Designing and Hosting Virtual Field Trips (MOIP #10)

Moving Online in Pandemic is now #MOIP! This is 10th in a series of posts about the tidal wave of moving online in the time of Covid-19. #1#2#3 #4 #5 , #6, #7, #8 and #9.

I’ve mentioned my work with the Floodplains by Design network over the past few years. We have been doing a lot of experimenting and practicing with online meetings and events over the last 11 months. We captured a few of our practices and now I’ve drafted an article on Virtual Field Trips. And yes, I’m looking for your review to help improve it. Right now it lives on a Google doc where you can comment. You are also welcome to comment generally here. Care to help? I’ll post the intro below. And THANKS!

1. Introduction

At the Floodplains by Design (FbD) Culture and Capacity Action Group (C&C) November 2020 meeting, we recently reviewed and reflected upon our experiences and value of field trips to FbD project sites. (See figure 1.) COVID-19 has curtailed our face to face field trips, demanding a new, virtual way of meeting these needs. 

With the C&C’s focus on building and supporting a learning network, we are interested in the overall set of learning and network weaving practices that can help spread and deepen IFM. This document offers insights and useful practices for designing and implementing virtual field trips (VTS) to support Integrated Floodplain Management (IFM). It also helps us share in general the value of, and practices around field trips which are useful in our work together whether we are F2F or together online. It builds on our first document on Virtual Peer Assists.

We hope that through these occasional articles/resource documents we can make our learning more widely available across the FbD network and beyond. 

The first section of this document  reflects more generally on the purpose and value created through field trips. The second section addresses specific practices for planning and executing virtual field trips. A resources section follows for additional information.

Figure 1: Harvest from the November 2020 brainstorm on VTS

We created this first draft of useful virtual field trip practices using four guiding questions. 

  1. What general immediate and longer term value is created through field trips in our integrated floodplain management (IFM) work? This establishes a shared baseline understanding of field trips in IFM. 
  2. What specific purpose(s) and value creation do field virtual trips serve in our work right now? With whom? Clear purpose drives how we design our VFTs.
  3. What useful field trip practices have we learned for VTFs?
  4. How might we know when we are making progress on this purpose? Like any practice, we assume that as we learn, we can improve our practice.

I’m happy to post more here if that is useful… and know the doc got pretty LONG!

MOIP #7: Virtual Peer Assists

I’m shortening the title… Moving Online in Pandemic is now #MOIP! This is 6th in a series of posts about the tidal wave of moving online in the time of Covid-19. #1#2#3,  #4 , #5 and #6. This time a client has graciously allow me to share their story!

I’ve been having a great time working with the Floodplains by Design Network (FbD), particularly the Culture and Capacity Building Action Group (C&C in our shorthand!). C&C members have targeted peer to peer (P2P) learning as an important tactic for identifying and sharing knowledge. One form of P2P learning is to ask for and get help from peers. Peer Assists are one format for the giving and getting of help. They help tap both local and network wide knowledge, support local contextualization (no “one ring to rule them all” as Frodo might wish), and are easy to do. Some even say it is pleasurable! This Spring the C&C members have committed to at least two Peer Assists.  And to make them accessible across our wide geography, we decided to do them online. That turned out to be a wise choice given the Covid-19 outbreak. 

About Peer Assists

There are many ways to do PAs. You can simply call up another network member and talk about your challenge. This is helpful for matching specific expertise with a specific need — and we recognize we need to figure out a mechanism so FbD members can easily find each other for this sort of direct exchange. 

