Hosting Conversations about Questions that Matter
Our ideas and stories reside some where between our hearts and our heads but not as words, nor sentences, nor paragraphs. They are in forms of energy that science can not fully explain. Our experiences and ideas and thoughts are deeply personal; they are subjective, and by their very nature they are unique.
Today, as a group of people, we will fill this room with conversations and words. Words will describe our personal ideas, feelings and experiences. They will be heard in our stories and in our conversations.
Writer John Berger once wrote:
“Never again will a single story be told as though it's the only one.”
Arundhati Roy adds:
“There can never be a single story. There are only ways of seeing.”
So today, realize that there are at least as many stories and as many perspectives as there are people in the room, and yet there is some form of common bond between all of us and this we call our company.
How will we speak?
Conversations will fill the room today.
What kinds of conversations? What kinds of words?
Will our words be:
Heartening or disheartening
Encouraging or discouraging
Empathetic or judgmental
Happy and joyful or stern, cold, and angry.
What words will fill our conversations?
Will our conversations encourage:
Alignment or disenfranchisement
Inclusiveness or exclusiveness
Rapport or silence
Energy or apathy.
What will our conversations encourage?
How will we listen?
What are conversations?
Minimally, conversations are acts of speaking and listening, of sending and receiving. It requires active participation from both sides of the equation; from the one speaking and from the one listening.
Words and listening are the common currencies of conversations. Both forms of participation need to be “active” and “purposeful”.
How do we listen?
Do we listen as a judge or do we listen as a witness?
To truly hear what is being said we need to hear through the ears of a witness, not adding, not subtracting, just hearing one of the many ways that there are of seeing.
Listening doesn't mean you agree nor does it mean you disagree. It means you listen to how another person interprets their experience.
Listen to the room. Listen to the room. Listen.
What do you hear?
The room and its walls are like a vessel and soon it will be filled with the words of our conversations that resonate with our thoughts, feelings and experiences.
What kind of words, what kind of conversations will we speak... and hear?
Today we fill the room.
Today, we have a choice, as we do everyday, to select the words we use to create the world we live in.
“For me to be the way I ought to be,
You need to be the way you ought to be,
We are a chain.”
~ Martin Luther King~
So decide. Decide. What kind of world will there be? Our world is entirely dependent on the words we choose to use with each other and just as important or more... the words we use privately with ourselves.
What words would you choose:
To build people
To show true caring
To show partnership with the people around you
To be called a learning compnay
To delight our Customers
To add richness to our community
And to bring the mission and vision of this company into the present... now?
To acquire a vision, you must move towards it or it will not happen.
How do you make this happen? You must see the vision and want it. Then by an act of courage and faith...live it. Leaders lead!
“We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi~
You can't wait for the vision to come to you. Because it just won't come. You have to live the vision “now” for it to come into being.
My words create you as your words create me. We are a chain.
Now, think of this room as our company. The walls define the limits of our world.
Think of our company. What is our company? Is “our company” written down somewhere? Does it tell us how to behave and how to relate to each other and how to lead?
Where is that book?
Or is our company empty until people arrive in the morning.
The company has no capacity to act until it is filled with people... their words and their conversations.
Only then the company comes alive. The company is you!
Do we have a choice?
Where do we want to go?
How would you like to see it work?
What would the Customer like to see?
How do you want to be treated?
How do you want to treat the people around you?
How are you going to show up?
As the people in the company come and go each day, so goes the company. We create each other with our words and conversations. You can choose your future by choosing your words.
It is attributed to Henry Ford for saying...
“Whether you think you can,
Or you think you can't,
You are right.”
Do you think we can make our brightest future happen? We create each other with our words. Words create worlds. You have a choice and your choice creates the world you live in.
How do you want to show up?
Which words will you choose to create your world?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This past week Cagwin & Dorward Landscape Contractors hosted a three day World Cafe with sixty-six of our employees. It was facilitated by David Isaacs and Tom Hurley. Our endeavor was three fold; to deepen our dialogue skills of listening and speaking while attending to our environmental responsibility and our ability to execute our plans quickly to bring value to our customers. Above I shared some thoughts with our employees and Tom Hurley asked that I share them with The World Cafe Community. Cheers, Dd
Today, as a group of people, we will fill this room with conversations and words. Words will describe our personal ideas, feelings and experiences. They will be heard in our stories and in our conversations.
Writer John Berger once wrote:
“Never again will a single story be told as though it's the only one.”
Arundhati Roy adds:
“There can never be a single story. There are only ways of seeing.”
So today, realize that there are at least as many stories and as many perspectives as there are people in the room, and yet there is some form of common bond between all of us and this we call our company.
How will we speak?
Conversations will fill the room today.
What kinds of conversations? What kinds of words?
Will our words be:
Heartening or disheartening
Encouraging or discouraging
Empathetic or judgmental
Happy and joyful or stern, cold, and angry.
What words will fill our conversations?
Will our conversations encourage:
Alignment or disenfranchisement
Inclusiveness or exclusiveness
Rapport or silence
Energy or apathy.
What will our conversations encourage?
How will we listen?
What are conversations?
Minimally, conversations are acts of speaking and listening, of sending and receiving. It requires active participation from both sides of the equation; from the one speaking and from the one listening.
