Transformation ~ Personal, Social, and Global

Diversity: Considering the Roots of Civil Rights

2010-12-01T07:03:00.003-07:00

As we prepare for our first two deep dives in January in Portland, I am continuing to delve into Civil Rights in my own way. This morning a Facebook friend passed me a video set to Nina Simone's 1964 song, Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood.

The series of photos included in the video reminded me of the Little Rock Nine. I live in Northern Arkansas. Just 80 miles from here, in 1957, nine African American children were enrolled in Little Rock Central High School. The students had initially been blocked by the Governor, but this was over-ridden by President Eisenhower.

On the first day of school, the Governer called the Arkansas State Guard to form a blockade to prevent the students from entering and to support the segregationist protestors. Two weeks later the children entered the school for the first time, under the watchful eye of the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army. In fact, Eisenhower actually federalized the Arkansas State Guard in order to take them out of the Governor's command.

The nine children were then subject to a year of physical and verbal abuse. They were spat upon, beaten up, and one even had acid thrown into her eyes.

I sit here now deeply ashamed. Not ashamed to be white, and not ashamed to be an Arkie. In this moment I feel deeply ashamed of being a human. I do not understand what madness drives any human to these ends. By what madness has it ever been okay to terrorize children?

Diversity: When Comfort Leaks Ignorance

2010-10-26T07:02:00.007-06:00

As we prepare to conduct our first conversations with various groups in the Pacific Northwest, I have been observing the behaviour of Forest Service employees in other regions and in other programs. I have recently noticed some dynamics and I am curious about the underlying structures in our system which produce these behavioural outcomes.

A group of middle managers were together for the third session of a six month leadership development course. They had been face to face together for three one-week sessions and felt a strong sense of rapport. During a discussion about the ladder of inference, the group explored the assumption that "all the good jobs in the agency are wired," meaning that a number of hiring officials had engaged in pre-selection.

During the course of the conversation, meant to illustrate the power of making assumptions, the group circled around to a cultural belief that there are diversity quotas and that sometimes the most skilled candidate is overlooked in favor of what's referred to as "the diversity candidate." There are really two interesting dynamics which became apparent to me as I observed the discussion.

First, the group's comments demonstrate a shared belief that there is a difference between the most skilled candidate and the diversity candidate. This implies that collectively we don't believe that the most diverse individual may also be the most skilled individual. When I frame it thus, the logical mind rejects the thought. Of course there are highly skilled individuals in every race! Therefore, I submit that the individuals in the room were not cognizant that their behaviour demonstrated an illogical prejudice.

Second, of the nearly 40 people in the room, all were caucasian but one. It seemed as if those individuals contributing to the group conversation had no awareness that there was a person of color in the room who may have felt discomfort. (Unlike the others, this man may have noticed the assumption which was exposed in my first point.) Maybe they felt so comfortable together that they did not view the man of color as anything apart from themselves? In fact, that idea by itself is beautiful - why should a group of friends view the one man as anything different from how they view themselves?

The two notions together create an interesting tension in our cultural beliefs (writen in a perspective which may represent the majority of our employees): the people with whom I am friendly are just like me, but the people with whom I must compete for employment are different and less skilled.

As I probe the possibilities in this thought experiement, it occurs to me that employment satisfies our most basic needs for food and shelter. Food and shelter are fundamental to our ability to survive. Competition for a job, then, is very closely assosciated with competition for survival. We could say that these two drives are parallel.

So, then, if the drive to compete for employment is parallel to the drive to compete for survival, then is it possible that while under the influence of these tandem drives, an individual may experience amygdala hijacking? This question deserves a whole new blog post. But for now, this is certainly something on which to chew.

Diversity: Crafting the Questions

2010-09-27T07:54:00.008-06:00

In order to conduct a thorough exploration of the Civil Rights System in the Pacific Northwest Region of the US Forest Service, we will be hosting a number of focus groups and dialogue circles. The success of each conversation, and ultimately the project at large, begins with identifying just the right questions to ask.

I propose the following Four Levels of Listening, from Otto Scharmer, as a model which can steer our project team both in the development of questions and in providing us with a shared language to use when planning the process for our focus groups and dialogue circles. Also, this model can help us to assess the depth of the information gleened in each session.

According to Otto Scharmer's work, Theory U, there are four levels of listening. At level one listening I hear you through the filters of my own attitudes and beliefs. As I listen I compare what you are saying with what I already think. I seek to either accept or reject your words based on whether or not they confirm my own judgements. At level one listening, what you say to me does not fit in with what I already believe, I will reject your words and I may even reject you.

At level two listening I have stopped my internal thinking and am simply hearing what you say. Because your words aren't passing through the filter of my own attitudes, I am willing to change my mind based on what you've said. That's why Scharmer calls it the "Open Mind" phase.

At level three listening I have become emotionally hooked on what you are saying. Some how during the course of conversation I experienced an empathetic connection to the words. Now I'm not only listening with an open mind, but an open heart as well. When you're chatting with co-workers at the water cooler, and the conversation switches from football to someone's recent cancer diagnosis, the listening leaps from levels one and two to level three. You can feel the shift in the room. You'll notice that when an entire group shifts to level three, some people will even place their hands on their hearts for a moment.

Level four happens the least frequently but provides the most memorable experience of conversation and connection. When I am in a group and we are all engaged at this depth, I feel like the very forces of creativity and innovation are passing through us. I find that the words which move through me in these moments represent completely new ideas. I'm often startled at the clarity afforded in these moments of being "in the flow" with others.

As we craft our key questions we'll need some questions which specifically target each level. Here's an example:

If we trust the model and agree that the greatest learning occurs at deeper levels of listening, then it becomes strategically important to drive the group toward conflict and debate (level two) in order to reach levels three and four.

What do you think? What are the really hard questions? What sorts of debates stand between our intention and our collective learning?

Diversity: Epigenetic Factors

2010-09-22T07:01:00.004-06:00

Epigenetic factors are the biases, prejudices, and fears passed from one generation to the next. (Villoldo 2010).

Along with hair color, shape of nose, length of legs, we inherit a great deal of our thinking from our families. Carolyn Myss compares communities that are ethnically and culturally similar to tribes. Being strongly identified with a tribe means that some percentage of the individual's thoughts and actions are dictated by the tribe.

Here's an example, many white teens raised in small Mid-Western, rural towns choose to become Republican and Christian as adults, which reflects the dominant paradigm of their community. As children, we cannot fully comprehend politics, religion, and philosophy so we default to expressing the same views as our parents and other nearby role models. Even adult tribe members don't often take time to consider religion, politics, and philosophy to any great length. It is more efficient to default to the tribe, or often to the leader of the tribe. Believing that the leader is responsible and accountable and leaving the details to him is a justification for reduced consciousness, reduced awareness.

The epigenetic factors passed from generation to generation are patterns because the complex of biases, prejudices, and fears take the form of neural networks (see pic) which have been reinforced by each generation and then validated throughout one's own life as we "see that which we expect to see" of others.

Socialization is the process of being introduced to the thought constructs of our parents. It's the replication of neural circuitry from generation to generation. We are introduced to our parents thought constructs in the simply course of daily living. For efficiency and survival we are programmed to largely trust and accept these ideas. And that helps us fit in with the tribe. Around the age in which the young leave the family home there is a window of opportunity in which rebellion and differentiation from the parents may include becoming aware of and rejecting inherited thought patterns. Other opportunities to notice and reject social programming arise throughout adulthood. Frequently in the form of negative feedback.

As we journey to the center of the Civil Rights system it is important we maintain awareness of the concept of epigenetic factors. I suspect that the replication of neural circuitry among tribe members who share thought constructs produces an electromagnetic resonnance which increases the gravity of that thought construct.

The beliefs we share with our family and our community of choice produce a sense of cohesion, safety, and trust. These beliefs are interwoven with sentiments such as care for and appreciation of our community. The sensitivity around epigenetic factors is this: When we invite someone to notice their own subconscious attitudes and actions they may discover incongruence. The individual may discover that her subconscious attitudes and actions are not at all in alignment with her values. This can be quite shocking and a big part of the threat is that it calls into question one's loyalty to the tribe.

It has only been five or six generations since Americans owned slaves. It has only been three generations since Germany sought to exterminate Jews. Some epigenetic factors are connected to actual trauma experienced by recent ancestors. Passing down fear of enemies is a survival instinct.

Delving into this lake of the collective subconscious with the intention of understanding why our workforce does not reflect the population demographics of the American public will require sensitivity, respect, trust, and honor. (gulp)

Diversity: Circling the Lake Together

2010-09-21T07:36:00.004-06:00

Last week I flew to Portland to meet the project team for the Civil Rights & Diversity Systems Mapping project. The project team includes Laurie Thorpe, the Executive Officer for Independent Resources (a Forest Service Enterprise Team) and Heidi Bigler Cole, who holds PhD in Social Sciences. We held a three hour meeting and invited employees from the region to meet the project team and join us in framing the project. There were probably 25 people in total.

During the session we shared a definition of systems thinking and together explored why it might be valuable to take a systems approach to understanding the Civil Rights program in the Pacific Northwest Region of the US Forest Service.

In my last blog post I compared exploring the way that a system pervades our subconscious mind as going on a deep dive. To further the metaphor, last week's brief session was about becoming acquainted with my fellow divers. Our small project team will be as a stone dropped into the center of the lake with a design and intention to go deeper into the collective subconscious and perhaps even brush the unconscious expression of diversity, or lack thereof, in the region.

Laurie, Heidi, and I will meet weekly and form the core container - the stone which is to be dropped in the lake. The first ripple circle beyond the point where the stone splashes into the water will be our guidance. This circle includes the Civil Rights Director, a Dialogos consultant, and a Diversity consultant, Audrey Peterman. The work itself consists of convening a number of focus groups - circles of people who'll be invited to the lake and coaxed to go for a swim.

It will be up to each individual whether they dive in or splash around in the shallow edges of the lake. Even if an individual chooses to simply watch from the shore she will discover that the surface of the water is changing and the reflections which are mirrored back will gently raise questions for the observer.

Today I'm feeling ready and would love to jump right in to the water. But I recognize that we need a few more weeks to plan several dives. We will let a number of people know where we plan to go. We will attempt to pre-sense just what might be lurking down there. We will design methods and schedule focus groups and discover more fellow swimmers.

