Author: Beth Sanders

I dream of growing and learning in new ways

When planning practitioners reflect on their practice, they notice that their own behaviour is unusual when their communities find success – they seek and embrace challenges, they are aware of strengths and weaknesses in themselves and others, they endlessly seek opportunities and the place trust in others.  There are, indeed, emerging essential non-technical competencies that make a planning practitioner effective.

As an effective individual planning practitioner, the following elements are emerging as essential:

  • Find your passion and spend your time there
  • Be self aware
  • Be open to any communication
  • Be comfortable with being uncomfortable
  • Seek to understand

Further, it is useful to consider what could make a  collective planning practice effective.  The following elements are emerging:

  • Get on the radar vs. duck the radar
  • Be political and get political
  • Build coalitions
  • Generate allies and advocate
  • Step forward

There is a gulf between what we know we ought to do, and what we actually choose to do.  The Greek work for this phenomenon is Akrasia. The leadership challenge for the planning profession is to step through and over the gap – to what is possible for us in service to Alberta communities.  As individuals and as a collective, we will find our voice if we dare to dwell on what we dream.  While the collective voice for planning practitioners is unknown, it will only emerge as we seek our collective leadership capacities.  This is our challenge for 2010.

I dream of growing and learning in new ways.

The full article can be found at  – http://www.aacip.com/public/AACIP_JournalComp_Issue3_Revised.pdf

Cities: A Needed Part of Alberta’s New Story

As the United Nations Climate Change Conference draws to a close this week, there is parallel summit that is of significance for Alberta political decision makers: the Copenhagen Climate Summit for Mayors.

In Canadian and world politics, the buzz around the Copenhagen UN gathering is Alberta’s oil sands – for which we are tarred and feathered.  But there is a parallel, and perhaps more dramatic issue at hand that we ought to pay attention to: 75% of global CO2 emissions come from the worlds largest cities.

In Canada and Alberta, it is time to recognize and support the role local government has in creating a future where Albertans will thrive – economically, socially and culturally.  To do that, consideration of our development practices, and the impacts direct and indirect on the environment we rely on, is paramount.  A new political will in Alberta is needed that creates partnership between the Government of Alberta and its “children” municipalities.  A new Alberta that will meet the needs of generations to come starts with a new political climate that allows mayors, reeves and councils (and all other forms of local government, like school boards) to thrive. This is whole new conversation for Alberta, and one that I am committed to supporting.

The opportunity before Alberta – create a new story.  If interested, check out Reboot Alberta, an endeavour to cultivate a new political compass – http://rebootalberta.org/

(For a snapshot of mayors of Copenhagne, you may be interested in the Mayors in Copenhagen Panel – http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2009/200912/20091214.html)

November Knitting

 

Two media items resonated with me today, starting my November knittings.

The first media item was on CBC Radio’s The Current: a warm up debate to the Munk Debates in Toronto tonight, with debaters George Monbiot and Bjorn Lomborg.The proposition: Be it resolved: climate change is mindind’s defining crisis and demands a commensurate response.A timely debate leading up to the climate negotiations starting next Monday in Copenhagen, to lay the groundwork for a global treaty to cap greenhouse gas emissions and stem climate change.(The debate is about how grave the threat is, and how much needs to be done to fight the threat, and what cost.)

The second media event spurring reflection is Annie Leonard’s new film: The Story of Cap and Trade: Why You Can’t Solve a Problem with the Thinking That Created It (http://storyofstuff.com/capandtrade/)

The bottom line, as I watch this debate, is this.Even the old-school form of debate is not going to convince anyone to do anything different than argue, rather than take action.Monbiot and Lomborg agree that there is a challenge we are facing in climate change.The fact that there is a challenge is not contested.What to do about it is.

While I surmise that no one actually thinks that the Munk Debates this evening will actually solve climate change, the format is indicative of the thinking that created the problem to begin with: state your position and stick to it all costs.The value of the debates is, in fact, in seeing clear positions.We benefit from seeing options as we make our way through the morass of information relating to climate change.

