Calling the Circle

Calling the Circle: The First and Future Culture by Christina Baldwin

Here are a few of my notes...

There is no one but us. There is no one to send, nor a clean hand nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us, a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead —as if innocence had ever been— and our children busy and troubled, and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready, having each of us chosen wrongly, made a false start, failed, yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures, and grown exhausted, unable to seek the thread, weak, and involved. But there is no one but us. There never has been. ANNIE DILLARD, Holy the Firm

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As Mary Catherine Bateson says, “Any place we stop to rest must also serve as the platform from which we leave.”

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At a lecture in the mid-1980s, a participant asked psychologist and author M. Scott Peck what he considered to be the most significant source of social change in the twentieth century. He replied, without hesitation, “Alcoholics Anonymous, because it introduced the idea that people could help themselves.” His surety of comment fascinated me, and I began to study the origins of the Twelve Step movement. What I found was the circle.

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“We’re missing pieces, we’re missing pieces” ran like a chant in my mind all the days of that week, “but what?” I had to stop trying to act as though I knew what I was doing. I tried instead to look at camp as though I knew nothing, assumed nothing. “If I’d just landed here from Venus, what would I see?” I asked myself.

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We were trying to put the circle into place without first creating a commonly understood context so that the circle could actually function.

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Context prepares us to consider new ideas.

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Riding context is like riding the surf: We are swept up and moved along by forces that we ourselves have not called but which set the pace and support us on the journey.

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By now I knew: A circle is not just a meeting with the chairs rearranged. A circle is a way of doing things differently than we have become accustomed to. The circle is a return to our original form of community as well as a leap forward to create a new form of community.

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And so I began calling the circle our First Culture.

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We came into circle because the fire led us there.

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Both symbols live within us: We carry the circle and the triangle.

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By hosting a meeting in a circle, Carol and John are challenging five thousand years of enculturation by saying: “Here is another way. Here power will be shared, opened up, dealt with differently, so that we may find a new way of being together.” When Carol lights a candle in the middle of a meeting and John calls for a minute of silence, when Bev Ebble articulates her frustration, when Arlene finishes her thoughts, when Tom sees the correlation between what’s happening at work and what’s going on at his children’s school, consciousness shifts and liberation begins. When we call the circle into the midst of Second Culture, we create a new amalgam of the past and present—a Third Culture.

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For the circle to hold steady, there needs to be an understood authority that resides within the circle, a source that all members petition for counsel. If this authority is retained and personified by any person, the circle turns into a triangle: Someone becomes the chief, the leader, the guru, the boss, while others become the followers, the workers, the compliant or rebellious subservients.

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What is essential, for the center to hold, is that you and I understand how to make an authentic spiritual gesture.

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We cannot imbue the center of the circle with the strength to hold us unless we know how to shift our perception of where power lies, and how power is to be utilized between ourselves.

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There is a “wobble” that always occurs in human relationships.

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Somé’s prayer for us in the industrialized world is that we slow down enough to find the indigenous person within, to go in search of this archetypal figure residing in our collective unconscious and draw out his/her forgotten, but retrievable, wisdom.

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I have friends who meditate an hour a day, and friends who sing in the church choir, and friends who walk the labyrinth. I don’t think it matters what we choose as the ritual with which we hold on to the center of our lives, only that we choose something that honors Spirit and has meaning for us, and that we do it consistently.

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Alone on the lake, removed from all the machinery of modern life, totally responsible for her physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual survival, Ann entered into direct connection with the Sacred.

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Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free. STARHAWK, Dreaming the Dark

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People rush into business and faculty and committee meetings (and sometimes even to the family dinner table) still talking on cellular phones or responding to beepers; they carry on side conversations that create alliances and rifts right in the faces of those being excluded; they gossip about the organization, its leaders, or members who are absent. People glance at the agenda, slap papers out on the table, go get coffee, leave and return, leave and return, until nobody’s sure who is present or not. Finally someone looks at his watch and commands, “Let’s get this ball rolling.” And the free-for-all begins. This is disrespectful group process, even if it is the current social norm.

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“Thank you,” I said. “This is what we mean—the circle is social energy contained. The interpersonal structure of PeerSpirit is the glass; you and I are the water. The purpose of the principles, practices, and agreements is to provide a respectful social practice so we can decide what to do. Once the water—our energy—is contained, we can drink it, heat it or freeze it, wash in it, make a pot of coffee, make soup, but without the glass, all we have is a wet spot on the rug.”

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Three principles serve as the foundation of PeerSpirit experience: rotating leadership sharing responsibility relying on Spirit

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In PeerSpirit, we commonly use three forms of council: talking piece, conversation, and silence. These are introduced briefly here, and are illustrated in depth in the following chapters.

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Talking piece council teaches us to trust the process, to not carry on when we have nothing to say, and to have the courage to take our turn when a contribution wells up inside us. It is acceptable to take brief notes to remind ourselves of what we want to speak about or questions we want to add, but the most powerful use of the talking piece is to hold it silently a few seconds, settle into our own breath and body, and see what comes forward as our piece of the contribution. In many settings, the most immediate gift of talking piece council is how it slows us down.

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Artifacts identified as talking pieces have been found in many First Culture excavations, I can only conclude that the desire to interrupt each other is as ancient as council itself—and so is the desire to be heard without interruption.

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To combine the quickened responsiveness of conversation with freedom from interruption, use a talking piece that lends itself to being tossed around the group. A Koosh ball, a sock, a balloon, a paper airplane, or other small object can energize a tired council and bring levity into a conversation while still observing helpful council forms.

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There is a simple ritual for silence that seems to work almost universally. Take three breaths: one to let go of whatever energy charge was commanding us; one to touch the still mind; and one to ask, “What would Thou have me do?”—or, if that language is too formally spiritual, simply to ask, “What?”

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To be of use to the circle, both on the interpersonal and spiritual levels, we need to be centered within ourselves. Native tradition refers to this as “being able to sit within one’s own hoop.”

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Our ability to pay attention to each other in whatever form of council we find ourselves is largely dependent on three practices: speaking with intention listening with attention self-monitoring our impact and contributions

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The group uses a digital kitchen timer, granting each person a minute to check in, and passing on the unusual talking piece when it rings. The group also finds this quick round very helpful when gathering every person’s response to an idea or proposal.