Diversity: An Invitation to Dive Deep

2010-09-08T08:25:00.004-06:00

I have recently been invited to apply my systems thinking and mapping skills to the area of Civil Rights and Diversity. The Pacific Northwest Region (Region 6) of the US Forest Service has a new civil rights director. She has been involved in the application of systems thinking to the exploration of the agency's safety culture. That work, lead by Dialogos, has touched many employees in a very significant way. As a result, systems thinking and mapping is gaining in noteriety in the agency.

My role, which is only just beginning, will be to sit in circle, hold deep conversations, quietly notice the patterns and dynamics, and then draw a map of the complexity.

In preparation for our very first meeting, which is next week, the director asked us to ponder what the project means to us. This was a very difficult question to answer. Perhaps because a core aspect of my role is to be present while groups of people co-create meaning and understanding, and I can't possibly anticipate what meaning I will participate in creating.

I feel as if I'm arriving at a beautiful and serene lake. In my approach I can see the brilliant blue surface reflecting the light of the sun. I have no idea how deep the water is or what lies beneath the surface. I only know that in order to be safe I must tread gently. As I prepare for this deep dive, of which I will dedicate one week per month for the next six months, I review what I have learned about myself and diversity thus far. I scan my herstory for clues as to what the exploration might reveal.

My scan reveals to me a tenderness, a vulnerable place within my core. There is only one thing of which I am certain: this exploration will expose me to aspects of my thinking which are subconscious or perhaps even unconscious. How do I know that? Because I too was socialized into a system of disparity and oppression. The simple act of growing up in a small town in Oklahoma has exposed me to generations of misinformation, fear, and even hatred. Within the boundaries of my awareness I have been thoughtful and even an activist. But in order to stretch the boundaries of awareness I must dive into this lake.

On more than one occassion I have observed the appearance of a thought in my mind which is ugly and shameful. I'm grateful to have even noticed. When this happens it gives me pause and I explore what lies beneath the thought. In most cases I realize that the thought is a judgement with which I am not actually in agreement in the present moment. So how is it that I have thoughts with which I don't agree?

The way I explain this to myself is that a great deal of my thinking was programmed in as I participated in society. I have seen a black man, for example, and had the thought "Be careful." Then paused and challenged the thought and saw it as ridiculous. Why be any more careful around a man simply because of his skin tone? It has nothing to do with the man before me. It has everything to do with the messages which saturate the world in which I live. It is the voice of my college roommate, a jewish girl from Philadelphia, who cautioned me against getting gas on Broward Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale one night because every patron was African American. It is the voice of my great Aunt who hissed obscenities. It is the voice of some ancient ancestor who perhaps felt he had to compete with people of color in order to have enough food for his family.

As I circle the lake and climb over the boulders which represent that which I have already learned about diversity I can't help but wonder what lurks beneath the surface. What thoughts are yet so unconscious that I've never glimpsed them? I set the intention to be gentle with myself and my ancestors, I draw in a deep breath, and I slide my left food along the sun baked boulder and into the cool water.

The Locus of Consciousness

2010-04-15T07:40:00.004-06:00

Otto Scharmer describes four fields of being, or "structures of attention". His diagram makes sense to me because I've had personal experiences of each level. In level one my attention (aka my consciousness) is located solidly within my self. I experience myself as completely unique and located within my physical body. When I look out at the world I am looking through my filters, which are constructed out of my own experience, dreams, and expectations.

At field two my consicousness is resting at the edge of my self. I've pushed myself beyond my filters and can listen to others in a very neutral and objective way.

In field three I am having a deeply compassionate experience of another being. This is always, for me, an emotional connection. When I feel compassion and empathy for you, the electromagnetic frequencies of our two hearts are resonnating at a similar frequency and this allows me to temporarily move beyond myself and feel deeply connected to you.

Recently, and with more frequency, I've been experiencing field four, which is the field of presence. And this is why I'm writing, in order to attempt to further understand the field four experience. Near the end of the winter I experienced a somewhat abrubt shift in consicousness. I had the experience of spontaneously gaining access to information which was located beyond the boundaries of my physical self. It seemed completely out of context and even scary. Since then I've been practicing field four as often as I can, so that I may understand the space and feel more comfortable operating that way.

If you look at the diagram above you can see that unlike the first three fields where there is only one red dot representing the source of one's attention, or consciousness, field four shows multiple points. When I practice shifting to field four out in nature, I consider the boundaries of my awareness. I look to the horizon and identify the farthest points which I'm capable of seeing. I listen to the sounds and think about the area of the domain of which I'm capable of hearing. I also check in with other sensory perception, though the reach is not as far for taste, smell, and touch. From this state of expansion I then notice feeling as if there is not one "me" located firmly inside my body. I also notice that I have almost no thoughts, no internal dialogue... only the awareness of that which occurs within my domain of perception. Things like birds singing, or an airplane overhead, or the play of sunlight and shadow on the distant hillside. It's actually a quite peaceful state of being, and one which is strived for through a number of spiritual practices.

But when I've had this expansion among other people it has not been so peaceful. There have been several times in my life when my awareness has expanded into a domain which includes other people. It is as if the boundary of my perception is the edge of the room rather than the edge of my physical body. Usually when I'm at my most expansive state of presence I am aware of the emotions and attitudes of others in the space. Periodically, when someone is having a very negative emotional experience I have had the experience of feeling that emotion as if it belonged to me personally, and even having thoughts associated with the feeling that were distinctly not my own thoughts. For example, once on a week long river rafting trip I sat, for a few hours, next to a woman who was experiencing back pain and was really unhappy about being on the boat for several more days. During the time while I sat next to her I found myself having a stream of thoughts along these lines: What am I doing here? I never should have come. This is completely ridiculous. I am miserable and I want to go home. But I was actually having the time of my life and really enjoying the trip and the scenery, which allowed me to notice that these were not, in fact, my own thoughts.

There have been three distinct times in my life when, from this place of deep presence and expansion, I've experienced temporarily seeing and hearing other peoples thoughts. Experientially it was disturbing... particularly when the other person noticed that I was understanding more about them than should usually be the case. Intellectually it is exciting and makes alot of sense to me.

Physics is showing us how the particle/waves which construct our reality are also units of information, perhaps even consciousness itself. Conceptually I believe human systems each have a kind of sentience of their own. I am a sentient being known as Toni, but I'm also part of several other human systems which each posess their own domain. Perhaps field four is the map of a non-local, non-individual sentience in which I participate? Perhaps it is not Toni who can sometimes access information which is not usually available to an individual. Perhaps that which is Toni can be temporarily disolved into some larger form of sentience, and from that place each of us has access to the internal subjective experience of a collective in which we participate? I reckon I'll be gently groping about in this exploration for several months. Perhaps even longer...

Kubler-Ross's 5 Stages of Grief Applied to Climate Change

2010-03-09T08:16:00.003-07:00

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages of grief which have recently been applied to many other types of change. The five stages are:

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

It has long been my position that what is commonly referred to as resistance to change can be better understood as one of the first four stages of grief. In my own personal history I have experienced all five stages in relation to global climate change. And while I'll describe that in order, I want to emphasize that my progression through the stages has been far from linear. Before reaching acceptance I swirled and spiraled around and through the first four phases a number of times.

Denial - I became aware of 'global warming' as it was called, in 1991 when I was in high school. I wrote a term paper on rainforest deforestation my junior year and a term paper on global warming my senior year. I'd have to say that for me 'denial' was the first 16 years of my life when I loved being outdoors but had absolutely no sense of environmental ethics.

Anger - Throughout the 1990s I was very angry about the history of Western civilization, industry, and capitalism. In general I felt like the only way justice could be served was if ALL humans (including me) were anihilated and the Earth was left to heal herself.

Bargaining - In 2000 I joined the US Forest Service. I was a GS-4 Visitor Information Specialist. I spent my days talking with visitors about the natural environment and picking up cigarette butts in Sedona, AZ. During this phase I spent much of my time, both personally and professionally seeking ways to balance nature and humanity so that our species could perhaps learn from our mistakes and co-evolve with the Earth.

Depression - I've had seasons of depression throughout the previous stages. There have been times when I feel like we're completely doomed. There have been times when I have felt like some groups will survive but most others will experience cataclysmic demise and death. At I've sought to understand multiple perspectives I've encountered numerous religious, cultural, and philosophical perspectives which predict or suggest a huge die-off of humans. Each time this possibility presents itself to me I attempt to really feel the full depth of my dispair, or sometimes our collective dispair... and somehow, each time I dive deeply into the possibility of loosing everything, I end up experiencing some form of acceptance.

Acceptance - From within depression I have noticed the equisite beauty of the fragility of all of Earth, including humans. My sorrow has been a type of gateway, as if the tears have washed away the selfishness of my personal perspective and left me with the ability to appreciate all of creation. From this place of appreciation I noticed a sense of connectedness with all of creation. I should clarify that the sense of connectedness was not new, but noticing this unity of consciousness while standing on the bridge between depression and acceptance of global climate change provides an entirely different vista. In fact, acceptance has, for me, been a gateway to a sixth stage: hope.

Hope - I stand firmly rooted in acceptance of mankinds past foibles and follies. I can appreciate that every generation has always done the best they could with what they had. I have come to forgive the fires of industry as an amplification of a parent's deep drive to provide well for the family. In acceptance of our present global situation I discovered a number of people who were highly motivated to generate change. I have a deep sense of gratitude and hope for all of Earth and her children. I understand that we're connected and that though there may be a great deal of uncertainty and even catastrophe, I trust that we are learning and we will continue to evolve together.

In my next post I intend to broaden the application of these stages of change and apply them to the myriad of perspectives which I observe when considering the complexity of climate change. To do this I will share portions of a causal loop analysis which I've been developing along with several others.

Can Economic Needs Drive the Greening of Americans?

2010-03-04T08:35:00.008-07:00

Recently I had the opportunity to speak to some individuals affiliated with the timber industry, representing both local government and private interests. Something very interesting occurred to me in response to the conversations.

Regardless of whether people believe that the climate is changing, and regardless of whether they feel that climate change is driven by humans, there are people and companies joining the green movement because of economic interests. This probably doesn't come as a huge suprise to everyone. I've long heard self proclaimed greenies complain when giant careless corporations go green just to maximize profits.

