Where are your places of practice? Who is your community?
Back in 2008 I was part of a conference hosting team in Takayama, Japan. We were invited by the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA), the forerunner of the International Association of Facilitators, to host the different parts of the then UN ...
How do you stay the course?
This past week I've had many interesting conversations with people all over the globe. In a call with a practitioner friend today, she admitted to me that she regularly wakes up in the night with anxiety and a racing mind. She told me about a term I wasn't familiar with ...
They say that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. I've also learned that if the inquiry is sincere, the opportunity arises...
Since the beginning of the year I have been journeying with the question: "What is life helping me see about my journey into eldership and stewarding?" So I shou...
Do you ever feel you speak a different language to other people? And I'm not talking about all the flavours of English out there (which believe me, are wide and varied, the idioms will get you every time!).
Two words I use a lot are PRACTICE and PRACTITIONER. I often hear crickets when I mention th...
Have you ever been asked what you felt is missing in the world? How did you respond?
While I've talked, written and worked a lot with story, there's a powerful flipside of the coin that very few people seem to be paying attention to. Story is a powerful tool, a human superpower, the secret sauce to...
How do you keep deepening your practice? Who are your practice mates, mentors, coaches and cheerleaders?
I've met a lot of successful #people and many of them are lonely. They are missing a #community where they can stop being the #leader and be hosted for once; a place where they can also be in lear...
Last week at the Art of Hosting Practitioner's Gathering in Slovenia we talked a lot about what it takes to host others in their conversations that matter during turbulent times.
In the end, it doesn't matter if you have the most sophisticated tools in the world. These days, people are looking for au...
When I think about the past month on the road, I feel like something has reconnected and come back to life again. I know what has been missing over the past 2+ years. Suddenly I can hear the lyrics from Hamilton in my head: "I wanna be in the room where it happens..." And I have been.
I've been so ...
Today I was listening to Henri Lipmanowicsz and Keith McCandless tell part of the origin story of Liberating Structures. Henri made a compelling point that concepts are all very well and good, but for change to come, people need structures. So many people are not poor leaders by choice, but because ...
Where once I felt like a voice at the rim calling for more attention on the relational field, the more we move online the more it becomes obvious that relationship is at the heart of transformation. In fact, that might be the most important thing I learned joining Civil Defense all those years ago i...
Last week I was in Moscow at the 10th Russian Faciliators Conference as one of the international guests. Although I never dreamed I would stand in Red Square, I had a fabulous time of teaching and learning in a field hungry for tools, techniques and ways to touch the heart.
In our planning, I talke...