Marilyn Hamilton's Blog, page 49

Integral City Reflective Organ – December 2016: Coalescing We-Space Power

 

This newsletter is published quarterly using a cycle of perspectives on the Integral City viewed from: Planet, People, Place and Power. The theme of this issue is Power.

At the heart of our We-space was the dream/vision of an integral way of being such that we would transcend and include the limitations of individual bio-psycho-cultural-social modes of existence that embraced systems, complexity, evolution and spirituality into a transpersonal experience of reality that opened the boundaries of human interaction into the morphic and/or subtle realms (Hamilton, 2008, p.73; Sheldrake (1988; Wilber, 2006). Tapping into such evolving life-giving capacities and imagination skills within and for (our) cities seemed to open the eventual planetary We-space for Integral Cities. This meta-dream then became how to bring all of the Voices in the city (and its surrounding areas) into a safe space inside which we can listen to each other, learn from each other, dream together, share stories, imagine together in a life-giving We-space to create an Integral City.  Our core purpose, intention and commitment now has become to work with others co-creating conditions for the emergence of the Integral City as Gaia’s organ-of-consciousness enabling her to reflect upon herself

Hamilton, M., Douglas, D. C., Beck, C., Aurami, A., & Arnott, J. (2016). We-space, Integral City and the Knowing Field. Chapter in M. Brabant & O. Gunnlaugson (Eds.), Cohering the Integral We Space: Developing Theory and Practice for Engaging Collective Emergence, Wisdom and Healing in Groups (pp. 131-154). San Francisco: Integral Publishing House.

December Days of Light and Darkness

 

December with its festivities of shifting light (solstices north and south) and celebrations of sacred arrivals is a month to contemplate the power of WE. Traditionally December is a time for spending with families, exchanging gifts and remembering our connections to a caring spirt, joyful light and the Great Mystery of life.

December 2016 however marks a bitter-sweet time of transition in the western democracies when the Great Love for a Higher Power and one another is threatened by the Great Fear of political change and the shadows of our human nature.

The City of Aleppo reminds us that evolution to more complex manifestations of life is not guaranteed. The long march of both human emergence and our earthly habitat shows much evidence of periodic setbacks that if we had been present at those times would have convinced us that progress was hopeless and the future was doomed. The former war-time victims of Dresden, Coventry, Nagasaki and Hiroshima would no doubt recognize Aleppo’s dilemma.

But today’s citizens of those same cities could vouch for the resilience of the human spirit and a power greater than mere individual human existence that worked together as a larger WE and has rebuilt hopes, dreams and habitats for new generations.

Aleppo is a harsh reminder that the thrust of civilization is not always forward. When we fail to honour and respect the bio-psycho-cultural-social energy of both individuals and collectives as our Spiritual Source and Re-source we betray our deepest nature and highest good.

But there is a comfort in the long view of the human hive, represented by December’s shift of light. Like the reflections from an icon of yin and yang, we can bring to mind with all our hearts, minds, hands, haras and souls the return of light to the world. With more mindfulness than usual, this season, we need to focus on restoring the City of Aleppo as a symbol of overcoming darkness and rebirthing the best of what humans may offer as Gaia’s reflective organ.

Winter Solstice Awakens the Queen Bee

Queen Bee Surrounded by Workers

I have discovered a little-known fact about the Winter Solstice and its connection to the bees.

It turns out that just as we experience the shortest day and longest night at the winter solstice, deep inside the darkness of the hive, the Queen Bee responds to a natural signal. Solstice alerts her to renew her critical contribution to the survival of the hive. She knows it is time to start the process of birthing new bees. A short time after she senses the light shift, the intelligence in the hive mind, stimulates the colony to raise the temperature of the hive (by shivering!!) to about 35C to create the optimal warmth for rearing a new generation. When the conditions in the habitat are right the Queen recycles the honey storage cells (that have been emptied during the long cold days of advent) into birthing chambers for about 100 brood. As winter wanes and spring arrives the Queen will accelerate her birthing process so the hive has enough new foragers to gather the nectar and pollen to produce the 20 kg of honey that will ensure hive survival for another year.

In the winter time of the year, within the bee hive, bees even take turns generating warmth not just for the Queen but for each other. Bees on the cooler outside rotate their locations with bees in the warm inner huddle of the hive surrounding the Queen.

The intelligence of cooperation for survival, sustainability and resilience in the bee hive is always an inspiration for the human hive to evolve our capacity to translate those lessons into the wisdom of the Master Code – to care for ourselves, each other, our place and our planet.

Learn more about this on website Romancing the Bee.

Meshworker of the Year 2016 – 2 Nominees

2016 marks the first year Integral City Meshworks has received 2 nominations for the award Meshworker of the Year. Our 2 distinguished nominees are:

1.Diana Claire Douglas and her work in Knowing Field Designs, using systemic constellation work for accessing and revealing the invisible patterns in cities. Diana Claire has used her gifts with a number of civil society organizations in several cities and with a series of globally connected organizations impacting cities.

 

 

2.Morel Fourman and his work in Gaiasoft systems has been working with cities and nations, particularly in Africa with a platform that enables strategic positioning for organizations within cities and across cities in the same country. Morel’s work has provided systematic foundation building to strengthen city systems and infrastructure. He designs performance management systems that enable capacity building in governments and citizen engagement with the younger generations.

The Meshworker of the Year will be announced before December 31, 2016. Stay tuned.

Read more about Meshworker of the Year here .

 

Integral City Emerging Power of Human Hive with 2 Books
1. We-space, Integral City and the Knowing Field

It’s on the shelves!! Integral City Community of Practitioners – Marilyn Hamilton, Diana Claire Douglas, Cherie Beck, Alia Aurami, Joan Arnott – are proud to see their chapter contributing to the new book, Cohering the Integral We Space: Engaging Collective Emergence, Wisdom and Healing in Groups. Edited by Michael Brabant and Olen Gunnlaugson, the book is a compendium of leading edge We-space practices drawn from across the Integral movement. It reveals how ecology, the Kosmos, presencing, design, transformation, circling and evolution contribute to We-Space experience.

Our Integral City Chapter explains how We-Space and Systemic Constellation Work have become an intimate part of Integral City’s Community of Practice, informing our core purpose, intention and commitment to co-create conditions for the emergence of the Integral City. Our wisdom holder group explores the paradoxical nature of the relationship of individuals’ awareness, collective awareness and emergent field awareness in the context of the city being both a Human Hive and Gaia’s Reflective Organ.

Systemic Constellation Work (SCW) frames research and development that expands our ways of knowing and supports the creation of healthy, dynamic, comprehensive solutions to complex problems within rapidly changing complex environments. Our experience of We-space has become an expression of the Spirit of Integral City, and a prototype of the Human Hive Mind, in service to the We-space of all life on Gaia and the Great Mystery. The book is available through Amazon.

2. Integral City Book 2: Inquiry and Action: Designing Impact for Place Caring and Place Making in the Human Hive

Book 2 of the Integral City series is in the final stages of editing and production as we release this newsletter. It will be published in early 2017.

The book has garnered great support from the worlds of Integral expertise, Action Research, and City Planning.

Ken Wilber has this to say about the new book:

Integral City Inquiry & Action continues Marilyn Hamilton’s (and her colleagues’) rather unique exploration into the application and extension of Integral Metatheory (and related disciplines) into the entire urban landscape and all its dimensions, aspects, functions, and qualities.  … What Integral City tells us … is that any approach that is less comprehensive or less integral is doomed to failure, because only an integrally pluralistic theory and practice will cover all the truly important bases.  These important bases are carefully elucidated in 16 chapters, each one covering a significant ingredient of a genuinely integral approach to city planning, living, exploring, discovering, applying.  My congratulations to the authors for another profound, timely, and superb work!

Hilary Bradbury, Editor Handbook of Action Research & Action Research Journal observes:

The unusual and captivating hero of this book is the city. Not an inert mass of buildings, but a collective, a hive, a holarchy that brings people and processes of inquiry together in action. This human centered approach to systems of a city offers well chosen “sticky” concepts, grounded in practice and expressed with a simplicity that belies their complexity. What’s more, the book offers tons of great questions and grounded frameworks that help us articulate Gaia’s reflective capacity. It’s a resource for action researchers in the field of urban planning and perhaps for all whole systems/integration oriented professionals.

