– Vaclav Havel

A barefoot facilitator is to a professional facilitator

what a paramedic is to a doctor:

A person with a basic and versatile tool kit and enough savvy to skillfully support what is needed 80% of the time, and for a fraction of the cost.

I resonate with Havel’s statement above: we are going through a massive transitional period. This “Great Turning” is calling for collective intelligence, collective wisdom and collective capacity as never before. We are being asked to revolutionize how we work together.

To help things go better, I’m inspired by the “barefoot doctors’ of Mao’s China. In the mid-60s, there was little access to medical care in rural areas, and not enough resources to supply fully trained doctors. Instead, 30,000 villagers were trained in basic Western and Chinese medicine — enough to treat common ailments, and to share information about hygiene, family planning, and prevention of epidemics.

They were called “barefoot doctors” because when they weren’t tending to basic medical needs, these people continued to farm barefoot in the rice paddies along side their neighbours. Almost overnight, this important innovation revolutionized health outcomes in rural China.

By analogy, we do not have resources or capacity to supply professional facilitators to all the meetings and group endeavours supporting the great shifts underway. There are, however, thousands of people in all walks of life already up-skilling their ability to facilitate deep and lasting change in the human systems of which they are a part.

Perhaps you already know that you are a “barefoot facilitator”. Perhaps you welcome the invitation to so serve. Either way, I hope you step up and offer your skills and awareness in the groups you are part of, and I hope you find ways to keep deepening your capacity to understand group dynamics.

If you are interested in co-creating a movement to revolutionize how we work together, including spreading the idea of “barefoot facilitation”, I’d love to hear from you.

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Years ago I was in a workshop with the great Jean Houston. The culmination of three days was an invitation to cross a threshold between who I had been and who I might become. We could do this by stepping over a line marked out on the floor by a string of tealights — a ritual of conscious and transformative change.

Who knew that such a simple exercise could be so powerful.

As I come up to the line, all my fears and resistance concentrate in my chest and throat. I stand at the “edge”, gathering myself. I have the distinct experience of energy moving, as though whole complexes and patterns are coming to the surface and breaking up in the face of my intention to transform. With time I feel a readiness — a clarity that I can and should step over the line —  and a quiet shift within that I know is a quantum increase in self-authority and self-acceptance. I step over, and instantly there is more space, and more vulnerability. I don’t yet have sea legs in this new ocean of possibility. In a short time though, I stabilize. I am excited. I’ve passed over into a new world.

If you are dogged by a pattern you’d love to shift, I recommend creating a ritual of transformative change for yourself.

Here are the basic elements:

• Name what you want to transform and listen for the new that is seeking to emerge.
• Create a container for yourself — pick a time and place that has meaning, and ask people from your inner circle to join you in the process, or to bear witness. Decide the format — what will represent your threshold?
• Prepare yourself. Before a rite of passage there is an energetic need for a “vigil” — a time of reflection and cleansing that supports one to be ready for transformation.
• Humbly honour your truth at the heart of the ritual: do you commit to what is emerging or not? Only cross over your symbolic threshold if you are truly letting go of the old and embracing the new. This is not a mental shift, but one that happens at the level of deep inner knowing.
• If you cross over, celebrate! There is a reason that marriages and funeral always include food. The “nodal” points where we take a different path need to be marked, and celebrating with food is in our DNA.

You can also honour this basic five step architechture any time you do something new or big, since the newness/bigness involves “stepping over a line”.

I recently facilitated a three day board retreat for a large multi-stakeholder group. In the days before, I allowed myself more quiet time, knowing I was deepening and gathering myself as preparation to hold space for a dynamic group process. Afterwards, I celebrated (a part of the cycle too many of us neglect too often!!).

Creating rituals, and seeing more of what we do through the lens of ritual, are two ways to support transformative change.

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I felt pressure to be productive — to tackle the next items on my “to do” list. But the times I tried to do a priority task, I felt either like I was spinning my wheels or slogging through molasses.

Then I got it: I’m in transition. Like a caterpillar, I’m morphing from one phase to another — from introverted author to being out in the world. And like a caterpillar, the process needs space and time away from the world of doing and busyness, in the container of a crysalis.

In the midst of the lostness, it felt like forever. I poked and prodded myself, wondering if I was stuck or avoiding something. But there was no point pushing. It just mucked things up. At my wisest, I did simple tasks like updating my mailing list — a modern day equivalent of sorting wheat from chaff.

