Community Conversation: A Teleconference

These paper boats of mine are meant to dance on the ripples of hours, and not reach any destination.
Rabindranath Tagore

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Today we sat at a phone in my office to “participate” in a learning environment about community conversations. We learned MUCH (about what not to do). Here is what we learned:

1) Conversations are not passive;
The ironic thing was that as the two hosts were sharing this tidbit of information the rest of us were all on mute.
2) Engaging in conversations can positively affect your life, and they measured it;
We believe that participating in a conversation is a relationship for 2 hours that stimulates people, who can walk away and share with others. It is the ripples. To think it is measurable is …
3) They felt that leaders do not need to get smarter or work harder we need to have more conversations and keep having them over time.
We believe it is about communities make change and question where authentic power truly lies.

The two moderators shared their favourite conversation techniques:

1) Reflective panel: 3-5 practionners/leaders with an animator who participate in a discussion to 100 people in the audience. The first presenter speaks to the moderator’s question and then asks the next person on the panel and so on until it goes back to the moderator. The moderator then asks the audience who are at round tables. Each group discusses the question from the moderator and by the panelists. At the end of time, some one from each table reports back into the moderator.
(They worked with the panelists first to work out the questions.)

2) POP 100 exercise: Facilitator works with a group to identify 100 people that if they were in a room together and came to an agreement something in the community would change. They like to identify names across categories to have a full inclusion of perspectives in that one ideal conversation.

So we move away from this version of a conversation more resolute in our own approach.

How ready are we? An honest look at partnerships

Personally, I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

Winston Churchill

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This past week saw the first conference of the newly recreated Family Support Institute of Ontario (FSIO). One of the workshops was co-facilitated by Tammy Decarié, Early Years Health Promoter at Queen West Community Health Centre and I, Coordinator of Families Are Important Resources at Family Service Toronto.

We used World Café to explore some of the things that Tammy and I have identified as being key ingredients to the success of our partnership work. Those components were discussed under specific questions at each table. The question was “Thinking about the partnership you are in, or want to start, what’s needed to move to a place of passion? Or innovation? Or interdependence? Or action?”

The buzz in the room was great. People were ready to dialogue about what their own personal experiences were with partnerships. They shared examples of how well they were working together, what challenges existed to working more effectively and what dreams they had for better partnerships.

More than anything, they shared their readiness to connect and explore.

It left me thinking about the great examples of how World Café is being used around the world by corporations and wondering why it is that we in the not-for-profit sector have not begun to use dialogue as a place of agency and community transformation. I am wondering if it is the same thing that keeps many oppressed people from being more civically engaged. If all my energy is spent getting resources to try and pay the bills and I still live in a dump, how can I advocate for......

Notes from the workshop will be posted here by the end of this week.

Dialogue and Politics

"Millions of people are suffering: they want to be loved but they don't know how to love. And love cannot exist as a monologue; it is a dialogue, a very harmonious dialogue." - Osho

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When I was first in university a couple of decades ago, there was something that rated higher than partying for the young women in residence with me – well at least it on the weekdays. That was rushing home from class to turn on the Canadian Parliamentary Channel to watch what had been going on in the House of Commons. More often than not we were quickly engaged in a witty exchange between great thinkers that showed respect for each other regardless of what side of the issues they were on.

There was an understanding that everyone was there to do an important job and more significantly there was encouragement. And yes sometimes taunting that called each other to be the best. I remember in particular the sparkle in Pierre Trudeau’s eyes as he used the best of his charisma and evident caring for Joe Clarke to egg him to come out from underneath that bushel and let his little light shine.

I don’t remember the issue of the day that had them all in heated debate. I do remember feeling a sense of awe at what it meant to be a gentleman and a scholar. Sure, we might be able to say that it was an old boys’ club where the white privileged male could spit shine his higher education and spar in the elitist way that the Greeks had done; but then again, it was honest dialogue with a passion for building a strong nation and not messages crafted by skilled spin doctors spit out by elected officials to mask profits and deceit.

I wonder where dialogue has gone in politics.