Submitted by PeggyHolman on Mon, 03\/30\/2009 – 4:05pm<\/p>\n
Session Convenor: <\/strong>Peggy Holman<\/p>\n Session Reporter:<\/strong> Lyn Bazell<\/p>\n Discussion Participants:<\/strong> Peter Block Anne Anderson Lori Rosolowsky Lisa Loving Lyn Bazzell<\/p>\n Note from Peggy:\u00a0 Because these ideas became clearer for me after the session, I have recast these notes based on my best current expression of them.\u00a0 My thanks to the people who came; this session helped me take a next step in how to share this information with others in a book.<\/em><\/p>\n Background <\/strong><\/p>\n Given the upheaval of our times, understanding how to work creatively with uncertainty and change seems particularly important right now.\u00a0 Naming something makes it visible so that we can consciously work with it. It no longer owns us.\u00a0 I seek to name and share what I am learning about how emergent change works so that people can choose how they work with the uncertainty and angst that are part of the experience.<\/p>\n This framework came from the intersection of:<\/p>\n Some observations about how we deal with change<\/strong><\/p>\n When we don\u2019t understand what is going on (when there is chaos that is uncomfortable or change that confuses us) our tendency as human beings is to hunker down and withdraw from others. When we do understand and have faith in the experience we join hands and allow higher-level order to emerge.<\/p>\n Some context<\/strong><\/p>\n There are two natural forces always operating that create change:<\/p>\n Much of the angst we face today is because the assumptions of how things work \u2013 our coherent cultural narrative \u2013 are no longer playing out as expected.\u00a0 An increasing number of people no longer feel well served by the current cultural narrative. For example, there are growing number of people in the U.S. who no longer believe the American Dream is possible for them or their children.\u00a0 And they are finding strategies that disrupt the existing order.<\/p>\n Breaking apart stable systems that no longer serve us well is a major source of grief, fear, and anger.\u00a0 Yet for those who can see the potential in the collapse, it is a source of excitement.\u00a0 We saw this dynamic during the JTM session.\u00a0 Those coming from mainstream media, where existing assumptions about how news is gathered and shared, not to mention what constitutes news, are failing, expressed fear and grief.\u00a0 Those experimenting with new forms had a sense of possibility.\u00a0 Either way, it is clear that as things fall apart, there is increasing uncertainty about what the future of journalism holds.\u00a0 And there is a choice of how to relate to that.<\/p>\n And so the dynamics of coming together and breaking apart play out:\u00a0 experiments with new forms take shape, even as old forms come apart.\u00a0 This messy mix allows us to revisit the different aspects of the system:<\/p>\n What are the essential intentions and values at the heart of journalism? How do they hold up?\u00a0 What constitutes news?\u00a0 How are stories chosen?\u00a0 How are they sourced?\u00a0 Distributed?\u00a0 How is it all financed? <\/em><\/p>\n Journalism, as well as other systems \u2013 health care, education, economics, politics \u2013 is in a period much like the \u201cCambrian Explosion\u201d of evolution, in which a myriad of diverse forms are appearing.\u00a0 Over the next few years, as experiments fail and succeed, we will collectively determine what is meaningful, what to conserve and what to release from the past and what to embrace that wasn\u2019t possible before.\u00a0 As those choices become clear, a renaissance of journalism and other sectors, with vibrant and unexpected new forms, is likely.\u00a0 During the session, we saw glimpses of what is coming for journalism:\u00a0 it is still about the public good and it is becoming entrepreneurial.<\/p>\n Handling uncertainty<\/strong><\/p>\n Uncertainty shows up as a natural by-product of the forces of change \u2013 coming together and breaking apart. Three questions help in working with the natural tensions between coherence and differentiation:<\/p>\n Patterns I have found through my work in whole systems change offer some insights into these questions.<\/p>\n How do we disrupt coherence compassionately?<\/strong><\/p>\n One powerful way to disrupt is to ask ambitious, appreciative questions.\u00a0 For example:<\/p>\n What is our work in the new news ecology?<\/em><\/p>\n Such questions create a boundary, a safe-haven in the midst of upheaval.\u00a0 They focus attention in a productive direction.\u00a0 They attract those who care and invite them to join in.\u00a0\u00a0 They make room to explore the different aspects of a system, welcoming diverse voices.\u00a0 They create the conditions for broad and deep inquiry and listening.\u00a0 In other words, they prepare us for handing the second question:<\/p>\n How do we work with disruption creatively?<\/strong><\/p>\n With practice, our capacity to relate to chaos expands.\u00a0\u00a0 The chaos doesn\u2019t go away.\u00a0 Think about driving in another part of the world, say India.\u00a0 It requires very different assumptions about how traffic works than exist in the U.S.\u00a0 It takes 360\u00ba vision.