
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As Vanessa explained, the triad is a foundation that creates strength. In yoga, the triangle of the legs and hips creates a strong foundation that gives Blexibility and reach. In participatory leadership, working in triads provides a precious opportunity to deeply witness oneself and the other – in our brilliance, our wisdom and our vulnerability. All you see of a human being are dead cells – except for in the depths of the eyes. “If you just listen, you might hear the grass grow”. Our focusing question: What is being transformed in me during these days?
Witnessing and the power of the soul
Folks returned from the triads exercise luminous, radiant and moved. Maria explained why that was: Witnessing is the mother of all practices – what we witness is the soul. You cannot see it on your
own: it has to be reBlected back to you. The role of the elders is to witness the truth of the younger generation. It is an act of love: “I see you”. When someone sees your soul, you see yourself. Witness your colleagues, your kids, the nature of your home place. This is not attachment, not possession, not need. It is a seeing that touches us profoundly.
Many of the conversations in our triads brought disturbing questions about our relationship to our work and to this institution that sponsored our presence here these 3 days. Many feel stiBled, some feel ethically challenged. Few feel nurtured. When we start to work from the soul level, this state of affairs cannot remain unacknowledged.
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Matthieu introduced the group to the bokken – a wooden sword used in the martial art Aikido. Before cutting others, you had better be ready to cut yourself. The bokken is a metaphor for how we use our power: it is an extension of our soul out into the world. It invites us to discern: when do I cut, and
stay in relationship? When do I cut and move on?
The talking piece went around the circle again (by now a familiar part of our shared culture!) and this is what we heard:
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Abundance, generosity - part of the whole. Life, what do you have for me today?!
The community is pregnant with
something
Fierce joy -
Ready to
die!
We found soul mates
Less fear, more
serenityNot living
life, being lived by life
What we evoked yesterday
arrived today - MAGIC!!
The finest gift you can giveis the quality of your attention
TRUST!We are all born naked
& we all die. In between, we can do a
lot.
Encouraging (building courage)
- the easy path is sometimes difficult
I stepped forward like never before: I’m a subtle
artist in service of conscious evolution
I am enough. We are
enough.
I came expecting some
collective magic. Then I went through
my own door to find the magic
there!
Witnessed by elders. The strength of stillness in the
agitated world. The world will become
your elder.
The ancient ones who can stitch us back into our European heritage
are here in this circle. Hierarchy is that: the power/rule of the sacred!
GREAT FULLNESS
Bring LIFE to work!!
After lunch, it seemed important to have some unstructured time together to give space for individual reBlection and unplanned encounters, followed by a celebration before Binally checking out of the gathering and heading our separate ways.
The closing circle was an experience that could never have been designed or planned for -‐ there was silence and explosive laughter, comfortable intimacy and spontaneous closeness. More proof -‐ if any were needed -‐ that these practices restore us to our natural humanity.
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APPENDIX
Story of the living wholeness route map
Told by Maria, Sarah and Vanessa
What we share here is the pattern of systemic transformation as we are living it. In telling the story, we ask you to open the ears of your souls, the eyes of your hearts, the expansiveness of your minds. We invite you to Bind your own route map, timeline and application in your context. We (in the Western world) are so fragmented that we believe action and reBlection are the same thing. We invite you to listen from a place of unity.
Systemic transformation comes from many different places, and so we invite multiple levels of listening, to both self and story.
In essence, the Living Wholeness route map is a compass to Soul. We are programmed to be consumers, to think in terms of markets: selling, consuming, utility. This route map takes you to a new (and ancient) world, where humans are in life, not ‘doing’ life.
Setting the scene
The story starts with Maria and Sarah attending a gathering called ‘From the 4 Directions’, called by Margaret Wheatley – writer, management consultant, and founder of Berkana Institute – whose deBinition of a leader is: anyone who cares and wants to do something about it. At that gathering, Maria and Sarah met the people with whom they would go on to co-‐initiate the Art of Hosting – the set of practices we know in the Commission as participatory leadership. The journey since then has been, and continues to be, an emergent one (not planned)!
In 2007, Sarah and Maria bought an olive farm in Greece – Axladitsa-Avatakia. The route map is inspired by relationship with this place – an east-‐west fusion informed by the land. New ways of doing don’t come only from us humans – they come from the Earth. Our diversity comes from our places (a theme that came out strongly in our check-‐in).
Vanessa’s story starts with a social innovation project with young people in Quebec (Santropol roulant: meals on wheels on bikes). The red thread is the urge to work in a natural way, with people ‘in need’ asking for community, inquiring into social innovation – in other words, new forms of leadership and organising. When Vanessa turned 35 (after 5 years of working with the project), she left her position as executive director and moved on to become executive publisher of the Canadian yoga magazine Ascent.
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Commenting on her reasons for leaving Santropol, Vanessa says “Knowing when to let go, just before you peak. It only ends up with resentment if you stay too long”. Both Maria and Sarah also left careers at their peak in order to start again. Part of the path of Living Wholeness is to immerse yourself in what’s calling you.
Vanessa met Maria and Sarah at a gathering held at Axladitsa in 2007, organised by the Berkana Exchange, a network organisations working with social innovation.
Travelling the route map
Testing the readiness. In the smoothness of habituated life, something starts to grate – a signal of incipient chaos. An invisible, individual feeling of disturbance or inspiration. Something is going on under the surface that’s calling you. Or something from outside you is calling you and the call ignites something in you. This is the activation of SOUL, and it comes through your interconnection with all of life. The question is: what is the level of risk you are ready to hold?