What I am writing about today is something else entirely. I'm talking about hard working, honest Americans who are in industries which are collapsing under current conditions. I'm talking about folks who perhaps even belong to political parties, clubs, and churches which take a strong anti-climate change, or anti-anthropogenic climate change stance; who are reconsidering green technologies so that they don't loose their homes, jobs, and the land which has been in their family for generations.

The green curve you see above is a change curve that is so popular that I could not determine who originated it. It basically shows a bell curve distribution of people in response to any particular change. Under it is an amplifying loop, or growth engine entitled "Reinforced Survival of Individuals and Families. It can be read like this: employment leads to water, food, and shelter, which leads to individual and family survival, which (according to Maslow) affords one the capacity for higher learning, in this case the capacity to learn a trade. Over time this leads to being employable and over time that leads to having employment, which provides food and shelther.

In my most recent post, Honoring Multiple Perspectives, I spoke about how there are many mixed opinions around the possibility of global climate change. Today I suggest to you that the greening of America does not depend upon agreement around the science of climate change. Regardless of our science, politics, or theology, we all share the same fundamental human needs for food and shelter. In the end, only that which makes economic sense to real people will be implemented.

Honoring Multiple Perspectives

2010-02-25T07:17:00.002-07:00

It seems to me that there are a number of wicked problems facing the world today. There are challenges in the area of environment, economy, and society that are so exceedingly complex that no one person, or no one perspective, could possibly provide a useful solution.

Take, for example, the possibility of land managers collaborating on how to respond to climate change accross a particular landscape. Climate change is definitely a complex and controversial issue. There are myriad perspectives including

The climate is not changing in any significant way, it has always been variable
The climate is changing and it is part of a larger natural cycle
The climate is changing and it is caused or exagerated by human activities
The climate is getting warmer
The climate is getting colder

How much agreement is necessary in order for people to collaborate on designing livable solutions to today's challenges?

In any particular region, land is managed by a number of different stakeholders including tribes, federal, state, and local government agencies, corporations, non-profit organizations, families, and individuals. Each of these groups has its own unique set of priorities and objectives for how and why the land should be managed. Even if all the land owners in a region agreed that it was strategically important and mutually beneficial to collaborate on a project, and even if they agreed upon what the challenges were, and even if they agreed upon what the solutions were, it would still be complex to balance the multiple missions, multiple objectives, and multiple organizational policies, in order to collaborate effectively.

But when collaboration is really the only solution to a problem, we can't simply ignore it due to the complexity and the challenges.

Lately I've been attempting to map the complexity of the multiple perspectives on climate change. The effort has been deeply transformative for me, and I wonder if sharing some of my own learning would be of service to anyone else. I'm hoping to have the time to blog a little more frequently than I have of late. My intention is to try and find ways to share something large and complex in small and easily digestible chunks. Even if it doesn't prove to be of value to anyone else, it will certainly be a useful excercise to me.

Exploring Groupthink

2009-10-09T08:39:00.003-06:00

A reader recently posted a comment about whether Amygdala Hijacking might not be connected to the phenomenon of groupthink. I felt it was a great question and worthy of a new post. First, let me share my definitions for both. The amygdala is a tiny little part of the brain which is responsible for scanning one's emotional memories and creating an emotional reaction to a certain stimulus. The amygdala is fast and has the ability to catalyze a reaction even before the cortex (higher logical mind) has the chance to think everything through. Sometimes the amygdala locks in on an emotional memory and catalyzes a reaction that our higher logical mind would not have chosen, thus leading to the idea of "amygdala hijacking".

To put it in another really plain way, amygdala hijacking is the same as jumping to conclusions and getting all freaked out before having the facts.

Groupthink names the phenomenon of a group of people making a collective choice which sometimes goes against what the individual members of the group would have selected on their own. It is akin to the idea of mob mentality - when large crowds become possessed by some drive and the result is often violent. Wikipedia says Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas.

While amygdala hijacking certainly steers individuals off course from time to time, might this also somehow play a role in groups? I think the answer is yes. If the group of people have a shared history and shared experiences then they could just as easily have shared scar tissue around past experiences which went poorly. When a new situation occurrs which is remarkably similar to one of these bad memories there is a strong chance that individuals will experience amygdala hijacking and start to have a negative emotional reaction to the present event -- even if logically it really isn't the same as the bad memory.

But, what I think is even more interesting than an aggregation of individuals each having their own melt down due to amygdala hijacking is the dynamic interplay of their emotional energies in the present moment. Allow me to expand...

When someone near you is angry, stressed, or worried it is easy for that feeling to rub off on you and others. That is because when a person is having a negative emotional experience their Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is a chaotic wave which is expressed in the electromagnetic frequency of the heart. Our bodies perceive the electromagnetic frequency of our own heart and take cues on how to behave based on this information. The Institute of HeartMath has demonstrated in their scientific research that the elecromagnetic frequency of the heart can be measured up to 8 feet away. If your body takes cues from your own heart's electromagenetic frequency then isn't it possible for your body to perceive the electromagnetic frequency of another's heart?

We've all seen it happen. Sometimes when you walk into a room you just know that there has been an argument. You can feel the anger in the room even as you enter.

To circle back around to groupthink; because of the shared history individuals can each have a stressful reaction to a new event, AND then the negative reaction can be amplified because several individuals are all having a negative reaction at the same time. Sometimes we sacrifice our individual wisdom in order to keep the peace and avoid the kinds of drama which have occurred in the past.

Sometimes smart people get together and produce illogical results. Sometimes the individual doesn't have the courage to speak up and instead just goes with the flow. Sometimes everyone is that individual and everyone goes with the flow instead of speaking up. In my profession we call this "Going to Abilene" because of a training film by the same name. Four people go to Abilene, Texas, for ice cream and have a miserable time. Later they discover that none of them ever wanted to go in the first place.

Groupthink, or Going to Abilene, is evident in families, organizations, and society. There could be entire chapters of history - dark and traumatic chapters even - which could be the product of groupthink. And all because the gravity and sway of group mentality is sometimes larger and more powerful than individual commitment and courage. This leads me toward exploring The Hero's Quest and why fierce individualism and corageous leadership by one individual is the archetypal solution for Going to Abilene... but that's a whole 'nother post alltogether!

Transforming the National Recreation Program

2009-07-28T17:09:00.003-06:00

I'm in Salt Lake City attending a meeting on Sustainable Recreation in the US Forest Service. A small group of members of the Recreation program at the national, regional, and forest levels of the organization have crafted a National Recreation Strategy to replace an outdated strategy (I think the last strategy was crafted in 1988). The small group has worked for 2 years and is very excited to share the work with a larger group.

There's much passion and energy for this strategy because it's centered on principles of Sustainability and Community Engagement through Recreation and Tourism (CERT). There are a number of specific goals and objectives, but to say it in a nutshell... It's all about the Forest Service engaging with communities to have meaningful dialogue around how together to create balanced and long term health for people, profits, and the planet.

I've been providing some consultation and facilitation to the smaller group and today was the first day of a very complex meeting in which we shared the National Recreation Strategy, Sustainable Recreation, and CERT with a wide group of employees from around the country. We had about 20 people in the room, about 10 people on the telephone, and another 20 people on a video conference. It was trying and complex to mix the media, but absolutely necessary for a sustainability conversation to include low carbon methods for connecting.

I feel the day was a resounding success. We wrapped up the phone and video portion about 1.5 hours before the end of the day so that those of us who were present in the room (here in Salt Lake City) could process everything and begin to wrap our heads around things like...

What does sustainable recreation look like?
How might our lives be different when we've fully embraced the new National Recreation Strategy?
How are we going to share this experience with our leaders and our employees when we get home?
How can we foster transformation rather than paying lip service to a plan which is quickly shelved?

I'm ever so grateful to have not been the facilitator of the meeting. Lyn Wiltzes (sp?) from Seattle was the facilitator and did a remarkable job.

I'm feeling very jazzed. I feel like I'm in the right place at the right time and part of something BIG. Something with Purpose and Meaning. I feel this frequently at Forest Service meetings, which is probably why I fall in love with the Forest Service all over again every time I meet new employees or see a new and magnificent landscape. I'm so grateful to be a part of this organization and I'm grateful to have had all the amazing experiences I've had the past 9 years.

Hopefully I'll have time and energy to capture my reactions to day 2 of the meeting. I have the feeling that of all the things in which I've participated, this one is worth capturing for posterity.

Labor Begins

2009-06-26T08:30:00.002-06:00

Everyone seemed to feel last nights school meeting was very productive. It was the 4 founding families, although all were invited. We agreed to put up our booth at the farmer's market on Saturday, agreed that of the two possible free locations for the school we preferred the old school house on Trace Ridge Road because it would require less construction (and there's only 8 weeks until school starts).

The bulk of the meeting was a discussion of the finances. I shared a simple equation to help us begin to finalize the projected income and expenses so that we can finalize the strategic plan in order to file for non-profit status. The equation is this:

Tuition = total expenses / # of student days per week

We began with the assumption that tuition was $10 per day and then determined which expenses were optional and which were absolutely necessary. Those deemed necessary included utilities, insurance, salary, facilities maintenance, and supplies. We assigned relatively solid estimates to each and discovered that there was a shortfall of about $80 per week.

We then identified several ways to fill in that gap:

Seek more students (we need 8 more student days, so either 8 students who select one day a week or some combination of students who select 2-3 days per week)
Rather than have a paid teacher for all 3 days a week, shift the strategy so that the paid employee does all coordination in 1 or 2 days and rely more upon the other parents to share the teaching.
Plan more fund raising activities
Plan to compensate the teacher with both dollars and goods or services.

The last option involves a great deal of administrative burden. The acceptable goods and services must be identified up front with a dollar value assigned to each. They would also be considered part of the taxable income and so there would still be some dollars associated for state and federal taxes.

There are still a number of questions to be answered, but I was personally proud and surprised that we are facing the uncertainties and working through the complexity together. I was also fairly surprised that no one suggested we forget about applying for non-profit status. That is certainly something to celebrate because in my mind that was the most often re-visited decision over the past 2 years. We really have come a long way!

Eight weeks of hard labor to go!

The Quickening

2009-06-18T15:26:00.002-06:00

Apparently this baby wants to be born! Today our teacher got a call from a woman who has agreed to donate to us a location for our school! I for one had been discouraged by how much time had lapsed since the initial contact, but it turns out that once again I'm uselessly impatient!

The news appears to have given everyone a burst of energy and drive. A fund raising opportunity for this Saturday which had been cancelled is now on again!