Lisa Norton, Professor of Design Leadership and Associate Dean, School of Design Strategies, Parsons School of Design remarks:

After urban planning, what’s plan B? Given the scale, complexity and interdependencies of our global crises, 20th century urban plans and solutions are simply inadequate. This leading edge and thoroughly practical contribution to inquiry and impact on the crucial dilemmas faced by cities today, is a gift to next generation urban change workers. It’s elegant and accessible structure, fresh models and integrating tools are the product of iterative testing over many years in contexts of place-based yet globally shared challenges faced by 21st century architects, planners, city managers, developers, designers, communities, investors and activists.

The new Integral City Book 2 can be ordered from Integral Publishers.

 

Integral City Celebrates Year 3 Harvests with Imagine Durant

Celebrating the third round of Visioning with Imagine Durant, Oklahoma, we are proud to announce that

Imagine Durant completes Year 3 with the publication of two new Harvest Reports. We harvested Dialogue 7 in a mapping session that brought together more than a dozen map makers from across the city.  Our second harvest opened Dialogue Round 3 with a focus on Education and Culture. Durant is now poised to conclude its Visioning process and move into the Strategic Positioning stage to set out a plan to implement the Vision.

The new Harvest reports can be downloaded from Imagine Durant website:

R2D3 Mapping Meeting Harvest Report

R3D1 Education & Culture Thought Leaders Harvest Report

 

Integral City Amplifies 3 Powerful Collaborations

As Integral City has strengthened its foundations since Integral Theory Conference 2015, it has found common cause with three other organizations nurturing the Integral movement: Integral Without Borders, Ten Directions and MetaIntegral.

1. Integral City Meshworks + Integral Without Borders = New Synergy

“The world is changing. Borders are shifting. Development is happening at all scales – in organizations, communities, cities, nations and globally. It’s time we brought new energy into our service to emerging the next stages of evolution for human systems. Let’s see if we can synergize together!”

With this shared intention, the Founder of Integral City Meshworks, Marilyn Hamilton has accepted the invitation from Integral Without Borders to sit on their Board.

With the handshake between their two organizations, the ICM and IWB Founders hope to both amplify the resonance amongst their integrally informed designers for change and open borders with/in/as the world is waking up to its ever-greater reflective capacity.

Read the full announcement here.

   

2. Ten Directions & In This Together Power Practice

In our September newsletter we reported that a group of our Integral City wisdom holders would participate in the In this Together Training from Ten Directions. We joined their online course with more than 120 students and facilitators from around the globe to learn and practise Skills that Bring People Together.

 

Integral City practitioners wanted to experience how ITT can contribute to IC facilitation practice. We found that this met our standards for IC Practitioners and was a very rewarding investment of time, finances and effort. We expanded our engagement with the course by holding Integral City Homework sessions on Zoom. We used an Action Research framework for each of the 9 classes to consider:

What we learned
So What did it have to do with Integral City Practise or training
Now What were we going to do as practitioners as a result of our learning. 

We blogged our Retrospective on this valuable learning and share them in the Free Resources below.

Ten Directions is offering a sequel: Freedom to Fight: essential skills for transforming conflict with confidence. Watch for the announcement at Ten Directions.

 

3. Integral City Powers MetaIntegral Foundation 2016 BE Impact Research Projects

 

MetaIntegral Foundation, an Integral City constellation partner, supports some of the world’s leading Integral thinker/doers. MIF and its donors (like Integral City) build credibility and help to advance the Power of We as part of the field of Integral Theory and practice. In 2016 MIF funded two Integral Projects.

PUP Global Heritage Consortium

Jon Kohl

Throughout the international development world, site assessments are standard fare, but non-participatory, top-down, exterior-dimension-dominant assessments tend to miss the reality and fail to mobilize community interviewees. The PUP Global Heritage Consortium is creating an Integral Site Assessment to solve this challenge and better mobilize communities.

Read more here.

StageLens Text Analysis Research

Tom Murray

StageLens Text Analysis Research explores the application of state-of-the-art text analysis and machine learning to build automatic scoring systems for adult developmental assessments. This project has the potential of reducing costs of large-scale assessments and increasing the uptake of developmental approaches in organizations and society. Integral City is working with Tom to prototype applications for Integral City text-based survey analysis.

 

 Integral City AQtivates Social Power

As a follow through from its new website, Integral City has aqtivated social media conversations with a lively schedule of postings on our relaunched Facebook Page and Twitter related to Dialogue, 4 Questions and Facilitation. Join the voices and Power us up with a Like us at:

Twitter
Facebook – Integral City Meshworks Inc. FB – new page

Join the FB Groups closer to where you live – in Netherlands and UK.

FB Group for Integral City Netherlands
FB Group for Integral City UK

 

Celebrating City Power in the Coming Quarter of 2017

December 21 marks the start of what Integral City calls the Power Quarter (from December 21 to March 20). What energy or power do you offer for festivities in the City in this season? What spirit, connections, rituals, renewing practices, and connections fill you up and spread new light?  We savour retrospectives, grieve the passing of old friends (and regrettably cities), share deep We-Spaces and take comfort from the energy emanating from integrally-informed pioneers daring to prototype new systems for emergence and learn deeply in our planet of cities. Visit us on the new Integral City Website and Blog and post a comment on Facebook about the POWER-FULL Human Hive you call home.

Meshful Blessings for the Power in all Human Hives 
 Marilyn Hamilton and the  Integral City Constellation Core Team

PS Here are some Free Resources for nurturing Power in the Human Hive:

Integral City Learning Retrospective on In This Together training:
Giving attention to our intention for facilitating
Listening intently and actively
Expressing our message clearly and congruently
Recognizing the multiple points of view at the table
Questioning to understand
Embracing feeling & emotion to transmute negatives into positives
Leveraging conflict through shared intention
Giving and receiving feedback
Enjoying our facilitator role and relationships

 

 

 

 

 

Meshworker of the Year Nominees 2016

2016 marks the first year Integral City Meshworks has received 2 nominations for the award Meshworker of the Year.

Our 2 distinguished nominees for Meshworker of  2016 are:

1.Diana Claire Douglas and her work in Knowing Field Designs.

Diana Claire uses systemic constellation work for accessing and revealing the invisible patterns in cities. Diana Claire has used her gifts with a number of civil society organizations in several cities and with a series of globally connected organizations impacting cities.

 

 

2.Morel Fourman and his work in Gaiasoft systems.

Morel has been working with cities and nations, particularly in Africa with a platform that enables strategic positioning for organizations within cities and across cities in the same country. Morel’s work has provided systematic foundation building to strengthen city systems and infrastructure. He designs performance management systems that enable capacity building in governments and citizen engagement with the younger generations.

The Meshworker of the Year will be announced before December 31, 2016. Stay tuned.

—

What are the Qualifications for Meshworker of the Year?

A Meshworker of the Year demonstrates the meshworking intelligence as defined on the website here

http://integralcity.com/voices-intelligences/meshworking-intelligence/

Candidates invest dollars, time, effort and expertise at a level of complexity that serves a whole city or cities. Here are links to previous winners:

http://integralcity.com/2015/12/20/meshworkers-of-the-year-award-2015-imagine-durant-oklahoma-usa-integral-city-of-the-future/

http://integralcity.com/2015/03/20/meshworkers-of-the-year-award-2014-team-argo-creators-of-russias-first-citizen-initiated-urbanfst-forum/

http://integralcity.com/2014/01/28/meshworkers-of-the-year-award-2013-planning-as-the-city/

 

Integral City Meshworks + Integral Without Borders = New Synergy

 

“The world is changing. Borders are shifting. Development is happening at all scales – in organizations, communities, cities, nations and globally. It’s time we brought new energy into our service to emerging the next stages of evolution for human systems. Let’s see if we can synergize together!”  

 

 

 

With this shared intention, the Founder of Integral City Meshworks, Marilyn Hamilton has accepted the invitation from Integral Without Borders to sit on their Board.

Integral Without Borders (IWB) is a global network of practitioners dedicated to integrating perspectives and manifesting greater depth in the praxis of international development. They hold events and telecourses, offer mentoring and consulting and provide resources.

