Launching The Transformation Institute!

January 29, 2012 By Bob Stilger

Hi friends,

I’m beginning the “soft launch” of something that has grown out of my work in Japan over the last several years.  The Transformation Institute:  Community, Business and Personal Transformation is coming to life at web address Robert Theobald and I used for our work from the mid-nineties until his death just before the beginning of the new century.  Seems very fitting and appropriate.

Frankly, I don’t know exactly what the Transformation Institute is.  I just know it wants to be born.  Several questions contribute to its formation:

  • We will encounter more and more collapse of existing systems in the coming years.  How use collapse (disaster/emergency/revolt) as a springboard to transform our communities and our lives into ones which are healthy, resilient and thriving?  A friend in Japan made a critical observation last April, speaking of the triple disasters in Japan.  She said “we caused this.”  Three simple words.  They make us face the fact that while a natural disaster occurred, it was precipitated by an array of human choices.  Many of our choices will lead to more collapses.  Will we try to reconstruct the old normal, or can we learn how to use the energy of collapse to transform to a new more desirable state?
  • While there are differences in our community, business and personal lives, transformation of the three is interwoven.  How will we reconceptualize and recreate the relationship between these three aspects of our lives? One of my biggest lessons in Japan has been seeing what it looks like when business is still a part of community rather than apart from community.  I’m not trying to glamorize business in Japan or say there are not issues and problems, but what’s been striking to me are the ways in which community and social needs trump financial profit.  CSR isn’t enough, it feels kind of like an “oh, and, by the way, I wonder if there is something good we ought to be doing.”  What would it be like for community, business and personal to conceive of themselves as integral parts of a greater, related whole?
  • There is a great, latent potential for great cooperation and greater learning linking the whole of the Pacific Rim.  We are an ecology together.  How might the diverse insights, questions, knowledge and experience of countries, cultures and peoples on the Pacific Rim be invited into a deeper co-creative relationship?  How do we honor the particular problems and potential present in each context and learn together a we work to create a future that works for all?
  • Finally, the emergence of a new Tohoku Region in Japan will be a teacher to all of us.  How do we learn with and from the people of Japan as this beautiful Tohoku region comes back to life? What can those of us elsewhere around the rim contribute as people in Tohoku learn how to work together to create the communities, businesses and lives they want?  I remember the feeling in early April when I was co-hosting a group of 40 or so business leaders in Japan.  We began with grief, sadness and confusion that turned into excitement within three hours.  The shift was remarkable.  When I sensed into the shift these words came back to me:  we’ve been released from a future we did not want!  How can Japan lead the way in transformation?

It’s an exciting time.  Much is possible.  I invite you to help me think about how the new Transformation Institute might contribute to the possibilities which surround us!

Cheers,

Bob

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Filed Under: BC, Japan, Resilience, Robert Theobald, Social Innovation, Transformation Tagged With:

Resilient Japan

April 21, 2011 By Bob Stilger

Hello friends,

Right now my work has taken me to Japan — in a big way.  We’ve launched a new website:  www.resilientjapan.org as host for this work and the commentary I am writing from there.  I will be bringing some of this over into Resilient Communities, because it is the same work.  But right now most of my writing is on this small new website.  Please come see what’s happening beneath the visible surface in Japan.

I’m working closely with Art of Hosting – Japan and KDI’s Future Centers — both described in earlier blogs from my work in Japan last year.

Blessings,  Bob

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Filed Under: Art of Hosting, asset-based, BC, Bob, emergence, Future Center, Japan, KDI, Resilience, Social Innovation, Strenght Based Tagged With:

One week in Japan

April 12, 2011 By Bob Stilger

Mt. Fuji revealed itself today, for the first time since I’ve been in Kiyosato, a small town in the mountains a couple of hours south and west of Tokyo.  This silent sentinel is always on the rim, hosting Japan.  Often hidden by many layers of clouds, it is always there.  Sometimes just a glimmer… I love it when Fuji-san shows itself.  It helps me to quiet my spirit and simply be present.  Again and again, that is what many of you have said in these  days:  Stay present.  Be where you are.  Notice what calls your attention.  Act with respect, compassion and dignity.  Stay clear while staying unattached.  Be prepared to be surprised.  Stay connected.

