systems of influence — Berkana Collaborative

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.

Bootcamp is Over

January 1, 2010 By Bob Stilger

Bootcamp is over. Those are the words that came to me last month when I was working in Phoenix with people from the St. Luke’s Health Initiatives. My trip to Phoenix came right after I returned from almost a month in southern Africa. What I heard and saw in Phoenix fit into the same pattern as my experiences in Africa.

My sense is that I, and many others, have been in deep training for this past decade. We’ve been learning how to see our world, our selves, our relationships and our work in new ways. The learning didn’t start ten years ago, and it won’t stop now, but I’m feeling like this is the time when we need to move on.

On a phone call yesterday my friend Chris Corrigan used three phrases which really caught my attention. He said we are not yet a community that practices and we are not yet a system that influences. He went on to speak about the work that needs doing now is practical decolonization.

A community that practices… My friend Robert Theobald used to always talk about how we needed to listen to the music, not the words. We’ve heard and used many words in the last decade. And they are powerful: presencing, hosting, healing, zero-waste, appreciation, feeding ourselves sustainably. The list goes on and on. Many of us have learned how to dance with words like power and love, warrior and midwife. The dance is good. But it is time now to practice, practice and practice. It is time to hear the music with our bodies. It is time to embody these practices. It is time to practice together as if our lives depend on it. They probably do. No, I don’t know exactly what this means. But I sense it means now is not the time to feel satisfied and complete in what we’ve done and learned so far. Now is the time to push our edges more than ever before.
A system that influences… Together we have a chance to create a new era, a step beyond the era which is disintegrating all around us. Many of us have been pioneers, engaging in promising experiments with new forms, processes and ventures which carry the DNA of the era we might create. Much of this work has been powerful, rewarding and exciting. And, it is not enough. We must find ways which allow this work to easily and naturally spread. I’m not talking about going to scale, I am talking about creating systems of influence. Systems of influence require the creation of eco-systems which are larger than our individual work and which connect that work so it can GROW. Communities of practice can create systems of infulence, indicators can create systems of influence, scenarios can create systems of influence. In South Africa I saw a reality TV show create a system of influence. What else? How do we help this work grow.
Practical decolonization… I love the phrase, simply because it hasn’t yet been overused! Decolonizing is the process of shrugging off the shackles of domination that have controlled our lives. We’ve all been colonized. Certainly the colonization and extermination of indigenous peoples all over the world has been the most obvious and most brutal. Many of us have been victims and perpetrators of practices of power over which has separated us individually and collectively from our selves, each other and all other life on this planet of ours. Now is the time for us to step out of our roles as colonized and colonizers — practically, clearly, irrevocably.

We know how to do this! That’s the good news from our work of the last decade. No, we don’t have a road map. Hell, we don’t even really know the destination. But we do know enough to continue, to deepen, to go to a next level. But we have to move. Part of this is, I am sure, learning how to be comfortable working with the Alchemy of Opposites. All of it, I know is done collectively in community, not individually in isolation.

A lot of my own thinking about this over the last couple of months has been influenced both by Adam Kahane’s new book Power and Love and an essay from Barry Oshrey that grew out of a conversation he and Adam had, also called Power and Love. I’m personally a little leery of both these terms — power and love — but they have been an important doorway into my current learning. Oshrey speaks of the need to develop robust systems which combine power and love and I think he’s got it right. I think that I’ve spent much of the last ten years working on relationships and harmony and listening. I think the focus of the next ten needs to be more on getting real work done.

Many blessings as we end the era of the “oughts” (aught 1, aught 2, …) and come into the era of the “tens” (inTENtion) <grin>

Categories

What Others Say...