Pour moi, en fait, avant tout. Pour me donner un espace où penser à voix haute, mais aussi parce qu’il y a des questions avec lesquelles on joue tout seul, mais qui souvent se domptent à plusieurs.
C’est un espace où poser des questions et ne pas trouver de réponses. C’est un espace où la pensée se précise. Où la théorie dialogue parfois avec la pratique.
J’espère que ça m’aidera à comprendre des choses auxquelles je me frotte dans ma pratique de facilitateur, médiateur, designer et, incidemment, juste d’être humain qui se confronte à une question sincère:
Comment on fait pour devenir un meilleur ancêtre?
Et si on peut y penser un peu ensemble et même mieux: expérimenter, ça sera toujours ça de gagné.
Il y a quelques jours, Nora Bateson est venue à Montréal pour un atelier et une conférence. Nora Bateson est l’initiatrice de la pratique des « warm data labs », que je comprends comme une pratique qui nous amène à explorer la complexité de manière créative, c’est à dire vivante. Ces notes sont une forme de témoignage et ma propre pratique créative dans le contexte de cette rencontre. C’est un accueil de la possibilité de ce temps partagé, et du sens qui s’y attache, dans un adoucissement de l’oreille. Il y a aussi un mouvement de traduction qui se fait à plusieurs niveaux: de l’observation, à l’idée, à la langue (l’Anglais), à la parole, à l’écoute, à l’autre langue (le Français), à l’écrit. Il y a des bouts qui s’y perdent (discontinuités), des fragments qui restent (continuités) et des formes qui surgissent (émergences).
Merci à l’organisme Brèches pour l’invitation dans ce territoire de la rencontre.
—
C’est seulement quand le coeur se brise qu’on apprend à jouer la mélodie.
Qu’est-ce qu’on entend par information? Comment est-ce que l’information devient-elle vivante?
Il y a des choses qu’on ne peut pas comprendre en décrivant leurs différentes parties. Considérons un portrait. Un enfant en situation de vulnérabilité. Un marais. Un système atmosphérique. Une colonie de termites. Une branche de sapin.
Qu’est ce que je peux être quand je suis avec toi? Qu’est-ce que tu peux être quand tu es avec moi? Quelle(s) pratique(s)peuvent nous ouvrir de nouvelles possibilités d’être et devenir ensemble?
Rien de nouveau dans ces questions. Mais elles nous demandent de nous rappeler à nous-mêmes et à la vie. Elles nous demandent de redécouvrir nos vies comme un processus créatif, et la créativité comme un processus vivant, au-delà des egos et d’un idéal de productivité dans lequel nous avons été conditionnés à chercher le sens de la vie.
Comment se préparer pour le présent ET pour le futur? Une question qui nous parvient à travers le temps – sans justifier le passé jusqu’à refuser le changement, ni le détester jusqu’à nous détester nous-mêmes.
C’est un appel à faire bouger les marges de la créativité vers un autre espace que celui auquel on l’a assignée. Comment est-ce qu’un marais pratique son devenir-marais? Un marais nous demande de penser autrement – comment penser comme un marais? Comme une communauté d’organismes qui changent et évoluent? C’est dans ce mouvement, et dans les relations qui conditionnent et sont changées par ce mouvement, que surgissent les nouvelles possibilités. La possibilité de la continuation de ce devenir-marais repose sur la discontinuité de certains des éléments de ce marais. Dans ces conditions, qu’est-ce qui (se) continue? Qu’est-ce qui (se) discontinue? La nature ne fait jamais une chose à la fois. Où le marais s’arrête-t-il? Où est-ce que je commence? Pour qu’un marais continue, c’est toute une communauté d’êtres vivants qui doit se trouver en relation avec elle-même. Tous changent ensemble.
Et nous, les humains, dans tout ça? On s’assoit autour d’un feu, et on raconte des histoires. On crée de nouvelles possibilités, on respire de nouvelles vies. Est-ce que les conversations sont des marais? Qui peux-tu être quand tu es avec moi? Qui puis-je être quand je suis avec toi? Quand nous sommes en conversation, où est-ce que « moi » arrête? où est-ce que « toi » commence?
Le plus beau cadeau qu’on peut se donner, le plus bel acte d’amour qu’on peut se faire, est de se laisser exister dans tous nos contextes, sans chercher à se définir. Nous existons tous dans des communautés multiples, qui se rencontrent et se recoupent dans tous les sens.
Comme un marais.
Notre tâche? Nourrir les possibilités dont on ne sait pas encore qu’elles seront nécessaires. S’apprêter: devenir prêts. Quel est le processus créatif du devenir prêt, pour répondre de manières qu’on imagine pas encore à des crises qu’on ne voit pas encore?
Un process de devenir ensemble. Un processus de connecter. Un processus d’entrer en relation. Un processus d’entrer en commun.
Principe pour aider un système à mieux devenir ce qu’il peut être: le connecter à plus de lui-même.