Yesterday we met for a day to sense why might want to happen.  Let me give a little background.  The KEEP at Kiyosato (http://www.ackeep.org/) was started in the 1930s by an American named Paul Rusch who brought modern farming practices to Japan.  He helped people here transform their mountainside into a demonstration center for new ways to raise cattle.  Along the way he helped to build a hospital here, another in Tokyo and founded a University in Tokyo.  Quite a guy, to say the least.  His spirit is deeply present here, although he died in his early eighties more than 30 years ago.  There never was a grand plan for the KEEP, it simply evolved overtime, working with the people and possibilities present in this one small area in Japan.

Among other things, it is a lovely space now where groups come to meet and people arrive for quiet retreats.  Last year we held two major training events for Art of Hosting here.  While the Tohoku region where the disasters struck on 3/11 is some 250 miles to the north, the disasters struck here as well.  First, and most powerful, it shows up in the subtle field.  The deep connections which hold people together in Japan also mean that the grief in one part is felt throughout.  So there is a deep collective grieving here.  People say time and time again is that the future for all of Japan is different now.  Some things may stay the same, but everything needs to be re-imagined.  The new Japan that emerges will be grounded in traditional values and beliefs, they say, and the future is different now.  Secondly, on a more material level, everyone is affected as well.  Occupancy at the KEEP is down to 30%.  Most young people have lost their part-time jobs.  Rolling power black-outs have hit all of Japan, including here.  Quakes have happened here in the last month as well.  People know their lives have changed.  They’re not sure how.

The week after 3/11, Yamamoto-san, a wonderful deeply present man who has been here for many years, got in the KEEPs bus and drove to Fukushima, the area where the power plants are.  He had to do something.  Somehow he found his way to one shelter among many.  A sports complex, it has some of the best conditions around.  2000 people — mostly in their 60s and 70s — now live there.  Only a small portion of the total number displaced by the disasters.  Only a small portion and totally overwhelming as well.  He brought 43 people back to the KEEP to stay in better conditions for a while.  A small drop in the bucket, but it was what he could do.  43 people who could sleep in real beds, have real baths, eat real food.  43 people who could be warm even while they still shivered with their grief.  Yamamoto-san took this small step, not knowing what was next — but trusting this beginning.

So yesterday we met?  What is next.  What can this small place do that might make a difference?  A difference in the lives of people who live near here, those from Fukushima, those from other parts of Japan.  A difference in the lives of those who work here are have seen the future they know disappear.  It is easy to get overwhelmed.  I know I did when I first heard Yamamoto-san’s story.  2000 people living with almost no privacy in a sports complex; for four weeks each day the government has brought them rice balls to eat.  Four weeks in which life as they know it is gone — and nothing in sight.  What can make a difference?

Kato-san had just returned from Sendai, a region he has been many times before.  When he got off the train, he knew the difference.  Not just the broken buildings — but what was in the air.  It just felt different.  Subdued, almost glazed over.  He saw some young people and talked with them.  Wandering aimlessly in the rubble they wanted to know — what can we do?  He had no answers of course.  Almost overwhelmed by his own sense of grief and loss, he could only stand with theirs.  Devastation, devastation, overwhleming devastation made even more real by the many pockets where life looks like normal.  Stores destroyed.  Stores shuttered.  Stores opened.  Side-by-side.

We spent the morning just dwelling in our confusion.  Sharing impressions.  Letting the grief flow.  Bewildered.  2000 people.  What could the KEEP do.  And what about the people here, and elsewhere in Japan, with their own grief.  We went on a trip to visit to the Paul Rusch Museum here to see what inspiration it might provide.  Paul’s story is quite inspiring.  By the end of his life, his motto of “do your best, and make it first class” was well know here.  It reminds me of the principle “get a clear sense of direction and then find the minimum elegant next step,” something Berkana has learned from the World Cafe Community.

What’s the direction?  Where are the starting points?  What resources does the KEEP have and how can they be used?  What can be done to invite people into their wholeness?  What might make a difference.  Many of us started drawing concentric circles  KEEP in the middle, then Kiyosato, then Fukushima, then all of Japan, then all of the World.  It’s all connected.  AND, one of the things Paul Rusch did was he connected people.

