Simple makes the difference -- Introducing THE 5 POWERS

You know how it feels, right?

Your name is on something. You want it to work. And you wonder how... So many of us face this kind of challenge every day and it eats our energy.

Two weeks ago, I had an email asking for support from a fellow practitioner. Big citywide project with an audacious goal. Multiple spinning points of focus. Important meeting coming up where a new group of leaders has been called together. Big case of too much going on.

There was a lot riding on very few shoulders.

Over the past 30 years I've been in a lot of rooms with good people trying to do good work. The circumstances were all different. The places and challenges were different. The bottomline was always the same:  

How do we work together -- and stay together -- to make something good happen?

Those of us working in and with organisational structures see stress continuing to rise. One of my colleagues in a big international organisation was telling me of her sadness and frustration at the ongoing waves of reorganisation going on all this year. She tells me how easy it is to get lost in the abstraction of "corporate speak" so you never really understand each other.

She tells me she is focusing on grounded optimism and looking for simple things people can easily do in their everyday lives: "This is a 'one step at a time' period. We need practices that can help you cross the river instead of having a grand plan for a gold bridge." 

Then there's everyone else. I've also met lots of people while I'm out travelling and they always ask me what I do. When I say I'm a facilitator, they look completely blank. They have no reference point to imagine what I'm speaking about. 

And yet every one of them longs to be part of a conversation that matters.

Some years ago I was having a conversation with a facilitator buddy. At that point, we had a combined 50 years of group experience. We asked each other about what made the difference between failure and success in all the groups we worked with.

We also asked ourselves: What would people need to know to be successful even if they never experienced a facilitator or being facilitated?

I went further, thinking of all my facilitator colleagues out there trying to help people make an impact. I asked myself: How can we support people to build the capacities they need to do good work together? 

What we discovered in our inquiry together was profound, but simple. It became what I call THE 5 POWERS -- simple practices that can create collective leadership and community everywhere.

These are the simple, but mighty important practices that underpin the health and vitality of any human system: The power of APPRECIATION, the power of STORY, the power of INVITATION, the power of QUESTIONS, the power of HOSTING.

I'm about to teach about THE 5 POWERS for the first time online and I'd love you to be part of the circle. This work is aimed at leaders, facilitators, people who are supporting people to make an impact and most of all for connectors -- those who are the connective tissue supporting organisations, groups, community and initiatives to stay together and keep going in the face of it all.

Please have a look and help this invitation to spread!

It's what we are all looking for right now -- simple, small, practical, and potent. How to help the power of all of us to rise.

See the full details here.