Qu’est-ce qu’on fait quand on se raconte des histoires? On vit dans le langage de la complexité. Toute la complexité du monde vit dans les histoires qu’on partage et qu’on re-partage, différentes à chaque fois. On ne répète jamais la même histoire exactement de la même manière. Ça tombe bien – c’est un bon moment pour se perdre un peu ensemble. On se perd pour trouver ensemble où on va. Et comment entrer en mouvement vers de nouvelles manières d’être, sans se désorienter? En acceptant que cette expérience d’une désorientation collective est peut-être ce dont nous avons besoin, en ce moment.
La flexibilité pourrait se définir comme la possibilité du changement sans engagement.
Au moment où quelque chose émerge, ce quelque chose a été présent, s’est accumulé et s’est déjà transformé depuis longtemps. Ça peut être dangereux, et ça peut porter une étincelle de vie, d’amour, de soin. Qu’est-ce qui vit sous la surface? Comment voir la rivière dans la rivière? Comment porter attention et prendre soin de ce qui prend forme et évolue dans les profondeurs? De ce qui crée, suivant des modalités que nous ne voyons pas? Comment porter attention à ce qui attend d’affirmer la vie? Il y a tant de travail à offrir dans l’invisible – la possibilité de devenir ensemble se révèle à travers les histoires que nous partageons, autour de quelque chose que nous ne semblons pas encore reconnaître et dont nous avons pourtant besoin.
Alexis Pauline Gumbs est une de mes écrivaines préférées. Undrowned – lessons on Black Feminism from Marine Mammals est un livre avec lequel j’ai passé beaucoup de temps et auquel j’aime retourner régulièrement avec mes questions.
Elle était de passage à Montréal Lundi pour un événement autour de sa biographie d’Audre Lorde – Survival is a Promise. C’était évidemment magique, plein d’espoir et profondément humain. Une interruption bienvenue au 9e étage de l’école de business de Concordia (business as usual?), au protocole habituel d’une rencontre d’écrivain, et à nos propres déconnexions entre l’intime et le politique, le corps et l’esprit, le cerveau et le coeur).
La lecture et l’oracle
Qui sont les ancêtres de ma pratique?
Pourquoi pas nous?
Pourquoi pas nous maintenant, et ici?
Qui me hante?
Esprit. Où te caches-tu, en plein jour?
Le hasard nous donne parfois ce dont on a besoin sans le savoir. Les mots sont vivants. Les mots sont des sortilèges. Quels sortilèges appelles-tu avec tes mots?
Le poème est une cérémonie.
Écouter en communauté
profondément
pour l’action juste
appelée par le moment
comment s’ouvrir
dans une continuité
et une justesse
pour toucher ce qui fait sens
qui attend
qui devient possible à travers nous
au service de la communauté
–
Comment
l’intimité
l’émerveillement
l’espace entre la vérité et la fable
est ce qu’il y a un désir qui attend
d’être comblé dans la cérémonie
longing to be
belonging
quelles histoires sont racontées?
–
wondering about, rêvasser
nous retourne à nous mêmes
dans l’émerveillement
il y a des invitations à l’émerveillement
des possibilités
des espaces où se rendre
où flottent des questions
qui sommes nous?
qui pouvons nous être?
qu’est-ce que pourrait être la vie?
qu’est-ce qu’on peut être d’autre?
qu’est-ce que la vie pourrait être d’autre?
–
il y a des possibilités
des manières d’être
que nous ne connaissons pas encore
des expériences que nous n’avons pas vécues
un amour à offrir
dans la cérémonie
un amour que nous recevons
dans ces moments d’émerveillement
–
une cérémonie pour désapprendre
à vivre en consommant
et pour apprendre
que les mots
les processus
les expériences
peuvent être des seuils vers la transformation
–
Qu’est-ce qu’une cérémonie?
Un rituel
un espace
pour rendre visible ce qui existe déjà
pour rendre visible une histoire de nous-mêmes
qu’est-ce qu’on peut produire d’autre?
quelles autres possibilités peuvent être créées
dans la cérémonie?
dans l’interruption de ce qui est d’habitude répété
sans questions?
–
Un livre peut être une cérémonie portable
une cérémonie crée un espace de possibilité
qu’est-ce que ça nous prendrait
pour passer de la reconnaissance du monde
à une entrée en profonde relation avec son esprit?
Part 1: The four-fold practice of the Art of Hosting
What do we do when we don’t know what to do? My friend Joshua Moses has this amazing question he always carries around with him and asks interesting people. Lately it has come up in several different areas of my life, kind of unexpectedly, and so I thought I should take the bait and share some reflections here. This might actually be a few different posts, who knows? But let’s start with one.