By the end of the day, there was still no clarity.  What’s the stone to drop in the middle of the concentric circles so they become ripples, leading outward to a newness?  A sense was present that some of what the KEEP might do is around youth and youth leading.  A sense that this facility has a new purpose.  A wondering if it might be one of the Future Centers — places of innovation to discover the future — needed now in Japan.

This morning an idea began to crystalize.  Yamamoto-san leaves tomorrow for Fukushima for three days.  He goes to discover what they have — not what they need.  He goes to look for several youth who have dealt with their grief enough to be ready to stand with each other to discover a next step.  Contours of a possibility began to be visible.  We will host an 3 day event at the KEEP in the middle of May.  It will be for around 100 people.  Most of them will be youth.  The majority will come from Fukushima and they will come from three sources — youth living inside the sports complex shelter who are starting to come back to life, youth serving in the shelter, and youth from the “normal area” around the shelter.  They’ll be joined by 25 or so youth from the Kiyosato area and 25 or so from Tokyo.  Purposes envisioned for this gathering include:

  1. Be in our grief together.  Be in all the different griefs surfaced by these disasters.
  2. Enjoy and breathe in this beauty.
  3. Connecting youth of different ages with each other as well as with other generations.
  4. Begin to see  the resources we have and how to use them.  What strengths, what assets, what dreams, what skills, what muscles?
  5. Learn some about how to host dialogues that matter, which surface grief and joy and possibilities and actions.
  6. Begin to support each other in making the changes we need ourselves, while visible to and connected with each other.
  7. Sensing into what else is possible in each of our lives and in each of our regions.

Of course, this will emerge and shift and change.  It may be something entirely different when Yamamoto-san returns.  But I think the core will remain:  releasing grief while continuing to stand with it. Connecting with each other.  Regaining some measure of authority over our own lives.  Discovering the minimum elegant steps which will allow self-organizing to emerge everywhere, and especially in the Tohoku Region, in Fukushima, at this one shelter for 2000 people whose lives have shifted so dramatically.

Honored to be here in these conversations.  Providing a listening presence and occasionally being able to speak in stories and ideas from Berkana’s work around the world.

Blessings,

Bob

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Filed Under: asset-based, BC, Bob, emergence, Future Center, Japan, Resilience, Social Innovation Tagged With:

Stepping Into New Possibilities in Japan

March 28, 2011 By Bob Stilger

In a week I’ll be headed back to my beloved Japan.  What will I find there?  Community.  Friends and family.  Colleagues. Grief.  Destruction. Possibility. Fear. Hope.  All those and more.  My heart quivers some.  I am almost overwhelmed by all the images and stories that have flooded in over the last two weeks since the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters.  And, I am going to be with my community, with my kindred.  I’m carrying with me learning from the web of The Berkana Institute as I explore questions of what is possible now that was not possible before with my many friends and colleagues.

Over the last two weeks much of my time has been focused on Japan.  Connecting and supporting people, being in many conversations via twitter, facebook, skype, e-mail and even telephone.  Some ideas have been coming into focus that I want to share.  These are written as I see them.  They are based on many conversations and they are still my formulation of what might be helpful.  They are part of my starting point as I go home to Japan.

I see four main domains of work:

Grief and Possibility in the Tohoku Region.  Much has been lost:  25,000 people dead or missing; 500,000 people without homes; businesses, schools  and infrastructure destroyed.

  • This grief must be hosted.  Spaces need to be created which support people in speaking of their grief and loss and disappointment.  A safe space of talking and of listening is needed now.
  • And Tohoku can be re-created, stronger and more resilient than it ever was before.  What is essential is that people in Tohoku are in charge of this re-creation – not government, not NGOs, not well intended forces from outside.  People in Tohoku must come together in new ways to direct this recreation.

A new effort called  Japan Dialog -  is beginning to address these needs and possibilities.

A Wide Field of Possibilities. People around Japan and around the world want to support the people in Tohoku.  Think of this as an eco-system with many parts.  Some have ideas and resources for different community engagement processes.  Others know how to work with the strengths and assets still present in the communities.  Some know of more energy efficient and durable building techniques.  Others know of better ways to grow food sustainably.  These ideas can either be another tsunami that washes over the area, or they can be a rich ecology of possibilities which can support in the rebuilding.  Work is needed which can call this eco-system together.