We also benefit from a diversity of views. Sometimes the most helpful ideas come from the “unusual suspects” and people who see and experience the world differently than we do. Here are some variations to consider:

  •  Troika Consulting , User Experience Fishbowl and Wise Crowds are three of my “go-to” peer assist variations. They create simple “containers” for people to get direct help on a challenge. The difference is that Troika works in an intimate trio, Wise Crowds uses rotating small groups to enable multiple people to get peer assistance, and Users Experience Fishbowl supports two layers of support – direct and indirect. It is a bit of hybrid option. 
  • If you are trying to elicit expertise, instead of trying to apply it in context, you can try  or Celebrity Interview. THis is not exactly the same thing as peer to peer assistance, but by asking people questions, we often get more and deeper insights than if they just did a presentation. It is more engaging for those watching as well. 
  • Appreciative Interviews help pull out current success upon which we can build. So maybe one watershed has really made huge progress, but we can’t quite figure out how to make that same progress in our watersheds. Discovery and Action Dialog can help us discover who is succeeding where the rest of us are struggling. (A way of surfacing positive deviance!)

C&C’s First Peer Assist

In early April we had our first Peer Assist, helping Kat, a member move her work on a strategy element forward. She was looking for ideas about how to frame and build a strategy element that reflected views FROM the network, so a Peer Assist seemed useful. She identified some people she wanted present and others from the C&C volunteered to be her consultants. To help shine a light on the process and add another layer of support we invited the whole C&C to be the “bowl” of the fishbowl. 

We convened on the Zoom video conferencing platform. In an hour Kat laid out her challenge, the “consultants” asked clarifying questions, and then Kat turned her back to her computer screen while her consultants talked about her challenge. After about 20 minutes she turned around, shared the key insights she gained and thanked her consultants. 

At the end, we debrief and came up with the following observations to help improve our next Peer Assist:

  • Great way of engaging. It takes courage — and you need to be truthful and honest about the feedback. Incorporate it in and be willing to accept the harsh reality.
  • Lesson: French Revolution – king reached out but didn’t do anything with the input! Input –> heard, seen, respected and USED!Suggest that problem statement for peer assist be elaborated in written text and distributed to panel in advance so they can gather thoughts / questions
    •  +1 Some of my best thinking happens during drives/walks/showers/doing the dishes…
  • From a Bowl person: Not quite sure how to engage, questions are relevant, but didn’t know what process looked like. How does this all work? (Lesson: not everyone got the same instructions in advance due to later additions of participants. Don’t let that slip through the cracks.)
  • If more time engage the outer ring
  • What would be a valuable question for a peer assist? Examples of questions, projects in different stages. 
  • How do we know about peer assist tool? Share more about the methodology (this article!)
  • In times of Covid and working at home with kids → Evening Peer Assists after kids go to bed
  • Humor: happy hour assists might cross certain lines, but the feedback would flow

Want more tips on how to do Peer Assists? Online and need to learn how to use zoom? 

Want the geeky process details? Here is an outline of how you can set up your own Peer Assist using Users Experience Fishbowl method:

Preparation: 

Identify your peer assistee. Ask if they have individuals they want as their consultants, and/or cast a net more widely. You do NOT need a large group. In this particular variation 3-4 consultants in the fishbowl with the peer assistee provides time for depth and sufficient intimacy for the conversation. Other useful folks are the “bowl” observing and sharing other ideas in chat which can be processed by the assistee later. 

For a small group, one person can guide the process and take note. If there is a larger “bowl” of people it can be helpful to have one person to take notes in addition to the facilitator.

Invitation: 

Send an invitation out. Draft copy below…

Thanks for being willing to do a peer assist. We are doing a peer assist variation called “Users Experience Fishbowl” where a small group of people support a person with a challenge or question (the “fish”) while other observers listen and respond afterwards.

Please come and help NAME OF PEER ASSISTEE think about her next steps with the CHALLENGE PERSON HAS. ADD THE PERSON’S CHALLENGING QUESTION HERE.

Technical Details: We’ll meet on a Zoom video platform so ideally you need a mic and a camera attached to your device. Best is a computer, then tablet, then phone. Log on a few minutes early if you are new to Zoom to make sure everything is running well. Due to the huge current loads on Zoom, sometimes it takes a few tries to get into a Zoom room… the days we live in!