IWB was founded by Gail Hochachka and Paul van Schaik in 2005. They have grown to over 500 members and include philosopher and author Ken Wilber amongst their international Board. IWB’s network serves the community of integral practitioners working in international development who are seeking more innovative and integral approaches to complex issues. They serve that community through holding monthly conference calls on relevant topics and methodologies, running a website with a large and growing list of resources for integral praxis, and holding global learning events all over the world.

Integral City Meshworks (ICM) is a constellation of AQtivators, organizations and communities of practice who are waking up the human hive as it evolves through the Traditional, Smart, Resilient and Integral stages. ICM is reinventing how cities work to nurture life, optimize life conditions and care for people, on a planet of Integral Cities. ICM imagines the human hive as an intelligent, living, evolving innovation eco-system, practicing the Master Code – where the four voices of the city, – Citizens, Civil Society, City/Institutional Managers, Business – thrive today and create a legacy of life conditions for the next generations to evolve and thrive.

Integral City Meshworks was founded by Marilyn Hamilton in 2000. ICM has a Board of Advisors, Core Team and six key Community of Practice constellations around the world in Canada, USA, Russia, Netherlands, South Africa and Mexico, with nodes emerging in the UK, Australia and Spain. ICM produces a website, blog, books, articles and conference papers; designs methodologies, training programs and online learning events; and helps cities reinvent themselves.

With the handshake between their two organizations, the ICM and IWB Founders hope to both amplify the resonance amongst their integrally informed designers for change and open borders with/in/as the world is waking up to its ever-greater reflective capacity.

 

Integral City Meshworks + Integral Without Borders = Re-Energize

 

“The world is changing. Borders are shifting. Development is happening at all scales – in organizations, communities, cities, nations and globally. It’s time we brought new energy into our service to emerging the next stages of evolution for human systems. Let’s see if we can re-energize together!”  

 

 

 

With those shared intentions, the Founder of Integral City Meshworks, Marilyn Hamilton has accepted the invitation from Integral Without Borders to sit on their Board.

Integral Without Borders (IWB) is a global network of practitioners dedicated to integrating perspectives and manifesting greater depth in the praxis of international development. They hold events and telecourses, offer mentoring and consulting and provide resources.

IWB was founded by Gail Hochachka and Paul van Schaik in 2005. They have grown to over 500 members and include philosopher and author Ken Wilber amongst their international Board. IWB’s network serves the community of integral practitioners working in international development who are seeking more innovative and integral approaches to complex issues. They serve that community through holding monthly conference calls on relevant topics and methodologies, running a website with a large and growing list of resources for integral praxis, and holding global learning events all over the world.

Integral City Meshworks (ICM) is a constellation of AQtivators, organizations and communities of practice who are waking up the human hive as it evolves through the Traditional, Smart, Resilient and Integral stages. ICM is reinventing how cities work to nurture life, optimize life conditions and care for people, on a planet of Integral Cities. ICM imagines the human hive as an intelligent, living, evolving innovation eco-system, practicing the Master Code – where the four voices of the city, – Citizens, Civil Society, City/Institutional Managers, Business – thrive today and create a legacy of life conditions for the next generations to evolve and thrive.

Integral City Meshworks was founded by Marilyn Hamilton in 2000. ICM has a Board of Advisors, Core Team and six key Community of Practice constellations around the world in Canada, USA, Russia, Netherlands, South Africa and Mexico, with nodes emerging in the UK, Australia and Spain. ICM produces a website, blog, books, articles and conference papers; designs methodologies, training programs and online learning events; and helps cities reinvent themselves.

With the handshake between their two organizations, the ICM and IWB Founders hope to both amplify the resonance amongst their integrally informed designers for change and open borders with/in/as the world is waking up to its ever-greater reflective capacity.

 

Enjoy Your Facilitator Role and Relationships

This is one of series of blogs that are a retrospective reflection on Integral City Community of Practice’s experience in taking the In This Together (ITT) course on basic facilitation

The ninth and final class of the course focused on enjoying our roles as facilitators. We started with a reminder that facilitators do well to consider the old wisdom that a little praise goes a long way! Positivity and praise open up the facilitator to really enjoying their role and the relationships that it attracts.

Enjoy Facilitation Role & Relationships

At the same time as facilitator, we need to be aware that fun can look and feel different in different cultures and we need to be sensitive to that (especially in this day of uber-political correctness).

After Diane reviewed the prior eight sessions of the ITT course, with a short review on the Feedback session, she reminded us that giving and receiving feedback is always a choice. One choice is for the potential recipient to decline the exchange at this time. “Not right now” can be a response that gives the them space and time to consider possibilities for the future.

As facilitators of change, we must always be aware that what and how we speak, act, relate and create impacts other people with more weight than peer responders. Keeping in mind the developmental frame (of expanding circles of care) helps us to facilitate with cutting edge awareness. We can use this “uneven” relationship to offer positive feedback so that the other person can “take it in” and develop some confidence and freedom. This may motivate them to receive “hard stuff”.

Diane admitted that Americans like to enjoy themselves (and then some!). This can add levity to many situations – but it also risks seeming superficial to those from different cultures and other points of view. (For example, many Canadians are often accused of being too sober and not fun-loving and tend to have a more ironic sense of humour – perhaps the influence of the dry sense of humour characteristic of their English and Scottish heritage?)

Whatever the culture, a good sense of humour gives the facilitator the ability to laugh at him/herself, which can open the doors to laughing with each other.

Paradoxically the capacity for the facilitator to walk into the fire where things are painful and we are willing to be with the pain and help others be with the pain, can actually increase the pleasure that can arise when we re-frame the situation with a sense of humour.

In concluding this session, we considered the role of enjoyment and humour in the work place depends on the work place culture. Sometimes the expectation for discipline and task orientation can give rise to fear that humour may somehow prevent work from being done.

Discovering how to add levity can often involve finding a metaphor that resonates with the work place or community culture (like an accountant (such as this blogger) who refers to themselves as a bean counter in a community who has dozens of different recipes for borscht, or minestrone; or a city being renamed a human hive so it can be explored as a beehive).

What was the ITT IC homework?

With this being the last of the classes in the ITT course, Diane did not give us homework. However, the Integral City learning pod convened a week before the last class and shared with the larger IC Community of Practice (CoP) what the value of participating in the course had been. We used the same 3-step framework as our earlier calls.

1. What did we experience in participating in the ITT course?

We had chosen to participate in ITT for multiple reasons:

To see how the course related to IC facilitation expectations and practice.
To experience the Zoom technology.
To understand how Ten Directions designed the course through multiple stages from promotion to conclusion.
To appreciate how the Ten Directions team worked together and with students.
To learn together as a collective and bring new pollen back for our IC human hive mind.

IC participants were at first surprised that the ITT course did not seem to be explicit training for facilitators. However, we quickly realized that each class addressed a basic skill for facilitating. Even those amongst us considered that they were highly skilled facilitators valued the in-depth review of the 8 basic skills. We all agreed that ITT training was a corollary to our IC work in other places (and planes, like systemic constellation work).

We experienced the Zoom technology as flexible and satisfying. We had the privilege of learning with Diane Hamilton and the Ten Directions (TD) team how to create an online habitat for a class of 120 people connected by video (and/or phone). We all agreed both the technology at the TD team worked very well.

The TD team not only included Diane Hamilton but a technology coordinator (Alana Felt), a host (Laura Tenney) and a strong group of facilitator expert/anchors (Cindi Lou Golin, Rebecca Colwell, +++).

Our IC students agreed that the IC addition of the homework class to the ITT course added significant value to our learning. When we convened weekly after practising the ITT homework and sharing our experience through the What/So What/Now What lenses of Action Research, we were able to ground the learning and build both individual and collective skills (and therefor capacity). In doing so we employed many of the IC Intelligences – Integral, Individual, Collective, Inquiry, Navigating, Evolutionary.

In terms of the learning cycle we found participating in the ITT class, followed by our homework experience reinforced a cycle of differentiation and integration that reinforced our learning. We also notice that each class built on the others preceding it and gave us both practice in individual skills and cumulative connections amongst them; e.g. linking intentions, listening and asking questions.

We remarked on the value of Diane and other ITT students sharing personal experiences. That brought real aliveness to the course and the modelling of facilitation. Moreover, we all admired Diane’s mastery of listening attentively, re-phrasing what she heard, asking clarifying questions, sharing pertinent and poignant example and demonstrating vulnerability that built trust and respect. We could see that Diane’s transmission as a Zen master enabled students to grow trust and transition to new levels of capacity as facilitators.