The work of  Instituto Elos and the Oasis Game from Brazil may provide important tools for working in this area as well as the ABCD approach (Asset Based Community Development).  I’ve assembled some resources for this approach on my Resources Page

A Bridge to the Future. A third domain of work is the work of connecting Tohoku with this wide field of possibilities.  Spaces and places are needed which support this connection between the people in Tohoku and these many possibilities.  This bridge must be wide, solid and flexible, supporting robust dialogue and design which supports people in creating new future possibilities.  The work that the Knowledge Dynamics Initiative at Fuji/Xerox has done to bring Future Centers into Japan will be a foundation for this bridge.

Possibilities

Bridge To Future

Tohoku Tomorrow

New Relationship To Energy. The earthquake came.  The tsunami came.  What stayed was the radiation.  Perhaps there is an opportunity for a new dialogue in Japan about how much energy is needed to live happy lives.  Japan might choose to learn how to live with less.  If that choice were made in Japan, it would be put into action immediately.  Japan might provide critical leadership for the rest of the world on this important issue.  This is a deep dialogue that needs to be hosted well in the coming months.  There are no easy answers – just very important questions.

Who might help?

In many ways Japan is a large country and a very small community.  Over the last year I have had the opportunity to work with many people and organizations who might be, I believe, the key players to work in these four domains.  I know there are many others as well.  Over the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing stories from our work together.

And many, many more.  Japan is ripe for change.  Please visit some of my blogs here from November and December, 2010 to get a sense of the possibilities

And please come visit here from time to time.  I arrive in Japan on April 5th and will be there until the first of June.  I’ll be sharing stories and learning here from time to time.  Please also visit http://bit.ly/dMALkr for a story about Resilience in Japan from the latest Fieldnotes from ALIA — Authentic Leadership in Action.

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Filed Under: ABCD, Art of Hosting, asset-based, BC, Bob, communities of practice, emergence, Enspirited Leadership, Future Center, Intergenerational, Japan, KDI, Oasis Game, Resilience, Social Innovation, Strenght Based, systems of influence Tagged With:

Quaking in Japan

March 13, 2011 By Bob Stilger

My heart reaches out to Japan wondering what I can do to help.  How do I witness this disaster from a distance in a way that helps to restore community and build more resilience?

Stay connected.  Stay connected.  Stay connected.  Those are the words that dance across my heartmind.  So I tweet and retweet.  I find friends on facebook and sent them support.  I e-mail.  And I share what I am learning through my connections across other networks, inviting us into deeper connection with each other.

This is another of those times when the subtle, or the spiritual, or the non-material is so incredibly important.  It is hard for me to stay focused there.  My eye slides off and I want to do something more active, something that will make more of a difference.  But perhaps it is enough — creating a focus for goodness and kindness.

I watch the news accounts and I check-in with my friends and what I see more than anything else is a wonderful unfolding story of human goodness.  It is still easy to fall to the temptation of “yeah, sure, we know how to work together when tragedy strikes.”  There’s a kind of longing in that statement, a regret.  But I have to say I am in awe when I see the extent of human goodness.  When I remember that it is our natural state, our way of being.  Our deep human goodness steps forward in times like these. We know how to connect and support each other and ourselves.

Of course we need to bring more of this into our daily lives.  I suspect we’ll get more and more practice in the coming years.  So I hear these stories of the goodness and ordinariness of life from my friends (via twitter):

  • We’re OK. Helping each other with sharing room for rest and sharing tips. After few min, Morning will come!
  • I and my families/friends are safe and sound. I walked back to home from the office last night. took me 5hours.
  • Many people had stayed at office or council center in tokyo. Train started running.
  • I’m OK. My family,too. And my younger sister had a baby last night! I’m happy and keeping praying everybody’s safe in this situation.
  • My family and I are all fine. I was in Hokkaido, and just cannot go back… But I think I can tomorrow.
  • I couldn’t contact my parents for seven hours. They are safe and back home.All family are fine. Thank you.
  • Now we are projecting a virtue of the Japanese that we have consideration for other people!!
  • We are in Tochigi Pref, stayed one night since stopped express train heading for Tokyo. a bit closed to North Japan.
  • We’re all ok. It’s amazing how calm and caring people are in many places even after such a disaster. Proud to be a Japanese!

We’re okay.  Helping each other.  Proud to be Japanese.  These are my friends and I love them.  AND they are just ordinary people.  Ordinary people discovering how to get along and how to help each other.  Ordinary people discovering how to take the next minimum step.  We know how to do this.  We know how to help each other.  We know how to be community.