There are many different angles from which to meditate on this question. However, today I was asked in another context to think about leadership, and more particularly about the skills necessary to navigate these moments where we don’t what to do. Leadership is a tricky one for me. I have a complicated relationship with it – To me, leadership is a word that comes tainted with themes like ego, control, coercion, manipulation. Mainstream culture has taught me to think about the charismatic leader is the ideal: the hero that, if we leave the keys and let them do their thing, will get us out of whatever mess we are in. Someone smart, powerful who seduce their way out of anything. Someone who is not opposed to some degree of deception to get what they want.
But this type of leadership is useless in the context of the polycrisis we are in, where we truly, collectively don’t know and where no one person is going to hold the responses we need. We need a different type of leadership to move through the uncertainty in our organizations and our communities. This is what Meg Wheatley and others have called servant leadership, what others (including me!) like to call participatory leadership. Leadership in this context becomes about the ability to create and hold containers for good dialogue, to participate in good dialogue and to learn with and from others, as we try to co-create our way through the tricky practice of becoming good human ancestors. That is where the four fold practice of the Art of Hosting comes in.
The four fold practice is really the heart of the Art of Hosting. The Art of Hosting is both a community of practice and a set of approaches and tools for dialogue, that started in the late 90s and emerged out of a collective inquiry that could be summarized as : what makes good collaborative processes click? The Four Fold Practice was an early answer to this question, and since it has been around for a while now, I would say that it has stood the test of time. Legend has it that the Four Fold framework was drawn on the back of a napkin (like all good frameworks are). It helped summarize four basic patterns that lead to generative dialogue and collaboration. In many ways, all failed dialogues could be traced to a collapse in one of these patterns, and so they all point to the skills we need to develop to be good community members, good hosts and help communities better navigate the complexity of a world that relentlessly throws us curveballs.. Let us take some time here to briefly unfold these patterns, the skills they each involve, and how this will help us when we don’t know what to do.
Hosting self. Any good inquiry starts there. Be present. How can I cultivate the conditions for me to be fully present to what this moment is asking? What do I need and want? What is mine to hold, and what is not? Where is my ego getting in the way of good work? What is taking me out of being present, in the here and now? How am I getting in my own way? Furthermore, good collaborative and dialogue processes need participants to be fully present, and that is what this hosting self piece talks about: how do we create conditions so that people can show up fully in dialogue? How can we, as hosts (and facilitators), show up and be fully present to what is happening, in the moment?
Being hosted. Participating in dialogue is a gift and it is also a skill in itself. The main question here is around our capacity to listen and practice our curiosity, and welcome perspectives and experiences that are different from our own. What is the quality of my own listening that I want to bring and practice as I show up in dialogue and in collaborative processes? How do I cultivate and develop that skill of curiosity? Christina Baldwin, author of The Circle Way, writes that « curiosity and judgment cannot coexist in the same mind ». How do I quiet the voice of judgment and cynicism that sometimes wants to take over? And further, how do I focus my attention on what matters and can often be below the threshold of what is being explicitely said in the conversation, to bring it to the surface and the awareness of the group? There is a complexity to the practice of listening and participating in dialogue.
Hosting others. How do we build community around a common purpose? How do we learn to recognize the conversations that are needed, and step into a practice of inviting others into them? What is a generative question, and how do we craft them? How do we welcome diversity? How do we hold space for the emergence of new possibilities and imaginations? How do we flow between loosening constraints when a group needs to explore possibilities and tightening them when it is decision and action time? There is a pattern of hosting conversation, between managing constraints (for example the time that is assigned for a conversation, the space it will take place in), managing attractors in a conversation (ex: the questions that are asked), managing boundaries (for instance, deciding what is the framing of a conversation). This is also a practice that can be explicit (as when someone is clearly identified as the host of the conversation), or implicit, when there is no identified host but someone takes some leadership as a service to the group. This pattern of hosting others speaks to learning and practicing participatory leadership. And it is far from simple!
Co-creating. This points to the practice of harvesting what comes on the other side of dialogue. A harvest can take many forms: skills, relationships, decisions, stories, meaning. Learning to step in co-creation thus means tending to what is only possible with this group, that could not be known or done before gathering these particular people around this particular question, in this particular context. I have often heard that when we plan a meeting, a process, a conversation, we are really planning a harvest. How do we gather what needs to be cultivated? How do we create conditions so that it can be done collectively? How do we do this with intention and clarity, so that is can be shared in ways that are accessible and helpful?
So what? What do we do when we don’t know what to do? The answer to that elusive question we started with remains a resounding, assertively vague « it depends! ». But whether you are an educator trying to host conversations to collectively reimagine our education systems so that they help everyone be in their full potential, or an engaged citizen trying to organize your community around a common concern, or a leader trying to foster more autonomy and engagement in your team, we believe this Four Fold Practice to be at the heart of what is needed for everyone to learn and navigate complexity. The key word here is practice. Like playing the violin, these skills are not something we learn once and know forever. We only get to master them by practicing, in an ungoing unfolding process, in your team, in your organization, in your community or even in your family.
So what will you do to try some four-fold practice next time you are in a conversation?
