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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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:

Collaboration: Essential Ingredient for Resilience

March 23, 2011 By Bob Stilger

A new insight emerged – as it usually does – in a conversation between friends.

Bob has been a long time sparring partner for me and so when I was reflecting on a year’s project of co-creating and activating a new collaboration model within our Hub, it was Bob I turned to for his usual provocative questions that tend to elicit a deepening of seeing patterns. It was a particular conversation with Bob that I invited my colleague Alycia of Instigation into that gave rise to an article titled Collaboration: The Courage to Step into a Meaningful Mess. You can read it here; it was just released in the last Berkana Institute newsletter.

However, beyond what we share in this article, I have some (fairly raw) thoughts on how collaboration is an essential ingredient for Resilient Communities, what this site is all about :-)  First of all, with a lot of work in multi-stakeholder situations, I have come to see the importance of relationship for systems change – many people believe that it is the policies & structures that will shift an unhealthy system into a better state, but not without healthy relationships. So, in the act of collaborating and building true relationship – not just superficially working together at the same roundtable – resilience-as-social-glue enters into the system. Something that helps people stay together through the work they need to do. Secondly, and building on that, collaboration builds social capital. By collaborating, we are investing into each other and into something that is joint. By collaborating, we are learning to work with each other as equals, and thus re-investing into our capacity to keep doing that more fluently. This in-builds resilience into a community, a community that wants to continue to be together. Thirdly, collaboration contributes to a transfer of skills and capacities between people working together, or at least an awareness of other skills and perspectives. The more opportunities for learning more, and making more available to each other, the more a collaboration of a few people around a shared goal has the potential to truly become a community over time based on shared experience. The more a community knows about itself and the multitude of talents within it that it can draw on, the more agile and resilient it is in the face of any challenges that might come its way… and/or to take a stand for co-creating the new…

Thanks Bob!

- Tatiana Glad, Engage! InterAct / Hub Amsterdam / Waterlution


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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:

Global Summit of Future Centers

December 2, 2010 By Bob Stilger

They came from all around the world.  Fifty from Japan, twenty from Israel, Denmark, the Netherlands, UK, Italy, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan.  An amazing production across culture.  They came to the lovely space of Fuji-Xerox’s Knowledge Dynamics Initiative (KDI) which organized and hosted the summit with support from The Future Centers Association.  Low budget, lots of volunteer time, people made their way to Roppongi, Tokyo’s most international district, for three days.  KDI itself is pretty amazing and I’ve written other blogs about them.  They are working across Japan to help businesses use the Future Center concept which has been developing in Europe over the last ten year.  In many ways, Japan is developing Future Center 2.0 — spaces which are dynamic, flexible, inexpensive and in which the dialogue that leads to innovation can occur.

In many ways the Summit itself was an experiment.  How can we bring together a large group of people from all around the world and work from a place of curiosity, friendship and respect?  How can we do extensive work in small groups with only two trained translators?  How do we create an atmosphere of trust and cooperation and inquiry where everyone feels respected?  How do we balance western communication styles which are based on talking with Japanese styles which are based on listening?

It was a challenge.  Even though I helped to create the design and coached the many “hosting teams” from Japan, I had lots of reservations about the design.  It felt like too much talking.  On the first two days, it seemed like we were frequently caught in the one-way communication of presentations and my own design purity was offended.  But it came together with an incredible amount of energy by the end of our time.

It’s always challenging to design and host for people who design and host.  I have my own deep beliefs about the importance of peer learning and deep dialogue and discussion.  I’m pretty allergic to designs which put one person in the front of the room, or even those which put three people in the front of three groups.  AND, perhaps I was wrong.  In spite of my own reservations about the design, people were engaged.  Might they have been more engaged?  Perhaps.  But with the limited amount of translation available and the western need to talk in order to be present and the Japanese need to listen quietly, perhaps it was just right.  Collective design is always a challenge, especially with a design team that has never worked together before and comes from varied backgrounds.  But somehow, we made it work.

We brought movement in at various times each day to help people engage more than their heads.  One of the most moving was a 30 minute silent walk in downtown Tokyo at the beginning of rush hour.  Quietly people assembled and left the 15th floor, braved Tokyo traffic, headed into a sky walk system and eventually came to a large open courtyard.  There was one rule — no talking.  At first I thought we should have had a second rule — no cameras — but slowly the cameras disappeared into pockets and people stood and walked around the courtyard in silence.  When we returned to our meeting room — still in silence — there was a complete shift in the energy.  People felt more centered, deepened.  From that place of silence people worked in their “home groups” (a technique used to help people form deeper relations with a few people) to create a sculpture using things from their pockets of what they saw as possible now that had been invisible before.

Quiet, intense work to end two days of learning and exploring different possibilities.  On the third day we went to one of Japan’s ancient capitals – Kamakura.  Picture this.  Seventy people in a zen temple doing za-zen as a way to further deepen and enter a place of presence — Complete with whacks when requested from the walking zen priests.  Quieting.  Letting the feast of the first two days settle.  