Frequently we forget.  We get trapped inside our own little worries about being sufficient, or having enough. We build walls of protection which isolate us from each other.  When I am in Johannesburg from time to time, I see the literal walls — high, topped with broken glass or barbed-wire.  Intended to keep danger out.  And, of course, when danger comes in as it does from time to time, the walls isolate us from our closest neighbors who don’t know help is needed.

Disasters like the quakes in Japan and New Zealand reconnect us with our selves.  They help us remember what it is to be human.  A scene from Chris Bache’s book Dark Night, Early Dawn had stayed with me for many years.  He speak of a vision of people emerging from shelters, underground, in a time of vast devastation.  They rise from the rubble, look around and see who else has survived, and begin to connect again to make community and to continue our human journey.  These are the capacities which will sustain us in the times ahead and which we need to be cultivating now.

Let’s find the ways to invite human goodness and connection forward without these obvious disasters!

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Filed Under: BC, Bob, Japan, Resilience Tagged With:

The Art of a True Move

March 13, 2011 By Bob Stilger

I first met Arawana Hayashi in the summer of 2004 at the Shambhala Authentic Leadership Institute (now ALIA — www.aliainstitute.org).  It was my first time participating in the Institute.  That year we’d organized an Intergenerational Dialogue on Leadership which was the ancestor for the dialogue held earlier this year in Tokyo.  I was looking forward to the module on the new “Theory U” work Otto Scharmer was leading.  Otto and I had never met, but had exchanged e-mails for several years.  My own research on Enspirited Leadership for my doctoral dissertation at CIIS (Discovering New Stories) had parallel findings to those which had helped Otto conceive Theory U.

I heard there was a dancer who was part of the module and I thought, oh, interesting.  And not much more.  Little did I know that a new chapter in my life was about to open wide.  I loved listening to Otto’s ideas in the module — but it was Arawana who made them come alive in me — in my body.  Quickly she had all of us learning how to use our whole bodies to sense and experience the world.  It was about this time that I was really beginning to understand that my mind was a wonderful instrument — but that it was insufficient in terms of being able to understand and co-create a new way of being in the world.  I needed more of me.  I needed my heart and spirit and hands as well as my mind.  Arawana’s work began to awaken that territory for me.

It was a treat to invite Arawana to Japan to do a workshop and lecture with me on Presencing.  We began with two full days at a national health training center outside of Tokyo in Wako City we worked with a group of 35 people who wanted to learn how to learn with their bodies again.  Later we spent almost four evening hours with a group of 60 people.

We called the workshop Art of A True Move.  Almost everything we did was taken from previous workshops Arawana has offered with that name.  We began with the basics — a 20 minute dance of being in a shape – sitting, lying, standing — or moving from one shape to another.  Remembering in our bodies that we’re always either still — in a shape — or moving from one shape to another.  It is all about remembering to be in our bodies.  Arawana points out that we have a Body and a Mind, but the M rarely resides in the B.  The mind is off in the past or in the future or thinking about things far and further.  It rarely just travels with the body, aware of the present.  The first step in this work of a true move is to remember to be present.

Later in the day we graduated to the Village.  More complicated now, we added walking, turning and greeting to our routine.  Giving our full attention to being present.  Sounds easy – and in some ways it is — but it reacquaints us with a whole new field of awareness.  Slowing down.  Coming back into our bodies.

The day had passed quickly, and we barely had time to introduce one more basic kind of vocabulary — a duet — where two people enter into a silent dialogue with their bodies:  asking, inviting, answering, witnessing with a deep and powerful dialogue beyond words.  These words, and even these pictures, give an incomplete story.  In many ways, it needs to be experienced to be believed.  Had we told people they were coming to Wako City to roll around on the carpet and to practice walking and turning and bowing, they might easily have stayed home.  Our process for the day was a simple one — do something, then talk about it.  By the end of the day there was a fairly amazing range of experience in the room which was mostly still residing at a pre-verbal level.

We decided it was time for modeling clay.  Play Doh always seems to help people draw the words out of their bodies.  We asked them to create the village and to place themselves in the village.  We asked them talk about what happens when you sense into another person, or the whole social body, with your body rather than your mind. One of the things I realized in this exercise is that working with clay in Japan is another way of creating BA.  It becomes a lubricant which creates an inviting space inbetween.