Have you ever made a decision as a community, seemingly embraced by the whole only to be undermined in ways subtle and not so subtle?
When that happens, we often talk about this as resistance. But what is resistance, really? The Cambridge Dictionary defines Resistance as « the act of fighting against something that is attacking you, or refusing to accept something » or as « a force that acts to stop the progress of something or make it slower ». I see the idea of friction, something that holds back, creating a tension. When thinking of working with groups, teams, communities, resistance shows up when a portion of the collective not moving at the same speed or in the same direction than another. A decision may have been taken collectively, yet it is not carried by all. Resistance serves as a powerful expression of disagreement, and is an expression of a conflict that has been either not fully expressed, or worse, silenced.
Like many of us, I am somewhat conflict averse. Yet, over time I have become more and more interested to explore how I can engage with conflict in ways that feel creative and uplift a group’s collective agency. I have also seen how conflicts or tensions that are not fully acknowledged often end up spoiling good collective work. In light of all this, I have become increasingly curious about what my friend Chris Corrigan calls « conflict preservation »: not all conflicts need resolution. In fact maybe most don’t!
Enter Deep Democracy. Deep Democracy has been showing up in my life at different points, but I had never actually crossed the threshold of engaging with it. Until recently, when a workshop was offered in Montreal by Emily Yee Clare and Sera Thompson from the Waterline Collective. One of the many things I find amazing about Deep Democracy is its view of conflict as a source of wisdom that collectives can tap into and approach from a place of curiosity and inquiry, as opposed to something that needs to be eliminated. Deep Democracy was first pioneered by Myrna and Greg Lewis, two psychologists who found themselves practicing in South Africa at the turn of the 1990s, as the Apartheid ended and a new society was emerging. In a context rife with tensions and deep conflictual lines, they hosted hundreds conversations across racial lines where people were able to share their experiences, hopes and perspectives, and explore emerging possibilities. Myrna and Greg Lewis trained others to host conversations, and that is how Deep Democracy spread worldwide.
The first important principle at the heart of this work derives from Arnold Mindell’s work. A psychologist, Mindell was especially interested the unconscious life of groups, and believed that most of their collective wisdom sat in the realm of the unconscious: assumptions, dreams, stories, experiences – elements that are often emotional, emergent, unprocessed. In the same way an iceberg’s emerged surface only shows a small portion of the whole, conscious processes only contain a small portion of the information that is available to help us make wise decisions. When we only access what we can see, understand and verbalize easily, we deprive ourselves of a lot of important information. This is where dialogue processes and good questions become important to bring to the surface this hidden information we carry: unacknowledged, invisible experiences and perspectives, that are often marginalized and made invisible because they carry deep emotions.
But how can we recognize in the first place that there is indeed untapped wisdom, and that some things remain unsaid?
Resistance (and conflict, its close sibling) can act as these indicators that something important might have yet to be said and named and that a decision is being made by the group before it is ripe. Everywhere, resistance tends to get a bad reputation. I cannot think of one time hearing someone say how much they loved being resisted to, or how much they appreciated being in conflict with others. Yet in our work as process hosts, or in our communities, we are often faced with resistance and conflict. They are natural, even healthy parts of life in groups, communities, teams working through change, just as change is a part of life. Often this resistance is seen as something that we need to overcome for a change process to succeed, an innovation to take root, or a new strategy to be embraced, or simply for life to continue. But something in me has never felt quite at ease with this: as if all we needed to navigate this landscape of change was to be more convincing, communicate better, craft better messages, do a better job at selling. I had a hunch that this was not enough, and that by seeing resistance as something to win over, we could be missing out on a whole lot of important wisdom. Plus, I am terrible at selling things.
What if resistance was a pathway to access untapped wisdom in the communities we work with?
What are we resisting to?
Humans are social, yet also fiercely independent creatures. We do not like when decisions are imposed on us. We resist when we feel things are done « to » us, instead of « with » us. Deep down, we want to be part of the change and the decisions that affect how we experience the world and how we live our life. When that opportunity is denied to us is when resistance takes hold. We all have examples, big and small, that talk about this experience of disconnect from the decisions that most affect us: as community members, as workers, as learners, as children. And we also probably have experiences where decisions we made were met with resistance from others affected by it. Any parents reading this? We also probably can all speak about times where undiscussed resistance(s) grew to the point of becoming open conflicts, where work stops, conversations become strained and relationships are damaged, sometimes beyond repair.
How can we recognize resistance for what it is, before it becomes entrenched?
