Deep Democracy Institute San Francisco
We were so excited last weekend, when DDI SF conducted its first seminar in Ft. Mason Center in San Franciso. It was a stunningly beautiful weekend, in terms of the weather and the people that showed up. Max and Ellen facilitated a two day workshop on how vision, relationships and the spirit behind networks come together in process-oriented leadership. Now we can't wait for our next seminar at the end of May on Worldwork Conflict Coaching
. In the fall, DDI will start its Worldwork Diploma. In the USA, this will be again in San Francisco. Look out for more details here.
Maceio Assentamento
Stanford Siver, our director of development, is currently working in Brazil. Here is what he writes:
I'm just back in Fortaleza, Brazil, after a seminar in a remote settlement called Maceio Assentamento. I met many amazing people and I feel blessed to have been able to go there and meet them and stay in their homes and learn together. Much appreciation to Raul with Janus Instituto de Consciência Global e Ecologia Social for making it all happen, for building the relationships, for finding funding, and for inviting me to come and for working in such a rich, powerful, and complex environment. So beautiful, Raul, to see what you do and the way that the people in the settlements love and relate to you!!!! And great appreciation for BNB, Banco do Nordest do Brasil, a government development bank, for their forward thinking, courage, support, and funding.
On the way to the settlement, just as we were leaving Fortaleza, a sign flirted with me. It said Dragoa do Mar, Dragon of the Sea, referring to a former slave who led a revolt against a specific task in the work that slaves were forced to do in Fortaleza. Slaves would no longer use their small sail boats to sail out to the slave trading ships and bring other slaves ashore. Slaves would not support slavery. It's a reminder that the region has been the stage for powerful encounters for a long time.
Up until 25 years ago the settlers had been living on the land for at least five generations while working for the landowners. After an intense process involving the police and military and a legal battle they, in their words, conquered the land. The government intervened and now owns the land and allows the settlers to live there. There has been a complex relationship process between the people, INCRA (the government agency that administers the land), MST (an NGO that represents people without land), and the former owners and business interests who have diverse ideas about the land.
Up until the time of this transition, the government was not able to allow or support the people to build modern housing because of the contested ownership issue. They were living in traditional mud and stick houses with thatched leaf roofs, no electricity, and no access to education. They now, most of them, have concrete houses with electricity, their own school, and a few satellite tv antennas and electric keyboards, etc. There are schools in the settlements now, so their children no longer have to be bussed long distances and some of younger people are proud that they have gone to the cities to get degrees. But there is a strong voice in the community trying to keep people from going to the cities. That voice understands that the cities are filled with trauma and crime and fears that, without better education and support, the youth are in danger of falling into these traps: drugs, prostitution, crime, trauma, extreme states. They want to develop locally the educational and economic resources that they need.
The sons and daughters of the settlers are not immediately granted settler status and there is a rank difference between "settled" and "aggregate" residents and this is one of the sources of tension that is beginning to split the community. They have had discussions about whether they should drop their collective association and work, farm, and live independently.
Some people admit that, to begin with, they didn't understand money and didn't know how to formal account for their resources and expenses. Many mistakes were made with the collective funds over the past twenty five years but they understand that they are learning together and have forgiven those who lost or misspent funds. The extent of their compassion and understanding allowed them to reelect one president who had reportedly mishandled funds based on his understanding of the need for change and efforts to create a committee steering the association. The community is learning and evolving. There is an enormous atmosphere of solidarity. They have been through a lot together and feel they need each other to protect themselves from many outside forces.
The goal of the seminar was to introduce process oriented leadership, development, and conflict facilitation concepts, such as Deep Democracy, from the WorldWork paradigm and to provide background training for an international video conference, scheduled for October 6th. This video conference will be facilitated by Arny and Amy Mindell from Portland, Oregon and include participants from the settlements, state and local government, Banco do Nordeste, business, universities, and non-government organizations.
In the seminar, after a brief theory presentation we held a series of innerwork and group processes exercises and the group broke up into small working groups to focus on specific issues that are troubling the community. During the seminar the people said a great deal both about their support for their leaders (many one of whom are well loved, one has been elected five times to 2 year terms of office) and about their sense that there is too much authoritinarianism, that there is no support for their own ideas and directions, and also that there is too much individualism. Hmmm... too much authoritinarianism and too much individualism? Such a strong polarity means that they are getting to know themselves, are developing their own visions for how to live together, and developing awareness of power...
Following the leadership of the seminar participants the video conference will focus on the isolation of the settlements and the problem that happens when young people come to the city. This is an issue that effects not only the settlers but many people and organizations in the city and throughout Brazil.
Raul and his team at Janus are working to invite people from state and local governments, BNB, the Human Rights Commission, universities, business, and non-government organizations to participate in the conference and the work that will continue afterwards. And DDI is considering to create an ongoing training program in Fortaleza. Looking forward to seeing where it all leads.
Here is a link to a few photos:
picasaweb.google.com/stanfordsiver/Brazil2009
And photos put to tunes played by local guitarists:
www.youtube.com/watch
DDI Europe - Elena Chopin is coordinating
Our DDI Europe endeavors are taking shape. We are lucky to have Elena Chopin working with us on this in Amsterdam. Elena is a coach and psychologist, and works with Expatriates in Amsterdam and in Paris in English, Russian, Italian, French and Lithuanian - yes, you are reading this correctly: 5 languages. We have known Elena for over 15 years, she is great!!! To find out more, see multilingual-netherlands.expatriatecounseling.com/Amsterdam.html or www.multilingual-paris-france.expatriatecounseling.com or contact Elena by e-mail elena.chopin@expatriatecounseling.com.