We began our second day with a return to the village in order to remember the basic forms of sitting, lying, standing, walking, turning and bowing.  And then we did the field dance.  Each person walked with dignity in front of the rest of us, turned, made a gesture, and turned and moved on.  Simple — but powerful.  More working with the body to be present.

Now, we finally had all the vocabulary of our bodies in the room.  It was time to put it to work.  We moved into creating “case clinics.” where people brought in the places where they were stuck.  In many ways, the case clinic worked much the same way as the ProAction Cafe we introduced in November in the Art of Hosting.  Someone brings a particular problem or case to their group of five and then begins to feel their case in their own body.  They ask the group members to do various things to and with their body in order to experience the case more deeply.  And then they stay with the sensations for long enough to see what begins to shift.

It is an amazing process filled with learning.  Our bodies become a guide to our future.

There’s nothing soft about this.  We each face formidable barriers to being in the NOW.  Arawana offered one powerful piece of teaching in this territory.  What keeps us away from being in the present?  From experience what is going on around us right now?  Four things — the past, the future, other people and our own selves.  Creating something new requires learning to be present to what is actually happening around us.  It requires sitting down out own stories and fears and tremblings.  It is a call to now.  This workshop was a powerful invitation to experience NOW in our bodies.  And participants felt its power.

More pictures:  http://bit.ly/hMXnVH

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Filed Under: Art of Hosting, BC, embodiment, Japan Tagged With:

Being Present in Roppongi

December 27, 2010 By Bob Stilger

So last week we invited 60 or so people to do something unusual in Roppongi.  A few blocks away from the Japanese Parliament and on the second floor of the Japan Foundation headquarters, we had businessmen and school teachers, consultants and nonprofit organization leaders, college students and retired government workers lying on the floor with each other.  It was a somewhat unusual way for most of these people to spend a Tuesday evening.  But it was a normal way to invite people into the deeper meaning and mystery of Theory ‘U.’ We led people in a modified version of learning to lie, sit and stand.  A bit of a challenge in a crowded room, but people in Japan are voracious learners and they were willing to accept this invitation from Arawana and I.

Theory ‘U’ has just been translated into Japanese and was released last month.  People here feel an immediate attraction to the ideas and process of presencing.  It feels natural — as it is.  So we began the evening with movement and then began to share ideas about Presencing.  Arawana gave the bare bones of the theory and I told stories about how it is being used around the world.  We asked people about their own experience using Theory U and about how these ideas showed up in their work.  It was a lively exchange.  After about four months of work in Japan this year, I am still surprised at the energy and commitment to learning here.  Many of the participants had the book, but they wanted more — what does this really mean and how can we use this in our lives and work.  I continue to be impressed and inspired by folks here.  They are committed to finding a new way forward!

More pictures:  http://bit.ly/fHN8qw

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Kyoto Autumn!

December 26, 2010 By Bob Stilger
IMG_0085 IMG_0084 IMG_0083 IMG_0082 IMG_0081 IMG_0080 IMG_0079 IMG_0078 IMG_0077 IMG_0076 IMG_0075 IMG_0074 DSCF0374 DSCF0371 DSCF0364 DSCF0362 DSCF0360 DSCF0359 DSCF0358 DSCF0357

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Social Ventures – Shikoku

December 17, 2010 By Bob Stilger

My body did protest a bit at the 5:30am alarm after five hours of sleep.  But there was a Shinkansen “bullet train” to catch at 6:30 in Tokyo in order to arrive on the island of Shikoku a little after noon.  Shikoku is one of found main islands of Japan, in the Inland Sea, just across the waters from Kobe and Osaka.  I’m glad I made it out of bed!

I spent a delightful six hours with 70 people from all around Shikoku who had come to this second gathering of Social Ventures Shikoku, launched by Yagi-sensei from Kangawa University.  Although he  came to Shikoku only four years ago from Tokyo, the island and its people have captured his heart.