The resistance line is a useful framework that was developed by the Deep Democracy community and that can help us recognize and orient ourselves on the different forms resistance can take in a group. Resistance can be conscious and unconscious. It takes place on a continuum from covert expressions (indirect, subtle, oblique, unspoken, ambiguous) to overt expressions (direct, open, clear, obvious). The resistance line helps us recognize where the group might be on this continuum, which in returns informs the kinds of interventions that are possible and could potentially have an impact. The more resistance is overt, the more it tends to be efficient, and the more work it will take to truly engage with it and invite people to come along. The resistance line can help us know whether we are still in a context where conflict can be addressed by dialogue and other Deep Democracy tools, or whether the environment has become so polarized that other methods of conflict navigation are needed. Think about a group of activists blocking a train line, or a convoy of trucks occupying a capital, or a group of students walking out of their school: it may not be popular, but it is an efficient way to express resistance to a decision or a certain way that things are done. Walking out, however, is usually not the first thing people do when they want to express their opposition to something: chances are that there were multiple other ways resistance was expressed before, that were not heard or did not have the desired impact.
Here are the forms resistance can take in the life of groups, teams, communities:
Image from Lewis Deep Democracy
Like any group process, making decisions collectively is an emotional journey, that happens as much on an unconscious level as it does consciously. As process hosts, we can support groups looking to navigate this emotional landscape by helping them see where unconscious expressions of resistance might be surfaced and made available to the awareness of the group in order to access the untapped, unconscious wisdom present in the group. If we can help the group identify resistance early and have conversations about what unaddressed concerns and needs might lie behind them, we can significantly improve the chances of finding a decision that works for everybody. When we do not, we might let resistance escalate to a point where dialogue becomes impossible: voices have been marginalized beyond repair.
In that spirit, the most impactful intervention we can make as process hosts is to be curious. We can look for the signs of resistance mapped on the line, bring our questions to the group we work with, and invite collective exploration. For instance, if a decision has been taken in the past, but we notice that people are finding excuses to not do something that was previously agreed upon, that may be a good sign that some resistance might be happening. It may be an indication that some early concerns were not expressed, that the context was not ripe for a decision, or that a decision was unilaterally imposed when people should have been given a opportunities to speak their minds. It creates a space for further conversation, where previously untapped wisdom can be invited. When people repeatedly make excuses for something not being done, that could be a sign that something else might be going on, that calls for a pause. It can indicate that it might be time to bring the possibility of resistance to the awareness of the group.
In conclusion, the resistance line is another tool that can be available to us as we navigate our role to help groups, teams, communities better see themselves and what might be going on at both a conscious and unconscious level. It may also be useful to anybody participating in community, to identify early signs that we ourselves may be resisting to something. Is my joke merely a joke, or is it a sign that I may feel uncomfortable about what is happening? And is my discomfort something I can live with, or do I need to bring it up to the attention of my team? All these are good questions to ask ourselves as we strive to participate in communities and practice the joyful and tricky process of humaning together towards a world that can be more joyful, just and welcoming to all.
And if you want to know more about ways to practice on the resistance line, I strongly encourage you to follow the Waterline Collective and check their training offers.
Some reflections on the Art of Hosting and Reimagining Education
« to innovate or understand
to work with human complexity
with problems that are not clouds and not clocks
we need people and
inquiry
creative diversity
to act and respond
with creative possibilities
we need learning
insights
connections
new ways of
seeing and acting emerge.«
On October 19, 2023, we gathered on the shores of Lake Opinicon. 33 humans sharing a space for three days. A joyful hosting team: Jenn Williams, Chris Corrigan, Troy Maracle and me. We came from different paths of life, different communities, different worlds. Educators, administrators, facilitators. Parents, community leaders, activists and thinkers. Innovators and stewards of systems. Indigenous People, immigrants, settlers. Mothers and daughters. Brothers and cousins. All called around this question of ‘what becomes possible when we courageously reimagine education?’ All called to learn together how the Art of Hosting could help us spark our collective muscle of imagination. All called to practice participating and inviting the conversations that will infuse our work with purpose and kindness, to usher the world we want to see our great grandchildren growing in. Bundled in the same dish, we stepped in the circle, curious to harvest what we did not know could feed us.
« dee Hock calls
the “Chaordic” path of
a creative tension between
“chaos” and “order”
it is the place of generative
emergence«
Here, hosted by the beautiful nest of nature surrounding us, by the forest, the deers, the fungi and the lake, we played in the liminal space between chaos and order. We breathed between structuring a container with some just clear enough governing principles: ask for what you need, offer what you can. Listen with curiosity. Speak with Intention. Share your truth. Be aware of your impact. Harvest your conversations. Take responsibility for your experience. These principles provided grounding and a clear landscape to exist in, and invite a water-like quality of questions, uncertainty and creativity to infuse and circulate between us. Generative emergence is that space of possibility, where we are neither too constrained by structures nor are we thrown in so much uncertainty and ambiguity that we can just react. It is that space where we can act with intention, without being constrained by what has been inherited from the past, resorting to what has already been done. Where we have the freedom to invent our best practices, aligned with the specific context we are in.