Preparation: In preparation, we’ll send you WHATEVER YOU HAVE TO SEND. KEEP IT BRIEF to skim as time is available. Mostly bring your ears, your brains, experiences and insights from your floodplains work. 

The X NUMBER OF FISH – YOU CAN NAME THEM will be ASSISTEE’S NAME consultants.  Other interested folks will observe the process, staying off camera and just listen/ take notes in the Zoom chat.

How this will work: Tight 60 minute agenda

  1. 10 minutes: Brief introductions both of fish and “bowl folks.” 
  2. 5 minutes: PEER ASSISTEE shares their challenge. (It is helpful if this builds on what was sent in advice, versus telling the same thing again.)
  3. 3-5 minutes: Consultants ask clarifying questions (no ideas, suggestions or their own stories yet.)
  4. 15-20 minutes: PEER ASSISTEE will turn off her Zoom camera, turn around with a notebook and simply listen as you talk about her challenge. She will not nod her head, respond, rebut or interject in any way. JUST LISTEN. As consultants, talk amongst yourselves with advice, experience, comparable stories. Range freely and think boldly. Dive into your experiences and data. The notetaker/facilitator will take notes. 
  5. 5 minutes: PEER ASSISTEE will turn around and thank you, and if they want, share the most useful things they heard from you. They will share her next step in addressing their challenge.
  6. 10 minutes: Invite the observers to share any highlights or comments they noticed.
  7. 5 minutes: Debrief the process and outcomes.

What is made possible: unleashing Liberating Structures in our personal practices

Mari Dumbaugh
Mari Dumbaught, PhD

Note: Last September I co-led a Liberating Structures Immersion in Atlanta and met Dr. Mari Dumbaugh, BA MSc PhD, Founder & Lead Consultant, Insight Impact Consulting, Adjunct Instructor & Research Associate, University of Illinois-Chicago. I was so enlivened by her follow up comments, I asked to interview her. It took us a while, but enjoy what she has made possible in bringing LS to her international development work!

What happens when you discover something that simply resonates for you? Mari Dumbaugh, qualitative program evaluator, training facilitator and professor of Global Health, had that experience by the end of the first day of a two day Liberating Structures immersion workshop in Atlanta last year. The moment of clarity came towards the end of the day when she was sitting with two others in a Troika Consulting exercise. Troika allows each person to get help on a challenge – no matter who they are sitting with. In the span of twenty minutes, Mari received significant feedback and ideas. “In just a day I discovered how accessible the structures are, and with the immersion – even one day – I could walk away with concrete things I can do across settings and cultures.” She also discovered things she had in common with two people who were before perfect strangers– both were also independent female consultants, looking to engage their clients in innovative, interactive ways. These two strangers-turned-colleagues inspired Mari to shift her entire approach to her facilitation and training work.

Mari realized she could make radical changes in how she was going to deliver her next training of qualitative research teams two weeks after the immersion. In the span of a few days she redesigned her training program from a primarily content delivery mode to an “unleash and engage everyone” mode using Liberating Structures.

Mari shared, “Often I’m facilitating training in settings where participants are coming from didactic education systems with few experiences of real engaged, classroom interactions. They are used to just taking notes of what the professor says.  So their starting expectations were different. They were used to sitting around tables and expecting to be filled with knowledge!” One thing her Troika group suggested was to get rid of slides. Mari was very open to the idea – she was not a huge fan of PowerPoint. As a university lecturer at a public university in Illinois, she found slides a convenience. There was some hesitation to dump the PPT all together because like so many of us, it had become a crutch. A safety tool.

And then she left for a remote part of the Central African Republic to run a Qualitative Research training workshop for a group of individuals with varying degrees of research experience. For some workshop participants this would be the first time they heard the term qualitative research. The training and subsequent program evaluation would take place in an area where there was often no power (no PowerPoint), a ton of material to cover, and on top of it all, she would be working in French! Did she regret missing day 2 of the immersion? I don’t think so. Mari was on FIRE!

