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Tracy & Tammy

Can technology and good ole' fashion face-to-face mix?

A colleague was recently at a professional conference with dynamic speakers and participants from far and wide. He came home feeling empty and unfulfilled. He described the use of technology during the event as excessive given that everyone was in the same room. People were not given the time or permission to dialogue with each other – they, instead, had to tweet their reactions. He groaned at the thought of putting his complex musings, stimulated by the dynamic speakers, into snippets of 140 characters or less.

At the same time – technology can add rich connections, creative twists to the ordinary and innovative sparks to learning and sharing. In fact, technology can actually build a profound sense of community among people around the world or down the block.

As community developers and group facilitators, we constantly search for tools that will help us spark a group into dialogue and inspired action. Sometimes these tools are props (like rose coloured glasses or devils forks) and sometimes they are high tech. We’ve played around a lot, some examples include smartboard technology, new powerpoint techniques, wordle.net, facebook, and surveymonkey - all with various degrees of success.

Tracy recently become the owner of an iphone and wondered if the app world had anything to offer. An app (application), downloaded onto a smart phone, is NOT going to facilitate a meeting, lead a workshop or mobilize social change. It might, however, give community developers and group facilitators a tool or two to kick start a group conversation, dig deeper and more creatively into complex issues and maybe even help to synthesize ideas into action. We thought we’d put the world of apps to the test! When we find some apps that have some community developer appeal – we will try them out and write reviews here on our blog.

Lets start with basic reading and reference resources. These are nuggets of information that are not necessarily interactive. Not having an ipad – the thought of reading a whole book on the iphone makes the eyes start squinting!  We downloaded three free reference books that caught our eye.  Following is our reviews:

Cloudbook: How Cross-boundary Collaboration is Transforming Business. This ebook written in 2009 by van Ommeren, Duivestein, deVadoss, Reijnen and Gunvaldson is literally 248 pages in an electronic form. We would have loved a way to jump around the book quickly – chasing the concepts that resonated with us most. It requires a lot of work to translate their business messages about change and collaboration to the social sector. Chapter 5 has some thoughtful content on collaboration and the mediums that we have used historically and those that we should concentrate on to improve collaborative efforts.  Interesting to note that our postal system has strong roots from 2400 BC!  Learning about information sharing is key in community development – and the faster technology influences how we share that information, the more we have to read to stay informed! Interesting read - but on an iphone – only in small doses!

Collaboration is King. This app is like shopping at Winners. There are some decent items on the rack but you have to take the time to sift and search. This app contains information about how to find collaborative ideas online, collaborative tips and tricks, online collaboration and more.  It is made up of, a collection of blog titles with links to the actual site, of which some of the links don’t lead anywhere. Once we get a couple of nuggets, this one likely won’t be saved on the phone.

Unleashing the Super Ideavirus (lite/free) version.  We love how Seth Godin has combined text, graphics and video in this “vook.”  The lite version only contains two of the 18 chapters available, the full version costs $4.99.  Each chapter has a great 45 - 90 second video clip including Seth Godin speaking to the chapter concepts.  The text is also scattered with hyperlinks to help explain background and context or…to be honest, to lose yourself in cyperspace. One link was for a Mona Lisa reference which took us to the Louvre website, which then had us planning a trip to Paris! The concept for this book is about marketing ideas (not products). “An idea that just sits there is worthless. But an idea that moves and grows and infects everyone it touches…that’s an ideavirus.”

Looking forward to reviewing other apps. We have found some on visioning, some related to group facilitation and lots that support creative thinking.  Stay tuned!

Village Raising Question

What’s your favourite “work” app?

The Key to Kids NOT Crime

The time and investment going into reacting to gang violence is shocking. People talk about harder sentence and expanding the judicial system in response to these activities. These discussions are reactive with no consideration or value placed on the power of prevention.

The real way to make a societal difference is to prevent criminal behaviours happening in the first place. We know from brain research that what happens in a child's first years of life sets the life trajectory for a person's behaviour, health and overall productivity in society.