I also had the opportunity to do some processing with a couple of the members of our group. It was good to know that people were willing to express having felt slighted and even angry in response to what I shared at our last meeting. It is so absolutely necessary to group cohesion that we learn how to work through conflict. And even though we talked about it conceptually at various points throughout our planning process, up until now we haven't gone there together.

I'm so pleased with our progress. We really have come a long way. I met these people at a local Summer Solstice celebration in 2006. At the same Summer Solstice party in 2007 we had the idea to form a school. Now, at this years Summer Solstice, only 2 years later, we'll be celebrating the fact that we have a location and three more families have joined our coop.

This is the Quickening. This is the time when the baby turns in the womb and is in position to be born. The labor is about to begin!

Struggling to Be Born

2009-06-17T17:51:00.002-06:00

Recent changes in the school development project have been tough and really felt like a struggle. When I'm connected to my deepest sense of Purpose I'm certain that my decision is not only the best one for my family but also serves the school.

However, it cannot be denied that my decision is disruptive and jarring to our fragile womb. Is that a positive and neccessary part of gestation, or useless pain? I suppose only time will tell if I've been effective in midwifing the birth of this school. Reminds me of one of my past posts entitled "Life Lessons from my Chickens". A group of people working together to create an entirely new organization is a struggle. It is complicated enough for two people to form a partnership such as marriage, but for four families to become cohesive enough to create agreements based on commitments of time and money is incredibly complex.

And while I have a number of skills and tools to throw into the mix, there's still so much more that is needed for this collaborative venture to produce anything. We have passion and determination, but whether or not this outweighs our fear and uncertainty remains to be seen. I've attempted to create a space where people feel safe expressing concerns and discussing their growth edges. I've attempted to guide people to their growth edges and invited them to ponder the chasm between us and our dream. I've tried to model this by being transparent in sharing my own hopes and fears. I'm even putting myself into this blog, knowing full well that anyone can read this at any time.

Yesterday I gave out a six page list of the action items to be achieved in the next 10 weeks. At each step in the journey there seem to be two choices, either we step up or we step down. I sooooo want to see us step up. But I can't help but think that people might percieve that I have stepped down. I find myself questioning whether I did the right thing. But I don't want to be right, I want to be part of a cooperative elementary school. I want children in one of the poorest rural counties in the entire country to have a stellar education, regardless of the income of their parents. I want to look back at this blog post and smile in a knowing way... and realize that just like giving birth to a new baby, it was the most long, painful, and arduous blessing of our entire lives.

For the Good of the Order

2009-06-16T07:37:00.003-06:00

Last night we had another school meeting and I got the opportunity to share the news which I described in my last post. In short: I shared that putting my own kid in public school for kindegarten this August would allow me to better serve the development of the school.

We were out there at the park with our 8 kids running amok until 10 pm because we had two new families at the meeting and I wanted to wait until after they left to share the news. I didn't think it would be fair to "stir the pot" with brand new families in the mix.

The news was jarring and it took time to process. I feel exhausted this morning. I keep replaying the night and wondering if I really did the best I can do. I felt like I was talking loud and emphatically, and that speech pattern makes me wonder if I was being fanatical and arrogant. And as the group rehashed some of the last meeting's conversation it occurred to me that I'd had a very different experience of the conversation than the others had. Of course, that is always the case... but it highlighted to me that having my own son on the enrollment list amplified my drive and pushiness for some of the specific details of the strategic plan. Having my own son's needs in the equation limited my ability to really hear the needs of the emerging order.

I believe that people can realize their dreams if they are willing to face their fears and work hard. I've proven this to myself numerous times. My husband and I are persistent, we know that success requires a willingness to fail frequently until you get it right. None of us have ever formed a school. For me there is great beauty and great learning in the trying, in the trials.

I like to think that I have organizational skills for a reason and that my Purpose has to do with helping people realize their dreams by organizing group efforts. Forest is a bright kid and he's going to learn no matter where he spends his days. Now that he's "taken care of" for this school year I can be clear about acting for the good of the order rather than acting out of self interest. I feel emboldened to lead the process. I feel like the gap between the present and August 24th will close quickly and there's much work to do. I'm already forming action items and lists in my mind, and now I'm comfortable playing manager and bringing more accountability to the picture. This is what the emerging school requires and I have the skills to play the part. For the good of the order.

Feedback and Resistance

2009-06-08T07:33:00.003-06:00

I'm playing in several systems right now. In some cases the systems are 100 years old and I'm analyzing and intervening in service to a larger cause, such as various US Forest Service units at the national, regional, and Forest levels. In other cases I'm co-creating entirely new systems such as a cooperative elementary school and a new Forest Service Enterprise Unit called Organizational Development Experts (ODE).

In doing so the concepts of feedback and resistance come up frequently. First let me clarify that I'm using the term feedback from the Systems Dynamics perspective: feedback is an iterative process which generates the form of the system.

I left our last school meeting feeling angry and frustrated. I wanted to just let go of the entire effort. It seemed to me that the other people in the group were unable or unwilling to accept my donation of money for start-up costs such as filing the 501-3c (non-profit) paperwork. In my anger I realized it was futile to create a school based on fund raising and donations if the people who comprise the school are not able to accept or even ask for gifts of money. I took it as feedback that the group was just not ready to realize its dream.

Due to time and circumstances, I didn't get the chance to communicate any of this to anyone else in the group. And that's surely a blessing because as it percolated into my flesh I gained several more understandings. First, as the anger wore off I felt devastated and sad. I work hard to make positive changes in the world. In exchange for working hard I receive a salary which more than covers our basic needs. The earnings, then, afford me the opportunity to create even more good in the world by engaging in various activities such as switching to renewable resources and supporting the local economy and community. I felt like it was all a waste and that the effort was worthless if I couldn't share my abundance in our efforts to provide children and families with an excellent educational opportunity. For several days I grieved over this.

The grief turned to bargaining and I began to grope for ways of realizing this dream. As the facilitator of the strategic planning process, I feel like its my role to help the group take the steps needed to implement the vision and mission which we created over potlucks and amidst the din of laughing children. I thought of things I could say or do in order to nudge or even push people beyond their growth edges.

Finally, I've found acceptance, and here is what that looks like today. I've accepted that the group is not ready to realize the dream we created over the past two years. More importantly I've realized that they've been trying to tell me this for the past six months and I couldn't hear it because I was in denial. The truth is that the rest of the group is quite comfortable reaching for a smaller version of the dream, taking baby steps toward the larger dream. The truth is that we never really did lock in on one solid vision. My family came to the group with different needs and experiences than the other three families. Our central value for our kids education is that they need socialization, and so we were originally leaning toward public school. The other three families had always leaned toward home schooling for reasons of their own.

My husband and I have decided that this fall our son will start kindegarten at public school. Now that we've taken our kids out of the equation I can re-align myself with the needs of this group. I'm still dedicated to helping them realize their dream. I'm still dedicated to helping each and every person who is part of the cooperative achieve their best and highest purpose. And now more than ever I'm available to be present to the fact that being a servant to these people and their dreams means allowing it to emerge and unfold at its own pace.

It turns out that this time I was the resistance, and so I surrender in service to the greatest good.

Meta-Communication

2009-05-27T09:58:00.002-06:00

The saturation of the World Wide Web with infinite volumes of content along with new web-based communication services such as Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, Blogs, Wikis, etc. have resulted in a whole new order and organization for information and communication.

We have landed at an entirely new level of communication which I think of as Meta-Communication. It is now possible to share a real time connection with hundreds of friends and associates. This new found capacity is transforming the very fabric of society and the rules of socialization.

Entirely new heights of collaboration, coordination, and integration are possible. Technology has fostered a leap in our social consciousness. While younger generations and early adapters value the breadth, speed, and volume of mass communication; late adapters balk at the lack of depth and authenticity and some may never join cybersociety.

Shifting Fields of Attention

2009-04-17T19:19:00.005-06:00

The planning for Leslie Creative Learning Cooperative has gone well. The visioning period went well. Last meeting we unhinged the structure and let things float for a period. We re-opened a number of variables that had been set in the first draft of the strategic plan. The meeting wrapped up and we had not come to any closure. I asked everyone to stay in the uncertainty until the next meeting, in order to see how the various options felt.

Last night we met again. I facilitated a process which I'm thinking of as a "Deep dive to I Am." We passed a talking stick and began with "When we left the meeting I felt... and since then I've been feeling...." I facilitated discerning thoughts from emotions. I held the intention and facilitated A) People going deeper in the U (Theory U) by personally admitting their fears, and B) Viewing themselves at responsible and accountable for starting a school, 3)Realizing that there were no external forces which were preventing us. By connecting to the universal emotion of fear people had a shared experience and were able to shift from field 1 and 2 to field 3: "Seeing myself as part of the whole."

Once people began sharing feelings of fear and disappointment they began experiencing care and compassion for each other. This raised the coherence of the field in such a tangilble way that it created safety. I then lead people to connect with their most creative and innovative self and pass the stick a round with this topic... "I know I can do this. I am ___. I am going to ___." Each individual made a number of commitements and assignments using "I am" at the beginningof each statement. Then I called out questions and prompted them to all reply "I am" again and again like drumbeats.

The purpose here was to allow it to really sink in that we were the only things stopping us and that we decide whether we succeed. It also made a cadence which shifted the field from care and compassion due to vulnerability, but rather hype and momentum for success. Next we passed the talking stick for a round on the topic "Right now I feel..." and saw the noticeable shift in emotions. By going into fear together we generated the fuel for our own reserection. People were excited, and appeared to have a new sense of ownership, clarity, and purpose.

I closed the circle and released the deeper space we'd been holding. We chatted about fundraising and enjoyed a lovely meal.

While I know that the field 3 awareness was fleeting, I also know that the more we operate from that space the easier it becomes to achieve levels 3 and 4.

Life Lessons from my Chickens

2009-04-13T15:02:00.002-06:00

We're hatching chicks in an incubator upstairs. The first few emerged on Saturday, several came on Easter sunday, and a few more are considering today as their birthday. My little kids are quite smitten by the chicks and fascinated by the process.

I am learning a great deal about transformation and life by watching the process. One thing I notice is that I really had a sense of pride for and affinity with the first brave chick. She didn't have the most effective exit strategy... she pecked for a very long time and finally broke through. I'm not sure what part of my programming has conditioned me to think that being first is best. I'm considering how much this notion serves me and perhaps I'll let it go.