Civil society and education systems in the Central African Republic have been rocked from general lack of funding and the most recent civil conflict that began in  2014. Education systems have been completely interrupted, and Mari was working with people with varying levels of literacy. It was clear to her that having participants write down notes, word for word from slides, was not an efficient way to learn.

The transition was not always easy. “When I tried  interactive activities on Day 1 of the training, it was hard to pull people out of the structured classroom expectations.” But by ditching most of her slides, she also ditched the stress of not knowing when the power (and thus PPT) might go off. So she got rid of it entirely! She delivered a full 5 days of training with her newly created workbooks she printed in Chicago and carried with her on the 7,000 mile journey to Berberati, Central African Republic..

The workbooks featured all of the qualitative training content and content Mari used in previous trainings, but now with Liberating Structures as the vehicle for a more participant-engaged delivery. Some of the foundational qualitative content  came straight from her previous slides, and other parts were left open to build on the participants’ knowledge, perceptions, questions and experience. A number of Liberating Structures lend themselves seamlessly to teaching qualitative research techniques, so participants had the chance to experience some structures and think about how to use them in their field research work.

Here are some of the structures (both established and emerging) Mari used and how she used them. I felt the detail was worth the longer reading time. 🙂

Spiral Journal – To emphasize the centering of participant voices from the very beginning of the workshop, Mari began the workshop asking participants to reflect and journal on their previous relevant experiences and why the group was lucky to have them as part of the research team. Journaling sessions served as the foundation for a number of LS strings throughout the workshop, including Impromptu Networking and 1-2-4-All.

1-2-4-All – From creating a Community Collaboration Agreement to establish agreed upon ground rules and parameters for our workshop together (i.e. mutual respect…and turn off those cell phones!) to reflecting on what participants took away from the Celebrity Interview, 1-2-4-All was an excellent way to get participants reflecting, sharing, benefiting from all of our diverse perspectives and previous work and co-creating the workshop experience. Mari strung 1-2-4-All after a Celebrity Interview, a Spiral Journal session or as a way for participants to generate questions about the material being covered. Mari reflected that this structure was especially helpful in moving away from PowerPoint-centric teaching and facilitation. After participants shared their own perspectives, Mari was able to expand upon, gently redirect and/or insert new information around what participants already knew or shared.

Celebrity Interview – To introduce the foundational concepts and associated skills of qualitative research Mari had great success using an expert “Celebrity Interview.” “I served as the ‘expert’ and gave my colleague questions to use in the ‘interview’ so that I could introduce the basic concepts of qualitative research…while also modeling in real time how to conduct a quality interview!”

Mari followed the Celebrity Interview with 1-2-4-All. First, participants individually reflected on what they learned and observed during the interview, then shared with a partner, and finally merged into a group of four. By the end of the activity the group had collaboratively formulated a list of key concepts and competencies and Mari filled in any gaps with anecdotes from her own field experience – even acting some of the anecdotes out! The entire activity was so personal and rooted in the lived experiences in the room. The key was that the participants had ownership over the process. In reflecting back on the experience, Mari shared “It felt liberating for me as an instructor. I know this stuff, of course. I have a PhD. But with  PPT slides you feel you can’t break away from them. All the knowledge in the slides is IN me and I can deliver without slides.”

Mari also learned some other things from the Atlanta workshop. “We had someone illustrating the entire session, an artist who put a visual to every activity we were doing. I thought about how to do this to give my qualitative researchers some context about their work. I had to explain this complex intervention we were evaluating. I decided to do it as a visual. I practiced ahead of time with a colleague. I visually drew out each of the stages of a relatively complex intervention. I know this sounds simple, but it flips our way we have traditionally developed teaching and learning. That has been dry, and not multisensory. This flips it on its head and is shockingly different ways of looking at the world. In 15 minutes I clearly shared, and they saw where they fit into the picture.”

In the end, Mari felt they had accomplished something huge. “It felt like a collaboration, instead of me just delivering information and being in hierarchical power and knowledge relationship. We were collaborating together as a team. We asked much more and more engaging questions.”