« think leadership
and
process design
with complex problems
when wanting new ideas.
what helps us
when we are stuck?«
How we practice in the chaordic space in the context of a 3-day art of hosting training is by creating a rough architecture of a schedule, put the bones in place, While leaving enough space to listen, regularly check-in with our perceptions as hosts, what we hear from the community, and adapt to the feedback we are receiving. Do we need more time for certain pieces? What questions are alive in the community? What are some pieces we need to bring in, what are some that could be tended to by exploring them in a community dialogue? Where are people at, and do we need to bring in new ingredients or approaches to tend to the space that we are holding together; for instance, maybe we have been spending a lot of time in our heads, processing, and there is a need to get on our feet and do something that calls on different parts of our selves, that get us moving and laughing, and trying things we do not normally try..
« Living systems
order and chaos
each purpose together
holding potential
a creative tension
and space
where engagement and creativity
happen
generative emergence.
Dialogue in this space
opens complex possibilities.«
As a community, we tend to be pulled in different directions. We need both chaos and order. But we may also have personal preferences that lead us towards one polarity or the other. Some of us get uncomfortable with the uncertainty and the ambiguity that chaos invites in. In these times, they might look for the stability of authority and clear leadership. This is the area of plans, timelines, linearity, structures. Yet others may feel constrained by too much control and look to invite the openness, creativity and sense of possibility that chaos carries. As we create community together and learn to care for a common concern or purpose, we lean on both polarities. We invite order, and we invite chaos. We try to dance with both partners, and trace a liminal space of practice in the middle, where we are never completely one and never completely the other. As a living system, we move with the change, leaning on the diversity of our parts to maintain our balance and move through the world with grace. Purpose is our compass: the communities we are here to serve, the work we are here to do. In our dance, we trace our path to host the next generations in a world in which they can live and thrive.
« There are moments
stable and
predictable and
other times
surprising, wild, unpredictable, or out of control.
leadership
is the art of coping
with the swings
from chaos to order
and of working in the
intersection »
What do we do when we don’t know what to do? What do we do when what we thought we knew is no longer the only way, or the best way? Chaordic leadership is the practice of staying true and staying in relationship with one another in these times. Not veering too much towards chaos, and throwing all structure to the winds, compromising our values and our beliefs in favour of whatever the tide contains, nor bringing too much order, control authority to set the situation back to a normal that never really existed in the first place. What is our response in the face of uncertainty?
« Life throws
our best plans
we strive to
bring enough form and structure
life-giving contexts for
action,
stability and
structure to express and
bring talent and capacity to work.«
Chaordic competence is about bringing just enough form and structure to allow creativity to thrive. There is movement, but we are not swept. There is structure and constraints, but we are not pinned down by it. There is stability that gives enough space for people to bring and give their gifts, be in their whole human potential and grow new capacities. There is space and permanent change there. The chaordic path is a dance. The structures that create space for emergence evolve with the context, and so we cannot rely on firm rules, but on principles that help us read the context, govern our actions and stay in the chaordic space. These principles are value based and can look different in action when in different circumstances. They give us tools to recognize when we are moving away from the chaordic path. When do we start to use the language of control and coercion? When do we create policies and structures that risk removing people’s agency and, in a way, tame them by telling them what to do?
« too tight, and we need a little more chaos.
a loosening of rules
and control
power shared
more space for people to take
more space for diversity
more space for self-organization
new connections
to be seen or made. »
There are a few different ways we let a bit of chaos in during our recent Art of Hosting. The first one that comes to mind was an intentional move to be hosted in a site deeply connected with nature. We were in a forest, with access to water and trails and ample space to breathe. We were able to create multiple moments to go out on the land, sometimes to hear stories, connect with one another or to try to listen deeply to what this natural house asked us to pay attention to. We were influenced by the weather, as the rain came to remind us that staying put or staying out was a choice, and that the world was still knocking at our door while we were having our conversations. We invited initiatives and offers from participants to host experiences and shape with us how we organized our time together. We leaned on our seed sanctuary of living questions harvested by the participants to shape our own offerings, in the form of teachings or stories. We held a dialogic container structured with a very diverse set of participants, and multiple opportunities to connect with different people around joined inquiry. We invited people to host the conversations and experiences they decided they needed to have, to experience what it could be or feel like to invite others in this way.
« too loose and we need more order
to stabilize situations
invite more certainty and predictability,
move towards decisions
efficiency.
rules, directions, accountability
power, control and decision more centralized
time, focus, sharing are more constrained
for work that needs efficiency
for times where we know what to do. «
There are also a few different ways we invited structure and order into our shared time. There was an invitation. There was a schedule, structured around some clear constraints. There was an identifiable, clear hosting team that framed and held space, while also maintaining a collaborative relationship with the site team who was hosting us. There were leading questions. There were clear meal times, with special procedures in place to keep everybody safe, including those of us who suffer from allergies. For each block of time there was a clear harvest, with artefacts that were accessible to all. There was a seed sanctuary, a clear place in the common space whose purpose was to keep track of emerging and living questions and concerns in the community we had become. And there were some common assumptions: that we can all learn and lead chief among them.
