Designing-organising Women Moving the Edge 1

Combination of reflections from the Art of Hosting and the book that is very present right now Leadership can be Taught, by Sharon Daloz Parks.

Ideas in no particular Order

Intergenerational – important to have various ages and life stages in the conversation

The importance of “Mates”!!  So for us, that may be “Sisters”.  This means calling on each other for support, assistance, collaboration.

The importance of well crafted and powerful questions as ways to engage meaningful conversations.  These can be used throughout the time together to galvanize new thinking or a new direction.  They can come from the hosts and the participants.  We can create questions together.

The dance between order and chaos

Structure or lack of.  I am growing to see the importance of an underlying design which holds, supports, and nourishes the possibilities and creativity in the group.  There is a delicate balance.  When there is no structure or what was planned is not in alignment with what wants to emerge, then this bubbles up to the surface and the design has to adjust.  The ideal is to anticipate these kinds of unexpected turnings in the design so that it moves in rhythm with the group.

Paraphrasing a quote from Leadership can be Taught   Reflects the Leadership teaching of Ron Heifetz at Harvard.  P. 215  Quote by Dean Williams who teaches with Ron.

The group process and the leadership or the artist …

“…there is a canvas, and you are going to create on that canvas, but it’s neither arbitrary nor capricious.  There is a design underneath it all – the framework we’re working with, but the manifestation of that framework is new every time.  So, as with any artist, you don’t create out of nothing.  Artists have their palette, their tools, and their orientation.  There is spontaneity and improvisation, but underneath that is the design, the model, the skill, the technology that allows us to do it relatively well.”

We can work with and explore women’s leadership in 3 ways:

• Individual – how can each step into purposeful leadership in our own way
• With the Other, the team, the group – how do we collaborate, who are we collectively as leaders?
• With the community or the world – the larger picture – what is women’s leadership in the consciousness of women, how is it evolving, what is the shadow, what is emerging?  What does this mean for us?

The above can be a way to approach and to look at archetypes, the collective unconscious, individual path and purpose, how we hold ourselves and each other back, the cultural and societal norms we work within, the role of the warrior and the midwife, to name a few. 

Warriorship can be the courage and action to continually give birth to something new.  So is this the yang that we need to bring forward to balance the midwife in us?

Authenticity – how can we create conversations that encourage authenticity, that can hold the awkward or difficult questions, and to do that at a level of consciousness that is fully present and aware of the delicate balance this presents.  To disagree or challenge but not to come to anger or insults.

Paradox – a lot about paradox and holding the “both and”.

The metaphor of the “dance floor” and the “balcony”

Idea of default settings.  How do our belief systems stop us, inhibit us, hold us back.  How do we bring to light these areas where default settings must change?

Leadership can be Taught   p. 196 Idea of  Trips (head trips) – our repeated behavioral patterns, the things we think we know, being right.  Traps (default settings)  How are we caught in Trips and Traps?

Leadership p. 210  Working on the Edge

p. 213 Improvisation – working on the edge within a field of interdependent relationships.  Create structure, boundaries, limits within which to improvise – the design, the framework underneath.

Harvesting or closing – consider the “fallow”, “planting” and “harvesting”

We all put on post-it stickies as individuals – what needs to lay fallow for now?

What are we planting, sowing the seeds for?

What are we harvesting, moving forward with into action?

We then put these up on a big chart under the headings Fallow, Planting, and Harvesting.  Then we went into small groups of 4 each and shared what we had put down and talked about that.  It was very powerful.  It also gave an opportunity to connect with others we had not yet connected to.

We came back to the large group.  The facilitators shared some themes they saw on the stickies under each heading.

We then closed the circle.  We stood and held hands, looked around at all the faces.  Then we dropped hands and turned around and took a large step out (as the circle widened and we prepared to leave)

The following are just ideas that came to me and I don't want to lose them - just put them in the field, the "Middle"

Oct. 22, 2006

Ideas for Women Moving the Edge

Some key words, concepts

The edge – learning edge, moving the edge of consciousness, the edge of a new way of stepping into leadership as women, exploring the edge

Collective

Women and Collective leadership

Use the Edge as a major part of the question

Where is the learning edge for each of us, for our role as women, as leaders, as contributors to a conscious society?

Some women things – collective consciousness

–        holding back, what is that about?

–        being relational – where is the edge between relational and confrontational and authenticity? How can we work with that?  How does this connect to our being effective leaders for change?

–        Our default settings, blind spots, what are they, how do they keep us from fully stepping into who we are?

–        Blaming – has this been a diversion from really stopping forward.

–        How are we collectively, are we willing to look into that?

–        Continue to contribute and draw from the conversations on Zaadz and see what others might be

Workshop modalities

–        Various kinds of dialogue – World Café, PCP, Enlightened Communication, others

–        Open Space – how can we best harvest for the large group the wisdom and learnings of smaller groups?

–        Role of meditation and silence

–        Ritual – maybe creating new rituals for our time.  Can build upon the full moon.  Full moon is at 12:17 AM on March 4.  Best time to energize is in the hours preceding so perfect timing for us.

–        Celebration, movement, dance, voice/tone/vibration

–        Connect to Nature

–        Ways to practice leadership in the moment – views from the balcony and the dance floor  - refers to work of Ron Heifetz at Harvard and book Leadership Can Be Taught  by Sharon Daloz Parks

–        Role of U Theory and work of Otto Scharmer – article from Shambhala  Institute.  His new book on the U Process will be out in January, 2007 (they say)