Our CoP recognized that sharing personal stories (practising another IC Intelligence of Storytelling) automatically invites listeners to connect to the story and find a way into relating to the story. Such personal sharing allows the layers (of defences, resistance, fears, negative emotions) to come off because a story that reveals courage, primal responses and poignant feelings invites further profound sharing and collective experience. Bridges can be built story by story.

Finally, when we shared on the monthly CoP call what we gained from the course we had the experience of bees bringing pollen back to the hive and feeding everyone in the CoP – not just those who had taken the ITT course.

 

2. So What does the ITT Course have to do with Integral City practice or training?

We learned much that we could incorporate into Integral City training.

We agreed that ITT was an excellent example and mode for IC facilitators to gain mastery in the basics of facilitation. We also appreciated the design and style of delivery (a combination of the very personal and very professional).
Our own use of Zoom (for homework and CoP calls) was reinforced by the experience of Zoom as a delivery vehicle for ITT. We are motivated to learn more.
In thinking about our IC “on ramp” of training we wondered if we could partner with Ten Directions and work with their team? We will check this out.
Our experience with ITT gave new energy and enthusiasm for proceeding with IC training in 2017.

 

3. Now What will we do as a result, participating in the ITT course?

As a result of our experience with the ITT Course we agreed:

The IC on-ramp of training shows a Green light to proceed in 2017. We should move ahead.
We will link our on-ramp courses to IC Book 1 and the forthcoming Book2 adding value through integrating their knowledge base with the IC on-ramp trainings.
We plan to connect with Ten Directions and explore collaborations.
We celebrate the cycle of learning through transmission, trust and transition – a sure source of amplifying the enjoyment factor in facilitating and feeding each other in the human hive!

Give and Receive Feedback

This is one of series of blogs that are a retrospective reflection on Integral City Community of Practice’s experience in taking the In This Together (ITT) course on basic facilitation skills taught by Diane Musho Hamilton and Ten Directions.

In the seventh module of the course we out of the “refiner’s fire” of conflict into the opportunity to give and receive feedback.

Feedback Needs to be Constructive & Clear

Diane opened this session after linking the topics of transmuting emotions to lower the threshold of anxiety and fear when others feel threatened. She inspired us with reference to the political adepts who are able to “metabolize” negativity and let of feelings – people like Martin Luther King Jr., Mandela, Dalai Lama, Aung San Suu Kyi, Angela Merkel, Gandhi, Mother Teresa.

Giving and receiving feedback can include the expression of feelings without hurting others. We are in a better position to receive feedback when we practice reflective listening skills.

In healthy cultures, feedback is a part of the culture. As we practise giving and receiving feedback it seems to become easier and more natural.

Ironically it seems that most of us are reasonably good at reading others but terrible at reading ourselves. Feedback from others can help us grow because it can re-frame our self-concept – which is often highly distorted.

Giving feedback is a way of stretching and learning. To the extent that we can create safety for the giver and receiver, it becomes more positive to offer and receive feedback. This includes allowing enough time for both parties to metabolize the feedback, recognizing that we might have to overcome the old impulses to fight or flee or freeze.

What was the ITT homework?

Diane gave us double-barrelled homework – to both receive feedback and give it. The homework was outlined as follows.

Receiving Feedback

Ask a close friend or colleague to give you constructive feedback. It helps to be specific, like, “How do you think my work is going right now?” or “How are you experiencing me in relationship lately?”
Brace yourself. You’ll be amazed how ready people are to offer their opinions.
Take a couple of even inhalations and exhalations, and notice any bodily resistance to the feedback. Let the resistance simply be there.
Simply listen and repeat what you have heard. Refrain from explaining or commenting in any other way on the feedback. Just feel what it is like to take it in.

Giving Feedback

Wait for a situation to come up in which you would like to offer constructive feedback to a friend or colleague.
First, ask for their permission. They may not give it.
Begin with a sentence or two of appreciation.
Offer a simple observation that might serve them if they’re receptive. An example might be, “I notice that when attention comes your way, you tend to move away from it.” Or, “I would like it if you put your cell phone away when we are eating.”
Always follow the feedback with a question such as, “How do you feel about this?” or, “What is your experience of this?”
Say thanks for the opportunity to be open and real.

 

1. What did we experience in accomplishing the homework on giving and receiving feedback?

Our homework group had a variety of feedback experiences to share.

One of us commented that feedback can be both formal – like feedback to a student taking a class – which can also be formative (to help learning) and summative (to give a grade). Feedback can also be informal in conversation. And all these kinds of feedback can be spoke, written or even via video. So, it is helpful to understand the context and the mode of delivery of the feedback because it impacts the way the message can be heard.

The same person had just received edits on a manuscript as a form of quite formal feedback in electronic mode. That delivery method put some distance between her and the editor – but it also gave here more time to metabolize and respond to the feedback.

Another participant shared that she had practised asking permission to give feedback to a person who was a staff member reporting to a Board she sat on. He agreed to receive the feedback and they were able to discuss how he could respond to the situation. At the same time, he agreed that it was helpful to receive the feedback to better perform his job.

In a similar way, one of our group shared how she reacted to impending feedback from a leader in her community. The leader has simply said, “I have something to tell you.” Our participant noticed that she flinched in expectation that it would be negative feedback. On reflection, she could see that she may have fallen into a habit of self-blaming – a form of self-talk feedback that she could re-frame into just needing to “deal with the facts”.

The same person, explained that she had become aware that in a situation where a friend was visiting, that she was able to pre-empt misunderstandings by declaring that she was in a task oriented and not relationship oriented. This was a kind of feed-forward strategy that was helpful in keeping things positive.

One of our group, share her homework in an email:

“When I give feedback, the time I take to prepare makes possible the most thoughtful expression of feedback. Sometimes in fact, my feedback changes, as my prep time causes me to really delve into my experience and think not only of myself but also of the other person. So, it’s not just my one dimension-filled experience, it also is a consideration of the situation the other person is in and the factors (as much as I can know them) that may be impacting and shaping their behaviour. This contemplative feedback proved to be way more soulful (and thus impactful) for both parties. It also allowed me to step away from my judgments and do more discerning, which I believe made for more authentic and respectful feedback.

“[On the other hand] when I received feedback I caught myself quickly feeling some degree of angst, as my immediate reaction was to protect myself in the event of [whatever I imagined could happen]. What was so cool about this was that I was aware of myself going to reticence and because of this awareness, I was able to shift to a place of curiosity just in time to hear the feedback, which is what I was able to do. And because I could ‘hear’ the constructive feedback I was able to contextualize it in a way that it had meaning for me (a win for sure). While I didn’t agree with all the constructive feedback I received, because it was obvious to the person who was giving me the feedback that I was genuinely listening to it, as I offered my alternate view my feedback partner was able to ‘hear’ it back; i.e., he was open to my view. This two-way open communication definitely allowed for a richer and more meaningful exchange between the two of us”.

 

2.So What does the topic/homework on giving and receiving feedback have to do with Integral City practice or training?

Our email correspondent wisely observed that:

“I can see that in order to make intelligent decisions that help and move people forward, it is critical that we be as thoughtful as we can about what we think is happening and what needs to happen next. Sharing from the heart and from our own experience allows for the fertile soil of meaningful interaction that benefits all parties even when we consider that some degree of compromise will ensue. From this place of respectful communication, we can start to shape a co-beneficial future, one exchange at a time. It’s also important to balance the constructive with the positive and appreciate the value in capacity building that comes from both, not to mention the fact that it just feels good when we speak out loud or give voice to our positive experience that others have made possible. This sets us up for a 2nd tier future.”

Feedback on our professional performance as facilitators can help us improve and shape our messages about Integral City to different audiences. And in return, we should not be surprised to find those audiences reciprocate with positive feedback that encourages us to keep improving.

Diane called giving and receiving feedback as a form of relationship reciprocity – in the Integral City it is how we “feed” each other in the Human Hive – through storytelling and sharing feedback.

Another of our group, acting as an editor, realized that feedback is invaluable in any situation involving training. It can be just low key, keeping things factual, but feedback can enable business to feel responsive, reactive, and expressive. Particularly in online situations that can humanize it.

