​​Harvesting Pad 4: Ben Roberts
​​Part of "DandDTrans," a community of inquiry and action regarding the role that dialogue and deliberation can play in addressing the mega-crises of our time
​​Image courtesy of www.NewStories.org
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​Ben Roberts
​​ben@conversationcollaborative.com
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  • ​​Please use the this space to share your thoughts now about Tom’s original question and what occurred for you over this past month of involvement: What do we, as members of the dialogue and deliberation community of practice, have to be and do to enable our most positive transformational impact in the face of emerging global crises which fundamentally challenge our business-as-usual habits and systems? 
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  • ​​Use the queries below if they help but don’t feel bound to respond to them or be in any way limited by them. Tell the stories and give the details that will make your ideas and experiences come alive. 
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  • ​​What you gained:  What new insights, challenges, ideas, inquiries, or actions came up for you from your participation this past month? What possibilities have opened up or been further reinforced?  
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  • ​​What you experienced: How did you feel or change at different points in this process? Which processes did you participate in? Which were new to you? For processes you’ve experienced before, what was it like doing them online? What worked for you, and why? What didn’t? How might you use or change these processes on another occasion? What about the web tools used? Maestro? Hackpads? Zoom (if you experienced that)? Any others?
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  • ​​What next: What are you doing, will do or might do as related at least in part to the question that brought us together and/or as a result of what we have done together? Who else would (might) you involve? 
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​My DandDTrans "Story"

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​Gratitude
​​This was an extremely rich experience for me on many levels. The people who gathered for this dialogue are extraordinary. Just browsing through ​+their introductions​ leaves me honored and humbled to be dancing with this crowd. I am especially grateful to all the people who helped produce this engagement as well as to those participants who showed up consistently and engaged deeply. I have learned a great deal, and I have also been inspired by what we have demonstrated to be possible.
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​​And as I write about "possibility," I'm reminded of Paul Hawken's quote from his Commencement address to the Univ. of Portland's class of 2009:
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  • ​​When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.
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​​I'd like to think that, in our own small way over the past month, we have also modeled and stood for the restoration of "some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world." If that is so, it is because of the caring, and integrity, and commitment, of those who showed up. ​+I shared the invitation for us to "banish the word struggle"​ from our attitude and vocabulary, and it was easier said than done. Yet I believe we achieved that to a significant degree, as marked by a shift I noticed in the conversation from complaining about divergence and disorientation to a desire to "give the divergent field enough room" and to simply "​+show up with as open a heart and mind as possible."​
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​Grief and White Privilege
​​As I wrote the paragraph above, I noticed a degree of reluctance to put this group in a category that in any way resembles the those "ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds" that Hawken finds so inspiring. For we are most certainly (on the whole) a highly privileged cohort.
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​​One of the most powerful moments for me in DandDTrans came during the closing Reflections portion of the second Bohm Dialogue. Steph suggested that white people are "playing catch-up" in our capacity to deal with grief and the prospect of a bleak future. Most (though certainly not all) of us did not grow up with extreme oppression, and for the most part, neither did our parents. And even if they did, they might be among the fortunate ones who escaped from oppression and saw their children live into far a better future. We know that is not the case for many other groups, who have born the brunt of patriarchy, racism, colonialism, and the ravages of the extractive economy.
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​​I thought about how demure my lily-white UU congregation is. Yes, our rituals are beautiful, and so is our music. Yet there is also talk of "struggle," and of complaint and blame that might be a reflection of an underlying sense of entitlement. At the same time, I sense a sorrow that we simply don't know how to grapple with. As ​+Naomi Klein suggests:​
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  • ​​What if part of the reason so many of us have failed to act is not because we are too selfish to care about an abstract and seemingly far-off problem-- but because we are utterly overwhelmed by how much we do care? And what if we stay silent not out of acquiescence but in part because we lack the collective spaces in which to confront the raw terror of ecocide? The end of the world as we know it, after all, is not something anyone should have to face on their own. 
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​​Without good support structures--those "collective spaces" Klein speaks of-- our life energy is drained bit by bit, day by day. If we're awake to what 's going on, it's drained by the "raw terror of ecocide" that awareness brings, which is made even worse by the knowledge that we are contributing to and benefiting from the very things that are killing the planet and our souls. Then add to the mix a pervasive sense that there's nothing we can do about it. This might be well worn territory for the Hopi and Lakota, but it's new ground for us, and I think we are indeed "utterly overwhelmed."