It is time, however, to get to the heart of what is really at issue, and find a way through the mess and seek doable, practical actions that will make a difference.But before I describe what this might look like, there is another consideration that should be raised with respect to climate change.James Lovelock is on to something: this is not about fixing Earth, but rather that we ought to adapt to the change that is occurring.It is the same, old thinking trap if we let ourselves think that climate change is a problem for us to fix, as if fixing Earth is something as simple as a lawnmower for a mechanic.Earth is not a simple system, but is rather dynamic.She has been around a lot longer than us, through many climate changes, and she will look after herself.Our job, then, is to look after ourselves.We don’t have anything to fix, rather we have to focus on what we need to adapt to, and how we will adapt, and, of course, when we will adapt.We might also wish to consider who will adapt.

Exploration of these considerations does not occur through debates about how to fix the problem.This simply merges two simplistic tactics to tackle climate change: debate and fix.

Two opposite approaches?How about ongoing generative dialogue and co-creation?For this, there is a whole new skill set required.We are no longer in an era where it is appropriate to set a goal and action plan and expect it to work.The variables are too variable.We need to be constantly sensing what is happeing in our world through information exchanges and conversation that welcomes diversity of insight.We need to be constantly sensing and noticing what is working in our world and what is not, which means constantly changing and adjusting the “plan”.The world is not longer a place where simple solutions will remotely address dynamic challenges like climate change.

This is the conversation I am hungry for in Alberta.We have at our disposal a prosperity that puts us in a place of responsibility.What can we do with our ingenuity that rests behind old ways of thinking and problem solving?

The place to begin is on the ground, with people practicing new ways of engaging in conversation.This is not about throwing away old ways of doing things, but broadening out our means to learn and adjust.We have the world in Alberta and Canada, and we are in a unique position to offer a wonderful ingenuity to meet the challenges we face.

What is within us that is waiting to be unleashed?

The Art of Professional Practice

I have an addiction confession:  I watch all episodes of So You Think You Can Dance that I can find on TV.  What pulls me in time after time are the magical moments when the dancers pour themselves completely into their craft. In these instances, I don’t have to rely on the discerning eye of the judges to notice that something special has happened.  Even I, who trained as a dancer only for a few months when I was 4, can tell the difference.

In these moments, the dancers, who are already noticeably amazing, find a sweet spot.  Jean Marc Genereaux, one of the Canadian judges, refers to it as “the pocket”.  Mary Murphy will put you on the coveted “hot tomale train”.  L’il C will say that the performance was “buck”.  Invariably, in these spectacular moments the judges are in awe of the commitment the dancers make.  And from time to time, another descriptive word is used: “professional”.   And in the context of all the other descriptions, we can see that professional performance has a little “extra”, it is a notch above the rest.

I have been exploring with two professions, city planners and educators, how we go about our work and what we notice when we our work is getting unexpected, wonderful results.  They notice that their own behaviour is unusual in these cases – they seek and embrace challenges, they are aware of strenghths and weaknesses (own and others), they look for opportunities, and place trust in others.  This sounds remarkably like the comments the judges make of the dancers.  If they shy from what a choreographer is asking them to do, the performance will be flat.  They, as well as their choreographer, builds on their strengths to make a wonderful performance.  The dancers that stand out look for opportunities to add their own flavour to the choreography – they “make it their own.”  Finally, the dancers that stand out fundamentally trust others for their own success: their choreographer, their partner(s), wardrobe and set design people, producers, judges, audience, etc.

So what does this offer those of us working in the “professions”, whether city planners, lawyers, health professionals, engineers, teachers, landscape architects, social workers or geologists?  I offer some questions that I am exploring about professional practice:

  1. Do we seek the risks of new challenges?
  2. Do we willingly exposing ourselves to feedback, trusting its truth and value to our personal growth?
  3. Do we look for opportunities to inject our personal desires into our work?
  4. Do we know what it feels like to be in the pocket?  Do we notice if we get different results when in the pocket?
  5. What is the commitment we are making to the work we are doing?