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A circle is strengthened by strong, supportive dyads. Various exercises that pair up members of the group and invite them to take turns speaking and listening to each other help build cohesiveness as we come to know each other better. Such pairing experiences give us good practice in intentional speaking and attentive listening.

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The following generic circle agreements are listed here so that they can be read all in one piece.

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Often circles vote by using a “thumbs-up,” “thumbs-sideways,” or “thumbs-down” signal on decisions and actions that require approval. Thumbs-up signals agreement. Thumbs-sideways indicates that someone has further questions to raise, encouraging ongoing dialogue that can have an impact on the decision that emerges. Thumbs-down is used to indicate disapproval but may not necessarily block an action. A person can give a thumbs-down to state, “I don’t support this action, but the group may proceed if it chooses.” This needs to be clarified conversationally.

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Then, usually rotating on a meeting-by-meeting basis, one person volunteers to serve in the guardian role. The guardian has the group’s permission to interrupt and intercede in group process for the purpose of calling the circle back to center, to task, or to respectful practice, or suggesting a needed break.

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Most of the time, most of us arrive at the beginning of circle full of confused and scattered energies accumulated from the pace of Second Culture life. We are counting on the circle to center us, slow us down, and help us be present. We should not be surprised if our landing in the intimate lap of circle is often a little rough.

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Accurately reading energetics is a highly intuitive function, and therefore it can be highly inaccurate, skewed by the preconceptions in our own minds.

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Before the first meeting, three preparatory steps are helpful: setting intention, gathering feedback, and envisioning the group.

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Intention is the statement of a circle’s purpose. Setting intention begins by asking: “What is this circle about? Why am I calling it? What do I want?”

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May I suggest we take turns each speaking to our vision of this church, listening to each other without interruption?”

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For Demetria, paying attention to synergy meant listing people she thought would be interested in the circle, people she wanted to develop a close relationship with, and people she thought would mix well with each other. She drew a spiderweb on a big sheet of paper, putting women’s names and little biographical thoughts about them at the web’s connecting points:

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As people work through their initial awkwardness with the form—remembering not to cross-talk when the talking piece is used,

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The greatest trust is built when we get through the bumpy, scary, risky, and vulnerable aspects of circling. We don’t know what we’re made of until a circle has faced a problem, resolved a conflict, gotten several members through a crisis. Actual conflict resolution, since it’s so seldom practiced, may be nerve-racking as we develop confidence and learn to say our truth, but after a while, the empowerment is positively exhilarating.

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“I pulled off the road to a little resort by a lake, woke up the owners, rented a cabin, and called my wife to say we wouldn’t be home for a while. Then BJ and I held council. I mean, I pulled out the stops—told BJ everything I’d ever thought about my dad and what I thought went wrong between us, and gave him the chance to say the same about me. We passed a rock back and forth between us until that sucker was hot. No interrupting, no justifications. Then I drove BJ back to school, helped him get reinstated, and got back to town at midnight on Sunday.

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In appreciation council, the talking piece works in the opposite manner of its usual use: the person holding the piece is silent and the rest of the circle has the opportunity to offer heartfelt appreciation to the holder of the piece. It is useful to begin these statements saying something like: “What I honor and respect about you is…” “What touches me about you is…” “What I love about you is…” Dennie also has suggestions on what not to do: Avoid superlatives (“You’re the best…”) Avoid comparisons (“I’m not…”; “You are…”; “I wish I could…”) Avoid referring to first impressions of another person or his/her work (“At first I wasn’t sure you knew what you were doing, but then…”) Avoid talking about yourself while appreciating someone else (“Your story reminds me of the time I…”) Avoid interpreting his/her experience (“I see that you have worked through…and now you are…”)

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Appreciation council works well as an opening ritual at the beginning of staff or committee meetings by asking each person to articulate one thing they love (or appreciate) about their school, church, or company. The question challenges us to keep remembering why we work or volunteer where we do, and is especially useful to set a positive container around a council that may hold difficult moments.

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This is the dimension that differentiates PeerSpirit circling from other forms of group management: It can contain the concerns of the heart and help us express them in ways appropriate to the setting.

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“I lit a candle in the center of the table, without explanation. I held up my talking piece and explained the rules: Whoever held the stick could speak without interruption until he or she was finished and would then lay the stick down in the center of the table. Whoever wanted to speak next could pick it up. Interrupting would not be tolerated. Both would have the chance to tell their story completely and to respond to anything the other person had said. We would talk as long as necessary.

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The second contribution of PeerSpirit is the belief that people are by their essence capable of self-governance, and that by adopting the basic principles, practices, and agreements, each person in the circle assumes accountability for his/her own behavior and shares responsibility for the well-being and accomplishment of the entire group.

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Experience is not always a comfortable teacher.

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There is a church congregation I know of (the pastor participated in one of our Circle Practicums) where factions had developed and the pastor felt isolated, watching this fracturing from the pulpit, not able to help. One Sunday she announced, “The vision I think we share is that of a faith community. We aren’t fulfilling that vision particularly well, and I think my standing up here every week isn’t helping. So I’m coming down into the circle. I invite us to reconvene as the early Christians did, to believe that the Christ Light will work through each of us if we come into spiritual council.” That afternoon they held a circle of eighty parishioners, with one talking piece and the commitment to listen to every voice in the community. One of the women on the church board served as guardian, providing space for silence, prayer, and bathroom breaks. They were able to experience refuge, even in the midst of dissension and difficulty. The church is now doing fine.

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Projection happens when we put onto others the parts of ourselves we do not claim (“You’re so important to this group, I’m just a beginner”) or the parts we do not want to claim (“Joe is so judgmental—I can’t stand how he labels people”).

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We lay projection over our reactions if we add a judgment that makes another person a good or bad human being based on the way s/he is behaving. So if I think or say, “Mary drives me nuts! She’s so self-centered, making everybody listen to her so long,” then I’m projecting. I make her less than myself; I assume my experience is the same as other people’s experience.

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Projection may also be positive. If I think or say, “Mary’s storytelling is so lyrical, like listening to poetry. I could never talk like that,” then I make her more than myself; I make her be “the poetic one,” and diminish my own abilities to speak metaphorically.