Gang violence is related to feelings of belonging, attachment and lifestyle choices. When children have a positive start in life, when their families receive the support they need, when nurturing environments exist across socioeconomic spectrums that support healthy child development - our children will be less likely to grow up into disengaged and disenfranchised youth who seek the connections that gangs offer.

The recently released Kids and Crime report commissioned by the Vancouver Board of Trade (link) re-iterated that “research-based early intervention programs are effective at impacting criminological risk factors associated with crime and thus, they prevent or reduce criminality.”

The costs speak for themselves. It has been documented that when we invest our time and energy and money into very young children, the return on a $1 investment is $16 in savings from our judicial, welfare, education and health systems. The Kids & Crime report claims that for a youth of 18 years who drops out of high school and gets caught up in heavy drug use and criminal activity – it costs society between 2.6 and 5.3 million US dollars.

Aggressive behaviour occurs in children right from birth. The kicks! The bites! The hits! For most children, they learn to control their emotions and use their words before their bodies. These early years are the time to focus on children, allowing them to learn the fundamentals of social interaction. We know that those who fail to learn these lessons – end up in societies troubling statistics. A report titled Early Learning Prevents Youth Violence (link) by the Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development outlines clearly the role of human aggression and the consequences of uncontrolled behaviour.

Yes we need to be mindful of those who already have gone down a destructive path in life - but NOT without looking "upstream" to find ways to prevent the next round of children and youth falling into the same traps. Where does it start? At the very beginning - with families and the communities that support them to raise healthy children and youth that will make positive life choices because they have grown up feeling valued and with a sense of belonging.




Village Raising Question


What are your reactions to the Kids and Crime or Early Learning Prevents Youth Violence reports?
link

Village Raising – Strength style!

“What makes you feel strong?”

Imagine being asked this question at the start to every team, organizational or community meeting you attended. Then, what if you are given the space and time to speak what strengthens you! Nice, right? Take this one step further and imagine your strength declaration being directly applied to a plan that moves forward the work at hand. Tis’ this not the energized life and work we seek?

Although it may not be practical to partake in a full strengths discovery in every meeting – strengths can be incorporated in some way into every kind of meeting. Each person is full of strengths and carries them everywhere they go. Strengths are part of our DNA if you will. We do not hang our strengths up on a coat rack when we enter a meeting room or work zone and leave them behind (although we may not be using them to their fullest). For us at Raising the Village, we often hear that people struggle with how to take their personal strength knowledge and use it beyond a level of general or self awareness. People are looking for ways to bring their strengths to the bigger picture – to their teams, organizations and communities!

We offer 7 concrete examples that focus on how you can take your group’s strengths (both individual and collective strengths) and actually integrate them into action.

1. Use strengths directly in your action plan to put some momentum behind your projects. “This is going to get done by making full use of [insert strength here]”.

2. Examine strengths alongside local research data. See what your community is really good at and USE those things to address any challenges or to compliment what the research says.

3. Bring a community strength list out during times of conflict or territorial issues between partners. Ask the group how the strengths can be used to help solve tricky ‘working together” problems or to determine which “roles” to play in decision making processes.

4. Look at challenges/projects with different perspectives. For example, ask: What is the benefit of looking at this through a strength lens of [insert strength here]? What would an [insert strength word here] view say?

5. To encourage creative thinking – put the group’s strength words into a hat. With a clearly defined challenge or issue on the table, pull out a couple of strengths and force some associations between them. This will help to think about the challenge in a new way.

6. Use strengths in evaluating what works. Have a space on meeting evaluation forms that asks people; “How did you use your strengths in today’s meeting?” Be brave enough to also ask; “If you did not use your strengths today…why not?”

7. Build confidence in your community by focusing on what jazzes people up. Strengths can be recognized and celebrated in an ongoing way. Consider a visual display of strengths (individual and community) in your meeting room, place of work or gathering spot.

Good ole Law of Attraction states that we tend to create what we focus on the most. Besides, honouring people for who they are and what they bring, incorporating strengths into our organizational or community cultures make it easier and safer for people to offer up their best. Using our strengths creates a vibrant personal life which in turn feeds into vibrant villages (and vice versa). It’s this work that strengthens individuals and communities and keeps strengths off the coat rack.