The second chick had a much more efficient liberation. She pecked in a sort of straight line until she'd completed a circle and then gracefully pushed the whole top of the egg right off. She didn't have to fight nearly as much as the first. Why do I appreciate the struggle of the first more than the efficiency and grace of the second?

We have two kinds of hens, brown ones and black ones. For some reason the first 5 chicks born were brown and the next 4 chicks born were black. The black ones all died their first night. We think that they got too hot under the lamp and too dehydrated. Maybe the 5 brown chicks - being several hours older and therefore stronger - bullied the black chicks and kept them from the water? We don't know.

All the eggs began their 21 day incubation at the same time. Today there are two eggs with beaks sticking out of them, and I can see the chicks are breathing, but they appear to have no motivation to break out. This is the most interesting lesson of all to me... I put the eggs in and did what I was obligated to do. I can't do anything else. I can't break the shells open and let the chicks out because they would be weak. They MUST struggle by themselves in order to build up the muscle strength and determination needed to survive.

It doesn't matter if I'm fearful, helpful, prayerful, or facilitative... each of those chicks has to make its own choice to fight out of it's shell or to simply die.

Like the school we're working to start. I've done what I can to guide the visioning and the strategic planning process. At our last meeting we agreed to re-open a number of the variables which had been pinned down in the first iteration of the strategic plan draft. Some of the possibilities included realizing something less than what we had dreamt. We even came face to face with the possibility of giving up altogether. I encouraged everyone to sit in the place of uncertainty which we created by re-opening the variables. I asked them to see what the various options feel like.

I hope that what emerges from this time of incubation is a fight to live, a fight to emerge from our shell and grow feathers so that one day Leslie Creative Learning Cooperative might fly. Creation is a tender and fragile process, yet it is infinite and constant. Even if all my chicks don't hatch there will always be more chickens. The seeds I plan and tend to may never bloom, but there will always be flowers. For this, I am grateful.

The Importance of Contracting Gracefully

2009-03-26T10:13:00.004-06:00

I often find myself advocating a natural systems perspective for organizational development. I frequenly am heard saying that "effective organizations are flexible and organic". I just recently had an "ah ha" moment around this:

In organizations, expansion implies success and contraction implies failure. To my systems thinking mind, expansion and contraction are just opposite forces or directions and are neither good nor bad. Only our experience of a this shift in movement is good or bad.

In order for an organization to truly be flexible and organic it must be capable to both expand and contract in a graceful and nimble way. Scaling up to serve an increase in demand is mathematically no different than scaling down in times of decreased demand. Why should scaling up feel like success to the people involved while scaling down feels like failure?

An organization is not just a math and physics equation, and contraction is not just movement in the opposite direction of expansion. The numbers of positions, for example, represent people who are concerned with paying mortgages and putting children through college. How then, can the organization become graceful in contraction?

I certainly don't have all the answers for this. This post is about exploring the topic in hopes for taking some of the sting out of the experience of contraction, both for indviduals and the organizaton.

Let's look at an example from the Forest Service. The Forest Service Enterprise Program is a group of small intraprises, or internal businesses which serve agency units via a signed work order agreement. Enterprise units don't receive appropriated funds in the annual agency budget, but rather sell goods and services to traditional agency units in order to cover all their costs.

The health of the ~17 Enterprise units is bound together in the agency's accounting system. If an Enterprise unit does not cover its costs and accrues a deficit then the team may be disbanded. The employees of the disbanded unit are placed in other positions, or sometimes exit the agency altogether. One core strength of the Enterprise Program is its flexibility to help a National Forest, for example, scale up for a particular project and scale back down when the project is over. Within the culture of the Enterprise Program, expanding one's Enterprise unit by increasing the number of employees and increasing the revenue is a mark of success.

However, if a unit is unable to cover its expenses (for any number of reasons), then a deficit accrues, the unit is a candidate for being disbanded by the Enterprise Steering Committee, and the unit's employees are at jeopardy of loosing their positions.

In our culture, this disbandment is interpreted as a failure. The leader of the unit has invested much time and energy in attempting to create a successful venture. It is personally dramatic to realize that the venture is not sustainable. There is also a personal sense of failure for the indivudual employees, especially if they were engaged in working hard to "turn it around" for a number of months before the disbandment. (I have first hand experience with this, I'll write about it in a separate post). It is all quite painful.

But what if there were another context, another connotation for disbandment of an Enterprise? What if Enterprises with deficits were responsible for coming forward and recommending that they be disbanded, rather than living in fear of a heavy hand coming down on them? What if struggling Enterprises were seen as courageous and heroic for choosing their own disbandment? One success of Enterprise is that it is a choice-based organization. Individuals choose to start units, why shouldn't they choose to end them?

It should be seen as courageous because of the risk and uncertainty involved in volunteering to have your box erased from the org chart. It should be heroic because a struggling unit which drags on and on is only increasing the deficit which is actually a burden on the entire program due to the interconnections in the accounting system.

Could being viewed as courageous and heroic take some of the sting out of the experience for the individuals? I believe it would. That was my own experience. Would shifting our cultural connotation from "failure" to "heroism" facilitate a more graceful contraction? Afterall, if an organization is going to be flexible and organic, they must exhale as effectively as then inhale.

Creation or Destruction?

2009-03-23T14:32:00.003-06:00

The world is transforming. Which is more important, creation or destruction? We're witnessing the collapse of several major corporations, organizations, economies, environments, ecosystems, etc.

Should we focus on the destruction we are witnessing? Should we try to mitigate, bail out, or slow down the crumble? OR should we focus on creating something new?

Any time I discover an either or question I attempt to answer it with "both". It's because I'm tired of the black and white polarity and duality of everything. I'm ready for grey areas... I'm ready for much less certainty and much more flexibility.

I just found someone else's answer to this question of Creation or Destruction... Otto Scharmer seems to be answering the question with "both" as well:

"The rise of the social space of emergence and creation is connected to the dying and transformation of (the) social space of destruction." (2007: page 45)

We can't create the world in an entirely new, healthy, and functional way unless we allow for the dysfunctional systems to collapse. We must balance our impulse to create with our acceptance of destruction.

The next question would be how to find this balance without becoming fearful. Stay tuned. As I explore this in my own transformative adventure I'll share what I discover.

Eureka! I did it!

2009-03-02T19:56:00.002-07:00

Tonight I filed the name Leslie Creative Learning Cooperative, Inc. with the Arkansas Secretary of State. It was quite easy. Then I decided to check out their form for the "Articles of Incorporation." Low and behold it was a really simple form (how often does that happen in government?)! So, I filed that too. Then I completed the IRS form SS-4 to request our employer identification number. That one pager was also pretty easy since I filled one out about 4 years ago when we hired a nanny for our baby boy. (Funny, both times it has been about my kids!)

I could have faxed in the SS-4 right away, but I need my husband to sign it and he's already gone to bed.

Tomorrow we have our first public information meeting. I'm eager to find out how many people will attend. We posted an add in the Marshall Mountain Wave (our local paper). We also posted flyers around the county.

The idea for this school was born on 6/21/07 at a local Summer Solstice celebration. The four founding families have been meeting monthly ever since. I've played the role as facilitator, including leading the meetings. Laura Daly, the teacher/administrator, and I drafted the strategic plan and the bylaws. Both are still in draft form. We recently elected my husband, Steven Newby, to be the director and Jason Morriss to be treasurer. We have not yet filled the position of secretary, so I am acting in this role. I cannot assume the role permanently because I feel it is a conflict of interest to have two officers in one family. As soon as we expand to include new families we will have a more diverse pool of candidates for the final role.

I'm grateful and excited about how far we have come. The fact that these first 3 forms are completed is a HUGE deal to me. I also got pretty far into the f1023 which is the form to request designation from the IRS as a non-profit organization. The book I've been using as a guide said that the 1023 would take a minimum of 10 hours. At present I think that might be much less. Perhaps it's because we've already gotten so far in the strategic plan and bylaws. Some of the attachments to the form will be copied straight from passages in these two texts.

The book I'm using is great. It's called How to Form a Nonprofit Corporation.

A True American Hero

2009-02-28T16:13:00.005-07:00

Mike Parker, the disabled vet in Indiana who called me with a proposal for a wood pellet manufacturing plant in order to create jobs and develop renewable energy, has impressed the heck out of me with his determination. Check out my earlier post, How Exactly Does One Participate with Government, to catch up on this story.

When Mike called me I sent a few emails around in the Forest Service to find out exactly with who he ought to speak. Within 2 emails I had caught up with Mike North, an Enterpriser with the Forest Service Enterprise known as TEAMS. It happens that Mike North works for the National Woody Biomass Coordinator. I'm not sure whether they've spoken with each other yet, but in the mean time, Mike Parker has been busy!

Mike fanagled himself an invitation to Philadelphia to participate in the Middle Class Task Force meeting hosted by Vice President Biden. He also got himself on C-Span a few days before driving to Philadelphia. Mike and I talked the evening before he left for Philadelphia. As I've mentioned in other posts, I feel so compelled to action by Obama's vision that I find I can't help but support Mike Parker. During our evening phone call I helped him craft an "elevator speech", write a question in case he got to ask one at the meeting, discover how to make business cards with his MS Works program, and gave him some techniques to help him stay calm and avoid being stressed or anxious.

He just never ceases to amaze me. Yesterday before the meeting in Philadelphia he got an email that the EPA had declined his proposal. (Somehow he'd gotten 20 minutes on the phone with the Director of Grants at EPA). At the meeting there was no opportunity to ask questions. In his frustration, as the meeting ended, Mike dove out toward Biden. He was quickly surrounded by secret service men, but he recovered and was able to speak directly with the Vice President! Mr. Biden took a copy of the email from the EPA (the one which declined the grant application) as well as taking down Mike's phone numbers.

Mike was elated today as he relived the tale. He said that even if his idea never goes anywhere, and even if they don't build the manufacturing plant in Andrews, IN -- a town which lost 4 factories over the recent past -- Mike is satisfied that he carried this vision as high as any man could... he carried his vision straight to the Vice President of the United States.

Mike Parker, you are my hero!

A Time of Extraordinary Change

2009-02-28T08:34:00.003-07:00

I feel we're in a time of unprecidented change. My mom maintains that as every generation claims it's adult-hood it has the feeling that things are more intense and crucial than ever before. That makes sense to me, however, this seems different.