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In Dreaming the Dark, Starhawk’s groundbreaking work on the circle and spiritual activism, she identifies ten common personas that people often assume around the rim. She calls these lone wolf, orphan, gimme shelter, filler, princess, clown, cute kid, self-hater, rock of Gibraltar, and star.2

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Personifying archetypal energies is an ancient and ingenious way to shift projection into consciousness and give it a voice in the circle. In native tradition, as it is carried by the EHAMA Institute in California, the council circle is represented as an eight-pointed Medicine Wheel.3 Each person sitting in council is trained to hold a specific perspective. Together the council speaks as a whole to any issue that requires wisdom and decision making. Each of the directions offers a perspective such as freedom and creativity, present condition and appreciation, power and danger, maintenance and balance, interrelatedness and timing, clarity and action, and integrity and vitality.

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We become our authentic selves by handling our own shadow material, instead of insisting, “It’s not me!” At some point in our lives, we enter a process of sorting the shadow and discover that what we have disowned is not so horrible. If we bring these contents into the light and practice living consciously with them, we experience many rewards, and the tension that had been bound within the psyche is transformed into an abiding peacefulness with the self. We learn to see and accept and hold ourselves accountable.

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If we refuse life’s invitations toward consciousness and continue to deny the shadow, our impact on other people becomes increasingly destructive. We become a dangerous influence in our circles. We cannot enter the protocol and share responsibility in problem solving if we are stuck proving our innocence.

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A few circles ago, there was a woman present whom I experienced as demanding a lot of attention from the group. As she spoke her needs throughout the first day of a week together, I got more and more agitated—she seemed (to me) to take longer and longer, to require more time, and every time she asked me something I winced inside. By the end of the afternoon I knew I had to intervene—with myself—to clear up my projections and to examine what piece of my shadow she was carrying. I went for a walk before supper and had a chat within my mind. I called home my annoyance, called home my own abandoned insecurities, called in compassion until I could visualize this woman in a new light. Instead of withdrawing from her, mentally or physically, I stepped toward her, extending five minutes of attention at supper, a special attempt to say good night, a moment to ask her how her day had been.

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When you and I come into council and have the courage to ask, “Where is my negative side at this moment?” or “Where is the cast of the shadow in this interaction?” we restructure how we see interpersonal relationships, in the circle, and in the wider world.

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PeerSpirit structure is a safety net. When walking the high ropes, a safety net does not prevent us from falling, but it gives us a place to land.

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However, within some people, it seems that the actual experience of being contained within circle triggers the need to break these bonds. They experience interpersonal containment as confining, threatening their identity. As the sustenance of the circle builds around them, they do not seem able to tolerate deepening emotional intimacy or energetic connection. They become psychologically and; or physically agitated and activate intense defense mechanisms to “protect” their core self from the threat of this bonding energy. Instead of experiencing the connective web of the circle as a safety net, they experience it as a fishing net and thrash wildly to escape. They are compelled to act out against the health of the group.

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When I’m in a circle that is in trouble, one of the first things I notice in myself is that I start ruminating over a particular moment or interaction, sensing there is more to it I don’t understand. I can’t seem to let it go. Or I find that one person seems to be consuming all my energy, both in the circle and as I think back on the circle.

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Once we’ve admitted our own agitation, our first job is to deal with our own dissonance in as healthy a way as possible for us. We need to get ourselves clear. In the middle of long circle sessions or seminars, during stretch breaks, meals, or free time, instead of using that time to keep chatting socially we may go outside, go for walks, go into silence, and listen carefully to the internal monologue, looking for clues.

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It is extremely helpful to begin the process of sorting by writing about the circle in the third person. Any of the following sentence stems will get us started shifting perspective: “I see a circle where…”; “In this circle is a wo/man who…” (this is us we’re writing about; first “know thyself”). If we are having specific reactions to a specific person, we may explore those by writing: “If I were (so-and-so) I would be feeling…thinking…sensing…behaving…”

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There are many questions that help in this sorting process; we may choose whatever fits and start taking inventory. How have I been pulled off center? What’s my body telling me? What’s my mind telling my body? Where do I experience these energies coming from? How am I contributing to them? What am I avoiding in the circle? How am I going passive instead of active? What am I afraid of? (What’s the worst-case scenario?) How will I take care of myself if all this comes to pass? What other options do I have for myself? for the circle? Is my compassion intact—for myself, for others, for the process of dealing with this? Where have I lived this before? Whose shadow work is this? And how do I do my own piece with integrity? Who does this person remind me of? Am I seeing this situation through a filter of past memory? of judgment? of fear?

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The piece that is coming forward through someone else is there because it is matched in the circle, and it is seeking completion/release. So as I explore and articulate what “they are doing” or “how they are being” that is agitating to me, I need to hold up a mirror to myself and see the complementary piece that I am (or someone else in the group is) holding for them.

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If we take the circle as our teacher, then we take these moments and this difficult person as our teacher. We are being offered a learning together: not me/her-or-him, not us/them. However this learning shakes out, we can take responsibility only for our piece of the puzzle.

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If others approach us, we may talk briefly of our own feelings without talking about someone else. “Some energy drain is happening for me,” I might say; “I’m working to clarify it, and then I intend to bring it up in council.”

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I’d like to know how other people are feeling and thinking about how we are functioning.”

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“No,” I say to a woman in Chicago who looks at me searchingly, “sometimes the circle cannot hold,” and without her speaking a word of her story, I see in her eyes the haunting she carries from a women’s group that shattered. “Thank you,” she responds, “I just needed to know,” and quietly she begins to cry.

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However, energy is not separated neatly into our preconceived notions of light or dark, good or bad, helpful or hindering. For Spirit to enter the circle, a threshold must be created and a door left ajar. The more we are conscious of this, the more readily we can work with what enters. Over this threshold, along with Spirit, comes the shadow, comes confusion, comes narcissism in all its subtle disguises. On the rim of the circle, our obligation to energy is to learn to stay awake, to practice discernment in the minute-by-minute shifts that break and/or sustain the weave.