Village Raising Questions:
What’s important about sharing our strengths?
What strengths are you ready to offer up more intentionally?
How might you do this in a collective way?

Navigating the River (of data & dialogue)

Photo Copyright TSmyth

The word dialogue comes from the root words dia (meaning through) and logos (the word). It gives the image “of a river of meaning flowing around and through each participant” (Bohm, 1991).

Depending on the facilitator’s comfort zone, the topic and who’s in the room, that river could be a meandering trickle or a white water rush. A guide or method to approach holding a dialogue can sometimes be a welcome relief to a group facilitator as well as to participants (sort of like bringing a life jacket on your wet adventure).

In Raising the Village (2009), we dedicate a chapter to dialogue – how to create space for it, how to ask those phenomenological questions that rock everyone’s world, and how that leads to constructing a collective relevance. In community, dialogue can provide the opportunity to create shared meaning, to learn from each member of a group, and to jointly explore an issue. It is very different from discussion or debate, which includes both problem solving and seeking closure.  The issues that early years community developers tackle in community are complex and multi-factoral.

The Institute of Cultural Affairs created a method for guiding groups from discussion into dialogue.  It is called ORID and while a funny acronym that rhymes with horrid, it, on the contrary, may just help avoid a horrid meeting!

Each step in the method takes a group into a deeper level of conversation. It allows people to process and contribute their thoughts systematically. One excellent example of its use is for early years community developers who are faced with facilitating conversations around local data such as the Early Development Indicator. Without a guide to help “navigate the river of logos,” groups can be overwhelmed with complex information.

After some information is presented to the group, a facilitator can apply the ORID process. The first stage is OBJECTIVE. This level resists getting wrapped up in opinions and interpretations and focuses solely on the information. Questions for this stage might include:

What phrases or ideas from the presentation stood out for you?

What factual statements can you make based on the data?

The next step is to allow participants to be REFLECTIVE and contribute their initial reactions, both positive and negative.

Questions for this stage might include:

What gives you concern?  What gives you hope?

What encouraged you? What discouraged you?

How does this make you feel?

The third level towards dialogue is INTERPRETIVE. This now requires some critical thinking skills. Participants will be paddling into meaning making, finding value and significance. Questions at this stage may include:

What does this mean for the work we do together?

What new insights do you have?

What areas of need seem to arise?

Finally, the group reaches a DECISIONAL level in which collective opinion on next steps is the goal. A good question for this stage is:

How will we apply what we have talked about here today?

What are our proposed next steps?

Participants aren’t necessarily aware of the ORID process. When it has a free-flowing feeling, participants stay more activity engaged in the content instead of getting sidetracked with a structure. A strong facilitator will allow the questions of each stage to propel the conversation forward allowing participants to co-construct meaning in their logos.  

May your river of meaning be safely navigated!

Village Raising Question

In what situations do you see your community using the ORID process?

Derailed by Group Dynamics – get back on track!

Last week we shared a “real life” facilitator learning moment that sent us back to the books for reminders on group facilitation. Here are some tips we discovered that might help prevent being derailed by group dynamics.

1. In his book, The Secrets of Facilitation, author Michael Wilkinson offers tips for dealing with behaviors in a group. Catch participants being positively engaged and give them some attention, a head nod, a smile, or get them to have the floor to share an experience. People are more likely to engage if they feel they are contributing and offering to the process. Ask for their thoughts.

2. In the book The Skilled Facilitator, Roger Schwarz talks about two sets of knowledge and skills that assist a facilitator to help intervene in group dynamics. First, you need to know what type of behavior to look for…the ones that reflect key dynamics of the effectiveness of a group. Establish quick ground rules with every group- as the key way to know and identify a behavior that is in contrast of agreed upon principles. Second, a process for diagnosis is needed…figure out how you will observe and make sense of behavior. Facilitators have to deal with high-level inference (such as control and trust) that cannot be observed directly but must be inferred. The next steps are to decide whether, how and why to intervene. If you do intervene describe the observed behavior in an open and non judging way and share your intent in addressing the dynamic.