Embedded in all this is a chicken and egg scenario – do I/we become “professional” from learning, or do I/we learn from being “professional”?  I look forward to exploring how the art of conversation will serve the art of professional practice.

auto-matic impact

we transport

from land to land

by moving

with auto-matic impact

the dice are loaded for the car

in the city we’ve been building for 100 years

awake or not

in a perfect world we’d plan

simultaneously

staging practical problems

coincidentally

to shift the dream from

white picket fences

with exemplars built from opportunity

trusting in learning and adapting

striving for alternative

futures, knowing risks

of doing nothing

the style of life we choose is up to us

by design

(harvest from Eric Miller’s presentation September 28, 2009 with the City-Region Studies Centre, University of Alberta)

The Audacity of the Autocity

If you build more roads, they will be immediately filled with cars. So think about how people move around and the options you can provide to them.  This is one of the messages I gleaned from the latest installment in the speakers series hosted by the U of A’s City-Region Studies Centre.  The presenter was Eric Miller, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Toronto, and the Director of U of T’s Cities Centre.

We have been building autocities for 100+ years in Edmonton.  There is no denying the impact the car has had on how people move from place to place in their communities.  The car is prominent in new subdivisions, where the home is attached to the two-car (minimum) attached garage.  The car is prominent in our investment in freeway construction.  The car is prominent in older neighbourhoods as we complain about the state of potholes.  The car is prominent as we move all over the city to get to the services we need.   The car is prominent as we complain about how many cars are out there with us and the time it takes to get to where we want to go.  The car is prominent as municipal and provincial capital budgets are consumed by the need to create and maintain roads.   The car is prominent in the declining health of people – and Earth.   The car is even prominent in government efforts to revitalize failing economic systems.

Please do not infer that I am against the car – I own a car and I enjoy it.  I have to confess that I am hungry for some balance, however.  And this requires rethinking how we think about our city experience and providing transportation options.  As my engineer friend would put it: mode split.

First question is why would a city want to look at transportation options.  Immediate response is that the more people use alternatives to the car, there is more room on the roads.  Providing options actually makes the investments we have made more effective.  Further, providing options improves the health of people in cities by creating opportunities to walk or wheel to some of our destinations.  Or carpool or use public transportation, which decreases pollution levels, hence our health again.  All of these improve the bottom line for municipal budgets – less money spent on building endless bigger and bigger roads and bridges (that we eventually add to the list of capital assets that we have to maintain when cities have difficulty maintaining what we already have).

The big question is around what will it take to generate viable opportunities?  Again, it means rethinking what we think about the city by asking what it will take to make the options viable.  We should be asking ourselves what makes a place worth walking in?  What makes a place safe to cycle in?  What are the destinations that need to be on the LRT line for me to want to use it?  What makes a place worth living in?  This isn’t about what comes first, the planning or the engineering.  They ought to occur simultaneously – this is the new conversation.  That is the ultimate form of planning.

There are questions that should be explored in every planning decision –  Are the connections within communities created and strengthened?  Are places to enjoy the city and each other created and strengthened?  Are our choices in the city healthy for us?

Leadership in Education

We (Marg and Hugh and I) are at the Village at Pigeon Lake hosting a conversation with Alberta educators around leadership in education.  Here is the harvest from yesterday’s discussion:

 