There are many stories and beliefs out there to describe what is happening on the earth today. Some people talk about Global Climate Change, some talk about the Apocalypse and the return of Jesus, some talk about 2012, some talk about Mayan or Hopi prophecies, some focus on the reality of economic recession. To me it doesn't so much matter whether we agree on WHY we're going through big changes, but rather that we learn to cooperate and support one another during the transformation.

What story do you tell yourself to explain your present experience of the world?

Every religion and spirituality I'm aware of teaches that it's right to love and share. Yet we still allow fear of other to create exceptions. "Love your neighbor, unless he's different, then you should nuke him." I don't feel like there's time for this any more. In these times of extraordinary change, we must count on the kindness of strangers in order to weather the storm.

How Exactly Does One Collaborate With Government?

2009-02-23T19:48:00.005-07:00

Obama has declared that Government will be Transparent, Collaborative, and Participative. But exactly how we do that remains to emerge. It seem like I'm not the only one who is experiencing the new administration as a force field with a gravity which is pulling me into formation...

Mike Parker, a disabled veteran in rural Indiana, called me at work last week. He'd found me on the web because of an article which I wrote about the history of the Forest Service Enterprise Program. Mike Parker has an idea about turning woodchips into an energy source and creating jobs in his county, where some factories have recently shut down. Mike Parker wants to be part of the solution. He wants to collaborate and participate, but he doesn't know how to "play the game".

I have a soft spot in my heart for people who feel passionate and driven and want to contribute to solutions, so I'm doing what I can to find someone in the agency to talk with Mike about his idea and how to carry it forward. I know that the agency's portion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA - the economic stimulus bill) is meant to be used for three main things: 1) create jobs, 2) reduce hazardous fuels (to prevent wildfires), and 3) explore woody biomass as an alternate energy source. So Mike and the Forest Service seem like a good fit, and our new President wants people like Mike to be able to participate.

Here's the frustrating part. Our government is a huge, complex, and unwieldly system which moves very slowly. In order for a citizen to interact with us in an effective way they must possess an extreme amount of patience and some could argue a higher education. I personally think that government is one of many systems which are undergoing major turbulence right now because of its own ineffectiveness, but that's another post altogether.

My team is now getting involved in creating communications products for internal use about the agency's role in economic stimulus. I'm supposted to bend my noodle toward supporting Forest Service employees in understanding our new roles and how to be successful. I'm not exactly tasked with communicating with the public. But tell that to Mike Parker, or to the lady at the coffee shop, or to my neighbors who know I work for the government. Our 35,000 employees are the face and voice of the agency. There's not just a few controllable entry points to pre-packaged and manageable information about the agency's role in Economic Recovery. Any one who wears a green uniform to a grocery store has just become the spokes person for the entire government.

We must tackle our social media learning curve ASAP in order to create containers for all of this stimulating dialogue. We also must support employees in having very basic answers for all their neighbors questions. We are a "can do" organization, we'll find a way to be successful. I just worry that some of us will die trying (stress is one of the top health concerns in the nation).

Physics of Leadership

2009-02-21T18:51:00.003-07:00

Obama has been President for a month and I already notice a big difference in my own behaviors, attitudes, and opinions. As a federal employee, ultimately I work for Obama (though there are many layers of hierarchy between us). Part of it is that his vision and attitudes resonate with my own sense of values and purpose.

From the standpoint of understanding effective leadership, I feel as if he is a force field of some kind and that I am entraining to the frequency of that force field. My experience of President Bush was more of dissonance. The difference in my experience, however, does not provide empirical evidence that one leader is more effective than the other.

This leads me to consider how important it is for people to agree with their leader. My guess is that I could feel a sort of gravity and the pull to "get in step" with a leader whom I respected, even if I didn't agree with him/her. I'm not sure though. I'll have to think about this some more.

What is it about Obama that strikes such deep hope and trust in me? Why do I become teary eyed every time I see his face? Why do I feel willing to follow him to the ends of the earth? I'm not at all sure.

The force field which I experience him as is no doubt being reinforced and amplified by the 76% of the American population who currently approve of him. Those of us who are filled with hope and are actively appreciating him and praying for him are likely increasing the energy with which he draws upon and projects back to us.

And if you believe modern physics -- time is non-linear -- then perhaps one source of my hope and deep resonance stems from remembering what a resounding success he has already been. Perhaps some of the energy around him comes from countless future generations celebrating his leadership and our victory over major economic, social, and environmental collapse. Maybe...

"It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine"

2009-02-19T18:39:00.006-07:00

I have more hope about the world than ever before. One big reason I feel so hopeful is because of all the turbulence and chaos. That might sound wierd, but it's true. I have an M.A. in Chaos Theory and Social Change. The reason I pursued that degree is that when I first discovered Chaos Theory it completely transformed my life. (I just love science... and my favorite theories are Chaos Theory, Gaia Theory, and the idea that the universe is a Holograph).

Chaos Theory is comprised of these simple tennets:

Turbulence precedes a jump to a new level of order
Feedback generates form
All systems are universal and self-similar
There is a sensitive dependence on initial conditions

I'm not going to bother with a lengthy explanation or trying to prove these ideas to you. My personal experience with growth and transformation is that when the 'poopie hits the fan' in my life it's feedback that I could make new choices and hopefully avoid the same kinds of problems in the future. This came after noticing that I was dealing with the same crap over and over again. Like attracting the same unhealthy relationships into my life. There had to be some reason I kept dating people who really were not interested in marriage and family. Perhaps it was because I hadn't made up my own mind about what I really wanted.

It was just about 10 years ago that I discovered Chaos Theory and since then everything is very different. I now see all turbulence as an opportunity. Everything which used to fall into the category of problem or catastrophe is now viewed as a gift. For example, take this ice storm we had which qualifies as a natural disaster. We went 19 days without power or running water. There were so many gifts, like neighbors coming together, we learned how prepared we are and how to be even more prepared, we stepped up our quest for renewable energy sources, my dad's building a wind generator, the storm was amazingly beautiful, and I got to spend lots of time with my family while I wasn't working.

Oh sure, there were challenges. And yes, there were 2 days of the 19 when I felt pretty depressed. But that was a gift as well.

If there was one thing I could give to any and every person on the planet it would be optimism. Choosing to percieve the bullshit as a gift is so much better for my health and well-being. Maybe that's what R.E.M. meant when they sang "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine." There are a number of dysfunctional systems, patterns, and beliefs which I am ready to see come to an end. And as I watch them crumble, I feel fine.

Light Emerging

2009-02-16T20:35:00.003-07:00

As the days grow longer and we pass out of the dark half of the year, I feel the return of my own drive and motivation. This year there are even more obvious metaphors of light emerging from darkness. Probably the most obvious is that we have just lived through a natural disaster. An ice storm hit AR and KY on 1/26. For 19 days we had no electricity and no running water.

The Forest Service is abuzz with a return to a lighter mode as well. I've worked for the agency for 8 years. The story of those 8 years has been the story of ever shrinking budgets and ever increasing demands. Our passion and dedication to the land was sometimes the only thing which kept us going as we witnessed first hand the impacts of global climate change under an administration which ignored and even denied the threat (at least for the first 3-4 years). Each year wild fire consumed more land and dollars while we desperately castrated our business operations to pinch every penny.

Now we're slated to receive approximately 1.3 billion dollars to let contracts, creating private sector jobs, with the focus of hazardous fuels reduction and woody biomass utilization as an energy source. Finally we're under an administration which sees the inextricable links between environment, economy, and society.

No power, yet energized

2009-02-10T01:44:00.003-07:00

Fifteen days ago we lost our electricity during an ice storm which hit Arkansas and Kentucky. We still don't have power, but I'm presently on a business trip to the Coronado National Forset and am blogging from the hotel. Many of the towns in our area have power again, but in this part of the country our populations are widely dispersed. We have 40 acres and live 6 miles from town. All 6 of those miles are dirt roads. Our driveway alone is one mile. Our electricity is provided by a rural electric cooperative which serves Searcy and Van Buren Counties. Even with the assistance of outside electrical workers, there are hundreds of poles down and thousands of places where the lines are lying on the ground -- just in our county alone.

Our intention has always been to employ renewable resources such as wind and solar power. It has also been our dream to build with alternative green technologies such as cob or straw bale. In 2005 when we first moved to the Ozarks, we built a standard wooden frame house and wired it to the electrical grid. Despite the obvious clash with our intentions, this was our best option for a number of reasons:

I telecommute and I needed to have a very stable office environment which would support all the office gizmos.
Cell phones don't work in our valley, and the only way to get a land line put in was along side the electric lines on the power poles.
The kind of construction techniques we want to employ are in general information and time intensive up front, so we needed time to research and plan our approach so that our creation is in harmony with the landscape and natural energy sources, such as passive solar.
I'm an only child and while my parents are quite young (in their 50s), our intention was that this first small house would become theirs as a part time home during retirement and a full-time home during the sunset years. (I think nursing homes are scary and sad).

Along with the regular aspects of living, working, and raising two kids we've been planning our next home since even before the paint dried on the current cottage. One thing we've done in order to prepare for the transition to renewable energy is to cut our power consumption by as much as possible. We use our central heat and air an average of 150 hours per year. We spend about $50 a month on electricity. We heat with a wood stove and open the windows in summer.

A number of positive things are coming out of this experience, and I'll likely mention those in other posts. One which I do want to mention now is that I've seen a complete shift in my father around these green concepts.

Dad is an electrician and a heating/air specialist. He's brilliant and skilled in a number of other trades. He and Steven built our house (too bad I wasn't blogging then, that was an amazing adventure). Like many other people in his age group and profession, he didn't see any reason to change our lifestyles. They were up for a visit a week before the ice storm hit. During that time we had a long family conversation about our plans for building a cob house. Even though we'd talked about it many times before, Dad was listening in a different way because he's facing his second lay-off in 2 years. (He was a construction inspector in Ft. Myers, FL - the town which Obama will visit tommorrow). When he is laid off the second time (not if because there is no building industry in FL) he's going to come up and help us build the next house.

I think that 15 days of my mom worrying about her grand babies, as well as his own concerns for our well-being, AND his desire to support us even if he would choose standard building methods, have led to a most amazing development. Tonight he announced that he's found the average air speeds and is going to build us a wind generator. He's been searching the web for plans, formulas, and the like and has a sound strategy for engineering his own design.

