THE ART OF HOSTING, VANCOUVER
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Hosting ourselves, each other, our work in the world

10/15/2015

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Posted by Caitlin Frost

This summer I had the privilege of co-hosting a 3 day intensive training with 95 leaders and change-makers from more than 17 European countries. We took a morning to dive into the crucial area of hosting ourselves in the form of working with our own stuck places, fears and patterns.

In order to be able to fully step into the challenges we are facing - both the large scale, deeply complex issues like transforming our financial system, or poverty, or racism...and the seemingly smaller but sometimes also challenging areas of how we collaborate and work through our differences in our teams, families and communities - we need rigorous and compassionate personal practice to allow us not just to move through the places we get triggered or stuck, but to actually fully engage the learning that is available at that threshold.

It is always a powerful experience to sit in a circle of our colleagues and make visible the often hidden territory of our own shadowed thinking, and to hear the patterns and shared places we get stuck. It is a first, valuable step in bringing these patterns to light where we can work with them - individually and collectively. 

Noticing the patterns of belief about our own value or our own capacity to show up and do the work (“I don’t have enough experience”); our judgements and assumptions about other people or groups of people (“They don’t get it” “They can’t be trusted”); our fears of what will happen (“it will fail” “I will lose my job” “people will get hurt”), and also the big fears that can immobilize us (“it is too late” “the problems are too big”.)

While it is valuable (and often a relief) to see and hear the beliefs and patterns that are holding us back individually and collectively, we also need to engage deeply and skillfully with them so that we can learn what we need to learn for our own evolution, and to allow for the evolution of our work in the world to come from new ways of thinking.

Join us at the Art of Hosting Meaningful Conversations and Participatory Leadership on Bowen Island from November 8th to 11th where we will explore practices for hosting yourself alongside practices for hosting others, to strengthen your ability to work with complexity, uncertainty & change. Or join our mailing list to hear about upcoming events (enter your contact info at the bottom of this page).


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Doing Meetings Better

10/6/2015

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Posted by Amanda Fenton

Every time we gather becomes a model of the future we want to create. – Peter Block

​In today's world we live with the paradox that meetings are an important tool for leaders and change-makers, yet they can be an ineffective and expensive strategy.

We are used to attending meetings we don’t know the purpose of, meetings where people interrupt and talk over each other, meetings where the same people almost never speak, meetings that shy away from difficult dynamics, meetings that end without anything tangible in our hands that can be followed-up on, and meetings where decisions are made that few people support.

The good news: We can do meetings differently. It is possible to create a participatory meeting structure where the purpose is clear, relationships are fostered, diverse opinions are welcomed, creative solutions are generated, and difficult decisions are made.

Our hosting colleague Tenneson Woolf describes this as “Better Skills, Better Meetings”:
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This is what many people want. It is as basic to organizational health as regular exercise is to personal health. The Art of Hosting, and the general framing of participative leadership, offers a set of tools, methodologies, perspectives, and practices to help improve meetings. Committee meetings. Staff meetings. Or repeated meetings that are engagement strategies for long-term community involvement. Our intent at The Art of Hosting is to help all participants leave as improved practitioners able to host better and more meaningful meetings.

Hosting meetings differently can be a strategic disruptor that shifts stuck teams, catalyzes projects, and creates new patterns that lead to better results. People are hungry for more effective meetings and practices for working better together amidst times of rapid change and high complexity.

Join us at the Art of Hosting Meaningful Conversations and Participatory Leadership on Bowen Island from November 8th to 11th (more info is here). Discover new ways to host better and more meaningful meetings.

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