Then, in the afternoon, we made our way to another unexpected place — a Noh Theater.  Noh has become less accessible in Japan during the modern era, so the actors at this one Noh Theatre have embarked on a new path.  They offer a two hour lecture with about 40 minutes of performance embedded to give people a sense of this powerful drama.  The theatre itself is a powerful BA.  Participants were invited to journey further into themselves.  After two hours of Noh, we began the closing of the Summit.  What had people learned, what would they carry forward, what would they do next.  Let’s be clear, Noh Theater’s are not designed for conversation.  It is awkward to turn around the converse with others in the rows behind.  Talking to the person in the next seat is problematic as well.  But the BA was so powerful, we wanted to stay there and work with the more  energy of the day.  The quiet focus was incredible.  People settled down and in.  Plans for individual action and collective support began to emerge.  In just two hours, the work of three days was pulled together with a number of heartfelt commitments for next steps.  Among other things, the folks from Israel have volunteered to host the next Global Summit!

It was an amazing three days.  I had my doubts.  And I think I was proved wrong.  What we did worked and there was an amazing feeling of connection and mutual support.  The people from Japan left feeling validated and supported in the work they have begun this year.  Everyone left with a renewed spirit.  Good work all the way around!

A few more pictures:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/49166333@N07/sets/72157625512214666

December 2, 2010

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Filed Under: BC, Future Center, Japan, KDI, Powers of Place, Social Innovation Tagged With:

Global Summit of Future Centers

December 2, 2010 By Bob Stilger

They came from all around the world.  Fifty from Japan, twenty from Israel, Denmark, the Netherlands, UK, Italy, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan.  An amazing production across culture.  They came to the lovely space of Fuji-Xerox’s Knowledge Dynamics Initiative (KDI) which organized and hosted the summit with support from The Future Centers Association.  Low budget, lots of volunteer time, people made their way to Roppongi, Tokyo’s most international district, for three days.  KDI itself is pretty amazing and I’ve written other blogs about them.  They are working across Japan to help businesses use the Future Center concept which has been developing in Europe over the last ten year.  In many ways, Japan is developing Future Center 2.0 — spaces which are dynamic, flexible, inexpensive and in which the dialogue that leads to innovation can occur.

In many ways the Summit itself was an experiment.  How can we bring together a large group of people from all around the world and work from a place of curiosity, friendship and respect?  How can we do extensive work in small groups with only two trained translators?  How do we create an atmosphere of trust and cooperation and inquiry where everyone feels respected?  How do we balance western communication styles which are based on talking with Japanese styles which are based on listening?

It was a challenge.  Even though I helped to create the design and coached the many “hosting teams” from Japan, I had lots of reservations about the design.  It felt like too much talking.  On the first two days, it seemed like we were frequently caught in the one-way communication of presentations and my own design purity was offended.  But it came together with an incredible amount of energy by the end of our time.

It’s always challenging to design and host for people who design and host.  I have my own deep beliefs about the importance of peer learning and deep dialogue and discussion.  I’m pretty allergic to designs which put one person in the front of the room, or even those which put three people in the front of three groups.  AND, perhaps I was wrong.  In spite of my own reservations about the design, people were engaged.  Might they have been more engaged?  Perhaps.  But with the limited amount of translation available and the western need to talk in order to be present and the Japanese need to listen quietly, perhaps it was just right.  Collective design is always a challenge, especially with a design team that has never worked together before and comes from varied backgrounds.  But somehow, we made it work.

We brought movement in at various times each day to help people engage more than their heads.  One of the most moving was a 30 minute silent walk in downtown Tokyo at the beginning of rush hour.  Quietly people assembled and left the 15th floor, braved Tokyo traffic, headed into a sky walk system and eventually came to a large open courtyard.  There was one rule — no talking.  At first I thought we should have had a second rule — no cameras — but slowly the cameras disappeared into pockets and people stood and walked around the courtyard in silence.  When we returned to our meeting room — still in silence — there was a complete shift in the energy.  People felt more centered, deepened.  From that place of silence people worked in their “home groups” (a technique used to help people form deeper relations with a few people) to create a sculpture using things from their pockets of what they saw as possible now that had been invisible before.

Quiet, intense work to end two days of learning and exploring different possibilities.  On the third day we went to one of Japan’s ancient capitals – Kamakura.  Picture this.  Seventy people in a zen temple doing za-zen as a way to further deepen and enter a place of presence — Complete with whacks when requested from the walking zen priests.  Quieting.  Letting the feast of the first two days settle.  

