Setting the stage for the 2nd European Salon 2010

Replies to This Conversation

Permalink Reply by juanita brown on August 26, 2010 at 9:34am

Hi everyone,
I'm happy to see these conversations continuing and flourising--let many flowers bloom in Europe and around the globe. We've been so touched and honored by the incredible response to this work around the globe and lovely to see the different threads of the European tapestry being woven.

Fondest regards,
Juanita

Permalink Reply by Ulrich Soeder on September 23, 2010 at 10:14am

Hi all,

the 2nd Euopean Salon will take place in a few weeks time. A group is gathering in 10 days to prepare this event. We are asking the particiants three questions for preparing the Salon, and you are welcome to contribute your perspectives to these questions as well, even if you are not able to attend in person.

1. What are the questions that really matter to you?

2. What is it that you would like to learn in Egensabach with us?

3. What might be collectively possible as a result of our being together in Egensbach?

The context for the questions is of course the theme of this year's meeting:

Dialogue and Leadership for a new face of community


It would be great to hear from some of you!

Best regards, Ulrich

Permalink Reply by Benjamin Aaron Degenhart on September 23, 2010 at 11:47am

i will most likely join you there, looking very much forward :)
some input for the questions for now:

how to protect emergence? how to guard a space that you have no clue of yourself? how will we 'structure' meaningful conversations in 10years from now? what new social technologies or twists to existing ones are emerging on the horizon? how is/will the 'new-paradigm' influence(ing) the social space? [...]

i am jamming on some of this and more on my Blog with huge inspirational momentum these days - please have a look :)

Permalink Reply by Ulrich Soeder on September 23, 2010 at 1:10pm

Hi Benjamin,

It would be a great pleasure to have you with us in Egensbach.

I won't dive into your blog tonight, but the questions you are posing sound really juicy!

I am very much looking forward to the conversation that will emerge.

Cheers, Ulrich

Permalink Reply by Ulrich Soeder on September 28, 2010 at 11:06am

Hi Benjamin –

could you explain a little more what you mean by the new paradigm?

There is a wonderful new book by Peggy Holman, Engaging Emergence. This does not replace your question, but it adds a wealth of interesting perspectives ...

With new social technologies – it's hard for me to keep the pace with the ones that already exist ...

Thanks for your questions,

Ulrich

Permalink Reply by Ulrich Soeder on October 5, 2010 at 5:50am

Hi Benjamin,

what are your plans? Are you going to join us in Egensbach?

Cheers, Ulrich

Permalink Reply by Benjamin Aaron Degenhart on October 5, 2010 at 5:54am

YES :) looking very much forward!

new paradigm... mmh, thats the exploration indeed.

just wrote yesterday on emerging social technologies if you wanna have a look.

Permalink Reply by Ulrich Soeder on September 28, 2010 at 11:08am

Dear Tarit,

I didn't have the time to read and respond to your rich input yet.

Starting with responding to your last paragraph: You are welcome to share the invitation for the Salon on your blog!

I will get back to you soon!

Ulrich

Permalink Reply by Ulrich Soeder on September 28, 2010 at 12:07pm

Dear Tarit,

this is complex stuff!

It took us hard work to draft a first mission statement for the European Salon, and there might come a time when it would be wise do redefine it. I don't know if we are ready to do this now.

Personally I am looking forward to a time when there is a clear mission and value statement for the World Café community – nowadays, it has to be developed. This is work in progress.

For the EU – too complex for us. But in relation to this point: One of the most intriguing moments for me during the first European Salon was when a new theme emerged, powered by the magic of the middle, as we say in World Café jargon. I framed this new topic something like this: Creating an Inner European Community. If Europe succeeds in creating a functioning collaboration across political systems and cultures, this would be a fantastic role model for the world. A process that includes healing of the old wounds of the different people in Eastern and Western Europe, this process has barely started yet. Maybe I am wrong ... It is a complex and tiresome process to facilitate healing on a personal level (I am a trained psychotherapist). It's different and difficult for the team and organisational level ( I am currently working on shaping organisational cultures). Now talk about facilitating healing within and between nations (I am not working in this area, but you never know ...)

So let us start with ourselves (the people gathiring for the 2nd Salon) and try to create a positive culture among ourselves. Some simple (!) value attractors that enable emergence without control. If we can agree on some orchestrated action as an outcome of the Salon (this is how I understand your product) – this would be fantastic.

I like the distinction between organisational development and knowledge management. I hope that the Salon group will successfully combine self-creation mode and production mode.

By the way, what do you understand by KNOWLEDGE? Most people mean conceptual knowledge by this term. But there is practical knowledge, imaginal knowledge, and experiential knowldege as well (I borroughed these names from John Heron and his book: Feeling and Personhood). Nonaka mentions most of these, but not all, in his book about the Knowldege Creating Company. What is your perspective here?

We spent a lot of time to create shared understanding around the notions of dialogue, leadership and community in the first Salon. No wonder that the meaning is not clear for you now! It is not clear to us (whoever this is) either. Wouldn't that be a great entry point for inquiry?

