Convening

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

(Margaret Mead)

As I convene groups, I’m ever more conscious that first steps are fateful.

I’ve learned that if I feel myself advocating, attempting to persuade, cajole or coax, I’m talking to an audience rather than a group with potential to bring creative energy into the world. So, instead, I speak tentatively, sensing hopefully into the alchemical moment when connection, mutuality and reciprocity transmutes our shared curiosity into collective commitment.

There’s a paradox in this; productive groups seem to meet through synchronicity, accidentally, and only slowly discover what they might bring into the world. It’s some distance away from conventional business or ‘project management’ practices where a task is declared, operational reporting lines and accountabilities are established, plans announced and people are ‘volunteered.’ And on too many occasions, I’ve seen change projects dissolve or unravel, benignly or otherwise, or are tactfully ‘superseded’ as circumstances change and discontent begins to rumble.

Our work environments are often structured, both physically and administratively, to avoid the open spaces and conversations that might enable meaningful conversation and creative change. We organise for ‘efficiency and effectiveness’ and rely on the water cooler to facilitate conversations that really matter. As I gather groups in business ‘meeting spaces’ - often with a projector, screen and rows of desks - I usually place chairs in a circle to symbolise my intention for equality and shared inquiry. Then I’m always bemused when we return to the room after lunch to find that ‘facilities’ have dutifully reset everything to the prescribed floor plan.

In a similar way, I’m fascinated at how novelty and innovation slowly dissolve in the face of ‘normality’ as radical explorations meet the ‘system-world’ of institutional processes and procedures. New ideas meet constant slight adjustments or attritional accommodations, often made with the best intent, which reveal that, even as we optimistically responded to the cry for creativity and innovation, we were never actually on the same side.

So rather than fight rearguard actions, dealing with the resistance, caution and anxiety that genuine change in organisational systems involves, I’m moving more slowly, resisting in myself the urge to define an issue or outcome. I’m deliberately slowing the conversations, checking, working through assumptions, holding the dialogue open, resisting the early move to act.

I’m investing time and patience in gently searching for the deeper question - one that is collectively held and has the significance to endure. One that will provide the space for a story big enough to sustain our interest and engagement. One that always has, and always will, call out to us.

I’m finding that these first steps are faltering, shaky, and unsure.

But I’d sooner find my fate working alongside a group prepared to hold good questions rather than misplaced answers.

Notes:

I’m a massive fan of ‘Start Close In,’ a poem by David Whyte. Here is a version spoken by David which always reminds me that, as I initiate or attempt to catalyse change, my first move should always be inwards…

Peter Block’s ‘Community: the structure of belonging,’ now revised for our digitally connected world, is a fabulous challenge to the conventional wisdom of how we might shape generative futures and flourishing communities.

Finally, spend some time in the ‘Living the Questions’ section of the ‘On Being’ website. The invitation, offered by Krista Tippett and her team is remarkable:

“Inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke, who understood that when we are unable to live the answers to the questions in our midst, we are then called to hold, love, and live the questions. Our world is defined by raw, aching, open questions — personal, and civilizational — that we must live now if we hope to live our way eventually into new answers together.”