Vanessa kept coming back to Axladitsa, drawn by the place and the connection with Maria and Sarah – they seemed to have work they should do together, and it centred around living wholeness. Continually arriving and orienting, returning to a place – this is the start of prototyping; an important step in the move from sensing and
feeling to trying things out. Importantly, this is a place of safety. There is no telling how long this phase will take.
Next, they started to build up the learning ecology. They did this by inviting others in. The gathering they called took the form of an 8-‐day ‘immersion’ p r o g r a mm e , h o s t e d a t Axladitsa, offering the journey through the route map to friends and fellow travellers who answered the call to adventure. The prototyping continued here: you have to try it out.
The gathering brought more richness as the people brought in their skills. An important lesson here is: don’t do everything yourselves! As the process gets underway, there are moments when unpredictable and unimaginable things happen, that seem to emerge from the invisible. New language is needed – and found. That which is usually outside your gaze comes into focus…
As an example of this, the 2nd immersion gathering the following year was attended by Mary-‐Alice, who brought her passion and gift for storytelling. Her presence and inspiration ignited the writer in Sarah, releasing a Blood of energy, information and journeys which have resulted in the publication of two anthologies of poetry and a book (the Fine Line of Destiny, which also tells the story of the Living Wholeness route map).
This example also illuminates the fact that much of systemic transformation is out of our control. The only strategy that seems to work is: Surrender! Systemic transformation is happening now. It’s happening right across Europe. Part of what’s blocking us in the Commission right now is our belief that we have to make things happen. How can we use our roles to support what needs/wants to
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happen? Stakeholder engagement through authentically inviting participation is our way of beginning to surrender.
Under the surface, humanity is learning how to be a collective. Democracy as we practice it in the world today is a governance pattern of representation, not participation. We are afraid of participation. Following the Living Wholeness route map, when we dive beneath the surface, we Birst visit the realm of the invisible collective. From there, it’s time to translate what we found as a collective into what that discovery means to me, as an individual. How do I want to learn? What is my new narrat ive? The ind iv idua l invisible is part of the self-‐organising of the collective.
Travelling, as an individual, from the invisible back to the visible h a p p e n s t h r o u g h s e r i a l prototyping. We are transforming our new narrative into shape and form. When we transport our discoveries back into the collective, we should again be prepared to be surprised. Vanessa told the story of how the award-‐winning yoga magazine Ascent, after 10 years of existence, invited her in as executive publisher. The question she brought with her, at the invitation of the organisation, was “what does it mean to be sustainable?” As they travelled together beneath the surface, in a long process of collective inquiry, they came to the
astonishing conclusion that it was time to close the magazine! It took the organisation 2 weeks to understand what wanted to happen, and they moved from their inquiry into a cycle of conscious closure, culminating with a Binal, legacy issue of the magazine.
Ma t t h i eu b rough t i n ou r experience as a community of practitioners of participatory leadership in the European Commiss ion (a pers is tent institution that, in its current form, can no longer be said to t r u l y s e r ve l i f e ) . I n o u r practitioners’ gatherings, we seek to bring in a level of existential inquiry that may lead us, individually and collectively, to realise how out of phase our organisation has become with what wants to happen in the world and on the Earth. We have lived 6 years of prototyping different ways of being in this organisation. All the different prototypes are like cells in an o r g an i sm – t h ey h appen
separately, in niche environments. Out of self-‐preservation, they happen below the radar because they tend to be perceived by the mainstream organisation as a threat. When those cells and niches are connected, the Bield can become a new and more powerful system of inBluence. Our community of practice is where that connection happens, and how we connect is of critical importance. Journeying together into the collective unknown is what opens up the potential. We need harmonisation, not standardisation.
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Working with this route map is illuminating what we have already been doing.
It is also worth noting that we saw already in our check-‐in circle that the system in the room was much bigger than simply the AoPL community of practice, or even the European Commission. We told stories of place and history. It’s important to understand that the system we are working with is always much bigger than what we see. When we consciously call in systems, we bring much larger intelligences into play. That way we do not amputate the potential for transformation: being systemic does not merely mean working with stakeholders, it means working with the vastness of life!
APPENDIX 2 - Who was there*
From the EU institutions:Marina BERGAMELLI (COMM)Yves CAELEN (EPSO)Angela CARDINALI (JRC-ISPRA)Bela DAJKA (COMM)Mirjam DONDI Carlo DORLO (CNECT)Jim DRATWA (RTD)Katrin DUERKOOP (COMM)Andrea ERDEI (RTD)Aurelie GODEFROY (DEVCO)Mary HENEGHAN (HR) Joanna HENNON (DGT)Fotini KAPARELOU (OP)Sofia KONSTANTATOU (ERCEA)Nathalie LEGROS (ERCEA)Sophie MERCIER (HR)
Olga MURAVJOVA (HR)Frans NIJS (BUDG)Dominika NOWAK (HR)Tina OBERMOSER Olympia PAPAYANNAKOPOULOU (COMM) Jaana PELTONEN (SCIC)Celia PESSAUD (TAXUD)Valerie REYSER (ECFIN) Alain RUCHE (EEAS)Daniela SIMIONESCU (CDP-OSP)Dirk SOENEN (JRC-GEEL)Marlene STEINBICHLER (FRA)Ingemar STRANDVIK (DGT)Nina THOMPSON-WILLIAMS (DGT)Conrad TOFT (HR)Caroline VANDEPUT (ERCEA)Silvia WEIDENAUER (CAB-HAHN)Corinna WULFMEYER (TAXUD)Gisele VAN BUNNEN (REA)Ana YTURRIAGA SALDANHA (HR)
From the external contractors’ communityRia BAECKMarielle BEHRMANNNancy BRAGARDMikael DROUARDAnne-Marie GONCALVES DESAIBernadett KÖTELES-DEGRENDELE
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* Apologies if we have missed anyone!
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