One of us shared how an email giving feedback exchange shed light on the yin/yang nature of the mode of exchange. The yin aspect can convey appreciation and the yang can convey facts. But when it is one sided, the yang expression tends to predominate and the message is not experienced in a fulsome way.

We observed that some people are not as comfortable online as they are in person. We could see how this realization was both relevant and powerful. Even watching Diane teach via Zoom video we could see her reference people and give feedback both obliquely and explicitly. When we see faces, even at a distance via Zoom, a huge feedback loop happens. (We remembered the research that shows that 75% of communication is non-verbal, so seeing facial and body expression amplifies the feedback loop.)

It is helpful in city contexts to remember that Action Research uses Appreciative Inquiry dialogue for small group exercises, dyads, and plenary sharing. Experience at the dyad scale can help feedback newbies to listen to each other without interrupting or make wrong-right judgments.

Feedback is primal to the Inquiry intelligence in the Integral City. With the 4 voices, feedback is a relevant way to recognize the contributions from the 4 Voices. When we have designed Learning Lhabitats, we have done that using homogenous groups for feedback first. Then we moved to mixed groups, where feedback, revealed different perspectives.

Feedback can be framed in quadrants, levels, lines, types and filters into giving and receiving. As people become aware of the value of feedback it gives them more insight into each other and tends to generate greater compassion.

Essentially effective feedback leads back to practising the Master Code. Feedback is integral to taking care of others, groups, place, and planet because feedback includes all scales and myself. It can be quite introspective. Feedback is fundamental to facilitating. It can really help raise the experience of mutual trust and respect. if I trust you listen to me, and not try to fix me. Then I respect you a lot more. (And vice versa.)

 

3.Now What will we do as a result, of our homework experience and sharing on giving and receiving feedback?

In considering what we would do as a result of the feedback insights we shared these ideas.

We will remember that feedback is not about getting my way or putting someone down or even protesting – feedback is a genuine exchange for constructive purposes.
It is always relevant to understand the context in which feedback is being exchanged – and how formal or informal it can be.
It is useful to be mindful of the culture in which we are giving or receiving feedback and get agreement on our intentions.
We should consider the perspectives that are being used in giving or receiving feedback. Different points of view will not only inspire different kinds of feedback but also influence the skill with which it is given.
Our exchanges made us appreciate that humour can help defuse a feedback situation – but humour should not be used to avoid genuine, useful and/or necessary feedback.
An invitation to others to express their point of view must be reciprocated with active listening.
In Action Research, we can remember to ask participants to use Appreciative Inquiry as a form of feedback that is encouraging for all.
We can remember the value of feedback to living the Master Code – and actually practice the Master Code by designing feedback opportunities.
Feedback is essential to the Navigating Intelligence. But we need to remember that if we are steering a ship, we are course correcting all the time – because feedback helps us to dynamically steer and allows us to get to where we intend to go.
Finally, we can invite others to give us feedback and thereby model remaining open to others and willing to include their point of view.

Leverage Conflict Through Shared Intention

This is one of series of blogs that are a retrospective reflection on Integral City Community of Practice’s experience in taking the In This Together (ITT) course on basic facilitation skills taught by Diane Musho Hamilton and Ten Directions.

In the sixth module of the course we gathered our learnings from transmuting emotions, embracing questions, recognizing points of view at the table and listening well to enter the “refiner’s fire” of conflict.

Refiners Fire of Conflict

Conflict is an uncomfortable place for many and a condition devoutly to be avoided by others. It feels like the zone of being right and wrong. It entails confrontation and triggers negative emotions of fear, anger, worry and even hatred. The nightly news is filled with stories of conflict on every level – personal, professional, families, communities, cities and nations. From small disagreements to outright war, conflict seems to surround us.

Diane asked us to share our habitual style of engaging conflict. She asked us to consider how our patterns reflected the reptilian brain’s three basic responses to conflict: fight, flight or freeze? Were we Aggressors on the attack, Avoiders who want to hide, or Accommodators who wish to appease?

Once we recognized habitual responses, we were able to consider Diane’s proposition that conflict offers an opportunity to pivot from our point of view. Conflict can reveal differences that can make a difference that expand our perspectives on issues, allow us to see others in a new light and surface underlying wants and needs behind everyone’s positions. Conflict often allows us to re-frame right and wrong into larger contexts that offer alternative actions and outcomes.

She also reminded us that clearing our emotions as we had practised in the last class, enabled us to be present with the conflict.

What was the ITT homework?

Our homework asked us to notice, if we find ourselves in conflict this week, rather than defaulting to our habitual style (Aggressor, Avoider, Accommodator) to try practicing these steps:

Stay present in the conflict, don’t avoid it.
Work with the emotions first. Include, name, and validate them.
Ask what is right about this conflict?
Identify the specific issues – (What exactly are we fighting about)?
Surface the underlying wants and needs of your positions.
Compromise. (Or keep fighting…)
Reflect on this practice, how well it went, and what you noticed

 

1. What did we experience in accomplishing the homework related to leveraging conflict through shared intention?

Our conversation started with recounting a conflict aired in a public meeting, where one practitioner noticed the emotions she experienced included humiliation, anger, despising others and resentment. It was not easy to name what was right about the conflict because it contained so much apparent disrespect, fear-mongering and FEAR (false evidence appearing real). But one proposition was that the conflict offered an opportunity for the multiple parties to express their differences. The situation was so volatile that the pattern for her initial participation in the conflict was intentional Avoidance to prevent inflaming the circumstances further. But subsequently the practitioner chose to use a systemic constellation work (SCW) process to discover what work she needed to do on herself, because she could not see how to change others – or that they would be willing to change. The dilemma she discovered at the core of the conflict was the tendency for the group to criticize what was best in her (and others) and turn it against her (and them). As it turned out, the SCW facilitator helped the participant to realize this was an old family memory statement of her own that she needed to release is to get clear on the real issues involved in the conflict. Returning this memory to her ancestors, helped the facilitator to be freed from the negative emotions embroiling the conflict and gave her more options to move forward.

In doing the work with systems constellation, another participant remarked on the possibility that in conflict we can perpetuate the cycle or circle of roles that include: Victim, Tyrant, Rebel, Rescuer, Survivor and Witness. It can be helpful to recognize which role we are playing in addition to our habitual style pattern in conflict situations. We can often be surprised to find we are playing several, if not all the roles. The recognition of our patterns and our roles can often ground us and allow us to engage with people in a conflict situation more willingly.

This observation reminded us how the class with transmuting feelings and emotions invited us to find the location of the feeling in our body. When we can not only name the emotions, but notice their embodiment, that practise can also release tension in our bodies and open our hearts to greater compassion for others and the situation.

Another participant shared a story of inner conflict. She had decided to let go a particularly valued studio space and she felt the artist in her resisting. She noticed she was grumpy, anxious and mistrustful that this was the right step (although her logical self believed it was).

Beyond the experience of public and personal conflict, one practitioner noticed the number of conflicts he simply witnessed on a visit to New York City. He asked himself, “Do I get involved?” On a deeper level, he realized that maybe there was something right about the conflict and he didn’t have an answer.

Another participant made the connection that in conflict it is difficult for her to avoid the sense of being the victim. Especially, when people in her direct surroundings assume her intentions without confirming them with her. Then she notices she is triggered into the response, “It is not fair.” When she has more space to consider the situation she can then inquire whether she is exaggerating and where there might be some truth in others’ assumptions about her.

We all agreed that when to say something about a conflict situation or when to stay quiet, is often a critical decision to how we choose to take care of ourselves. This can be influenced not only by our preconditioning (i.e. experience with surviving conflict when we are younger) and our preferred style, but our health and our sense of feeling strong enough to engage with those in the conflict.

Furthermore, we aligned with Diane’s observation that the most difficult place to practice these skills is in the family, with people you know best and who know you well. Ironically it seems easier to practise with people who are more distant than family members or close neighbours. It seems that the closer we are to people, the more difficult it is to surface shared intentions and find the leverage point for shifting the roots of conflict.

Being curious instead of resistant is a practice that can open us up to resolve conflict. This goes back to the practice of skilful questioning. We can also assist our inquiry by using practices that bypass our judging self – like left-hand writing or systemic constellation work.

 

2. So What does the topic/homework about leveraging conflict through shared intention have to do with Integral City practice or training?

Our group observed that leveraging conflict through shared intention becomes a revolutionary act that can change perspectives and the aspect of the situation.