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​​If, on the other hand, we're not awake, or choose to deal with the overwhelm by going back to sleep, our life energy is drained in other ways, as we are drawn into mindless entertainment, the consumer culture, addiction, rebellion, or (perhaps worst of all) deep resignation and cynicism.  ​+As Peter Block notes​, cynicism is a "spiritual" stance which "presents itself as if data and experience were on its side, [and] ultimately alienates us and destroys community." 
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​​So perhaps the highest value of what we have done is to have co-created a space for sharing our grief, and our frustration, and our expressions of just how much we really DO care, even if we're not all clear on what to do right now about that. As William Stafford writes in the conclusion of his poem, ​+A Ritual To Read To Each Other​ (h/t Barbara Fast, minister at UU Danbury):
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  • ​​And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
  • ​​but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
  • ​​I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
  • ​​to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
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  • ​​And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
  • ​​a remote important region in all who talk:
  • ​​though we could fool each other, we should consider--
  • ​​lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
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  • ​​For it is important that awake people be awake,
  • ​​or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
  • ​​the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
  • ​​should be clear: the darkness around us is deep. 
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​My Experience as a Host and Co-Convener
​​It's been a hell of a journey! It started for me in October, at the NCDD conference in Virginia, even before I knew of Tom's listserv post. It was the night after the first day, and I awoke around 2am in an unsettled state. Unable to fall back asleep, I picked up Naomi Klein's This Changes Everything, which I had been reading for a week or two and was close to finishing. A tear came to my eye as I read the passage quoted above about the need for "collective spaces" in which to share our fear and grief, and suddenly my "unsettled feeling" made perfect sense. I was hungry for that space, yet was not sensing an opening for it in the gathering that was taking place.
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​​Tom's "cri de coeur" on the listserv was coming from the very same place, and I felt deeply validated by the knowledge that, far from being alone, I was tapped into something major that was present "in the field."
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​​So when Linda reached out to me and asked if I wanted to help convene a dialogue, I quickly found myself becoming inspired by the possibility. In another late night burst of energy, I created the initial hackpad structure, and soon thereafter, Tom, Linda and I were planning a call, and inviting people to engage online as well.
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​​​+That first call in December​ confirmed a general desire for much more, leading to our commitment to host something through the month of January. From there, things grew organically, and in ways that were often quite challenging. Many's the time I found myself repeating that mantra from the Hopi elders about banishing the word "struggle." 
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​​There were so many challenging dimensions to this engagement:
  • ​​A team of people who mostly hadn't worked together
  • ​​No clearly stated lines of authority or governance structure
  • ​​Competing visions for what our purpose and intended results might be
  • ​​Differences in the respective "theories of change" that were guiding our sense of what was needed or valuable
  • ​​Different ideas around how long the process might last or if there should be a predetermined "end date" 
  • ​​Many people (including some on the hosting team) with little or no experience using the technologies (not to mention basic lack of fluency and comfort with tech in general)
  • ​​A process that allowed for widely varying levels of commitment from participants, and that welcomed new people coming in throughout
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​​And all this was taking place in a context where I had other work to do (and to solicit) in order to make a living, not to mention family obligations during the holidays. I figured that this, on the other hand, was likely to be a pro-bono offering, although we did discuss the possibility of making a financial ask of participants, and perhaps may still do so. It was quite a juggling act, and I'm please that I managed to hold everything together while choosing to spend approximately one third of my working time on this engagement, over a two month period. 
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​​Of course, none of it would have been possible without the team that came together. Tom Atlee gave us gravitas and convening power, Linda Ellinor was a tireless partner, working the invitation process hard in the start, bringing her wisdom, experience and passion to the hosting team, showing up and participating consistently in the conversations both live and online, and hosting a wonderful series of Bohm dialogues. Ben Levi became my "wing man" on the MaestroConference calls, volunteering out of the blue early on to support me in that way, and enabling us to do some fairly fancy digital footwork with processes like live Open Space and World Cafe. And he too brought wisdom and a strong vision that infused the conversation itself, plus deep expertise in Bohm dialogue, which he made use of by facilitating a smaller set of private sessions for the hosting team and a few other invitees. Nancy Glock-Grueneich and Robert Corman came in towards the end of December as well with initial offers of support and insight that then grew into substantial and valuable work as they chose to become core members of the hosting team throughout January (and now with the harvesting work that is continuing).
