Polarization. Anger. Disrespect. Verbal abuse. We have all seen too much of it over the past decade. Whether it dealing with a Zoom Bomber polluting a meeting with hate speech or a person who does not listen to perspectives they disagree with, the job of being a facilitator is not getting easier.
And still people are getting good work done in settings as diverse as community town halls to focused conferences. How?
Facilitation is one of the three core skills of systems leadership. And one of the most common things facilitators need to work with are members who bring important data to the facilitator outside of the group. This might come in the form of a private co ...
Much of what I have learned about systems leadership was gained working with groups of people focused on how to make our food system (everything that happens from farm to fork) more resilient, just, and healthy. Over the past 20 years I helped launch or support more than a dozen food policy councils across the U.S. West. These councils (which were commonly known as Food Systems Alliances) brought together interests from across the food system to influence community attitudes, change policy, and manage local food projects.
Recently I was contacted by a group trying to start a council in New York State who asked:
Systems mapping is one of the tools I like to use with groups grappling with complexity. They can help clarify the situation and where to best make changes. But they can also be fearsomely complex and hard to read. Here is a two-part blog post from one of ...
10 Circles as name for this site came to me intuitively as way describe what I experienced high-functioning groups do at their peakâcross multiple frames of reference (circles) to see and act from the whole. Each of approaches a situation, idea, or chall ...