Of course, some form of didactic information transfer is necessary, especially when introducing concepts or skills to a group. Mari wanted to make sure participants left the workshop with consistent information in print. Yet she  worried that by printing workbooks of what was in her previous training slides people would just fall back into “receiving mode.”  Her solution was to print text that conveyed foundational concepts, but bring along highlighters for each participant. “There was an exercise to highlight key concepts and words as we went through the stages. This played well into the Liberating Structures. Then they discussed between and amongst themselves. In the end, I avoided having participants writing out information or having an extreme amount of reading. There was just enough of both to engage them.”

When I talked to Mari, I asked her to think about the moment when she was able to say “yes” to shifting how she did this work. “I was feeling the support and enthusiasm at the immersion, and it buoyed me a lot. I participated and went through the activities, and not just a superficial way, but in a way that gave me concrete, applicable strategies. I saw the structures worked.”

“Troika Consulting was especially helpful. By the grace of universe to be paired with two women from different fields but both consultants, we were able to communicate similar challenges across our fields where we need to communicate information that isn’t always so exciting. They gave suggestions with confidence,” recounted Mari.

Liberating Structures constantly talks about engaging and unleashing everyone. I asked Mari if her workshop participants in Central African Republic started to have access to their own expertise? “Yes, [after 3 days of classroom training] we started with a pilot study to test the research tools and give the workshop participants experience before the “real” data collection phase. Comparing this experience to a previous (successful) ppt based training, the reactions were very different. The team from CAR came back from the field more animated and excited about their roles as researchers. It got them excited about their role, to apply the role to themselves and built confidence for conducting the research. They too can do this, even just having been introduced to qualitative research. After three days built using LS, they came back with huge smiles on their faces. And they were motivated to continue.” During the training session immediately following the participants’ pilot field experience Mari used Spiral Journaling and 1-2-4-All to encourage personal and group reflection. Participants shared challenges they encountered during the pilot study and the group generated ways to address the solutions during upcoming data collection together.

We talked about what happened after Mari left, what she did to support her CAR colleagues’ new skills and confidence. “I left them with something… the workbook that they actively contributed to creating and added along the way. They have a resource to go back to should they confront challenges and opportunities (even in different contexts).” Mari also added that a number of participants expressed a palpable enthusiasm and deep understanding of the importance of qualitative research. Mari believes the collaborative and experiential approach to the workshop played a huge role in communicating the power of qualitative research to workshop participants in a profoundly personal way that is not always possible with a more traditional, didactic approach.

Mari sees the power and applicability of Liberating Structures. “ LS needs to be introduced to more NGOs in general, especially in contexts like Sub Saharan Africa where many systems are still scripted, where the leftovers of colonial approaches remain. As far as engaging individuals, NGOS could really benefit from having these trainings brought to local levels.

What is Mari’s next step? “Attend more immersions! Experience more of the structures myself. My next step is looking at my next semester of teaching. I get mostly great reviews, but the class could benefit from more engagement and less straight lecture. I want to learn how to integrate more structures into my classroom teaching.”

From training, to university teaching, to consulting – Mari doesn’t stop. “I want to refine and develop my LS skills for my consulting as well.” Mari is interested in how immersions can help spread LS. “The immersions and the ways you apply them into your setting depends on your group. I love that creativity – react to the group you are with. It keeps me on my toes. While I can plan, I can also leave space for creativity to emerge. Of course, vulnerability is required.  The structures allow it.”

Note: After this interview Mari went on to facilitate a training of qualitative researchers from both Malawi and Ethiopia in Addis Ababa. Liberating Structures – and the lessons she learned from her workshop Central African Republic – formed her approach to training a group of experienced researchers, many of whom were university professors themselves! The workshop and subsequent data collection were great successes, proving yet again that these approaches are flexible and translatable across context and levels of experience.