Some time later, the lostness lifted, effortlessly, like mist dispersing.

Are you (or is someone you love) in transition? Perhaps an outer shift, from one job to another, or an inner shift from one role or phase of life to the next.

If you are like me (and most), you resist dissolving. It’s not comfortable to be so vulnerable. One is also out of step with the tsunami of pressures from the outside: mainstream society expects us to be like machines — producting units of output in a constant stream and at a uniform pace.

It’s important to honour our times of transition. They take us to new and better places in non-linear leaps.

Here’s what I say to myself and others: ”Have patience. Trust the process. It’s great that you are transforming.”

***
P.S. You can work this one the other way too: give yourself the gift of “crysalis time” by opening up a space in your calendar. There is likely a back log of transitions waiting for a break in the action.

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For years I have used the simple breathing exercise below as part a daily practice of setting my energy and intentions for the day. I also do the practice whenever I feel out of balance or off-centre. I encourage you to try it.

When you experience the immediate benefits — how your energy centres and settles — you might be inspired to take a few moments for this way of breathing before a big phone call, or meeting, or task.

The more you are able to integrate this centring practice into your daily life, the more it will be available to you in a time of crisis. You will have self soothed with figure of eight breathing (or a similar mindfulness practice) for so many smaller storms that it will be your automatic response to bigger ones.

Let me know how you find it.

Figure of Eight Breathing

1. Optional: take off eyeglasses, any heavy jewellery, and footwear made of rubber or plastic.
2. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, eyes closed, and your attention on your breath. Sitting or lying down works too, but standing is the easiest way to start.
3. Inhaling slowly, bring your awareness to your heart.
4. Exhaling slowly, imagine your breath is traveling down the front of your body and penetrating to the centre of the Earth.
5. Inhaling slowly, imagine you are drawing energy up from the centre of the Earth and up the back of your body, and into your heart.
6. Exhaling slowly, imagine that your breath is going from your heart up the front of your body as high as it can go – to Ether, the stars, heaven – whatever works for you.
7. Inhaling slowly, imagine you are drawing energy down from above, down the back of your body and into your heart.
8. Repeat this “figure of eight” as long as feels right – perhaps 5-20 cycles at the beg
   inning. When you are familiar with this practice, four or five cycles is enough to feel quite grounded.

To start, I suggest tracing the figure of eight shape with one hand, as a way to help your awareness move.

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Small acts done with pure love have more value than grand accomplishments based in ego or competition. Being true to yourself or to your organization’s vision, how ever small the act, has more value than great accomplishments on someone else’s agenda.

This is not to say that great accomplishments don’t have value. Rather that the quality of intention and alignment matters more than the quantity of impact. To make the greatest contribution, take time to know your life purpose and calling. Become familiar with the texture of when you are on track. Trust that quality of energy, and allow it to guide you. This the best way to serve any group you are part of.

As you bring forth your authentic contributions you will open space for others to do the same, helping to bring your group and organization into alignment. As you pay attention to the quality of your essence, you will have the clarity and strength for “choiceless change”. It is no longer a struggle to bring forth your perspectives and offerings. You simply bring your best and release.

Making your authentic offering is fulfilling in itself, and releases you from needing a particular outcome. Letting go of outcome, paradoxically, is what creates the most space for co-creation. You help create conditions for magic. Find the quality of being that is most aligned to you, and cleave to that.

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In 2003, two women internal to the bank wanted to make positive change. One worked in the Human Resources department; the other had the “Sustainability” brief.

Their first move was to invite everyone in the bank to a meeting to discuss, “What legacy would you like to leave?”. To their delight, seventy-five people showed up from all corners — across departments, generations and genders, and from bottom to top of the hierarchy.

With this strong response, and thanks to high-level champions, the original pair brought in two consultants to launch what soon gelled as a “Personal Leadership and Change Community”.

Listening for what had attracted people (the need), the group framed its core purpose:

“To live, plant, and support action at [the bank] towards more meaningful and inspiring work/life.”

They also identified ten guiding principles, including:

• We are nourished by successes and mistakes along our way
• We support and inspire each other
• We investigate and connect to other initiatives in [the bank] of a similar intent.

The group was not a department. It had no head honcho, and no budget. Instead what it offered were “spaces” — an intranet site, monthly circles, and quarterly World Cafe or Open Space events, where people were invited to share their ideas and dreams and to find others to join them in taking action.