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​​In the end, this was very satisfying work. The quality of the conversations was high, and I got to try out a number of new things and gained many process insights along the way. I was also deeply nourished by all the praise, acknowledgement, and support I received both for this work and the larger vocation of which it is a part. There's lots I would do differently next time, although I'm also pleased that I stood firm on the idea of this engagement "completing" in January, and at this point, I don't know that there will be a next time for DandDTrans per se, although I'm not ruling that out either.
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​A few of the things I learned, and/or got to practice
  • ​​I can trust my own inner authority, as well as the wisdom of the group.
  • ​​A month is a nice time frame for an engagement, and it also helps to have an earlier iteration to build upon.
  • ​​Governance is critical, and it makes sense to be intentional about it from the start.
  • ​​It's very challenging to work with people you don't know well. That said, it's not clear to me that the best thing is to only (or even primarily) work with people you do!
  • ​​It's easy for the hosting team to fall into an "us and them" relationship with the participants, and that can have some pitfalls. At the same time, a nimble (and therefore small) group needs to have authority in order to create a container that has sufficient clarity, structure and coherence.
  • ​​We have barely scratched the surface of what is possible with virtual engagement, not to mention weaving together the virtual and in-person realms.
  • ​​Giving participants a way to co-create a "living map/timeline" of the gathering as it flows and evolves would be really valuable, if it could be done in a simple and elegant fashion that invited that form of participation.
  • ​​Our tools for online dialogue are still primitive, and much more will be possible as they improve. Hackpad served us extremely well in many ways, yet also lacks many basic features that a tool designed for dialogue would have. As a result, it was confusing and difficult to use for some people (especially, those who were less technologically proficient).
  • ​​Playfulness is really important, especially when the work is deadly serious.
  • ​​We need to figure out how to pay ourselves for doing work like this!
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​What's next for me?
​​To be continued when I have some more time to write! Time to walk the dog now. He's been neglected due to a combination of the snow and my busyness, poor thing...
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​​OK... Back now!
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​​My work has focused on systemic transformation for five years now, so it's more or less onwards and upwards. That said, my time in DandDTrans has given me a clearer sense of some of the structural components I would like to explore in future engagements, and there is at least one piece of potential work that has developed during--and been influenced by-- our time together. I am also collaborating with Rosa Zubizarreta on an article or blog post based on the "supersaturated theory of change" ideas that  emerged for me during our Open Space.  And I won't rule out trying this again later in the year, depending on what it feels like once the harvest is complete and we have had a chance to share it. I'll say a bit more about each of these things...
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​Structural components I would like to explore in future engagements
​​Here are some items that either didn't make it into DandDTrans or are changes in the process, that I want to find opportunities to prototype soon:
  • ​​I'm curious about the potential for having participants go through a virtual engagement in small cohorts of, say four to six people each. These groups would meet live at least weekly, and would also stay connected online throughout the engagement, providing grounding, connection, and cross-pollinating possibilities. These might even be in-person, rather than virtual. ​+U.Lab​ is using this model, although mostly in an in-person mode, and not as a requirement for participation.
  • ​​I want to test out a "pop-up gift economy" for both financial and non-financial exchanges. On the money side, I would love to try something where anyone who puts in time (regardless of whether they are a "participant" or a "host") has the opportunity to get paid if they wish, and everyone who participates supports the fundraising needed to pay those who ask for monetary compensation.
  • ​​Rather than framing our journey around the processes being used (World Cafe. Open Space. Bohm), I would organize it by the arc of the journey itself (e.g. Appreciative Inquiry's "four D's"). I loved the mix of processes, but I don't think it served us to lead with them as the main naming for "what we are doing" at each point in the dialogue.
  • ​​I would do less work up front to create an elaborate container (especially online), allowing what is designed to flow more organically out of the conversation itself. For example, I put a lot of work into the ​+What's In Motion?​ and the ​+Resources​ pads, but they were not what the group ended up focusing on to any great degree. And even if there had there been interest, it would have been far better to have those pads be a co-creation.