The workshop began with some jazz and some singing and moved into a bit of speaking by Yagi-sensei and Bob.  I did what I usually do and matched my words to his, finding the parts of his story about being in this work of social innovation which match mine, and then letting it flow.  The participants weren’t responding like to do in Tokyo or Osaka.  I couldn’t really tell how different things were landing.  A few faces were alive and responsive – but it was a quiet group.  We moved into a “fishbowl” format where we invited others to join us in the center of the room.  There was a hesitancy to join and when there, mostly questions and not much dialogue.  It felt as if we had not pulled people together in the room.

I think, perhaps, we had pulled them together.  But the quiet reserve which is a posture of respect in Japan is even more present here.  By the end of the day I knew people were engaged and appreciative if the space.

We used World Café to connect people’s stories in the room.  Then we used a version of ProAction Café to see who had work and questions they wanted to go deeper with.  An interesting list of offerings emerged:

  • How can we work with nature?
  • How can communities facilitate more marriages?
  • What can we do to encourage people to have more babies?
  • How can we have more positive education using art and English?
  • How can we each share the gifts we are born with?
  • Let’s create a “True-Calling-Network!”
  • How can we use what we have and do more with forestry and agriculture?
  • How can I change the way I farm?
  • How can we energize this prefecture with new opportunities?
  • How can the hospital and the community become more connected to each other?

Practical.  Focused.  Down to earth. Like the people in Shikoku.

We used a version of ProAction Café where nine “callers” stepped forward to offer these ideas.  Then we had two rounds of  world café, with the callers staying at the same table as hosts.  Participants divided themselves equally between the tables and helped the hosts think through their ideas.

In the second round, I was with a 63 year old man who has stepped up to making his family farm work. He’s spent his life as a general contractor around Japan.  Along the way he has practiced zazen and learned tea ceremony. He sees it has the last major challenge of his life.  His father died recently and now he wants to make the farm really work.  He’s looking at Community Supported Agriculture, which he believes is historically rooted in Japan long before it arose in the west.  He wants to make community by making a farm that works for all.  A really wonderful man!

People just working with each other to make things work.  No big egos.  Just people getting on with getting on with their lives…

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Filed Under: Art of Hosting, BC, Japan, Social Innovation, Strenght Based Tagged With:

Helping People Design Their Own Communities

December 17, 2010 By Bob Stilger

Yamizaka-san and I were invited to do a workshop in Osaka.  Yamizaka-san was a landscape architect 10 years ago.  Now he’s something else?  But what does he call it?  A community developer?  A community designer?  Both of those have the sense of someone working from the outside.  He works from the inside and is no longer sure of what to call his work.

40 or so people joined us at a small café in Osaka for an evening of dialogue.  Yamizaka-san is a charismatic character.  A decade ago the death of a dear friend helped him realize that he wanted to make a difference with his own life.  He kept noticing that he was attracted to people’s true stories and started to find his path.

He and I each spoke for a time before moving into several rounds of World Café.  We’d only met earlier that evening and didn’t know much of each other’s stories.  But as soon as we met, I was thinking about my friends from Elos Institute in Santos Brazil.  Ten years ago they were architects as well.  And they changed.  Like Yamizaka-san, they had this weird idea that architecture should serve people.  Imagine that!

Yamizaka-san, like my friends at Elos, had never heard of Appreciative Inquiry or Asset-Based Community Development when they started their community work.  Like them, he began developing an approach that was based on listening – really listening – to people’s stories about what they want in their community.  He talks about how he coaches the teams of people he how sends how to “just listen.”  Don’t signal your agreement with what people are saying,” he says, “or they’ll start trying to tell you want they think you want to hear.”

Just Listen.

When we’re helping communities develop themselves from the inside out, the role of the outsider is to listen.  From a place of listening it is sometimes possible to offer an idea or two, a story from somewhere else, or some conceptual frameworks.  From a place of listening it is possible to respond to the true requests that arise in the group.  But it comes from this posture of listening.

In a conversation in the U.S. in September with my friend Nomura-san from Fuji-Xerox’s KDI, we started to develop the idea of the sacred outsider, a different role than the expert outsider.  The sacred outsider is a mirror, reflecting back the knowledge and wisdom present in the system while occasionally sharing a glimpse of possibilities from beyond.

It was a lively evening in Osaka.  People sparked each other’s enthusiasm and experience and shared their ideas about how communities can design themselves and how some of us can be sacred outsiders to that process.

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Filed Under: asset-based, BC, Japan, KDI, Resilience, Social Innovation, Strenght Based Tagged With:
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