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In her energy work, Kathleen Bjorkman-Wilson teaches people to respectfully separate from the collective field by silently calling to mind everyone who has been in a circle and stating three differences between themselves and the other. For example, Kathleen has blue eyes; Kathleen is shorter than I am; Kathleen lives in Idaho. These differences do not imply connection or rejection: They are neutral, observable. Yet simply stating them re-creates energetic boundaries and sends everybody “home” so that the field of the group can be fully released. Kathleen has taught us to add this to the ritual of closing at the end of a session, a seminar, or during breaks when energy is intense and people need to come back in with clarity.

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The primary classes in the local school system are being taught through the Tribes program, where children work in “tribal circles” of five to six students, with five to six tribes per classroom. The program, designed by California educator Jeanne Gibbs in 1978, is used in thousands of schools across the United States and Canada. The purpose of Tribes is to give each child a tangible sense of belonging and accountability among peers. The circles foster higher achievement levels and make students and teachers coresponsible for their learning. Tribes functions with four basic agreements: attentive listening; no put-downs; right to pass (the talking piece); and confidentiality.

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In the middle of a circle meeting, voting may be done by instituting a thumb signal. Thumbs-up—:“I’m for it, ready to support and do it.” Thumbs-down—“I’m against it. I don’t think this is the right way for us to go.” Thumbs-sideways—“I have a question that needs addressing or a comment I need to add before I can decide.”

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Zimmerman, Jack, and Virginia Coyle. The Way of Council (Las Vegas: Bramble Books, 1996). This book provides a method for training both professionals and nonprofessionals in basic communication skills using the council model. It’s an excellent contribution to the field.

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Two Is Enough

Two Is Enough: A Couple's Guide to Living Childless by Choice by Laura S. Scott

Here are a few of my notes...

In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned state laws that prevented married couples from using contraceptives; in 1972, the court extended the right to contraception to unmarried persons.8 Canada decriminalized contraception in 1969.

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However, women began to discover that they “just couldn’t do this,” said Risman. “The way our workplaces had been constructed—to expect a worker to leave the home at eight o’clock in the morning and get back home at six at night, fifty weeks a year—presumed that worker had an unpaid domestic partner to do everything else that it takes to live a life, from having clean underwear to taking care of babies to taking care of elderly parents who needed to be taken to the doctor in the middle of the day. We had constructed a world of work presuming every worker had a wife, and these women didn’t have wives.”

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She warned that women were not having children because of an antiquated and hostile environment that required “women to make impossible trade-offs between work and children.” She suggested that we could manage low birthrates and skilled-labor shortages by making our workplaces more family friendly, attracting talented and educated workers who might not otherwise be in the workforce because of family obligations, and by allowing existing workers the job security they need to take maternity/paternity leaves. Mencimer suggested that women hold out for what they needed to effectively parent and contribute to the workplace; that included part-time work with benefits, subsidized childcare, and a commitment from their husbands to share the domestic duties.

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Again, this is the problem we encounter when we look at the childfree life simply as a choice, rather than a process. It’s both, really. It’s a series of choices, or decisions made over a timeline in which life experiences, observations, and people act as influencers. Most of us, parents and nonparents alike, start with the assumption of parenthood and then, over time, either assimilate or adopt the assumption because it feels right, or are motivated to challenge it because it doesn’t.

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These couples valued the process of examining, on a case-by-case basis, the decision to parent; they looked deep into their own hopes and expectations, assessing their desire, skills, and suitability as parents. Most did not buy into the notion that effective parenting is a skill people learn on the job.

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Later, as I pressed my face against the nursery window, watching him sleep peacefully in his little blue hat, I scanned every nook and cranny of my heart and mind for any sign of longing. Do I want this? I waited for some little voice, or a twinge. There was nothing.

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Studies show that these couples have good reason to feel somewhat apprehensive about bringing a child into the mix. When I started seeing evidence of the marital-satisfaction motive, I recalled a USA Today article I’d read back in 1997, titled “Couples in Pre-Kid, No-Kid Marriages Happiest,” that cited sociologist Mary Benin’s long-term study of spouses and reported that marital satisfaction is greatest before the kids arrive and starts to decline sharply after the birth of the first child, reaching a low point when the kids are in their teens; it doesn’t rise again until the kids are grown up and have left home.1

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My independence and my ability to be flexible in my life are too precious to me. Perhaps if I had a desire to have children, I would be willing to compromise my idea of freedom and independence.” For Nancy, though, that desire wasn’t there.

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In his master’s thesis study of more than 450 childfree women and men, Vincent Ciaccio observed “a solid understanding of the responsibilities of parenthood. They understand that children will reallocate their time, affect their career ambitions, their finances, their privacy, and their social activities, and they do not want these changes taking place.”

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Many couples had some basis for comparison between times when they were free to take advantage of opportunities and times when they were tied down by obligations. Among the survey respondents, 64 percent felt compelled to remain childless partly because some of their dreams and goals would be difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish if they took on the responsibilities of parenthood.

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So if it is possible to live happily childfree and happily with children, then how do you know what is the right choice for you? Richard didn’t think it was wise, or necessary, to attach relative values to parenthood or nonparenthood. “I don’t think it’s a comparative state of better or worse; I just think it’s a decision we made.” That’s true—there is no “right” choice. However, if you are on the fence, it may help you to look to those who have made the choice to remain childless, as a way to gauge your own feelings and intuition. I asked my participants to offer suggestions or questions that might help others in their decision-making process.

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“This isn’t a snap decision; it should take a lot of soul searching,” Vincent said, and suggested that the soul searching include the question “Am I prepared to have a child that isn’t ‘perfect’? This includes the possibilities of mental and physical disabilities.”

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I told her about the undecided couples I had interviewed, asked a few indirect questions, and then sat back and listened, trying to determine how she might have responded to these more direct questions: • Do I really want to be a parent? • Do I enjoy children? • Will I likely regret it if I don’t have kids?

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Jerry suggested a drill to test your willingness to make the changes necessary to parent: “At least twenty times a day for the next week or month, ask yourself the following question: How would having children change what I am doing now? Ask it when you wake up, when you eat your meals, when you watch TV, when you read the newspaper, when you walk the dog, when you make love, when you go to sleep. If you consider most of your answers to be positive, then you might enjoy having children. If most of your answers are negative, then you might be happier without children of your own.”