What brought us here

An off road learning experience

In a complex web of challenge

Energized by possibility

In communities of learning

We collect expertise

Everywhere

And ask

What does leadership look like as a practice

For me

For us

Leading new projects

With no road map

Messy moving forward

Seeking confidence

Feeling stretched

Effectively handling hats

It’s about kids

What they learn and

How they learn

There is something about

Atmospheric reflection

Positive permeation

Sharing, reflecting, learning

I left what I knew in and out

From theory to practice

With lots to talk about

Professional development

Is also cultivating

The expertise in the room

The stories where we see transformation

In learning

With transformative questions

My gifts

The kids’ smiles every day

Energize me and in return

I energize them

I make places for trust

Selfless and safe spaces

For the all of everyone

For people no matter what

They have to say

I provide unconditional love

Nurturing no matter what

With warm and inviting dedication

Deeply

I am in the right place at the right time

Knowing it will come

Generating dedication, faith

Everyone celebrating

The challenge and the learning

I accept myself as I am

I no longer trade these in for weakness

What I do not have someone else will

What I have no one else will have

Patterns in learning

We all have roadblocks

And leaders who support us

Look out for us

The struggle is something to work through

And we move through

Learning through

Continuously

With necessary tension

With others we meet

Forks in the road

To find extraordinary in the ordinary

When the child comes first

When learning comes first

With questions…

What will I be when I grow up?

Where are the open doors?

When I have the ball, I can’t see anything else!

 

This was my big summer learning.  During a soccer practice, we were hearing from our coach that we needed to pass the ball more, and this is what Veronica dared to declare:“When I have the ball, I can’t see anything else!”

All but one of us learned how to play soccer this summer.  We had a year of drills and practice and then it was time to really do it – we had to learn what to do while the game is underway.  A different beast entirely.   And our discussion as a team reveals a lot about how communities work too.  Here is what we noticed:

  1. I often panic when I have the ball.
  2. By making an effort to move the ball, I risk losing it.  But risk of losing the ball is higher if I just kick it in panic.
  3. I play best when I risk losing the ball.
  4. I need others to tell me what they see, in the moment.  They will see things I can not see.
  5. For the team to see what is happening on the field, I have to trust my team.
  6. I don’t have to be comfortable with the ball, or the situation, to see what else is going on.
  7. I have to notice what my strengths and weaknesses are, as well as my teammates, to move the ball effectively.
  8. The game works best when every player is a part of the game – whether they have the ball or not.

As I reflect on my leadership, planning and coaching practice, these questions are unavoidable:

  1. What is my community ‘ball’?
  2. Am I brave enough to make Veronica declarations?
  3. Do I even know if I have the ball?
  4. Am I the right person to have the ball?  Should someone else have it?
  5. Does the team see the field?
  6. Are we still having fun?

I am thrilled to have such a great, bold and honest group of people to learn with.  Game OneGame One


Making Monster Stories

This is the closing debrief in yesterdays creative process session at the Authentic Leadership in Action Institute in Halifax.  We were exploring story:

Our similar stories

Got better as we told them

When I wrote mine

It was all about me

When I told it

I found some distance

I can see the monster

When I get out of the way

When I whisper

Transported to a garage and toolbox

A love of listening

With sadness

Pure negativity is not evil

It is the pleasure we find in negativity

That is

We make decisions

About our personal stories

The evil and the good in our hearts

The passion without definition

Random meaning

In our lives

When we get out of the way

With imagination and insight

The storyteller is a guide

Letting the story unfold

Each time

With the prince

The wolf and the horse

What do I do now?

That’s up to you?

Crush the Giant’s heart

Or put it back?

And live happily

Alchemically

ever after…

Worldly Wealth Cafe

I am attending the Authentic Leadership in Action conference in Halifax this week.  A thread throughout are the notions of wealth and currency.  Below is a poem created while listening to this morning’s debrief after a world cafe discussion…

How the hell did it happen

That money is more important than people

How do we stay so confused

Every day

Trust is the heart of

Exchange

A core

Of investment in future

Sustaining savings

devalue

Poverty for all

Do we perceive ourselves as being poor?

Complexity measures community

Wealthy when intention and reality are one

What drives our actions

Isn’t real

2 of us came to the table

without talking about money at all

Can you make money of money

Culture, class, gender

Are at the heart of the matter

In social transformation

A shifty mood

Where I put my attention

What if I just put trust out there

In the university

In giving my needs will be provided

Wikipedia, linnux, what’s next

When wealth is genuinely exchanged?

Without fear of scarcity

In touch with humanity

Engaging

Together in

Homes and communities

My back hurts

What am I willing to pay?