Then, in the afternoon, we made our way to another unexpected place — a Noh Theater.  Noh has become less accessible in Japan during the modern era, so the actors at this one Noh Theatre have embarked on a new path.  They offer a two hour lecture with about 40 minutes of performance embedded to give people a sense of this powerful drama.  The theatre itself is a powerful BA.  Participants were invited to journey further into themselves.  After two hours of Noh, we began the closing of the Summit.  What had people learned, what would they carry forward, what would they do next.  Let’s be clear, Noh Theater’s are not designed for conversation.  It is awkward to turn around the converse with others in the rows behind.  Talking to the person in the next seat is problematic as well.  But the BA was so powerful, we wanted to stay there and work with the more  energy of the day.  The quiet focus was incredible.  People settled down and in.  Plans for individual action and collective support began to emerge.  In just two hours, the work of three days was pulled together with a number of heartfelt commitments for next steps.  Among other things, the folks from Israel have volunteered to host the next Global Summit!

It was an amazing three days.  I had my doubts.  And I think I was proved wrong.  What we did worked and there was an amazing feeling of connection and mutual support.  The people from Japan left feeling validated and supported in the work they have begun this year.  Everyone left with a renewed spirit.  Good work all the way around!

A few more pictures:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/49166333@N07/sets/72157625512214666

December 2, 2010

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Filed Under: BC, Future Center, Japan, KDI, Powers of Place, Social Innovation, Uncategorized Tagged With:

White Ships and Future Centers

November 11, 2010 By Bob Stilger

Over 150 years ago Admiral Perry’s Black Ship came to Japan and demanded that she open her doors to the world.  Ten years ago the White Ship set sail to unleash creativity in Japan and the world!

Today I had the wonderful experience of being hosted by the Future Center of Tokio Marine & Nichido Systems for a Vision Art workshop produced by the White Ship.  Kuni Yazawa and Kimi Hasebe from White Ship are an amazing team.  They invite people to explore the possibility that art can connect their minds with their spirits and deepest creative impulses.  They’ve developed a simple and powerful process, which I was able to participate in today.

It begins with viewing five drawings that Kuni-san has made.  The titles are blank.  We were each asked to write what we say in the picture on stickies and then place them around the picture.  Two English speakers and ten Japanese speakers spent ten minutes viewing and sensing into each image.  We placed our stickies on the board around the pictures and then Kimi-san read them and asked several of us to say more about what our impressions were.  We were invited into a realm of sensing and seeing and of letting go of judgments.

The ground was being prepared for us to step into our own creativity.  Soon the room was rearranged and we had tables and workspaces.  Kuni took us through a demonstration of how to work with chalk.  Spreading, and then mushing around with our fingers to begin to solidify the colors.  We were invited to explore the meaning of  “Origin.”  We each selected a textured card stock — an array of colors were available and the first step was to see which color called to each of us.

I was drawn to orange.  Sitting with my blank slate for a while, eating a cookie and sipping a cup of coffee, I wondered how it was to begin.  The “canvas” was with what is now the left edge at the bottom.  I found myself experimenting with drawing a circle which became the blue/grey circle in the drawing.  It looked a bit lonely up there, so I gave it some ground with red earth.  Then, since I studied sumi-e in Japan long ago. I tried to draw trees like I used to.  Big mistake.  One of the left and one on the right were just plain ugly.  Chalk and ink are different!  What to do?  Well, all was not lost, I discovered I could cover them up.  I made sweeping arcs in purple, overshadowing the green trees.  Hmm, I wondered.  What is this?  The arc, then on the left, seemed to reach up to the sphere.  Then another partial circle started to emerge.  Might it become a full circle.  The arc, then on the right, was nudged into a circle around a circle, with a circle within.  And so the process of creativity continued.  Finally once the circles had emerged, I looked at it from “four bottoms” and chose the one presented here.

We each worked quietly, separately and connected.  Each becoming absorbed in our own work.  The hour passed quickly.  And I found myself calm and grounded and actually feeling like I had produced something with a little beauty!

Our drawings were sealed, then framed and we were reunited with some questions for contemplation.  Next, all the drawings were placed in the front of the room.  Once again, we were asked to view each drawing and to use stickies to explain what we saw.  What a lovely collage of images across the front of the room!

Kimi worked her magic again. She read the comments around each drawing, called on the writers for more details, then asked the person who created the drawing to come hold it and tell us all about her or his process and the essences that were present for them.  It was a delightful sensing into the collective field.

We listened intently as each other described our own creative processes.

There’s a kind of centering that goes on in these kind of processes.  Even those of us who claim we can’t draw or can’t do this or that find an inner well of creativity.  Later in the night as we traveled back to downtown Tokyo by train, we talked about how it was as if life itself wanted to be free and rise up through us.

There’s so much available to us that we don’t usually see!  A lovely day with lovely people.  Here’s a few more pictures:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/49166333@N07/sets/72157625240046353/

November 11, 2010

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Filed Under: BC, Creativity, Future Center, Japan, KDI, Social Innovation Tagged With:
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