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So how do you know what your gut wants? Easy: Spend a couple of quiet moments alone, imagining yourself as a parent. What does that feel like? Is it an excited, warm-and-fuzzy feeling, or does it feel wrong, uncomfortable, or even impossible? Some fear is natural when you imagine what will probably be one of the toughest responsibilities you ever take on. However, if imagining yourself in a mom or dad role feels really foreign or unnatural or totally uncharacteristic for you, you might want to take the time to reread this book and think hard about what you really want and what you really feel.

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For me, a workable compromise on something as huge as parenthood seemed impossible.

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“I would never think about having a child until my parents would say, ‘One day when you have kids,’” Dan continued, shaking his head, unable to imagine it. “It just seemed like a really alien concept to me. And now I see the trouble people have with their kids, and I see other people who have good kids, and it seems like this roulette wheel that you’re betting on. I’ve never been one to shirk responsibility; I have a lot of responsibility now. It’s just that that kind of responsibility has never been attractive to me.”

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But isn’t that selfish? Laura felt we needed to redefine what it means to be selfish, and quoted Oscar Wilde: “Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”

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The Parenthood Decision: Discovering Whether You Are Ready and Willing to Become a Parent, by Beverly Engel. Published by Main Street Books, 1998. The author, a licensed marriage counselor, provides short questionnaires designed to help potential parents decide whether they are ready, willing, and able to parent. If they are not, Engel supports the childless option, stating, “You owe it . . . to your future baby to make your decision based on reality, not fantasy.”

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Why Is It So Important For You to Have a Baby? This is a questionnaire specifically for people who would like to explore their motives and ideals around parenthood. It is a clever tool with which to launch a discussion with your partner if you are still undecided or ambivalent about parenthood. www.childfree.net/potpourri_whybaby.html

Visual Meetings

Visual Meetings: How Graphics, Sticky Notes and Idea Mapping Can Transform Group Productivity by David Sibbet

Here are a few of my notes...

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It all hinged on a premise, that their perspective on life at work needed to shift from delivering well on orders and requests to getting out front and leading into the unknowns of a new market. We had to shift their internal mental models—their point of view.

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On day two of the Apple Leadership Expedition we invited all the participants to take a different point of view on their own careers. We asked them to use a simple graphic format called a “peak and valley diagram” as each one mapped out his or her career. The exercise involved drawing a line across a piece of paper, and then intuitively making a horizon line that represented the ups and downs in his or her life, and labeling the peaks and valleys. (See the steps-at-a-glance practice on this page.)

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Another colleague and I began a meeting with some generals in the U.S. Army by scattering a variety of interesting photographs around on the floor and asking everyone to pick one that appealed, for whatever reason.

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When I first learned to record graphically for groups, I was interested that Interaction Associates called the flip chart displays “group memories.” They asserted, and I concur from experience, that when a group sees its work recorded, their trust in its validity increases, and groups will use those charts as their collective memory. Since remembering what we commit to do in meetings is so critical in implementation, I think any investment in improving retention is a direct link to greater productivity.

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• John Ward led a workshop on kinesthetic modeling, using clay and model making to think through planning and other problems.

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Great Beginning Journal Activities

• Draw Seating Charts

· Practice Bullet Points

· Play with Lines and Borders

· Doodle Little People

· Play with Cartoon Bubbles

· Take Notes in Different Formats

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Well, the simplest thing to do visually was to just rest the pen on paper and make a dot. The next most simple thing was to move the pen and make a line, then to change directions on the line and make a shape, like a triangle. Formalizing the shapes into neat squares and rectangles seemed the next hardest. I could then combine the square and triangle and make what I called a hollow arrow. With some practice I could make this arrow spiral, and finally get around to the circle. Now, the circle wasn’t the hardest to draw, but seemed the most comprehensive. These seven basic shapes became my building blocks for diagramming and illustrating. I could create any kind of picture out of these elements.

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This was a directive from the top and they were in heavy resistance. I sensed this right away when I reviewed the stated outcomes and agenda for the meeting. So instead of going straight at the agenda, I stepped aside with a flip chart and drew a circle. I then drew some hollow arrows pointing at it. (They could be just line arrows.) Then I turned around and said, “Before we start let’s talk a bit about all the ways we can ensure that nothing productive happens in the meeting or this process.” I kept a straight face and waited. “We could avoid talking about it when we get back to work,” someone said. I immediately wrote it down. “What else could we do?” I didn’t give them time to think, and pretty soon we had 8 or 10 items and a lot of laughter. They realized I wasn’t naïve about the challenges and the meeting was quite successful.

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The seed shapes reviewed in Chapter 2 are perfect for diagramming out a meeting design. Use circles to indicate the actual meetings and breakout groups. Use squares to indicate documents that need to be produced. Hollow arrows can indicate projects that need to be completed but aren’t meetings. Link them together as small and big circles with outputs across a time line, and record with bullet points the different things you need to do. This informal sketch really provides some traction for thinking.

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I made six targets with each of the six value words in the center of each. The issue was having people know what these meant and how they would be translated into action. So the first ring of the target was for the definition and the second ring was for examples of what that value would look like in action in the various different parts of the business.

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Tattoo this principle on your inner brain: “People are more engaged by things that are suggestive than by things that are crystal clear.”

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According to their research the first question people have is “Why are we here?” This is all about imagining the purpose of the gathering. The second is “Who are you,” and an inner question of “what might you be asking of me in this meeting.” This is about trust. Then we ask the third question, “What are we doing?” Eventually we ask, “How are we going to do it.”

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As the meeting begins ask people to introduce themselves, and go around the chart writing people’s names in the circles where they are sitting, and writing down their jobs and whatever else they share.

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Have a Weather Report: A fun way to use sticky notes to start a meeting is to pass them out and ask everyone to write down what kind of weather represents how they feel right now. Are they “sunny and bright,” or “fogbound,” or “rainy,” or “blustery.”

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Create a wall with little monitor-sized squares all over it. When people arrive ask people their name and print it out in the squares, along with their company and title. Then ask, “What is the hottest question you have regarding this topic?”

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Meeting rooms and how they are arranged is itself a visual statement and part of what can be used to engage people in a meeting. A number of very active get-to-know-you exercises use rooms as spatial displays in 3-D. These work for any size group, but are especially good for larger meetings.