When we seek to find what is right about a conflict we may be opening up to the evolutionary impulse that is expressing itself through the conflict. This proposition challenged us to ask how could conflict benefit the city?

Our earlier observations about noticing change states in the city (calm, turbulent, tornado, blue-skies-above and new calm), reminded us that people who are experiencing turbulence or violent storm warnings may know something that those who are in other change states may not be aware of. It is wise and valuable to be curious about what people who see things differently from me, know that I don’t know.

In Organization Development facilitation, appropriate support may be active and produce new learning, or it may be passive and thus allow the system to fall apart. Another approach in a system not completely closed to change is to help people rediscover the best qualities of itself and its intentions. By taking this strategic approach to leveraging conflict, it may be possible for the facilitator to save their own energy. (You might even avoid the sore nose you keep getting by bumping into the same wall all the time, by learning the different stages of change.) Although it is difficult to learn to do nothing, and simply witness the situation apparently falling apart, it may be necessary to do this, to create the conditions for the emergence of later stages, and eventually even the emergence of a new status quo.

Integral City practitioners can be of service not only as witnesses to conflict but also as holders of space where it is safe for people to express their differences – even to express anger. Holding safe space can be the function that allows information and intentions to be distilled from the tumult and turbulence.

In these days where anger is openly expressed in cultures (like the Netherlands) who feel threatened by immigrants and new ways, creating spaces for the expression of conflict is very different than the “Green” (tolerant, appeasing) approaches that try to subdue conflict or pretend it is not there.

Thus, practitioners need to prepare themselves to step into such “refiners fires”.

We recognized that as populist views are gaining traction in many nations (UK, USA, France, EU) those views are being expressed with greatest violence in cities. For many of us it seems a regressive step in our desire for evolution to more inclusive and compassionate values systems.

However, we can prepare ourselves better and help others more, if we remember that in living systems it is natural to (re)gather the energy before the system leaps forward. It does this, by first falling back to a lower stage of complexity – like a cat crouching down before it pounces forward and upward.

Reframing this natural pattern of apparent regression in the face of conflict into an appreciation of how energy can be collected and refocused offers a definite service to leveraging conflict for shared intention. The trick is to discover (or remember) the shared intention and not take our eyes off the shared intention. In the Integral City that practice is supported by many intelligences: Integral, Individual, Collective, Navigating and Evolution. The practise of the facilitator to enable this includes all these but also taps into Inquiry to access curiosity instead of getting stuck in conflict; Meshworking to align intentions of the multiple stakeholders; and Navigating to arrive at the shared intention.

With that review, we considered the unsettling? possibility that maybe the Universe likes conflict or wants to dance with it? Conflict may be the natural result of the iterative cycle of differentiation and convergence as we learn, develop and evolve. It may be the natural pattern of the relationships between the conformity enforcers and the diversity generators that enable sustainability and resilience in the Human Hive.

In Integral City Book 1, the roles of diversity, conformity, resource allocation and integration are all explored because the bees use these roles. Only through the cycling between conformity and diversity does the beehive – and probably the Human Hive, integrate the hive mind to achieve survival, sustainability and resilience.

Our specialist in systemic constellation (SCW) work shared that as an SCW facilitator she has learned to allow herself to be whatever participants need you to be including their projections on you. This can be very challenging but a facilitator who is willing to be in service to the greater good can allow others to work through their projections and differences (as the facilitator becomes the target at which they are aimed).

3. Now What will we do as a result, of our homework experience and sharing on leveraging conflict through shared intention?

We considered the many habits, patterns, roles, values and cycles enmeshed in leveraging conflict through shared intention. We agreed to practise in as many of these ways as possible.

Consider the variations of change. Think of change as stages. When you perceive a human system is at a particular stage, consider how they may be best held – each stage will require different ways of being held. Doing nothing may even be the right thing to do (especially when the system is locked into extreme resistance or violence).
Be willing to step into “enemy” territory with an awareness that mindful intention can help others work through their conflict. It may not engender an immediate outcome, but it can bring fresh and positive energy to the field so that others are able to practice the steps we have learned.
Be willing to be what the group needs you to be as a facilitator. Tap into your capacity to detach from the situation.
Prepare our facilitator selves to be able to stay neutral in face of hatred.
Remember the prior skills of listening, being curious, naming emotions in yourself and others.
Move beyond our habitual patterns and conflict styles where conflict can be labelled right/wrong and notice that conflict can simply be observed.
Use conflict as an inquiry that is calling to be lived into from a larger space where we can model something with positive leverage for others – particularly in cities – where so many interactions take place every minute, hour, day.
It seems important to cultivate interpersonal capacities so that we can relate to others and expand circles of care in order to find the shared intentions that can leverage conflict.
That takes us right back to the first step – Stay present in the conflict. It is the first step to discovering what might be the pivot point that enables leverage because of becoming aware of shared intentions that might not be obvious if we don’t stay present.

Embrace Feeling & Emotion to Transmute Negatives into Positives

This is one of series of blogs that are a retrospective reflection on Integral City Community of Practice’s experience in taking the In This Together (ITT) course on basic facilitation skills taught by Diane Musho Hamilton and Ten Directions.

In the sixth module of the course we stepped back from the art of questioning and opening to perspectives and voices at the table, into the depths of feeling and emotion. We sought to add the colour of positive feelings and even confront the darkness of negative emotions that characterize authentic expression.

Feelings & Emotions Vary by Culture

Diane demonstrated the power of engaging with emotions from both ends of the spectrum to transmute and transform a group that might be stuck, resistant or even belligerent into one that is open, energized and receptive.

Feeling embraces both physical feeling – where do I notice this feeling in my body – as well as emotions. We wondered if awareness and/or expression of feeling is related to a person’s style? For example, MBTI patterns include Feeling/Thinking as a preference. (And Enneagram 1’s go to feeling as their last impulse.) Perhaps for people who naturally prefer “feeling” first, noticing feeling in the body comes more easily than for those who prefer “thinking” as their prime preference.

Style can also be linked to Types, particularly related to men and women as a typology – where women, wired differently than men, tend to be more aware of and express their feelings more readily than men.

Then, we wondered how feelings are expressed differently in generations, being particularly curious about Millennials.

Marilyn noted that at the end of every chapter of the forthcoming (Integral City Inquiry & Action) Book 2 is a self-quiz that asks the reader to notice what they Observe, Think, Feel and Want. Interestingly the act of Observation uses our senses to notice what is going on outside of us. But Feeling asks us to notice what bodily sensations are going on inside of us.

Another facilitator remembered that Anne Wilson-Schaef used to teach a process for individuals in groups to check that they are not co-dependent. Her injunction was to name, “What do you want/feel/need?” This practice helped to clear the whole group energy field.

Behind feelings, one practitioner noted that the energy of groups can come to us through intuition. While tuning into groups can often seem like a vague practice, tuning into oneself as an antenna for the group can often give us the sense of group feeling or emotion. We can use our skill at questioning to name the emotion we are feeling and ask the group if anyone else is feeling the same way.

Different cultures express feelings differently; e.g. Japan tends to repress emotional expression and Latin countries tend to be very emotionally expressive. How we express feelings seems to relate to the habitats in which cultures have developed and perhaps how they view and experience safety.

One participant commented that she had experienced deep feelings because of the US election and the hate that it had generated. She was committed to speaking up against hate as a critical spiritual task for coming times.

By contrast, one of Dutch participants commented that in the Netherlands emotions are not expressed and supposed not to be there.

 

What was the ITT homework?

This week’s practice aimed at generating greater skills in including and expressing emotion.

First, notice emotion in the body
Be willing to feel both ends of the spectrum—positive and negative emotions
Label or name the feeling
Ask: What does this feeling bring to the communication? What information does it convey?

 

1. What did we experience in accomplishing the homework on noticing and expressing emotion?

Our experience in practising the homework produced interesting impressions that made us aware of our own willingness to express emotion, our ability to notice emotion in others and to help groups engage with emotion.

One of the group shared that, “I was emotionally triggered by what was going on in the room. Being able to read that energy and name it required concentration and focus. Then I had to choose whether to take the space and time to express or not express the emotion that I was sensing. I was surprised how difficult that is for me.”

Another facilitator agreed that she could quite easily stop proceedings and go into silence. This can help a group be more reflective. But it is not yet dealing with the feelings that have surfaced.