One of the learning’s we have taken away from our “de-railed” group facilitation is to remain grounded ourselves, stay curious with others, and clarify any behaviors that may be rippling in the room.

Raising the Village Question:

What are the behaviors that best boost a collaborative spirit? How might you discuss this regularly with your community group?

Group Facilitators – practice the art of letting go.

In life there are certainly times we have to learn to “let go”- of things, people, or circumstances. Take a search through a local library and you will find numerous books giving advice on how to “let go” on many topics and issues; grief, relationships, medical circumstances, stress, fears, addictions and phobias. For some, “letting go” signifies a time of healing, personal change, and transformative growth. 

Facilitators, group leaders and instructors benefit greatly from practicing the art of letting go. Part and parcel of letting go, however, is making sure that we capture and internalize the lessons.

We were recently presenting two workshops, back to back. The first one was to our peers (fellow Early Years Community Developers). We were excited to share our thinking and our approach (highly grounded in adult learning principles) by engaging participants in constructing knowledge. This philosophy results in highly interactive Village Raising workshops.  As we tapped into the energy in the room, we perceived a participant or two as being un-engaged with the information and activities we were presenting. On this particular day (for a slew of reasons) it was enough to take us completely off our game. We allowed our perceptions to change our workshop flow and timing, sap our enthusiasm and question ourselves. As veterans of group facilitation, we are aware of many different ways to react when folks are un-engaged, but somehow being with our peers on this day, changed our response. We left the first workshop feeling we had not fully played to our strengths or provided the space for optimum connection and Village Raising…big time bummer. So what are two group facilitators to do? Blame others and get defensive? Curl up in the fetal position? Or…practice that art of letting go? We chose the latter.

Luckily we had an evening between the first and second workshops. In that time, we worked hard at identifying what happened. We discovered, through participant evaluations, that the workshop was still highly regarded by the majority of people. In order to learn, grow and then build our confidence back – we employed strategies of letting go.

We...

• Accepted that it is impossible to meet everyone’s expectations (the 10/80/10 principle) and that people engage in different ways.
• Readjusted our timing and content to allow us to achieve a higher level of energy and participation sooner in the workshop.
• Celebrated the positive evaluation comments and allowed those to inform our reflections and give us the foundation to build from. “We want to give more…(you insert here)”.
• Asked ourselves: How do we want to act that is consistent with our Village Raising vision? What really matters about this workshop/meeting? We re-confirmed our focus.
• Laughed and laughed and laughed. At ourselves, at our vulnerabilities and at life’s unexpected lessons.
• Allowed ourselves the time to process, learn and then “let it go”…

The following day we delivered essentially the same workshop to a group of people who were our “target” audience. It was a phenomenal day, filled with deep sharing, a-ha moments and positive energy. As co-facilitators we found our chemistry, rhythm and presence. Sure there were probably a couple of people that were less engaged than the masses – but we were able to avoid being derailed by them and continued on the right path of delivering a meaningful experience for the rest.

            

When life throws you a curve ball, pay attention, be open, learn from it and let go.

Village Raising Question:

What group “curve balls” can you more intently learn from… and then let go of?

Watch next week for tips from other authors that help prevent being derailed by group dynamics.

Be a Mischief-maker

Be a Mischief-maker!
Photo Copyright Tammy Dewar

We are huge Seth Godin fans. His little nuggets of counter-intuitive thinking evoke something deeply motivating and, to be honest, uncomfortable. His opinions shoot out like little burrs that get stuck in the brain and, frankly, bug us until we translate his “business” and “marketing” focused brilliance into something that is relevant as community developers.

His book “Tribes” appealed first because of the title with it’s very village-like sound.  For the first two/thirds, we found it validating and aligned with our penchant towards change and innovation; it was like preaching to the converted. By the time we got to the last 100 pages we were feverish with anticipation to sink our teeth into something.  He did not disappoint.