The Change Community became the “go to” place for people with an idea, and spawned initiatives ranging from events and programs all the way to policy change for the bank as a whole.

Taking stock after five years, here is how they articulated their successes:

Benefits to the Business we saw…

• Nurturing internal innovation capabilities
• Shaping and igniting leadership capacities
• Engaging across diverse business units, functions, and cultures
• Developing design and hosting skills
• Attracting and motivating key employees
• Activating dialogue
• Expanding imagination and generating creative solutions
• Exploring and responding to tomorrow’s opportunities
• Developing collaborative potential
• Experiencing intergenerational discussion and wisdom
• Building trust, relationships and accountability
• Fostering internal personal and institutional resiliency

Supporting change agents supports change. When the purpose is making a difference, beneficial initiatives can come from anywhere in a system. Chaordic Design is a powerful framework for creating an environment that nurtures and connects change makers, whether for an organization as a whole, or for a self-selecting community within a larger context as in the Dutch bank.

In this particular story, a 2009 merger swept in new management. There was no longer high level support for the Change Community and there ceased to be monthly meetings. But the genie was out of the bottle. The ripples had made changes in forty-five departments of the bank. The new skills and experience of working “chaordically” cannot help but be part of ongoing stories of everyone involved. In fact, several of these Change Community members are now entrepreneurs using the Chaordic lens in designing their new ventures.

Related posts:

• Trust is the foundation of healthy groups (and everything)
• Effective Group Decision-making
• Why I’m writing “Make Light Work in Groups”

The post Supporting Change Agents appeared first on Kate Sutherland.

Here are her highlights:

• Use what you have. Get the most out of the letters that the game gives you.
• Don’t hold back certain letters hoping to get better combos. I.e. don’t hang on to “I” “N”, “G” hoping to make a fancy word. Keep things moving.
• If you find a great move, look for at least two other options. Challenge yourself to find a better option.
• Don’t be afraid to open up the board. Creating opportunities for your opponent also creates opportunities for you.
• At the end of each day, don’t worry if you’ve won or lost. The real goal is to keep playing, including enjoying the company of your fellow players.

Listening to Saskia, I realize that I have “Swimming Wisdom” — insights distilled from 40 years of swimming laps. Here’s one of my favourites:

• Just jump in! Standing on the edge doesn’t get you anywhere, and putting it off doesn’t take away the need to get into the water.

I bet, if we scratch a bit, that each of us has grounded, super practical wisdom from noticing what works and what doesn’t from some aspect of our life. And because this wisdom comes from within, it is generally custom-tailored to the particulars of our situation. Saskia’s Scrabble Wisdom might or might not be meaningful for you, but the practice of noticing what you notice (flirts) is gold for most of us.

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In fact, I have to sidetrack to mention an earlier one, just in case you or someone you know is plagued by back pain: The Mind-body Prescription, by Dr. John E. Sarno. I read it five years ago and have been pain free, leaving behind — simply by reading the book — what had been decades of chronic neck and back pain, and hundreds of visits to a chiropractor. May it be as beneficial to you and yours as it has been to me.

Based on my experience with Sarno’s book, I paid attention when Mike mentioned Catherine Ingram as an author he quite likes, and later sent this link to an interview. The video is long (53 minutes), and it think that is part of its effectiveness. The slower start helped me trust her, and gives a helpful context.

What I particularly love is how Catherine speaks of “redirecting attention”. It’s a phrase that resonates: attention is like a train on a track and tends to trundle along where the track takes it. These past few days, thanks to Catherine’s inspiring talk, I’ve been more able to flip the switch when my mind is caught in unhelpful grooves.

No fuss. No muss. Just simple redirection.

One of the great benefits of doing inner work on a regular basis is (A) you more quickly realize that you are caught in an unhelpful groove, and (B) you are more able to “redirect” your attention — quickly, simply, and with minimal effort.

Some grooves are deeper and more compelling than others, but with practice one can cultivate a habit of redirecting to the present moment — free of tracks and grooves, and much happier for it.

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Trust Theory

The core of Jack Gibb’s Trust Theory is a simple idea: higher levels of trust correlate to higher levels of functioning in groups.

Imagine a spectrum from fear to trust. Every group and organization is operating within a particular band along the spectrum from high fear to high trust. The higher the levels of trust, the more creative, innovative, dynamic and effective the group or organization will be.

