Here’s an interesting concept that has come up for me in working in large scale system transformation. “The masters tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” I am at stage of sensing the current social field in my role and have recognized the challenges of a radical governance shift. We are not ready for sociocracy, yet. The culture at my organization is indoctrinated into status quo thinking they are frozen in a state of “this is how we have always done it”.
My question to you all is…what tools have you used to help with culture transformation such trust building, connection, and opening awareness?
I love when people reflect out loud.
A friend of mine calls that “leaving breadcrumbs”, and it’s super useful for others to “think with you”.
It also takes courage because it means to put out things that aren’t polished yet.
Quote is from Audre Lorde and one of the most insightful I have ever read. I invoke it reasonably often. It’s applicable to almost everything going on now, from climate to racism to economics to global politics and on and on.
Look her up, the source and context is worth knowing. The whole address is quite powerful, especially given it was delivered in 1979. Here are two relevant resources, one the address itself (annotated on a particular web site, just one of many sources), the other some additional context & analysis (also with a link to the address itself):
Re your question - there are nearly countless forms or modalities or processes for building trust and connection.
Most circle-based practices have this as explicit or implicit or both.
All such forms/modalities/processes can readily be abused by humans, so form alone is no guarantee.
One form I have experience with and consider valuable is the “Listening Circle” as evolved by the co-founders of We Are Open Circle. Their events listing is here, there’s an in-person in Seattle in Oct and online in Jan 2023:
Their forms also invite at least part of opening awareness, by which here I mean re-building cross-contextual or wholistic thinking abilities.
Another interesting modality for that, with more explicit intention in that direction, is Nora Bateson’s “Warm Data,” an in-person format with a virtual adaptation called “People Need People” (PNP) that was developed during the pandemic. I’ve done several PNPs facilitated by folks from Fraendi.org - haven’t had opportunity to do a live Warm Data.