Our Nairobi Training
We are very excited about our upcoming training in Nairobi, Kenya, (www.deepdemocracyinstitute.co.ke) and have so far had the most encouraging contacts with many Kenyans in the midst of setting up our first workshop there. We chose Nairobi as the town for our 3 year leadership training in East Africa, because it is not only the largest and fastest growing city of East Africa, it is also the hub for many international organizations, and a point of reference for many of the surrounding countries and regions - but even more than all of that, we admit, for it's sheer beauty.We look forward to learning from the Kenyan spirit that we have met in our contacts leading up to this. On a pesonal level, we are thrilled to be in the country of Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Prize winner. We also hope to experience some altitude running. Florence, our Kenyan co-ordinator, was trying to sign us up for the Nairobi Marathon on the Sunday before the workshop starts :-) We would have loved to run with the world's best runners, but a day before the workshop seemed a little too much. Now Florence is suggesting that we run the Lakipia Half Marathon next year, at an altitude of 5,500 feet. It's the world's only race that happens in a game park with helicopters above the runners to chase away the lions, elephants and rhinos. I don't think we are in good enough shape to do it, also we can imagine running a personal best time to stay near the helicopters. If you want to find out more about our workshop, go to www.ddi-kenya.co.ke .
intertraining
Приглашаем вас принять участие в жизни новой социальной сети "Профессионалы в обучении и развитии".
Эта сеть создана организацией Интертренинг (www.intertraining.org) для русскоязычных тренеров, консультантов, фасилитаторов, и представителей родственных профессий.
Нам кажется, что в этой новой социальной сети есть много общего с вашей работой. Многие из тех, кто входит в нашу сеть, постепенно смещают в своей работе акценты с тренерства на фасилитацию. Не один год они работают, используя новейшие подходы к лидерству, основанном на участии (кого? в Чем? - не нужно ли здесь еще какого-то слова для уточнения сущности подхода?), в т.ч. такие подходы, как технология "Открытое пространство", Парадигма позитивных перемен (Appreciative Inquiry), "Mировое кафе", и др.
Многие участники сети знакомы также и с процессуальной психологией, принимали участие в семинарах Минделлов и извлекли ощутимую пользу из таких книг, как "Сидя в огне" (если множ число, то назови еще хотя бы две).
Мы были бы рады обмениваться с вами опытом, узнавать, как процессуальная и мировая работа как подход находят применение в вашей собственной работе.
член команды со-xранителей сети.
Vision and Relationship in Amsterdam
We are excited about DDI's first workshop in Amsterdam focusing on Leadership, Vision and Relationships. Check it out tinyurl.com/ddiamst !! Some of our students in the Ukraine, Africa and Palestine have urged us to create more possibilities for the DDI student community to connect to the European Leadership community, and we thought that Amsterdam, with its international and forward thinking culture, would be a good center for our West European activities. If it all works well, we hope we can offer an International Deep Democracy Diploma Program that is based in the Netherlands.
ВЖАРЬ ПО ПОЛНОЙ !!!
Here is another contribution from one of our Ukrainian students. Please use the google translator for Russian to English, if you are interested in reading this
ВЖАРЬ ПО ПОЛНОЙ !!!
Процессуальный коучинг с групповыми проектами позволяет наиболее полно реализовать подход с командной работой нескольких организаций.
Меня пригласили как фасилитатора (коуч, сопровождающий проект)
на встречу нескольких лидеров рынка в своем направлении решивших организовать конференцию.
Первые полчаса участники рассказывали про то как добирались до места встречи , сетовали на работу ГАИ. Они вспоминая случаи штрафов и конфликты с работниками дорожной службы, где и сколько денег потеряли и какими способами те или иные знакомые избегали наказания. Наконец я не выдержал и обратил их внимание на то, что встреча направлена организацию совместного проекта, и спросил - есть ли у них проблемы с выбром пути , деньгами и конфликтами в данной работе, о которых они завуалировано рассказывали эти полчаса. Минута молчания ушла на осознания связи своей встречи с дорожными историями и один из участников энергично отреагировал:
«Конечно у нас здесь конфликт и не один, и вообще - одна из идей проекта
это померяться ххххх с другим лидером рынка и сделать что-то, чтобы сильно проявиться для контакта с клиентами». Вопрос с деньгами тоже не был отрегулирован. Другие участники поддержали выступающего и еще несколько раз гневно вспомнили конкурента. Когда упоминание конкурента (роль призрак и неинтегрированный ресурс) достигло тридцатого раза я решил немного заработать на этом и предложил платить мне каждый раз по 10 долларов при упоминании конкурирующей компании. Реакцией был смех, веселье и драйв, как раз та энергия, которую команды решили положить в основу своей конференции. Вместо скучных докладов повеселиться с клиентами и устроить ринговые бои докладчиков с похожими темами (выявление своей зоны деятельности и интеграция энергии внешнего конфликта). Хорошим результатом также было окончательное согласие партнеров совместно заниматься данным проектом.
Следующей темой встречи оказалось название проекта. Внутренний конфликт был основан на эксклюзивности названия предложенного каждой из команд. На мое предложение объяснить их содержание стороны вдруг выделили преимущества противоположного предложения (смена ролей)
и договорились сделать общее название. Процесс двигался трудно и из
мозгового штурма ничего креативного не получалось. Мы вышли на открытый воздух из зала и партнеры попробовали представить энергию проекта как место на природе. Обе ведущие стороны вдруг сказали:
«Это энергия вулкана!», и… все завершилось. «ЭЙ МАСТЕР! ВЖАРЬ ПО ПОЛНОЙ!» - одно из рабочих названий конференции.