Mari has also maintained a personal and professional relationship with one of the Atlanta Immersion participants who was in her Troika group – they exchange on their experiences using LS in different workshops and hope to collaborate in future to bring LS Immersions to more of their circles.

Criticisms and Cures around Liberating Structures

Last year I was inspired to mimic a cool format, criticisms and cures, on the topic of facilitating in complex contexts. I have found myself recently in conversations with people who can’t see the value of using Liberating Structures (LS), of engaging in immersions or communities of LS practitioners for people in NGOs, international development organizations and other cause related groups. There seem to be some unique barriers – and I’m not sure I have them right, so school me in the comments. But there seems to be some unique challenges in the NGO sector that I think are related to the diversity and complexity of the sector, and that creepy crawly sense of scarcity that comes into play. There are other sectors, like the Agile Programming world, who have adopted LS quickly – perhaps because LS gives with Agile philosophy and practices where are pretty specific. There is little such shared philosophy or practice in the NGO world. So I thought I’d try a C&C around this topic. (P.S. if you don’t know what Liberating Structures are, watch this little video!)

P.S. If you are interested in joining me in a Liberating Structures immersion in Atlanta, Georgia, USA September 18-19 check out
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/liberating-structures-immersion-workshop-atlanta-tickets-62928099640

PS. If you are interested in LS in Europe, join the Liberating Structures Learning Festival in The Hague, Netherlands, October 7-9, go to
https://liberatingstructures.eu/the-hague-ls-festival/

Impromptu Networking

Criticism: Why should I go to a Liberating Structures Immersion workshop. I already know how to facilitate?

Cure:  LS is not simply about facilitating. It is about essentially stripping down our group interaction practices to the bare bones to better understand how to unleash and engage everyone. It is about finding that space between over and under-control. It is about getting real work done, not just using clever techniques to keep people amused. If we have a practice that can help us diagnose and design for real needs, that is worth the time invested. Besides, once you get the hang of LS, you can design meetings in half the time as traditional approaches – or less. Even better, as you role model using LS, others will adopt it, so this is about behavior change in a system, not just one person learning something new.

25/10 Crowd Sourcing

Criticism: Liberating Structures takes away all of my control.

Cure:  Yes, and that is bad because? Group process is not about our control as leaders or facilitators or whatever. It is about getting stuff done together. So instead of framing in terms of control, focus on the purpose of the gathering and create the space (using the LS) to enable people to get that work done. Is there a risk? Compare it to having an awful meeting and getting nothing done, and that risk grows very small. This may be a great moment to reflect on our need for control and how that negatively impacts groups. Think about it. Do YOU like being controlled? And by the way, it will most likely be more enjoyable and the next time you invite people to a meeting, they may be happier saying “yes.”

Additionally, in NGO work we are often stating our values to be participatory, and led by those we are working with, not leading them. I don’t know about you, but I’ve found there are some bad habits I keep having to break around what I think is right, how I think things should be done. LS help me from falling back into those old patterns by using just the right amount of STRUCTURE, as opposed to keeping CONTROL.

Criticism: Meetings are fundamentally a waste of time. I don’t need to learn how to design and run better meetings, I just need to get rid of all of them.

Cure:  Purpose. The meetings you may have been forced to attend or lead may have been worthless. If you are in a very hierarchical and/or large organization, you may be suffering from bad meetings. By all means, stop those.

Next, think about what do people need to do with each other to meet organizational goals? How much clarity can you generate around purpose? Don’t confuse purpose with an agenda. Purpose is the reason to meet. If there is no purpose, don’t meet. If purpose is unclear, then there is a reason to meet. If purpose is clear, then an LS-infused gathering can convert that purpose from idea, assessment, action and first steps. There are six questions that have emerged from the LS community that are really helping me think about meeting (or project, or strategy) purpose.