After closing the book we were determined to be more of a mischief-maker than I ever was before. He convinced us that leadership requires more bravery and if we want to change things, improve things and create a better future…we simply have to do things differently than what has been done before.

“If you are not over the top, you’re not going to have any chance at all of making things happen.”  (pg 86)

When we look around at the work done in the area of the early years and the people who have done the work, we want to celebrate the consistent, focused, caring diligence of these individuals who GET it (that our society can prevent many social issues by investing in quality early years for children). We are also compelled to shout out a call to action: Let’s not work our tails off to maintain the status quo! 

Usually fear gets in the way of positive change. Along with fear of the unknown (which takes a little confidence) there is the fear of being criticized. Lets not worry about potential criticism when we make great things happen. Lets reframe criticism as an earned “ badge of honour” because it means we have blown away people’s expectations. Let’s raise a little mischief and start being remarkable.

Village Raising Question:

How can you create something that critics will criticize because it challenges the status quo?

Sparkling Dream Catcher

Photo Copyright - Tammy Dewar

Think not of the things you do well but of the things you are proud of, the things that instinctively put a spring in your step or a song in your heart. (Raising the Village, 2009).

This statement takes me back to a time when I facilitated a young parent group. Picture a diverse group of young mothers gathered around a table in a school room, unsure of their connection to each other, or the parenting group. Intent on getting to the heart of working together, questions were posed such as, “What would you like to share with each other? How can we share things that matter to us?” Quiet was the response... until one girl spoke up.

“I can make dream catchers.”
“Awesome! What’s important about making dream catchers?” I asked.

This mother proceeded to tell the group how it was an important part of her culture and how she had made a special dream catcher to hang above her child’s crib to ward off bad dreams and bring restful sleep (and you know that statement has an impact on any new parent)!

This intimate disclosure of parental love was the spark to get the group ideas flowing. One by one, the participants expressed areas that fired them up- the sharing was phenomenal. Future meetings were planned based on identified strengths which brought personal meaning to each participant. The dream catcher session was a highlight! A group of young mothers gathered in a circle making dream catchers filled with colour and love for their children. As the young parent led the group that day, she not only instructed others how to weave and twine the materials around the rim, she sparkled with a deep inner confidence that was powerful to witness. The opportunity to teach her crafting skill (and something close to her heart) with the other parents seemed to take her to a place that was rich in belief – belief in herself and her talents. What resulted was a group connection woven through the dream catchers and the people... providing a feeling of voice, unity and strength.
Tammy

Village Raising Question

What makes you sparkle with confidence? How might you share your “dream catcher” sparkle with others in your community? Notice how this might build a collective strength.

Note: This story is edited and adapted based on a story in our book Raising the Village (2009).

Kitchen Table Meetings

Picture some parents gathered in the kitchen, fresh cuppa joe in hand, children playing independently in the next room. Nice, comfy, homey…Now picture how their conversation will change the way governments set policy, how families access services and how their needs as parents are better met. The CARS Process can do just that. CARS – acronym for Communities Achieving Responsive Services is a model for meaningful community consultation.

Growing out of a grass roots movement in northern Ontario, CARS co-founders Carol Gott and Jane Wilson have developed a series of steps to assist communities to build responsive, accessible services and supports for their own community members.  CARS is a community owned and community directed process that can be used to both improve how well present services respond to the needs of people and to help communities develop services that they presently don’t have – but need.

Armed with some templates and fact sheets (all available on the website www.carsprocess.ca), parents are encouraged to gather their voice. Some of the people that access services do not normally attend large community forums. They need small, informal gatherings to safely and honestly discuss their needs and to allow them to be both service “users” as well as service “leaders.”

The Kitchen Table meetings are step two of the CARS’ comprehensive ten steps towards working for change. The process goes beyond just stakeholder participation to true partnerships in action.

Whether you live in a rural and remote community with a small population of families or a large urban centre with thousands of potential kitchen table meetings – give voice to families.

Village Raising Question

What happens when service users do not have a voice?