\u00a0 It requires taking a deep breath, letting go of what you know about traffic flow and trusting intuition.<\/p>\n If you find yourself overwhelmed or uncertain, a good place to begin is to step back and breathe.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t see the patterns that guide the flow, seek a great question to help make sense of what seems like noise.\u00a0 With a question expressed, the most useful guidance I have uncovered for creatively working with disruption is to take responsibility for what you love as an act of service.\u00a0 This phrase is packed with implications!\u00a0 It invites people to look within themselves for what they care about most deeply.\u00a0 Doing so reaches underneath ego and takes people to a place of deeper meaning, inevitably connecting them to something universal.\u00a0 To act responsibly from a personal place of caring is to discover that it is possible for both the good of the individual and the good of the collective to be served.\u00a0 In fact, this is a measure that higher-order coherence is emerging.<\/p>\n For example, during the JTM-Poynter gathering, I understood that an important aspect of the fear and grief from mainstream journalists was that enduring values of journalism, such as accuracy and transparency would be swept away.\u00a0 What, in fact, became clear during the session, is that such values are something to be conserved, as so much else changes.<\/p>\n As different perspectives rub against each other, a burnishing occurs.\u00a0 Taking responsibility for what we love turns on its ear an unspoken assumption that to belong, we must conform.\u00a0 It becomes clear that just the opposite is true: to belong, it is essential that we express our unique perspectives. Where we can be fully ourselves, making space for each of us to show up warts and all, what is most meaningful shines through over and over. People begin to discover what is most personally meaningful is also universal.\u00a0 And more, they begin to discover they are not alone but part of some larger whole. Our hearts open to each other and we know we are connected.\u00a0 In truth, even when we can\u2019t feel it and our hearts are closed, we are still connected.\u00a0 Just as head, heart, and hands are essential parts of one body, so our unique gifts connect us as parts of a larger social system.\u00a0 As we begin to experience this first hand, something shifts and \u201cI\u201d begin to see myself as part of a larger \u201cwe\u201d. This marriage of \u201cI\u201d and \u201cwe\u201d is a pathway to making sense of our differences.<\/p>\n How do we integrate difference wisely?<\/strong><\/p>\n As we create stories that make sense of how our different perspectives fit together, we find a macroscopic view.\u00a0 Just as microscopes opened our world in the industrial age, I believe that macroscopes \u2013 experiences, maps, stories, and media that help us see ourselves in context \u2013 will be instrumental in helping us make sense of difference.<\/p>\n Seeing ourselves in context is an essential ingredient for emerging into a novel, higher-order coherence.\u00a0 What was outside is now part of a new, more expansive whole.\u00a0 The Associated Press research was striking to me because the desire for back story speaks to this need for context.\u00a0 When we see ourselves in context, recognize our connections to each other, how we treat each other shifts.<\/p>\n See the AP study, A New Model for News,\u00a0http:\/\/www.ap.org\/newmodel.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n Further, the act of naming calls new patterns into being, creating a sense of shared context and intention.\u00a0 The conditions for more trust and courage emerge.\u00a0 People take action knowing something about the collective assumptions guiding them.\u00a0 They are clearer about their own work, connected to others, discover new insights, partners, and initiatives.\u00a0 And a new cultural narrative begins to hold them.<\/p>\n Making it stick<\/strong><\/p>\n Working with these three orienting inquiries \u2013 disrupting compassionately, muddling through creatively, integrating difference wisely \u2013 can be a huge act of faith.\u00a0 It takes asking these questions over and over for new patterns to really take root.\u00a0 Each time through strengthens the growth, which helps to internalize the shifts.\u00a0 There is a saying about change.\u00a0 It is a lot like growing bamboo.\u00a0 You water it every day for four years and nothing happens.\u00a0 Then suddenly, it grows sixty feet in ninety days.<\/p>\n Journalism that Matters has been doing its work for nine years, including a three-year gap between the first three iterations and when we really took off.\u00a0 Now the demand is accelerating.<\/p>\n Leadership in uncertainty<\/strong><\/p>\n It takes clear intention, courage, and tenacity to stay with something as it ripens into its fullness.\u00a0 I believe leadership in such times is about stewarding shared intention and tending to the social fabric.\u00a0 This brings the relational much more into the foreground and invites others into the work of providing direction.\u00a0 I have observed some principles that support this type of leadership.