We agreed that noticing and naming feelings can play a very important role with conversation or meeting.  People often act as if the feelings aren’t there. Their conversation can go on and they will think or suppose because the feelings are not named that the topic or issue or perspective is not related to emotions. We wondered if this is a shadow habit – perhaps even one that is practised worldwide?

Moreover, as another participant observed. “I notice when we are having discussions that include feelings, it opens up lots of possibilities. I am able to see lots of roads I haven’t been down before.” So, identifying feelings can help build on the familiar and open up directions we haven’t previously been aware of because we haven’t even considered them.

 

2. So What does the topic/homework on noticing and expressing emotion have to do with Integral City practice or training?

If we think of big cities containing many different cultures, that fact is interesting to remain aware of because this cultural mix impacts a lot on how we negotiate feelings and emotions. Emotions and feelings may be expressed in ways that are so deep we don’t see them and as a result, may not consider them.

Noticing emotion in the city relates to the sounds of the five stages of change (thanks to Don Beck for sharing this pattern in Spiral Dynamics integral traingin).

When life is good and most people are content the emotions are positive and happy.
When people notice many and/or small to moderate change in the habitat, emotions become worried, more edgy and unhappy.
When people sense change is major and/or irreconcilable, emotions shift to the negative spectrum of fear, anger and even hate.
When people sense a breakthrough has happened emotions can be elated, effusive and even ecstatic.
When the breakthrough has matured into a new status quo, people once again express positive emotions of contentment.

A facilitator who does not notice feeling in the group (or in the city) can be blindsided by the information those feelings are representing. On the other hand, the facilitator who is willing to step into the “refiner’s fire” of feeling and emotion can help a group find the angels of their better nature by naming the feelings, exploring their roots and discovering the information they convey that can help the group move on, break through and/or discover new paths.

In many ways, exploring feelings is a skill related to Integral City’s Navigating Intelligence. Navigating feelings can give us advance warning of storms ahead and help us design strategies to avoid city “shipwreck”.

To find out what a city is feeling, opens up a lot of options or possibilities. Tapping into the feelings of groups in the city (or at the table) can reveal different ways of approaching challenges.

Many examples are coming out of the aftermath of the US election where some voters have been so confounded by a result they didn’t expect that they are reaching out to people who voted differently than them, with a genuine inquiry into what they believe and feel. One critical discovery is that many people did not feel safe under Obama. People who lost their jobs or who had their way of life threatened, thought they were voting for job stability and family security (by voting for Trump).

On the other hand, we also need to be wary of feelings that are presented as facts. By naming and sharing feelings, we can often discover they are not founded on facts and can be transmuted from negative to positive when facts are revealed.

This discussion helped us realize that checking out feelings can lead us back to or into the Integral City Intelligences of Inquiry and Navigating.

 

3. Now What will we do as a result, of our homework experience and sharing on noticing and expressing emotion?

We gained much appreciation for the value of sharing and transmuting emotions and feelings and the positive impact practising these skills can have on our capacities as facilitators.

We will go find people we don’t agree with and learn how they feel as well as what they think about the issues involved.
We will notice our own feelings and where they are located in the body as a form of antenna for monitoring a group.
We will use feelings to remind us to be genuinely curious about the feelings of others.
We will check out the assumptions that we make about what others are feeling as a good practice and model for recognizing the value of feelings whenever we are “in this together”.
We can monitor feelings when we use the 4 Questions to discover the change state of the Integral City habitat where we are facilitating (what is working/ not working / could work better/ how am I working?).
We could translate those Integral City 4 Questions into feeling-related questions:

What am I/are we feeling?
What am I/are we not feeling?
What could I/ we feel differently (more positively)?
As a result of noticing my feeling, how have my feelings been released?


We can notice our personal style preferences and strengthen our tendencies to feel, especially if feelings are not our first preference.
We can speak up against hate and use these practices to help others transmute the feeling into positive expressions of feelings about change.
As facilitators, it is valuable if not critical for us to practise each of the 4 steps in dealing with feelings for ourselves. In doing so, we can set a pattern for the group to expand its view of a situation, and give us all more information to help the group to transmute out of negative territory into positive options.

Question to Understand

This is one of series of blogs that are a retrospective reflection on Integral City Community of Practice’s experience in taking the In This Together (ITT) course on basic facilitation skills taught by Diane Musho Hamilton and Ten Directions.

In the fifth module of the course we moved from the perspectives we can bring to the table, to the questions we can use to discover what are the points of view held by different speakers.

Questioning appropriately lies at the heart of the Integral City Inquiry Intelligence. But posing questions is an art, requiring attention to the context in which we find ourselves and respect for the person or persons we are engaging with.

Questions on the bus, IEC 2014!!

It turns out that in order to appreciate the 4 Voices and discover the points of view they hold, questions are essential ways to connect with other people.

One person in our Integral City group confessed that she constantly has a list of questions she wants to ask others but often does not. This comment was reinforced with the observation that, “Too often I conclude that people are saying something vague or that I don’t comprehend and I conclude that there is no value in really understanding. As a result I miss the opportunity to learn more.”

Diane Hamilton gave an especially personal example of the homework question (What is it like to parent an adult Down syndrome child?). One of our group realized that she was uncomfortable in hearing how intimate this question was but realized that in order to practise questioning at a deep level she had to be willing to invite an equally personal question from others. Only by modelling such a depth of inquiry can you expect others will trust you to reciprocate with equally personal questions. This can be the gateway to discovering perspectives and truly listening to the individual voices at the table.

What was the ITT homework?

Week 5 homework was:

Formulate a question that you would like someone else to ask you.
Formulate a question that you would like to ask someone else.

 

1.What did we experience in accomplishing the homework on questioning to understand?

One key learning was that questioning helps us to understand what other people mean. It can move us from the realm of vagueness about some issue to one of clarity and shared understanding. Questioning respectfully definitely helps others to “unpack” their meaning.

We remarked on Rudyard Kipling’s reminders for asking good questions; i.e., keep the question open by using one of the 4+1 W’s – who, what, where, why + how.

Another observation was to pose questions in the “now” so that responses can reveal where both you and the other person are present in time/space/relationships.

 

2.So What does the homework on questioning to understand have to do with Integral City practice or training?

Questions and the Inquiry Intelligence are related to the Integral City Contexting Intelligences. Often we need to start by asking questions that help us understand context before we can engage further on the issues; e.g. asking an American about how they feel about renewable energy, might provoke different responses before or after the Trump election.

If context helps to pose a question, and self-awareness about my own curiosities impacts what questions I ask, then one of our group wondered, “What question aren’t you asking me?” Perhaps if we wondered that out loud, we would invite an answer and exchange we could never have guessed was possible.

One person went on to notice that, “ I am sensitive when people are too quickly jumping to conclusions instead of finding out the intentions behind my behavior. I wish they would ask me questions instead of leaping to assumptions.”

However, we agreed that making assumptions tends to be much more the norm than asking questions. Then we asked ourselves, what it might mean to train oneself to not think you know?

Another noticed that some people in her relationships did not really have an inquiring mind. They prefer to stay with remarks on current events instead of getting to a deeper level that can lead to genuine curiosity. We agreed that questioning invites a kind of interaction that is much more multi-dimensional.

Interestingly we suggested that assumptions and context relate to how to ask questions. We recalled that Don Beck (in Spiral Dynamics integral training) used questions to probe the readiness and willingness of others to listen, relate or change.  His method was similar to Diane’s prompting questions:  to make change or influence a habitat, point your questioning “finger” at the other person, probe the target and see what happens. If the other person flinches (i.e., contracts) you have probed too deeply or painfully. If the other party relaxes (i.e. expands) you have found an opening to proceed further.

We remarked that probing is a form of appreciatively questioning. It should not be used as weapon (by asking too deeply) , but rather like Diane demonstrated, used as a gift to draw out the other person in a  zone that stretches and/or focuses without oppressing or intimidating.

One practitioner shared a useful learning process in reframing closed questions (with Yes/No answers) to open questions (using the 5 W’s).  We need to use our internal editor to turn closed into open questions. (In other words be attentive and intentional in framing our questions.) Learning how to do that requires a lot of practice. But it is very important in the city because asking questions in an appreciative way means that the genuinely interested questioner can release him/herself from judging before listening.