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Ask people in your meeting to line up based on different kinds of things:

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The Tibetans, for instance, have stories about a mythical race of fighters called the Shambala Warriors. They were renowned for their skills and ability to avoid conflict. A core principle was “looking for the rising sun in every opponent.” By this they meant looking for the inherent goodness that all people carry, even if 99% of what they were seeing was the darkness before the dawn.

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I read about this story in The Shambala Warrior by Chogyam Trumpa Rinpoche and it touched me deeply at one point in my life. I began experimenting with visualizing the rising sun coming up in people’s chests as I talked with them. It began to transform my listening.

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My task was to help them visualize their new vision with a large Storymap*, The Grove’s name for large information displays that let leaders tell compelling stories about organization visions and strategies. The way I involved everyone was quite simple. I asked them all to pair up and answer a simple question. “In the future, our stores are like _______.” I was asking them a very open question, to come up with a metaphor for what their stores would be like. We taped up flip chart paper and provided some watercolor markers. “Do a simple sketch and write out some of the characteristics,” I instructed. Thirty minutes later we had 6 or 7 sketches and a lot of conversation.

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“Disneyland,” one chart was headed. “We are like a county fair,” wrote another team. “We are a farmers market,” said another. “We are the town square,” said another. “We are like a campus,” said another. When we shared the simple drawings I listed out the characteristics that each team said they were pointing at—“Experiential, lots of choices, things for the whole family to do, colorful, exciting.” We narrowed it down to two—Disneyland and Town Square, and began to work on a vision drawing that would integrate the two.

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You can also ask everyone to begin moving and clustering the items as a large group, invoking a simple rule—anyone can move a sticky at any time. This results in little sticky note contests, where one will bounce around between clusters, but it always sorts out. Add a little more fun by suggesting that no one talk during this process. This gets everyone fully engaged in reading all the information, and avoids getting sidetracked with conversations that aren’t relevant.

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I worked with an HR team that had about 10 goals for the year on sticky notes and really needed to prioritize and get them focused down to 3 or 4. A free-flowing argument didn’t seem like the right way to get agreement. The leader and I didn’t feel that voting was appropriate. She wanted the group to really wrestle with which ones would be the very best to take on in light of the company’s overall goal, which had been discussed at some length.

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I suggested a simple “hi-lo” grid (shown here). The top represented things that would have a high payoff in relation to their company goals. The bottom was low payoff. Then the left side represented things that could be done somewhat easily and the right things that took a lot of effort. We talked a little about what easy and difficult meant, but not that long. The group was then asked to sort the stickies without talking, having the ability to move any sticky any time. In less than 20 minutes they had them sorted and it was graphically clear which 3 or 4 were the most promising goals to take on.

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Process maps are all similar in that they have time on one axis and channels of activity on another. How many channels of activity determines how complicated the map is.

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I wanted them to “own” the process and be involved and suggested to my British sponsor that we leave the third day open for their design. He would have none of it, fearing criticism for not being prepared. After much argument I finally proposed that we create little posters on half sheets of paper that illustrated each potential activity, and then involve the top managers in helping us pick the ones they wanted and organize them. This worked so well it is now a standard technique for doing group process design we call “Activity Block Agendas,” since it works with a large time block template.

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Laurie then asked us to quickly write a statement that included completions of the following questions: I am the one who ___. My name is___. What I need from you is___. My gift to you is___. What I have to say to you is___. My shadow is___.

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Collage imagery is very powerful to the people who select the image. This is because the image itself isn’t where the meaning lies, but in the connection between the image and what it evokes in the person who relates to it.

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GO SLOW TO GO FAST I remember Michael Doyle teaching us facilitation, saying “go slow to go fast.” He believed you either took time engaging people up front and having everyone understand what changes or plans they were making, or you would have to spend the time later during implementation catching everyone up—a process that greatly slows down the process of getting results.

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Christine Martell’s VisualsSpeak cards come in packs of different sized imagery to support all the kinds of dialogue you might want to support. Here are a few of the images, reproduced by permission. (See www.visualsspeak.com/ for more information.)

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Buckminster Fuller, a renowned inventor (the geodesic dome) and optimist about human beings’ ability to solve problems through design, believed that the we could learn to change systems from the way rudders turn big ships.

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Large ocean liners have rudders that are many meters tall. When the ocean liner is moving, many tons of water push on each side as it moves through the water. The question is, how does the crew actually move the rudder? I will pose this question to groups and people guess it’s connected with a very large steering rod, or they won’t know. The answer is actually quite simple. Out on the edge of the rudder is a much smaller little rudder. When this little rudder sticks out into the rushing water on one side or another, the power of the moving ocean pushes on this little “trim tab” and turns the bigger rudder. It does not take a great amount of energy to move the trim tab. This story is a story of leverage, and it encourages people to look for those actions they could

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Large ocean liners have rudders that are many meters tall. When the ocean liner is moving, many tons of water push on each side as it moves through the water. The question is, how does the crew actually move the rudder? I will pose this question to groups and people guess it’s connected with a very large steering rod, or they won’t know. The answer is actually quite simple. Out on the edge of the rudder is a much smaller little rudder. When this little rudder sticks out into the rushing water on one side or another, the power of the moving ocean pushes on this little “trim tab” and turns the bigger rudder. It does not take a great amount of energy to move the trim tab. This story is a story of leverage, and it encourages people to look for those actions they could take that will move the larger system with its own force. It is a kind of engineering judo.

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Our first exercise followed an initial tour of the actual CAS museum. We asked all the designers to interview some children at random that they encountered out on the floor, then come back and brainstorm some exhibit ideas, working in groups that mixed up the four firms. Right away everyone was thrown off his or her normal patterns. Not only are children guaranteed to have surprises, the cross communication between the firms was stimulating.

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We then went to Half Moon Bay, and following a naturalist-led field trip through a coastal redwoods ecosystem, teams again had a chance to brainstorm potential exhibits. This time they were encouraged to model them out using cardboard, straws, tape, and other media.

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Pixar is one of the most successful movie producers in the world, with hit after hit following its first all digital animated film Toy Story. The extras included on their DVDs explain their process, which relies heavily on storyboarding. I worked on a symposium with the head of their internal Pixar University and he said that they work with the story for as long as it takes to arrive at a narrative they truly believe in. Only then do they go to digital renditions and production. It may take as long as a couple years in the storyboard phase.