I can't tell you how overjoyed I am about this. Not only because the transition to renewable energy has been a daunting learning curve, but especially because it's evidence of the kind of deep, global shift in awareness which I have been praying for since the early 90s. He shared this with me over the phone after we'd both watched Obama's first press conference, and after an entire day of supporting the Coronado National Forest in preparing to recieve a flood of economic stimulus money which the agency plans to use to create jobs by letting contracts to reduce hazardous fules (wild fire prevention) AND developing renewable energies around the use of woody biomass as a power source.

It is finally all coming together. We're realizing the inextricable connectedness between environment, economy, and society. This is why I'm so hopeful. These disasters, though painful, are providing us with the necessary feedback to transform our entire planetary experience. Hallelujah!

When Heaven Froze Over

2009-02-04T14:35:00.001-07:00

On 1/26/09 a big ice storm hit our area here in the Ozark Mountains of Northern Arkansas. It was amazingly beautiful.

We've been without power and water for 9 days. I plan to write about this just as soon as I'm fully online again. Who knows how long it will take.

Government: Transparent, Collaborative, Participative

2009-01-26T08:32:00.003-07:00

On Friday, along with millions of other federal employees, I received a memo from Obama stating that government shall be transparent, collaborative, and participative. This is very exciting news and promises to maximize social media, such as blogging. Of course, everyone has heard by now that Obama is also the first blogging president.

Conceptually, I really support and understand the idea of things becoming more transparent, collaborative, and participative. I'll admit I'm not an expert at most social media platforms, but I consider myself an early adopter. I'm taking time to become more familiar because this seems to be the way of things. But, as open and adaptive as I like to think I am, I'm still experiencing resistance and confusion around how to fully realize the next era of effective communications.

I'm experiencing uncertainty around a number of big questions. Let's start with transparency. Who exactly should be transparent and how transparent should one be? I love the idea of having close to real time data in line-by-line transactions on the web where any American can go and see how the dollars are being spent. And I love the idea of reading blogs written by executive leaders. In both cases, people don't have to actually read either of these -- simply knowing its available increases the perception of being trustworthy. Let's take the case of Forest Service leaders blogging. I've been advocating this for a couple of years now. I want to hear weekly updates about what the Chief of the Forest Service has been doing, who she met with, what conferences she attended, etc. I want to hear her reflect upon the trends and dynamics she witnessed. I want to feel like I'm sitting in her office when the light bulb clicks on and she realizes that there is a connection between what she saw on Monday and what she felt on Wednesday.

But that's not how blogging is going in the agency. So far it's been very sporadic. The few blogging executives seem to post once every few months and when they write it seems white-washed and safe... like all the other internal publications. It's easy for me to understand why: it's scary to be that open! The reason why transparency builds trust so quickly is that transparency requires vulnerability!

I'm no executive, and there aren't 35,000 employees being reminded that there's a blog they could check out. Yet I'm still experiencing fear and resistance around this new media. Intuitively I know that we humans are striving to actualize new forms of networked intelligence and collective consciousness. I know that my own knowledge is only as valuable to the collective as it is accessible to the collective. And yet I am having a miniature identity crisis in the process of making myself accessible to the collective!

All in one week I've been asked if I had a FaceBook profile... by a professional contact, a spiritual friend, and my sister-in-law. I don't have a FaceBook profile because I can't figure out how to relate to each of these three kinds of contacts as myself. My sister-in-law could care less about the professional jargon-laiden side of my life. And my colleagues could be uncomfortable if exposed to something about my spiritual beliefs. What's really ironic is that I want to just be one person! I want to feel safe being who I am... without that jeopardizing my effectiveness.

But in order to be an active participant in this vibrant and dynamic web of connection, community, and co-creation, I absolutely must put myself out there. And if I want to feel whole and honor my whole self, should I put it all out there? I must not be the only person who is trying to balance all of this.

I believe that it is a travesty of human experience that we are discouraged from being our entire selves in the work place. It is yet another form of fragmentation which needs to be healed in order for us to achieve our highest potentials as individuals and groups. I advocate for a balance in the 5 dimensions of well-being: mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, and social. Emotional wellbeing, for example, finally entered the workplace in a more meaningful way when Daniel Goleman's work on emotional intelligence became popular in the mid 1990s. Physical wellbeing has been supported by employers for considerably longer because of the clear linkages between health and productivity. Mental wellbeing is an unspoken requisite for becoming and remaining employed. Social wellbeing is left to the individuals and differs greatly depending on personality types and the culture of the organization. Spiritual wellbeing is generally not touched by a 10 foot pole within organizations. There are good reasons for (and plenty of scar tissue around) the separation of church and state.

I don't really have a good way to conclude this post... other than owning the fact that I'm standing on the edge of a precipice and I won't be able to lead others into a new era of effective communication until I'm willing to leap into the uncertainty myself.

Presencing Institute

2009-01-23T09:29:00.002-07:00

I just joined the social network community at the Presencing Institute. I haven't really blogged about this topic yet. The introductory book to the topic is Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society by Peter M. Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, Betty Sue Flowers, 2004. The second and much more beefy tome is Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges by C. Otto Scharmer, 2007. Both books are described here: http://www.presencing.com/research-publications/books.shtml

My profile page in the Presencing Institute Community is: http://community.presencing.com/profile/ToniStafford

I'm still learning the best ways to link up each of these various social media tools.

The Transpiral Model of Development

2009-01-23T08:03:00.008-07:00

Many organizations, when faced with making large changes, focus on the objective aspects of the system such as process, policy and procedure. Leaders and consultants alike frequently underestimate the importance of the human experience of change. Successful organizations recognize the importance of engaging employees as whole people rather than merely a pair of hands. The Transpiral Model provides a framework for assessing, understanding, and supporting the needs of people as crucial elements to the success of an organization.

Today’s knowledge workers switch employers frequently to actualize their fullest career potential. Organizations which do not value employees as whole individuals do not retain expertise. In order for an organization to maximize its fullest potential, it must support individuals in maximizing their fullest potentials. Psychologist Abraham Maslow described a Hierarchy of Needs (the bottom triangle in the diagram on left) or steps which an individual must take in order to achieve self actualization. The Transpiral Model builds on Maslow’s work and addresses the steps needed to achieve group and organizational actualization.

According to Maslow (1999), an individual addresses his or her needs in order of priority, beginning with basic physiological needs. Before an individual can achieve a great work, such as painting a masterpiece, he or she must have adequately addressed the needs for food, shelter, developed nurturing relationships, and must have positive self-esteem. Maslow reminds us that self actualization is not a static state, but rather something toward which one strives throughout life. Professionals in today’s labor market have achieved some degree of self actualization in order to have graduated from higher learning institutions.

Tuckman (1965) identified the popular model for the formation of groups in organizations: forming-storming-norming-performing. The Transpiral Model (shown on the upper left) combines Maslow’s Heirarchy with Tuckman’s developmental sequence (middle triangle) and then adds steps toward group actualization (top triangle). More than the ability to work together, group actualization is a state of high performance.

In order for a group such as a team, and organization, a business, or a community to actualize its fullest potential, it must meet the requirements defined in the top triangle of the model. The group must have financial accountability and be fiscally solvent in order to achieve its fullest potential. The group must be secure, meaning that there are no threats to individual safety or to the safety of the group. This security could be physical or psychological. Psychological security of the group blends into the next level of group actualization, respect. Respect is important especially during decision making. Respect leads to trust. Groups frequently function without perfect trust, but in order for a group to achieve its fullest potential, trust is crucial.

When a group is financially stable, when all the members are physically and psychologically safe, when there is enough respect to facilitate effective communication and decision making, and when the level of trust is such that individuals may act on behalf of the group without taking time to ask permission; only then is it possible for a group to achieve its maximum potential. As with self actualization, group actualization is not a static end state. Rather its reached in peak moments. Peak moments provide the group with feedback on how to strengthen the preceding steps to actualization in order to sustain actualization for longer and longer periods.

The Transpiral Model is my original work and it earned me a Master of Arts from Prescott College in 2005. It is my intention to make this work available to anyone who is interested. In addition to periodic blogs I will explore both traditional and non-traditional venues for publication. You may contact me to request a free ebook of The Transpiral Model of Social Change.

Hope Over Fear

2009-01-21T08:37:00.008-07:00

I am both proud and awestruck by President Obama's words yesterday. I am very hopeful as I read and re-read the words of his Inaugural Address. And even though, according to The Economist, Obama has an 80% global approval rating, he only recieved 53% of our votes.

While I feel inspired to write about many aspects of my experience of the Inauguration and the state of the world, what I'm drawn to explore today are the dynamics of duality. There are examples of extreme polarity and duality every where we look. Night and day, black and white, republican and democrat, Christians and Muslims, and hope versus fear.

It is easy to be caught up in an "us versus them" mentality. As soon as we draw a line in the sand to discriminate self from other, we begin building a wall which impedes connection, understanding, and collaboration. We inherit these walls from our families and communities, often without question. The gap of fear and distrust between Christians and Muslims, for example, is said to go all the way back to the falling out of two brothers, Cain and Abel. With the descendants of Cain becoming today's Muslims and the descendants of Abel becoming today's Christians.

Overcoming the walls of our own judements and discriminations requires an expansion of consciousness. To put it another way, in order to see beyond the walls of my own self I must become aware of that which is not-self. I must not only become aware that which feels alien to me, but I must also begin to find some basis for connecting with or understanding something or someone that is on the other side of the fortress that is my paradigm.

How exactly, then, do we choose Hope Over Fear? President Obama spoke at length over this, and I believe that the responsibility for meaningful transformation belongs to each individual.

We are witnessing the decay and demise of all the major systems on the planet, including the global economy, education, human health and wellbeing, society, and every ecosystem on earth. To a systems thinker, the failures of these interdependent systems provide valuable feedback that a course correction is needed. In Chaos Theory, turbulence precedes a jump to a new level of order. The turbulence itself is caused by a rapid and chaotic oscillation between two poles in the trajectory of a system.

I think it's worth taking a minute to break this concept down for you. A trajectory is simply the direction in which the energy of the system is moving. If you're walking north on a hiking trail then the path you've walked is your trajectory. When you come to a fork in the trail you're faced with choosing east or west. Until you lock-in on one choice, your energy waffles back and forth between east and west. Those moments of indecision don't cause too much discomfort when you are just hiking... but when an entire nation is waffling back and forth between republicans and democrats every 4-8 years, there is considerable turbulence. Each time the pendulum shifts "we" feel hopeful and optimistic while "they" feel fearful and afraid.