<\/p>\n Incompleteness<\/strong><\/p>\n There are always holes in wholeness. Some aspect or group is always outside the current story, mostly unseen. Disruption to the current state is often a result of those outside looking for a way in.\u00a0 By recognizing disruption as an indicator that an aspect of the system wants to be integrated into the whole, it becomes easier to get curious about what gifts it brings to the system.<\/p>\n Possibility<\/strong><\/p>\n At any time, we have a choice in how to relate to what is happening. Geneva Overholser, Director, School of Journalism at USC Annenberg School for Communication, introduced herself at a 2006 JtM session saying: Aliveness<\/strong><\/p>\n Christopher Alexander speaks of a \u201cquality without a name\u201d. It is where there is energy, curiosity.\u00a0 For some, it has a spiritual quality.\u00a0 I believe it lives at the intersection of what we know and don\u2019t know.\u00a0 And that is why it matters when we are seeking to make sense of the unknown.\u00a0 Tuning into the energy of aliveness guides us on our way, helping to find a place of calm in the storm and to source powerful, appreciative questions.<\/p>\n When we are guided by these principles, what patterns show up?<\/p>\n Centering supports us to tune in to silence and sense aliveness.<\/p>\n Inquiring appreciatively expresses itself at the intersection between incompleteness and possibility \u2013 a home-run combination.<\/p>\n And at the heart of these principles, find out what you love.\u00a0 Engage with and take responsibility for it.\u00a0 It is an act of service.<\/p>\n These ideas provide a framework.\u00a0 Next installment: putting this framework into action\u2026<\/p>\n A poem offered by Anne Anderson<\/p>\n Two Tramps in Mud Time<\/strong> (last stanza) Comments\/Suggestions from attendees:<\/strong><\/p>\n Look at patterns through history. Anne mentioned a source that offers patterns up to 20th century.<\/p>\n Want to see specific pictures \u2013 examples \u2013 speeches, bios, mirrors from history.<\/p>\n Voices \u2013 reading pieces of speeches that talk about this.<\/p>\n Bill Cosby Pound Cake Speech.<\/p>\n Help me explain this to my kids.<\/p>\n Quote from Manson in Bowling for Columbine (about listening to the students rather than telling them anything)<\/p>\n \u201cAll kids are home schooled, even when they go to school\u201d.<\/p>\n Living with not knowing \u2013 provide people with tools and structures.\u00a0 Name the structures and what they represent.<\/p>\n Let go of the idea that you want this book to be complete.<\/p>\n \u201cTake out what people aren\u2019t going to read anyway\u201d. Robert Parker<\/p>\n If you weren\u2019t allowed to use any words and used pictures instead, what 3 pictures would you use?<\/p>\n Producing a work of art: Simple stories that help us recognize we\u2019ve experienced this in our lives and have seen the benefit of emergence.<\/p>\n Moving from a declarative culture to a culture of inquiry and curiosity.<\/p>\n Book on Kendall \u2013 add audio and video for this version.<\/p>\n Journalism could be a storyline that runs throughout the book.<\/p>\n Use journalism as the thread? Various opinions about this.<\/p>\n Potential for devastation (of life\/humans) is greater now than ever before.<\/p>\n History reveals that the overall pattern is that oppressed people rise up and then become the oppressors.<\/p>\n Once we name the pattern so we understand that it is always incomplete it no longer owns us.<\/p>\n Questions teach us that something larger is going on.<\/p>\n The purpose of projects is to give us an excuse to be together.<\/p>\n Live into it instead of writing it.<\/p>\n Importance of faith.<\/p>\n At this conference, the exercises have been a visual demonstration, a canvas so that we can reconstruct our occupation.<\/p>\n We see a shift of the context for journalism.<\/p>\n Assumptions on which the story of journalism has grown are proving false\/unsustainable.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can be explicit\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do I do tomorrow?\u201d isn\u2019t a useful question. This question is a doubt.<\/p>\n Some interesting phrases:<\/p>\n Submitted by PeggyHolman on Mon, 03\/30\/2009 – 4:05pm Session Convenor: Peggy Holman Session Reporter: Lyn Bazell Discussion Participants: Peter Block Anne Anderson Lori Rosolowsky Lisa Loving Lyn Bazzell Note from Peggy:\u00a0 Because these ideas became clearer for me after the … Continue reading \n
\n
\n
\nexamples: atoms to molecules, people to tribes to nations)<\/li>\n
\n(example:\u00a0 teenagers separating themselves from parents to find their identity)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
\n
\n\u201cI had been depressed. A couple of years ago, I resolved to find hope. When you open yourself to possibility you are willing to experience stuff you haven\u2019t experienced before.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\nRobert Frost
\nBut yield who will
\nto their separation,
\nMy object in living is
\nto unite
\nMy vocation and my
\navocation
\nAs my two eyes make
\none in sight.
\nFor only where love and
\nneed are one
\nAnd the work is play
\nfor mortal stakes
\nIs the work ever
\nreally done
\nFor heaven\u2019s and the
\nfuture\u2019s sakes.<\/p>\n
\nCritical temperature
\nCritical mass
\nFlash point that produces change of state.<\/p>\n\n