« Leadership is discernment
include ‘chaos’ and ‘order’
to create the life giving contexts
that lead to emergent outcomes. «
That is the dance of the Art of Hosting: keeping enough order that some sense can be appropriated and that some experience of belonging can happen. Enough order that an atmosphere is fostered with enough psychological safety that people can take risks and try new things and be a bit uncomfortable. Enough chaos that people might feel invited out of their comfort zones. Enough chaos to invite differences and diversity, but enough order to have coherence. Enough structure to give a recognizable shape, and enough chaos to invite change. Leading is recognizing the signs when one of these two might be in need… It is, in a way, asking what life needs to thrive in the moment, and acting on that inquiry. Sometimes acting might be a change in process, a break, a question, a new invitation, a guest… Sometimes what might be needed is naming my confusion, or my intuition, or my discomfort, and sharing with the group that I am not confident that we are doing the right thing and that I don’t really know what to do. And asking the community for help to figure this out. That can be a graceful use of my power as a host.
And what do we need in order to practice this dance with chaordic confidence?
Tools – We need to know some moves: have a set of tools, methods, frameworks to mobilize and choose from. A whole library of them, I would say. Become a researcher, an experimenter, an expert. Look for the things that work.
Context – We need to know the context in which we are operating. We need to know our communities, the people we are living and working with. And we need to know how to be curious about the people who are not the people we live and work with. What do they need? What do they want? How is it like to be them? And if we don’t know, we need to know how to ask questions, and build relationships.
Self Hosting – We need to know that we can stay present. And that only happens through practice. Through practice, we learn what it is that takes us in and out of that ability to be present. We learn to read these signs that tell us we are working out of alignment with ourselves and our values as a community. Through practice we learn to trust that a way can be found though curiosity in community.
Curious for more? Here are more resources on the Chaordic Path:
All quotes from this post have been adapted through an extensive (and playful!) cutting up and remixing process from « Engaged leadership and the chaordic path », in The Art of Hosting Conversations That Matter – What Grows When We Courageously Imagine The Future Of Education And Learning Together? (Harvest Moon), our workbook for this recent Art of Hosting and reimagining education.
With deep gratitude and love to my amazing team of co-hosts who held space for the magic to happen: Jenn Williams, Chris Corrigan, Troy Maracle.
Intervenir dans des contextes participatifs, c’est s’exposer à une certaine dose d’inconnu. C’est ouvrir des espaces et tenir des conversations où là où on arrive est souvent très différent de ce qu’on imaginait au départ. Dans ma pratique de facilitateur et de concepteur de processus participatifs, les personnes qui m’appellent font face à des questions auxquelles ils n’ont pas de réponse. Elles peuvent parfois se trouver à des points de rupture, où la manière dont elles ont toujours fait les choses ne suffit plus. Où la réalité est en décalage par rapport à l’image qu’on s’en était fait. Où la nécessité d’adapter des pratiques devient criante. Elles se trouvent à opérer dans des problématiques complexes, dans des contextes tellement fluides et changeants qu’une seule personne ou une seule équipe, aussi compétente, intelligente, savante soit-elle, ne peut tout simplement pas tenir tout un contexte.
Face à ces questions auxquelles on n’a pas de réponse, pour lesquelles les recettes habituelles ne marchent plus, dans lesquelles les voix habituelles ne peuvent décrire qu’une partie insuffisante de la réalité, le recours à des processus inclusifs invitant une diversité de perspectives et de regards devient indispensable. C’est dans ces moments-là que les approches participatives prennent tout leur sens et leur puissance. Le premier seuil d’un processus participatif est donc de reconnaître qu’on a besoin des autres pour comprendre notre contexte ou trouver des réponses à nos questions et que quelque chose de différent est devenu nécessaire.
Dans ces moments, on entre dans un espace de vrai questionnement. On est prêt à laisser aller un peu du contrôle qu’on pensait avoir. On est prêt à passer du « je » au « nous ». Ce passage du « je » au « nous » nous appelle à créer des espaces différents de ceux dans lesquels on évolue habituellement en tant que professionnel. Des espaces dans lesquels on peut pratiquer différemment, se rencontrer différemment, penser différemment, faire différemment. Des espaces dans lesquels poser les questions qu’on ne se pose habituellement pas, dans lesquels on peut transformer nos relations, explorer nos propres biais, prendre conscience de l’impact de nos actions. Des espaces où on peut aussi nommer et déconstruire les structures de pouvoir, les normes sociales et les visions du monde qui gouvernent nos actions, nos comportements et nos décisions. On a besoin de créer des espaces où s’expérimentent de nouvelles manières de penser, faire et vivre ensemble.