This really impacts how we relate to different perspectives. Basically, it shows us how we cannot walk in the shoes of another without truly being curious what it is like to be in those shoes. Question’s open the door to gaining such an experience in the Integral City. Therefore, learning the art of the questioning is deeply beneficial for work in groups, organizations, communities and the 4 Voices of the city.

In fact, working together in the way of mutually respectful questioning, can inspire collective wisdom and the Human Hive Mind. It is a way of “feeding each other”.

Paradoxically, at same time as practising questioning in a group like this, individuals don’t lose their own perspective. Instead it seems there is potentially a way to see value and life in the collective without losing one’s own identity. Somehow there is alchemy in the group setting where questions are used around the table. People can see their own wisdom as part of where the group actually goes. Although it may be hard for another person to let go of their own perspective, if they realize that the table is acknowledging them through questioning, it lets them notice and/or create new pathways to joint understanding because they can sense they are being recognized.

One practitioner learned to notice some questions she thought were safe may not feel safe to others. For example, working with immigrant women, she asked with honest curiosity where they came from. But the women’s homelands and/or their journeys had been so traumatic and dangerous, they did not feel safe to answer her. That was quite a powerful learning – that even a seemingly simple or basic question can be charged with context or history that we must notice and respect.

 

3.Now What will we do as a result, of our homework experience and sharing on questioning to understand?

We can learn to love to be a master in asking others good questions so that different lenses come through.
In a contentious board situation, the facilitator can ask what the stakeholders would like to know, and see if she can share her assumptions so they know where she is coming from, instead of being only authoritative and bottom-line oriented. The facilitator can be open to hear others’ fears as well as their curiosities.
As we are being curious –  listen well, involve our own interests, and find balance.
We can show others a way to go into Questions instead of pain.
Inquiry is an Integral City intelligence. Our forthcoming book 2 on Inquiry and Action in the Human Hive, received a testimonial from Action Research/Learning expert, , who said that Book 2 was full of great questions. Nothing she could say, would make the author feel more seen and heard. She appreciated the questions, at the end of each chapter, especially because they represented clusters of question from each perspective.
Inquiry as a practice does not mean we use idiot inquiry (like idiot compassion) – instead we must use inquiry with the other strategic intelligences, formulating intentions in the city, drafting questions and revising them as we become sensitive to who is listening and who is responding. Artful inquiry can make us be alert to our other Integral capacities as Activators, by listening and inquiring through all 4 Quadrants.
We recognize the importance of deep listening and deep respect in the questioning process gives us a chance to deeply understand each other and co-create where we want to go.

Recognize the Multiple Points of View at the Table

This is one of series of blogs that are a retrospective reflection on Integral City Community of Practice’s experience in taking the In This Together (ITT) course on basic facilitation skills taught by Diane Musho Hamilton and Ten Directions.

In the fourth module of the course we moved from the voices we can use, to the points of view we can take when exploring issues. Points of view, or perspectives, in Integral terms can be the views we explored in module 3 through the 4 lenses of the quadrant model. Our views as I, we/you, he/she, they certainly impact how we related to the world.

But embedded in each of the quadrants are levels of complexity that reveal different perspectives that actually grow the circles of care that we can notice when we engage with any issue. The simplest forms of the circles of care is expressed in terms of what is central to one’s perspective or values:

Integral City Map 2: Circles of Care & Nested Holarcy of City Systems

Ego-centric or self-centric
Ethno-centric or other-centric
World-centric or place-centric
Kosmo-centric or planet/universe-centric.

Each circle of care opens our points of view to include more perspectives. When we become aware of this on an intentional basis, we can seek to listen and respond with greater levels of care and inclusivity. This is the secret to being able to “walk a mile in another’s shoes”. It is also fundamental to the development of people in bio-psycho-cultural-social domains.

What was the ITT homework?

Our homework for this week was:

Track your conversations.
Choose one or two conversations in which you add in more and more perspectives to get as many perspectives as you can
Pay attention to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd person perspectives in your communications.

1.What did we experience in accomplishing the homework?

In practising the expansion of our perspectives in our conversations several participants agreed that this took a huge amount of effort to consider setting aside their predominant, usual, “correct” perspective and entertain something else. Not only does this demand effort as an individual but it multiplies exponentially when a group attempts to do this or a facilitator attempts to guide a group to do so.

Another practitioner commented that, he noticed when seeing different POV that it made him see a lot of connections to other things. That gave him insight into different connections to other parts of his personal life and he could also see how this would work on a city level.

In fact, he conjectured that as he opens consciously to the possibility of other perspectives he begins to see different perspectives he hadn’t seen before and also different connections to a myriad of things.

This realization prompted an inquiry about whether looking for connections between things, people, ideas, etc. might be a doorway to different perspectives. Maybe it is possible to start with the familiar connections and through that route become progressively more open to other perspectives?

Another suggestion was made that one experience of a different perspective might familiarize one with the pattern and therefore enable future repetitions of the pattern or practise to gain other perspectives. This could be especially valuable in situations where it is difficult to see other POV. Now we see that if you look at another situation where it is easier the more difficult situation might also open up to other POV.

2.So What does the topic/homework have to do with Integral City practice or training?

Engaging with multiple and diverse perspectives has much to do with Integral City. Every one of the 5 maps of Integral City effectively offers a different, but interconnected perspective of the city.

This is central to understanding that we might have apparently one city, but as many perspectives – and therefore experiences of the city – as there are individuals and groups in the city.

The circles of care of core to understanding the Master Code in the city. In fact, there are not only the 4 Quadrant perspectives, and 4 levels of Care – but these can be expanded to 8 levels. Thus, the Integral City has 32 archetypal perspectives that one can appreciate, use and develop.

As we discussed in Class 3, the 4 Voices of the Integral City each bring variations of these multiple perspectives to the table.

One practitioner noted that she is more attuned to Citizen Voice but she can see that by the very nature of an Integral City with 4 Voices as its core – we are inviting different perspectives to the table all the time.

As a result, an Integral City facilitator must be open to other perspectives, and be able to move from taking a position to enable the flow of information through and with all the 4 Voices.

 

3.Now What will we do as a result, of our homework experience and sharing?

Resulting from this discussion on perspectives, the participants identified triggers and awarenesses that they can now use to bring multiple voices to the table.

One trigger was realizing that it is harder to allow in another POV if there is something at stake; e.g. suffering, harm from any other POV – so the stake tends to gave us a really strong investment in our POV … esp. when we think that the wellbeing of others is on the line (and not just our own).
We could see that having a stake as a POV representing a city Voice is probably normal. We can recognize it and identify it as a kind of bias.
We realized that When something is at stake in one POV there is an assumption of POV on many things. For example; One Dutch participant shared how he got in discussion about Black Piet – one POV is the Black Piet is racist, another POV says not. With those who say he is not racist they don’t want to change how he looks. Perhaps its because if they change one thing, it might by implication, admit that there is something racist in how they present Black Piet. This is a good illustration how many connections underlie a POV.
A POV is very complex – it is not a single monolithic or monological phenomenon – it includes various assumptions, things at stake, fears, considerations, parties, etc.
Expressing and/or changing POV can set up a kind of domino effect of consequences.
However, if you only took one thing maybe could resonate with that POV -but one must be aware that could blind you to other aspects of a POV.
Sometimes venturing into a new POV engenders going through wall of fear. But once we do this it can give us more inner strength to go through the wall of fear the next time it comes up. We can as a result, be more willing to do that.
It is beneficial to remember that taking different POV gives us a lot of new information and that is always valuable – therefore in itself, it is already worth it.
We can make a commitment to how beneficial it is to open up in a listening way and take another POV. It lets us be more embodied in it – in the heat of a conversation – it’s a different thing when we are busy and harder to do – but always worth while.
We finished with a life changing anecdote shared by a participant. She once ha a list of spiritual and physics books to read and no time to read them. She wondered if she could get paid to read these books? Who would do that? No one does that!! Then she lay down on her bed. She took her belief and set it down beside her on bed – over there. The minute she did that, she got the thought– the people writing books need to read lots of books – maybe they pay people to do that for them? Do you think that would have come to me if I had not been willing to set aside that absolute belief? It showed me very powerfully how intentionally giving up a fixed perspective – even temporarily – can open new horizons.
Impossible possibilities show up!