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I chose to lead the group in some idea mapping about the nature of their work in the informal spaces. The process was quite simple. I began by asking everyone in the meeting to identify the most formative teaming experience in his or her life. They were things like being in band, the military, large families, food services, laboratories, and a group of ranchers. We created table groups of the clusters and asked each to create some flip charts answering the question “Sematech is like a ____.” I asked them to draw a picture and label the parts. Twenty minutes later we had several dozen charts around the wall. Amid a great deal of laughter and good communication, we went around and people explained why they picked this or that metaphor.

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I then asked if there was one they would like to explore in depth. They picked a “ranch” as their topic. I drew a big square frame on the wall and a horizontal horizon line. “ What kind of soil does the ranch have?” I asked. “Chelate,” someone said, and everyone laughed. Chelate is very hard clay, I happened to know. “ What does the ranch raise?” I asked next. “Range animals,” someone said.

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After many years of asking small groups to work on different kinds of assignments, I’m always amazed at how they are able to finish their work and produce a chart presentation even though I’ve given very little instruction on how to facilitate the groups. I’ve come to think of this as “output oriented group process.” By defining the deliverable clearly, such as “bring this template back with your best ideas,” I provide a clear goal. The groups deal with it.

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• Coaching Feedback: Have small groups record “What Worked?” and “I Wish” feedback on flip charts or cards following their assignments. If trainers provide written feedback to individuals they observe this is also very helpful.

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We put up this chart during a brown bag lunch and asked people to pick what they wanted to hear about. The session took off like a rocket and was a lot of fun. This format invites people to explore the whole range of ideas, puzzling about them and then jumping in. It simulates how we informally explore any new topic, and is new and different.

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WORK WITH INNER IMAGERY

• Imagine succeeding

• Record your dreams

• Meditate

• Imagine pictures in clouds and scribbles

• Listen for imagery in people’s speech

• Practice active imagination about personal plans

• Free associate

2. PRACTICE FREE EXPRESSION

• Keep meeting notes in a blank sketch book

• Keep a personal visual journal

• Doodle

• Diagram your own ideas in branching idea maps

• Create quick sketches and gesture drawings

• Use colored pencils and creative media

• Play around with really big drawings

• Play Pictionary

• Work on large display paper

3. CREATE PRESENTATION CHARTS

• Prechart agendas, welcome signs, theme posters, check-lists, and models

• Practice block lettering and titling

• Learn a dozen or so simple seed shapes/icons

• Use color chalk pastels

• Trace cartoons and sketches to develop spacing and design

• Study the Group Graphics® Keyboard to learn display formats

4. RECORD VISUALLY

• Interview one other person and record it visually

• Record presentations from television, videos, or talk radio

• Practice being conscious about using different display formats

• Record a staff meeting

• Work with a facilitator to record a whole-day meeting

• Learn to check with people for accuracy and ask for feedback

5. FACILITATE VISUALLY

• Practice introducing activities as a facilitator and shifting to recording as the group gets going

• Both lead a group and visually record as you go

• Facilitate a team startup process or a planning meeting by yourself

• Use graphic templates for small group work

• Follow through with reproduction of displays and reports

6. DESIGN VISUAL PROCESSES

• Lead an agenda-design meeting and make suggestions about graphic processes

• Use large process maps and Storymaps® for change efforts

• Help groups explore visual metaphors and the deep structures of thinking

• Become aware of the role of archetypes and culturally embedded imagery

7. TEACH OTHERS

• Lead cocreative drawing sessions with colleagues

• Lead teams of facilitators and recorders in support of large meetings

• Teach learners to channel group energy intuitively

• Lead workshops on visual meetings and graphic facilitation

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I’ve seen this happen again and again, where the breakdowns and times when the agenda skids out of control become times of true engagement and progress. Getting it “right” with a group is actually overrated as a strategy if your aim is empowerment and facilitating the emergence of leadership. Try things, do different things, do unusual things, and learn from whatever you did about what works and what you can do differently next time.

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I think most groups have many more resources than are generally recognized, and these can be accessed to help you improve what you are doing if you provide groups the tools and your confidence.

The Dream Manager

The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly

Here are some of my notes...

An organization can only become the-best-version-of-itself to the extent that the people who drive that organization are striving to become better-versions-of-themselves.

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You do the math. What does your payroll amount to? If on average your employees are 75 percent engaged, disengagement is costing you 25 percent of your payroll every month in productivity alone.

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The real cost to your business is of course much higher when you take into account how disengaged employees negatively affect your customers and every aspect of your business.

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A company’s purpose is to become the-best-version-of-itself. The next question is: What is an employee’s purpose? Most would say, “to help the company achieve its purpose,” but they would be wrong. That is certainly part of an employee’s role, but an employee’s primary purpose is to become the-best-version-of-himself or herself. Contrary to unwritten management theory and popular practice, people do not exist for the company. The company exists for people. When a company forgets that it exists to serve its customers, it quickly goes out of business. Our employees are our first customers, and our most influential customers. A person’s purpose is to become the-best-version-of-himself or herself. Finding a way to create an environment that helps employees become the-best-version-of-themselves, while at the same time moving the company toward the-best-version-of-itself, may seem impossible to many; to others, these purposes may seem diametrically opposed; but in reality, they are astoundingly complementary.

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“These people all have dreams. We need to find a way to connect their job today with their dreams for tomorrow. I’ve been studying the turnover reports all week, and it seems that on average we keep an employee for about six months. A year ago, the average was three months. Imagine if we could increase that to three years. That alone would radically transform our whole business model.”

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“If we can help our employees beyond the quiet desperation of mere survival by teaching them to dream again, and help them to fulfill their dreams, we’ll create a loyalty and dedication that’s unmatched. And then our people will bring the passion and energy they have for their dreams to their work.”

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And while it may be argued that it’s not our responsibility to help our employees fulfill their dreams, I would pose the question: Isn’t one of the primary responsibilities of all relationships to help each other fulfill our dreams?”

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Some wanted to go to college, others wanted their children to go to college. Some wanted a car, others a vacation. One employee simply wrote, “a proper Christmas,” while another wrote, “a better life for my children.” Some wanted to learn English, others wanted to teach Spanish, and more than a few dreamt of owning their own business. What was the most common dream among the employee responses? Home ownership. More than 60 percent of those who turned in their surveys included the desire to own a home as one of their dreams.