Thank you for your questions. I will continue to digest your input.

Cheers, Ulrich

Permalink Reply by Hanno Langfelder on September 28, 2010 at 10:21am

Dear People!

I would like to offer my thoughts on our second Salon!

How might we include and be inspired by McMasters ideas on complex adaptive systems and organisational intelligence? Namely,....

Non-linearity - state changes, transformations, invention, breakthroughs, and other results which appear like quantum leaps.

Distributed phenomena - where the elements cannot be located specifically yet something emerges - like intelligence, teamwork and rapid response abilities.

Independent agents - individual elements which make their own sense or meaning, and then make their own choices based on their own interests as they understand them.

Emergence - those results which occur without direct, linear action and are unpredictable in detail yet, at least after the fact can be seen as a result of earlier forces combining in new ways

Attractors - those elements or principles around which forces move so that detail cannot be predicted but patterns can be seen.

Patterns - seeing the connections between things and identifying the "attractors" around which these form, giving access to influence without control.

Holistic - taking a view that includes whole systems rather than the parts or even merely the particular focus that is of interest to you.

Socially constructed reality - the realization that through language and practices we create the social world that we live in - and we live almost exclusively in a social world that we have emerged from and co-emerge with.

Permalink Reply by Ulrich Soeder on September 28, 2010 at 11:33am

Dear Hanno,

while I am not familiar with McMasters, I think we are already dealing with many of the points you mention. Some might be on the horizon ... Let me try a translation.

Non-linearity – this shows up when humans and human systems evolve. sometimes there is continous change, sometimes there are leaps. The worst of these leaps feels like you are standing on the edge of a flat world and are supposed to make the next big step forward. Wow, this feels like dying and, the surprise is, every time anew: It's not you that is dying, but a way to perceive the world. Some call it transformation, some call it emergence. Spiral Dynamics is about these change processes. I think this is an important aspect for thinking about dialogue, leadership and community!

By the way, I start to read our headline as »dialogue, leadership for a new phase of community« ...

Independent agents – we have them in every World Café: the participants. The stronger they are personally (not to be mixed up with narcissistic), the stonger is the collaboration and what might emerge.

Holistic – how do we know that we are including all the relevant aspects? Great perspective! Does Wilber really help here? With his bias towards the individual development?

Attractors, patterns: I see core values as attractors that might empower communities to align without control. A hot topic for me, I'd love to explore this issue, if others resonate with this.

Socially constructed realities – how can we compassionately disrupt the current perception of reality, engage in the disturbance creatively, and help a new coherence to emerge? I am paraphrasing Peggy Holman here, and her new book: Engaging Emergence. This links back to the beginning of this post – non linear processes.

A new face of community. A new phase of community. What kind of challenge and support are provided by dialogue and leadership? A combination of challenge and support is the best climate for transformative learning.

Another must read for everyone who is eager to leverage change: Immunity to Change, by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey. Once we have set our visions and missions: What are we actively doing or not doing that prevents this vision from being realized? And what competing commitment might be the reason for this seemingly irrational activity? And what big assumptions are waiting to be discovered that illuminate the whole system?
Exploring answers to these questions leads into the most fertile kind of trouble ...

I am looking forward to our inquiry!

Big hug, Ulrich

Permalink Reply by Tarit Kumar Datta Gupta on September 28, 2010 at 9:39pm

29 September 2010

Dear Ulrich

Thank you very much for your feedback on my reply. Interesting to me because that you have invited me to enter into such area which is one of the most preferred areas in my profession at the moment. However, I seek apology to request you to give me one more day. Last day, as promised I was supposed to post my understanding on inter-generational communication gap but I could not work, just one paragraph I have written. Today I will complete and post it. Tomorrow I will further explain my understanding to share with you to facilitate your work for the coming salon. I just try to share my understanding, perhaps that is what we need. I hope my previous feedback will become easier to you.

By the way, a psychotherapist can turn himself as a development specialist also. The biggest qualification, to my understanding, is how someone takes inter-connectivity of his/her professional experiences. My first post graduation is in Chemistry, and my second post graduation is in Development Study (Ref. my introduction). But I use and try to use Chemistry while I work with organizational development. The glaring example in my profession in the use of chemistry (structure of an atom) is in networking development that while I gave theoretical framework on anti-human trafficking of children and women for South Asia Region to UNIFEM South Asia Regional Office, New Delhi in 1999-2000. The other example is also the Hypothesis (Theoretical Framework) on the Future UN Development Management System given to Future UN Project while the Global Survey on UN Development Management System was underway from February to May 2010. Anyway this is my friendly discussion with you, and I should not talk such things that might not generate interest in you.

Well, I agree with you, I have already posted in my blog. That was my suggestion to you only, just my suggestion.

So, I hope to meet you with my response tomorrow night but for you it will be tomorrow evening that will also address those of Hanno.

Thanking you once again.

With warmest regards

Sincerely and honestly yours

tarit

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