  1. What is the purpose of our work? (What are we “making,” for whom and how do we know it is of value.)
  2. What is happening around us that demands change in our work? (If nothing, well go have a coffee and congratulations!
  3. What are the challenges and wicked dualities we are facing to do our work?
  4. Where are we starting, honestly?
  5. Based on what we now know, what is made possible?
  6. What are our first steps in those possibilities and how will we know we are making progress?

When groups can seriously consider and answer these questions, tapping into each person’s perspective and knowledge, much more becomes possible. This can be framed from the perspective of a status update or retrospective, all the way to the launch of a major initiative (with tweaking of the questions, of course!)

Criticism: As an NGO or international development organization, we don’t have the luxury of going to capacity building workshops. We are too busy address others’ capacity building needs.

Cure:  Calculate how much time is wasted in boring, unproductive, inappropriate meetings and group interactions. Query what you know about good adult learning. How are you applying that to the capacity building you are doing? If you don’t cultivate your own capacity, how can you do that for others? If money is an issue, ask for a scholarship. The worse thing you can hear is no. The best thing might just be a yes. You are WORTH it!

The 2 of 1-2-4-All

Criticism: People are getting totally annoyed with me breaking them down into groups, doing 1-2-4-All and all that. Come on!

Cure: I have struggled with this and what is dawning on me and others is that there are some essential interaction patterns or microstructures in LS that need repeat practice until they become habitual. We have a lot of things we have habituated in our meeting practices – we are just not very aware of them. These basic structures, once cultivated and practiced, become automatic instead of feeling like they are imposed upon us. Read this useful post on Medium.

Ecocycle

Criticism: Complexity is a buzzword or indicates a mess so big we can’t deal with it. I’m done with complexity.

Cure:  Go back and read this blog post!

Shifting Conditions That Hold Problems in Place

Two of my colleagues/friends have written very useful posts reflecting on practices that can enhance any year end reflections and new years planning you may be cooking up. Many of you who know me how much I value what emerges from practice and my learning path is to understand these things from a complexity perspective in various systems. Recently a client pointed me to a FSG blog post which had a link to a quote that has enlivened this path.

Social Innovation Generation in Canada defines systems change as “shifting the conditions that are holding the problem in place.

Savor that one for a minute.

For me, the blog posts noted below give us some ideas about shifting those conditions that are holding our problems in place!

First, Mike Parker of Liminal Coaching shares a great set of ideas framing the complexity of todays work world (work in the broadest sense!) What is wonderful is that if you keep reading, you will get to Mike’s gift: the value of daydreaming in helping us navigate our complex worlds. Yes, daydreaming. He riffs on the time management Pomodoro practice and creates Liminal Pomodoro – a practice to relax and let your mind do its work in that daydreaming state of mind. This might be helping conditions in our own minds that are holding our problems in place. Read the post – seriously. Then go take a Liminal Pomodor break and come back and read the rest of this post. Who knows, you may see it in a whole new light!

The second post comes from Michelle Medley-Daniel from the Fire Adapted Network Community. I had the chance to work with Michelle and hear team last year and we played with many complexity informed practices such as Liberating Structure. Michelle informed me that what she learned during that retreat had continued to add value over the year – which of course made my day.

Michelle’s reflections came around the US Thanksgiving holiday and reflected one of my favorite themes, abundance and ditching the scarcity mindset. To me, these are not Pollyanna-ish practices, but survival skills. When you take a different perspective, you have the chances of shifting the conditions that are – yes – holding the problems in place. I’ve snipped the high level essence of 2 pieces of advice below, but let the beautiful pie picture lure you into her full posting.

How Practicing “Enough” and Looking Ahead Can Support Social Innovation

Idea 1: Adopt an abundance mentality and give scarcity thinking the boot!

  • Give freely.
  • Check your pace; make space for your priorities.
  • Practice gratitude.

Idea 2: As you reflect on the strategic opportunities that lie ahead, consider how people think about the future.

In the times of the immense wildfires in California, and the work that Michelle and her colleagues do at the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network, this advice seems urgent and important.

Let’s shift the conditions that are holding the problems in place!