  • ​​It seems increasingly important to have an identified action component. This does not need to be the only, or even the primary action that the group might undertake, nor do I want to shy away from supporting inquiry and emergence. AND, it is clear to me that having a task might significantly increase the energy, time commitment, and size of the group.
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​My next "big" piece of work?
​​I have mentioned ​+the Business Alliance for the Future​ on several occasions during DandDTrans as something I have been tracking and have an interest in supporting. In January, I learned that my friend and colleague Andrew Himes had just become a co-director of this initiative. That direct connection was a kind of "seed crystal" that, when dropped into the DandDTrans-supersaturated space, led to an idea I am now pursuing.
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​​The Alliance was co-convened by David Cooperrider, the creator of Appreciative Inquiry. Yet as it turns out, that wonderful process has not yet been used with the fifty organizations that originally signed on last March. . The time now appears ripe, yet it would be a huge challenge to bring representatives from all those entities together in person right now. But a virtual process, stretched out over a couple of months, could be managed without creating a disruption in the day-to-day flow of people's work.
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​​I am also inspired by the idea of working with a large cohort--about 100 people. I believe that a group that size would have a kind of "critical mass" that we didn't quite reach in DandDTrans, where the number of active participants was less than half that number.
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​​I am now in the process of developing a proposal for bringing a large group together virtually to conduct the "Discovery" phase of an Appreciative Inquiry (AI), with the purpose of working with the new co-executive directors to take the current vision, energy level, and funding for the Alliance to the next level.
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​​If anyone has deep AI experience and is interested in working with me on this, I would like to talk with you.
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​Writing about a "supersaturated theory of change"
​​Rosa Zubizarreta approached me in response to ​+the open space topic I initiated on this​, as it is a metaphor she has played with as well. We quickly realized that we are both turned off by the story of "fragmentation and lack of coordination" we hear so often as a complaint about the current state of initiatives for systemic change. Neither of us think that it is bad to have so many different things happening all at once. Nor are we drawn to the idea of trying hard to "get everyone aligned and coordinated." 
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​​And just as we do not resonate with much of the current "story of stuckness" (or "story of dilution," perhaps?), we both find inspiration in the metaphor of "conversations that matter as supersaturated solutions." We've had one session so far to begin articulating our ideas together, and another is scheduled for next week. We're enjoying thinking about what the conversational analog to a "seed crystal" might be, and what might create "supersaturation" in a group, a community, a society, and the whole of humanity. Hopefully, we will have a piece to share by the end of the month.
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​DandDTrans, Part Deux?
​​I am glad that we put a boundary around this engagement, are now treating it as complete, and are beginning an in-depth process of harvesting that might last a month itself. That said, I do not want to rule out trying another iteration later this year. Our core team started to hit a performing groove by the end of the month, after plenty of storming and norming work early on. And a number of participants clearly found great value in our time together. Plus, this proved to be an excellent venue for prototyping, and there are many things I could imagine testing out in another iteration.
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​​Then again, as ​+the fungi analogy I used to set the context for the final World Cafe call ​suggests, this was designed to be a transient engagement. We popped up and offered some beauty, nourishment, and mind-expansion. Now we are fading, and casting the spores of our conversations to the wind. I am open to the possibility that the mycelial mat from which we sprung might once again reach a state where a crop of 'shrooms would want to emerge. And I am also not attached to that outcome.
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​Comments from Others on Ben's Story

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​​I'm delighted to see you using the "storming" and "norming" model!  Hehehe ;-)  -Steph Jo, 2/4/15
​​​@Chris Smerald​ 2-6
​​Ben, it has been a pleasure. I am not your AI man, but if you would like someone to listen and have dialog over your Business Alliance plans and structures let me know. My City Forum initiative experience / networked organizations may give you some insights. We just had a community of practice building exercise anniversary event and some of the community in emergence observations may help. Interpreting some of what you said above. The more vibrant part of this exercise is not what was captured within, but what will be affected outwards from it as a result of participating. The sharing back of the children of this D+d may be very instructive in assessing the value of these sorts of inquiries and improving them.
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