Words and listening are the common currencies of conversations. Both forms of participation need to be “active” and “purposeful”.
How do we listen?
Do we listen as a judge or do we listen as a witness?
To truly hear what is being said we need to hear through the ears of a witness, not adding, not subtracting, just hearing one of the many ways that there are of seeing.
Listening doesn't mean you agree nor does it mean you disagree. It means you listen to how another person interprets their experience.
Listen to the room. Listen to the room. Listen.
What do you hear?
The room and its walls are like a vessel and soon it will be filled with the words of our conversations that resonate with our thoughts, feelings and experiences.
What kind of words, what kind of conversations will we speak... and hear?
Today we fill the room.
Today, we have a choice, as we do everyday, to select the words we use to create the world we live in.
“For me to be the way I ought to be,
You need to be the way you ought to be,
We are a chain.”
~ Martin Luther King~
So decide. Decide. What kind of world will there be? Our world is entirely dependent on the words we choose to use with each other and just as important or more... the words we use privately with ourselves.
What words would you choose:
To build people
To show true caring
To show partnership with the people around you
To be called a learning compnay
To delight our Customers
To add richness to our community
And to bring the mission and vision of this company into the present... now?
To acquire a vision, you must move towards it or it will not happen.
How do you make this happen? You must see the vision and want it. Then by an act of courage and faith...live it. Leaders lead!
“We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi~
You can't wait for the vision to come to you. Because it just won't come. You have to live the vision “now” for it to come into being.
My words create you as your words create me. We are a chain.
Now, think of this room as our company. The walls define the limits of our world.
Think of our company. What is our company? Is “our company” written down somewhere? Does it tell us how to behave and how to relate to each other and how to lead?
Where is that book?
Or is our company empty until people arrive in the morning.
The company has no capacity to act until it is filled with people... their words and their conversations.
Only then the company comes alive. The company is you!
Do we have a choice?
Where do we want to go?
How would you like to see it work?
What would the Customer like to see?
How do you want to be treated?
How do you want to treat the people around you?
How are you going to show up?
As the people in the company come and go each day, so goes the company. We create each other with our words and conversations. You can choose your future by choosing your words.
It is attributed to Henry Ford for saying...
“Whether you think you can,
Or you think you can't,
You are right.”
Do you think we can make our brightest future happen? We create each other with our words. Words create worlds. You have a choice and your choice creates the world you live in.
How do you want to show up?
Which words will you choose to create your world?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This past week Cagwin & Dorward Landscape Contractors hosted a three day World Cafe with sixty-six of our employees. It was facilitated by David Isaacs and Tom Hurley. Our endeavor was three fold; to deepen our dialogue skills of listening and speaking while attending to our environmental responsibility and our ability to execute our plans quickly to bring value to our customers. Above I shared some thoughts with our employees and Tom Hurley asked that I share them with The World Cafe Community. Cheers, Dd
Replies to This Conversation
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Oh Dennis,
What a beautiful evocation of the co-evolutionary power of conversation to make and re-make our worlds. What a special invitation to choose...to choose life, to choose tomorrow, to choose learning, to choose collaboration....by the words and language we embrace.
David came home very touched by the conversation in your company.
Thank you for being such a pioneering friend and conversational leader,
I'd love us to have another learning conversation together to take up where we left off in our first extended dialogue in preparation for the book writing. Would you be open to that?
With fond regards and best wishes,
Juanita
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Hi Juanita...
Great to hear from you! What a team David and Tom are! They challenged our thinking.
I'm glad you saw "choice"; it's all about how one wants to show up. The last day you would have loved to hear the song-sound of the conversation in the room. The topic was what kind of behaviors do we need to bring to our organization or each other to succeed in bringing value to our customers. What kinds of ways of being do we want as we birth and bring our innovations to the marketplace. The sound of the room was so kind and compassionate. It was like listening through the walls of a home... listening to the elders speak after children go to bed. Respectful, kind and caring. It was a wonderful sound.
As much as we need to focus on what we want to accomplish... I think we need to rekindle the sound of the room into our company every day.
Yes, I would love to participate in your dialogue. I would love that.
Cheers,
Dd
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Wonderful, Dennis! Thanks so much.
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Cheers!
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Dennis,
Thanks for your eloquent thoughts and even more for your ongoing practice of "conversational leadership" within Cagwin & Dorward.
Warmly,
Tom
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Thank you Tom for your encouragement and kind words. Last weekend I read Harrison Owen's "Expanding Our Now" and three Noetic Science books arrived from Amazon... Living Deeply, Global Shift, and the untethered soul. I have to decide which book to start. I have two Owen books to read too, The Power of Spirit and Open Space Technology, A User's Guide.
Owens has a good explanation of closed systems and open systems where he makes an excellent argument where closed systems do not exist. Management can spend lots of time trying to keep people within an imagined closed system. Better to learn to work with the open system. Harrison also speaks to bringing spirit into our Western management thinking which I really liked.
Jacob said he had a great experience seeing a shift in thinking with the "Water People" with David Issacs. I can't wait to hear what the Next Steps are going to be. I love seeing TWC spread out into organizations. The "Water People" liked what they experienced at FVUL and are trying to adopt it to bring TWC to the California water crisis. This story is another example of Open Systems.
Cheers!
Dd
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