Comment créer cet espace du « nous »? Tout commence par une invitation. Au fil de mes conversations avec d’autres facilitateurs, de mes lectures, de mes expériences, j’ai pu voir que les invitations qui fonctionnent bien répondent à une série de patterns, qui sont autant de conditions à la réussite des processus participatifs. Ce qui suit n’est pas une liste exhaustive: j’imagine qu’il y a d’autres éléments possibles à considérer, mais ce sont ceux avec lesquels je résonne et qui me servent de repère dans mon travail:
1. Une invitation jaillit d’un questionnement sincère et authentique.
Inviter est un verbe d’action. Une invitation est donc une action qui préfigure déjà le changement qu’on appelle dans notre communauté ou notre organisation. Une invitation est de l’ordre de la posture et du savoir être autant qu’elle est dépendante de la capacité à créer un message. Elle doit s’accompagner d’un réel désir et d’une volonté d’accueillir ce qui sera offert en retour. Ça suggère une humilité et une intention explicite de transformer le jugement en curiosité. Sans cette humilité, cette curiosité, et cette volonté profonde d’accueillir l’autre, pourquoi l’inviter? Une invitation qui n’est pas sincère donne lieu à des processus boîteux, manipulateurs et extractifs, qui nourrissent le cynisme au lieu de cultiver l’engagement.
2. Une invitation est un attracteur
Une invitation soutient la création d’un sens du « nous » dans la mesure où elle propose une nouvelle manière de regarder un enjeu ou une situation, qui ouvre au-delà des notions traditionnelles d’expertise. Elle ouvre un espace inclusif dans lequel chaque personne qui la reçoit peut se sentir concernée, sentir qu’elle a quelque chose à offrir et que sa perspective et sa voix valent quelque chose. On se sent happé par la question posée, concerné par l’enjeu décrit, mobilisé dans la prise de conscience qu’on peut faire partie de la solution. Une bonne invitation nous inspire à créer collectivement le monde dont nous rêvons.
3. Une invitation étend la sphère des possibles
Une invitation réussie comporte un élément de surprise, qui nous pousse à pivoter notre regard sur la réalité et à réexaminer pourquoi on fait ou on pense les choses de la manière dont on les pense. Ça peut être à travers un lieu ou un format différent de qu’on a l’habitude de voir, ou en invitant un quelqu’un qui apporte une perspective fraîche pour nourrir l’imagination collective. Une invitation nous amène à sortir de nous-mêmes, à aller au-delà de notre point de vue isolé pour se connecter à d’autres perspectives et développer une nouvelle capacité à prendre soin collectivement de ce qui doit l’être.
Une invitation nous aussi pousse à essayer de dépasser nos biais cognitifs, même alors que notre premier effort pour poser une question sera toujours contraint par ceux-ci. Au moment de créer l’invitation, il nous appartient donc de réfléchir à comment dépasser nos propres biais. Dans quel paradigme s’ancre la conversation que nous appelons? Quels présupposés sont intégrés? quelles perceptions et vérités doivent être dépassés pour entrer dans un vrai dialogue?
4. Une invitation pose un cadre clair
Une invitation nomme des intentions et des attentes en termes de résultats visés. Qu’est-ce qu’on cherche à accomplir ensemble? Qu’est-ce qui va ressortir de cette rencontre, ou de cet événement, de cet atelier, de ce processus? Elle nomme ce qui est attendu des participants, et même parfois ce que nous n’attendons pas. Elle nomme les éléments qui demandent notre attention, et le ou les enjeux qu’on cherche à résoudre. Elle nomme les questions qui seront explorées.
Une invitation donne aussi des détails sur les éléments logistiques de la rencontre: où? à quelle heure? pendant combien de temps? est-ce que le lieu est accessible universellement? est-ce qu’il y aura de quoi se nourrir ou se rafraîchir ou se réchauffer? est-ce que les enfants sont les bienvenus (la réponse devrait toujours être oui!)? est-ce que je pourrai parler dans ma langue? L’invitation nous indique les dimensions du carré de sable dans lequel nous allons jouer.
À la lecture de l’invitation, on devrait avoir une idée claire de ce que la rencontre est (un atelier, une conversation, un cercle, une assemblée, une formation), et de ce qu’elle n’est pas (une conférence, une lecture, un sermon).
5. Une invitation comporte un espace de refus
Dans son livre Community: the Structure of Belonging, Peter Block explique en quoi l’intégration de la possibilité du refus dans une invitation donne toute la valeur au consentement. En substance, si je ne peux pas dire « non », alors quelle peut bien être la signification de mon « oui »? Une invitation doit donc comporter un seuil explicite à la participation, un certain obstacle que la personne qui décide de participer doit surmonter en pleine conscience. Elle ouvre un espace à l’autre pour dire non, en établissant clairement que dire oui implique un engagement. L’invitation établit clairement qu’il n’y a pas de véritable participation sans consentement, et que ce consentement peut également être retiré à tout moment, sans conséquence pour la personne.
Je nous invite à continuer à réfléchir et observer les éléments qui font en sorte qu’une invitation est inspirante, engageante, énergisante, générative. Je nous laisse avec ces 5 questions pour nous aider à formuler nos invitations:
ici - ailleurs 