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“I’m glad you asked.” Simon beamed. “As best I can tell, there are two things that keep people interested in a job: the sense that they are making a difference and the sense that they are progressing or advancing. Now, we are under no illusions here at Admiral, we are a janitorial company. We are not curing cancer and we are not organizing the cancellation of Third World debt. The sense that we are making a difference is limited, so we have to give our employees an abundance of the latter. We have to give them an opportunity to progress and advance. When people feel they are progressing, they are much less likely to start looking around for another job. It is when they don’t feel that they are advancing that they start to get restless.”

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“We all need it. Taking this job has made me see that I need a Dream Manager, too. Everyone needs a Dream Manager. To a certain extent, we can do it for ourselves. But we all need someone who can help us articulate our dreams, determine the priority of our dreams, pull together a plan for the fulfillment of those dreams, and hold us accountable on a regular basis for the actions that help us achieve our dreams or hold us back from our dreams,” argued Sean.

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“The most disturbing thing to me has been the amount of financial illiteracy. I thought it would exist among the lower-paid employees, but it’s amazing how prevalent it is even among the managers.” “Say more about that,” Greg coaxed. “Mark Twain once wrote, ‘Those who don’t read great books are at no advantage over those who cannot read.’ The same is true when it comes to money. Those who don’t manage their money well are no better off than those who don’t have money to manage. There are a lot of people here making really decent incomes who are still financially unfit. There are people here whose job it is to manage budgets or various accounting functions, who don’t have a budget themselves, cannot or do not balance their checkbooks, and are laden with consumer debt.”

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Let’s face it, the reason most people want to manage their money is so they can achieve their dreams. Dreams drive us. If you help your employees identify their dreams and pursue their dreams, they will do the same for your customers, and your business will boom.”

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“Well, I’ve been sitting here for the last thirty minutes, listening to this little voice in my head ask me questions like: How concerned do you think your manager is about your career? What about your employer? Do they care about your personal development? And the answer is, they don’t. Or if they do, they haven’t bothered to share it with me. What you are doing for Daniel, and me, and your other employees, is powerful…and I just want you to know that I am really, really grateful.”

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“If we really want to help people, we have a responsibility to help them identify and pursue their dreams. In that way, I’m a Dream Manager for my husband, for my children, for my friends, for my colleagues here, and for people who just pass through my life. Not in the same way Sean is a Dream Manager, but every relationship improves when we are mindful of each other’s dreams.”

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“And why do you think there is such resistance?” “Two reasons. First, because people are always looking for quick fixes and there are no quick fixes to situations that involve real, living, breathing people. The second reason is that too many businesspeople believe business is only about making money, so they can’t think beyond the paradigm that wants to use money to solve problems.”

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He’d known that the recruiting and training costs produced by turnover were enormous, but it was only now that they were solving the turnover issue that the many hidden costs of a disengaged workforce became apparent.

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Just last week, I read that research conducted by Bliss & Associates reveals the cost of turnover is at least 150 percent of an employee’s base salary.”

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As a manager, it would be easy to read this book and immediately begin to focus on the dreams of the people you manage. To do this would be to miss a most critical step.

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Get yourself a Dream Book. Start writing down your dreams. Dream without limits. Date your dreams as you add them to your Dream Book. Date them again when you achieve them.

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As you write your Dream List, I offer you these twelve areas to stimulate a good cross section of dreams: Physical Emotional Intellectual Spiritual Psychological Material Professional Financial Creative Adventure Legacy Character

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After one week, go through the list and apply one of the following three categories to each of your dreams: short-term (within twelve months), mid-term (one to five years), or long-term (five years or more).

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In January, I hold staff reviews and I encourage each of my employees to bring their list of one hundred dreams to their review. As part of their review, I like to talk to them about their dreams, and during that meeting I try to pinpoint one dream that I can help them achieve in the coming year. Sometimes it is a simple thing, something that can be easily attained. At other times, the dream requires considerable planning.

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Help your employees develop goal-setting and strategic-planning skills by chasing their personal dreams, and they will gladly bring these skills to their work because they cannot help but bring them. The hunger to achieve goals and dreams becomes almost insatiable, the desire for continuous improvement becomes a guiding force in their daily lives, and all of this will inevitably overflow into their work, and in the process, will elevate your team and your business.

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Book Motivated Money, reminds his readers that “Making money without having a dream to fulfill is pointless and obscene.” Most Americans today spend more money each year than they earn, descending further and further into debt. Collectively, Americans save less than one penny for every dollar they earn. Why do people save so little? The answer, I believe, is because they don’t know what their dreams are—and without a clear vision of their dreams, they simply fail to see the point of saving.

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If your company doesn’t have a Dream Manager Program, or won’t start one, start it yourself! Gather a small group of employees—coworkers—not more than perhaps eight. Meet with this small group once a week, before work or during your lunch break. Talk about your dreams. Get a Dream Book. Make a Dream List. Begin to develop plans and time-lines. Follow the Dream Manager Program if you wish. Encourage each other. Keep each other accountable. When you need professional advice (financial, legal, fitness, diet, etc.), seek it.

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Before long, others will want to join. Split your group in two groups of four, and allow four new members to join each group. New people with different dreams give us new perspectives on our own dreams and renew our enthusiasm to chase our dreams.

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The new breed of loyalty will be based upon an understanding between employees and companies of one another’s purpose—to become the-best-version-of-themselves.

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A manager’s role is to organize employee effort for the attainment of an organization’s goals and purpose. In the past, managers have relied heavily on the stick and the carrot. Now it is time to discover the awesome effectiveness of management by dreams.

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In all of this, we have overlooked the startling reality that if you play a role in teaching your employees how to manage their money, they will manage your money more effectively and be less distracted by personal financial concerns. If you play a role in helping your employees to adopt a healthy lifestyle, your health insurance costs will be reduced and your employees will be more effective because they are healthier. The examples are endless.

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Rule #1—You cannot reasonably expect people to do for your company what they won’t do for themselves.

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Teach them the importance of strategic planning in their own lives and they will understand its importance in the life of your company. The same is true for dreams and goals. If you want to engage employees in corporate dreams and goals, you must first engage them in their own personal dreams and goals.

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