Case in point: last October I received a widely forwarded email which claimed that Obama was the anti-christ. There are good and honest people out there in the world who are truly afraid that this election heralds the end of days and that we will soon experience a full blown apocalypse. Interestingly enough, I recall that a number of Gore supporters had the same judgements and fears when Bush was elected.

While I am clearly a democrat and am most certainly feeling much more hopeful about the world today than I have in the past several years, it's useless for half of the country to feel hopeful if the other half is fearful. It only causes more turbulence.

Therefore, any one of us who truly wants to make a difference in the world, and who truly want to achieve world peace, must begin to tear down the walls of our judgements. We must cease to define others by how they differ from us. We must seek always to connect with and understand anything and anyone which feels alien, foreign, or threatening.

If you are a democrat, please reach out to your republican neighbors. Begin by sharing a meal together, not by lecturing or brow-beating. Spend time appreciating the things you have in common - loving your children, working hard, doing the right thing, and faith in something higher than the self. This is one thing you can do to work for peace. This is how we choose hope over fear. We cannot afford otherwise.

Change: Are you Weary or Savvy?

2009-01-14T08:23:00.011-07:00

These days the only constant is change. For some of us that leads to stress and uncertainty. For others change is an opportunity and a time to be creative. Let’s think about that for a moment. In an organization, first, a change is announced. Then there’s planning and implementation. Then, as the change is assessed we learn that there are more things to change, so the cycle continues, like a ball rolling down a hill (see the blue loop). For those of us who are change weary, we feel stressed when more change is announced and our morale and productivity suffers. And since change keeps happening, we just feel worse and worse (red loop).

But what about those people who see change as an opportunity? When change is announced they think creatively and trust that they will find a positive outcome. This helps them avoid the downward spiral of stress. While they are scanning the horizon for their next steps, their creative thinking helps them turn a change into an opportunity.
Are you change weary or change savvy? Which group of people is probably having more fun at work? Which group of people do you imagine feels healthier? Believe it or not but you have a choice. You can choose to have a negative experience of change, or you can choose to have a positive experience of change. Stay tuned to this blog to learn how to change your experiences and reactions to change and other stressful situations.

Home Grown School

2009-01-11T18:15:00.004-07:00

My husband, Steven, and I live in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas with our two young children, Forest and Raven. We moved here about 4 years ago. I work for the national headquarters of the Forest Service, in a program called Enterprise. Because I serve the entire agency, I can live anywhere and work from an office in my home.

At the local summer solstice party in 2007 there were a group of us mom's sitting on a quilt and talking about our kids. Between the 4 moms we had a total of 7 kids, 4 of them all the same age. The conversation got around to schooling and what our plans were. One mom, Laura Daly, shared that she'd always dreamed of starting a school and that she'd even studied early childhood development in college. Then I shared that Steven and I had a dream of starting a non-profit organization and that one of our ideas was to have a school/community center which would provide education for both kids as well as adults.

It could have been one of those "wouldn't it be nice if..." conversations, but because I'm an organizational developer I siezed the moment and gave a quick sales pitch about how we REALLY could do this. I offered to facilitate meetings and guide the group through the various processes.

It's now 1.5 years later. Our strategic plan is about 80% complete. On Friday we elected the director of our board and agreed to begin filing papers for our 501-3c. The local American Legion has agreed to let us hold the school there when we open up this August. The four families who've been in on the planning process have really worked hard to get this far. I'll have to see if I can post our brochure and/or strategic plan. In the mean time, here's some excerpts from the executive summary of the strategic plan:

Vision:
By Fall of 2009, Leslie Creative Learning Cooperative, a 501-3c non-profit organization, will open its doors to 12-15 students. Our facility will be eco-friendly with multiple learning environments which encourage holistic development and self-initiated learning.

Mission:
LCLC is a non-profit elementary school which provides affordable holistic education to children in Northern Arkansas. Our mission is to enhance the child’s natural ability to realize his/her highest potential. Our developmentally appropriate environment supports alternate learning styles. At LCLC we partner with parents and students to craft an individual learning plan about which each student can be passionate. Our goal is to create a partnership between children, parents, teachers, the school, and the community.

Educational Philosophy:
At LCLC we believe children learn best in an environment in which they are actively involved in their education. Children learn when they are excited about the subject and inspired rather than required to learn. We feel children learn best when the curriculum is both developmentally appropriate and centered on their individual learning style. Learning is enhanced when children are in a multi-aged classroom in which they are able to learn from and teach each other.

At LCLC we recognize that the parents are their children’s first educators. Diversity and individuality are respected, encouraged and supported in our democratic approach to both curriculum and decision making. We feel the process of learning is just as important as the subjects being taught. LCLC strives to place learning in both a local and global context.
Teachers partner with parents and students to design an individual learning plan which is tailored to the student’s interests and developmental needs. Parents elect part time or full time attendance so that a portion of the child’s learning happens in the home. We strive to create a learning community which not only supports the learning of each individual student, but also provides students with opportunities to collaborate.

Whenever possible the individual learning plans of the several students blend with communal projects. Communal projects are designed to provide experiential and integrated learning. LCLC communal projects are not only relevant to the developmental needs of the students, but also to the development of the community at large. Examples might include a coop school garden and farmers market.

I will periodically blog about the work to date and the next steps. If you, reader, should happen to find this blog post because you are dreaming of creating a school, please feel free to contact me and I will share our materials and experiences with you. Afterall, one of the best ways to change the world for the good is to start by giving the next generation of leaders the best education possible.

Why Wellness is Crucial to your Organization's Success

2009-01-07T08:26:00.002-07:00

You probably know that stress related issues are the leading cause for sick days. But you may not know about the important connection between attitude and performance.

When you're under stress, the graph of your Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is a jagged and herky-jerky squiggle (the red graph on left). But when you're feeling a positive emotion, the graph of your HRV is a smooth and even sine wave (blue graph on left).

Why does this matter? Reasearch conducted by the Institute of HeartMath(R) has demonstrated that important bodily systems, such as the autonomic nervous system and the hormonal system, take cues from the heart. When you are feeling a negative emotion such as stress or frustration, your incoherent HRV triggers the production of cortisol which has been linked to conditions such as

•Accelerated aging (Kerr et al., 1991; Namiki, 1994)
•Brain cell death (Kerr et al., 1991; Sapolsky, 1992)
•Impaired memory and learning (Kerr et al., 1991; Sapolsky, 1992)
•Decreased bone density; increased osteoporosis (Manolagas, 1979)
•Reduced muscle mass (Beme, 1993)
•Reduced skin growth and regeneration (Beme, 1993)
•Impaired immune function (Hiemke, 1994)
•Increased blood sugar (DeFeo, 1989)
•Increased fat accumulation around waist / hips (Marin, 1992)
•Obesity (Marin 1992)
•Diabetes (Nestler 1992)
•Hypertension (Shafagoj 1992)
•Heart Disease (Barrett-Connor 1986)
•Cancer (Bhatavdekar 1994)
•Alzheimer’s (Nasman 1995)
•HIV-related disease (Wisniewski 1993)

When we're stressed, not only are we more susceptible to injury and illness, but we also cannot think as clearly. Stress impairs both memory and creativity. AND, stress is infectious! One grumpy person in an office, complaining at the water cooler, can quickly multiply into many grumpy people.

I consider myself an expert on this subject as I have two certifications from HeartMath, LLC. But you don't have to take my word for it, there are lots of books, webinars, and papers on the subject. I'll add what I can to this blog and provide links for the rest.

I'm committed to growing healthy people, healthy teams, healthy organizations, healthy communities, and a healthy planet. That's why HeartMath resonnates so well with me. I'm truly grateful to all the folks at HeartMath for the good they do in the world.

Be a Good Neuron - Start a Blog

2009-01-06T08:22:00.004-07:00

The Forest Service, like so many organizations, is struggling to find ways to communicate more effectively. At present we're relying on emails, newsletters, intranet sites, meetings, and conference calls. We're innundated by irrelevant information in our inboxes so often that in order to survive we have to tune most of it out. Then we miss the pieces of news which were really crucial.

For the past 100 years the agency has gone through phases of both centralization and decentralization. The next phase of development is struggling to emerge - networked intelligence. My good friend and colleague Faye Fentiman says "intelligence is widely distributed in organzations - one brain per person." Each brain has an amazing depth of unique knowledge which is currently only barely tapped.

Think of it this way. There are 35,000 hard drives each with huge volumes of information, but none of them are networked. There's no way to Google a topic and find anything valuable because each hard drive is encased inside a skull and there are no wires connecting them. Some people call it a knowledge management issue, others call it a communications issue.

There may not be wires from my head to yours, but there are connections and channels of information and influence between individuals. They're called relationships. The more trust and commraderie between two people, the more freely they share their knowledge. The collection of relationships throughout the agency are social networks.

True networked intelligence requires a healthy and vibrant web of interconnected social networks which allow for the unimpeded flow of knowledge throughout the organization. What's interesting to me is that intelligence within one brain also requires a network, a neural network. In your brain there are neurons which fire electrical impulses. Think about your mom for a minute. Everything which comes to mind about your mom can be called a thought construct. Each thought construct is a network of neurons which fire in tandem while you are thinking about that topic. These neural networks, like all networks, are self-organizing. That means that sometimes you can spontaneously realize there is a connection between two or more formerly separate thought constructs. When that happens we describe it as a light bulb going off in our heads, which is fitting since the neurons connect via electricity. When you get a new idea or insight it is said to look like a lightning storm in your brain - it's the flash of thousands of neurons firing in conjunction for the first time - the birth of a new neural network.

If I record my ideas, theories, experiences, knowledge, etc. in my blog and if others do the same, then by Googling I can find and connect with other people around the topics which interest us. Over time as these connections multiply, a network is born. In the knowledge management world it's called a Community of Practice.

The Forest Service is only just entering the world of Social Media. We can Wiki, and executive leaders can blog. I've recently heard that blogging will open up to any employee, provided the supervisor agrees to monitor the blog. I'm choosing to blog outside the fire wall now, and when the opportunity arises, I'll have a duplicate blog on the inside. The reason I think it's important to do both is that I want to participate in dialogue both internally as well as with my external peers.

Even if no one ever reads these posts, it's helpful to me to process and record information in this way.