Gibb distinquished ten levels of trust, along with their corresponding leadership styles and assumptions about how to get things done. According to Gibb, in most group contexts, individuals are scattered within two to three levels on his scale, and where there are wider discrepancies, it is hard for people to be in the same group.

TORI

Gibb also expressed Trust Theory in the acronym “TORI” which stands for Trust, Openness, Realization and Interdependence. TORI holds that when there is a high level of TRUST we are freed up to be ourselves, dropping roles and positions. This naturally leads to OPENNESS — information flows between people; people say what they think, know, need and care about. Trust and openness lead to REALIZATION — people express and create in ways that are deeply meaningful. When groups have high levels of trust, openness and realization, they naturally mature into higher levels of INTERDEPENDENCE, boundaries blur and there is ever more synergy and effectiveness.

TORI theory says that the best way to cultivate trust is to create a “high quality environment”.

By creating a high quality environment, you create conditions for trust to emerge. Once there is trust, energy flows, and that flow leads naturally to openness, realization and interdependence. It is that simple.

How to create a high trust environment

According to Trust Theory, the most powerful lever for creating a high trust environment is choosing one’s own internal environment:

“Clear evidence from biofeedback and from more clinical approaches demonstrates that supposedly “involuntary” and “unconscious” processes can be brought under voluntary and conscious control. I give myself my trust and my joy. I create my life. I create my own mindbodyspirit in ways that would once have been discussed only in the wildest fantasies of science fiction.” Jack Gibb, Trust: A New View of Personal and Organizational Development, Los Angeles, The Guild of Tudors Press, 1978. pg 69.

In other words, I can choose to trust both myself and my environment. I can shift myself out of fear and into trust. Making this choice has a profound effect on how I experience my environment, and it ripples out to profoundly effect how others experience the same environment. There is a contagion effect.

I think of it as throwing my hat into the ring. Or taking a plunge. I choose to trust myself. I am enough. I don’t need to take on a role or mask to protect myself and keep myself safe. I don’t need to be careful about what I say or do. I can trust what flows through me. I can let myself flow.

This trust in my essential goodness allows me to trust the essential goodness in others. I won’t be “killed”, or humiliated. I trust that I can handle what results from me being me. It is safe for me to unfold.

The environment is high quality BECAUSE I choose to see it that way and act accordingly. I create my own environment through my internal choices.

I can have this stance towards life, towards myself, and towards my environment, regardless of my formal role in the group or organization.

This is not so much about being a leader, as being myself.

The more I can be myself, trusting that it is safe for me to show up without leaving anything at the door, the more I create safety for others to do the same.

This emphasis on authenticity has a powerful impact on groups. When I drop the “role” of group facilitator, paradoxically I am much more effective at supporting groups to be effective. I find the same thing as a parent, coach and instructor. It is as if my stepping out from behind a cardboard cut out predefined role sends a signal that everyone else can be themselves too.

Try it for yourself. Trust Theory is the foundation of everything I do.

Related posts:

Why I’m writing “Make Light Work in Groups”

Effective Group Decision Making

The post Trust is the foundation of healthy groups (and everything) appeared first on Kate Sutherland.

At first I framed my inquiry in isolation: It furthers the Make Light Work body of work for me to participate in XXX conference. My intuitive response was “Yes”, but I sensed a hesitancy. This nudged me to reframe the issue, this time including more context: Taking into consideration all the ways I can further Make Light Work, it is a high priority for me to participate in conference XXX. This time I got a “No”.

Experiences like this remind me of my early encounters with computer programming, back in the days when one talked to computers through cards with holes punched in them. Until I was diligent about including every single step, my programs were “Garbage in, Garbage out.”  I.e. not the basis for making wise decisions.

Here’s a checklist of factors that you might need to include when tuning in about a specific decision:

• What is the appropriate timeframe — today, this week, this year…?
• What is the context — How much is on the table — e.g my energy on this project, my energy on all current projects, all my energy?
• What is the best duration? I.e. this action is a priority, but for 5 minutes, not 50.
• Am I aware of enough of the context and/or possibilities to tune in at this point?
• Is it appropriate for me to be the one tuning in? (It’s important not to usurp decisions that rightly belong with a client or family member.)

And here’s a wonderful catch-all statement: The way I am framing the inquiry serves the highest. If you don’t get a “Yes”, keep listening for what is trying to come through.

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