Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities – Page 8

Transition cycles

Death is taking people around people dear to me: the violent murder of a co-worker, the suicide of an old friend, the passing of a dad who’s lived a full life, and an uncle released from a long battle with mysterious illness. In contrast, spring is about to pop out in bright green glory.

As life comes to a close, whether peacefully or violently, new life comes.

Transition is life – and the relationship I have with the transitions within and around me is essential to how I make my way through the world.

I pause to notice transitions and the potential within them…

The end – today – of 5 years service to the Alberta Professional Planners Institute
A book substantially complete and the question of where now to put my energy?
A call to serve my city – as a living museum
A call to work with cities as habitats that need the care and attention of their citizens

I pause also to notice that these transitions are cyclical. While the content and questions may change, it is a natural and regular occurrence to feel wobbly and uncertain. It’s not possible to manage change. It is possible to live well with changing.

What transitions are alive and cycling in you?

What is the meta for?

To get where we want to go, a clear purpose – our sense of direction – is everything. If we don’t know where we are going, and why were are going there, anywhere will do.

Let’s use the metaphor of a city bike tour. The organizers have come together because they know they want to offer something. Their overall purpose is to offer an experience that allows citizens to see their city in a new way, to feel more connected to the city. They imagine that after the bike tour, the impact on citizens is inspiration to find new ways to participate in their city, to simply enjoy it and work to improve it. To pull off a good event, the organizers then need to dig deeper, more specifically, into the purposes of the bike tour, and the purposes of the events that will happen along the way. They have a few options.

They could explore the bike trails along the river the city:

They could visit the best three diners in the city:

They could visit the top four parks:

They could simply head out, unsure of what they would do:

There is nothing wrong with any of the above options; they all meet the overall, ‘intrinsic’ purpose of going on a bike tour to see the city in new ways. There is another layer of purposes that needs to be held: the instrumental purposes of each stop along the way. Once they are known, they will start a dance with the overall purpose and they inform each other. For Steve McIntosh, intrinsic and instrumental purposes are the nature of evolutionary progress. This dynamic takes place even when designing a bike tour of the city.

Knowing what the purpose of each stop along the way is instrumental. If unknown, we lose the overall purpose.

Designing a process without purpose in mind – whether the overall or instrumental purposes of the stops along the way – is not design. It is exploration. Both of these are valuable activities – when aligned with purpose. Sometimes exploration is the purpose…

A clear invitation needs clear purposes.

When the organizers of the bike tour have a clear purposes, they will be able to craft a clear invitation to put out into the world; people to have a clear choice of what kind of bike tour to sign up for. The next layer of purposes are needed – the overall purpose is not enough. For example, for the river valley trail tour, there could be radically different offerings that meet the overall purpose:

Ride the trails of your city river with friends and family. You will have all the support you need along the way, from washrooms, snacks and technical support. Ride the whole thing, or part. The choice is up to you. See the city from a new angle!
Learn about the wild in our city. On our bikes, we will take a day to ride the length of city trails with stops along the way to learn about geologic and natural features of our land from local experts. Lunch and bikes provided.
Explore the wilderness in our city. Bring your journal and your geocaching skills to explore, and navigate, your self and your city. Bring your own lunch and be prepared to look after your own technological troubles. Washrooms will be provided.

The instrumental purposes of each of these invitations are very different. The first is about providing an opportunity for families to explore the river trail system in a relaxed and supportive way. The second event is about offering a traditional learning environment in the natural habitat, learning specific things about nature in the city from experts. The third is a way for individuals to spend time alone in the valley, learning both about themselves and nature. The instrumental purposes shape the overall purpose.

Each of these invitations has a different vibe to which people respond. Knowing the purposes mean we know what we are inviting.

Why the metaphor?

While designing social social habitats, I find it useful to try metaphors on for size, to tease out purposes. I used the metaphor of a city bike tour to figure out what I had to say about purposes here. (I had an email this morning about organizing a bike tour this am!) It helped me reach for the ‘meta’, high level information I was looking for to inform a discussion in a hosting team I am part of, about the need for purpose to be articulated sooner than later.

Metaphor is a great way to explore and define purpose. And once purpose is known, metaphor is an effective way to test if the design is aligned with purpose, a good way to look sideways at our work. Is the purpose of the bike tour more like a fun run, a traditional classroom, or a personal wilderness learning journey?

A note on designing with purpose vs exploring for purpose.

If we start organizing a bike tour by laying out the routes and sites and people we want to use out before us, and start putting them together in ways that make sense to us, we are exploring. We are figuring out what needs to be figured out and in this journey we may find the purpose of the design, but the purpose comes at the end. What have designed only if what we craft reflects the purpose that came at the end.

There is a big trap in designing social processes: while exploring we may think we are designing and miss knowing purpose, or neglect to test our work against the purpose. If we gather a series of tools and methodologies that feel good together and assemble them into a process, we miss the mark because we have not connected to the purpose of the gathering, and the purposes of each part of the gathering. We can even fall into the trap of naming outcomes that will come from the process and feel good about those. It may look good, and feel good – and be false.

Design takes place when purpose is in mind; activities are chosen because they meet the purpose.

WARNING: Purpose can be hard to find.

It is tough slogging to find purpose, as though ‘purpose’ is purposely making itself hard to find. That’s because it’s important.

One of the reasons we fall into the trap of thinking we are designing when we are not is because it is easy and familiar. It is easy to pull out the familiar ideas, or the things we are dying to try, lay out all the ideas and put them to work in ways that feel good. And if after our time exploring we nail down the overall purpose of the event, the smaller purposes are then hard to pin down. It seems to never end, but the pursuit of purpose is necessary for the ultimate design to serve well.

I offer this meta view of purpose as a window into intentional design.

Sharing book bits

Notice what you notice. These wise words of my friend Michael Keller fuel the spirit of the Nest City Blog. Since April 10, 2009, 358 posts have appeared here, starting with a wee piece on what I learned about teamwork and leadership on the soccer field – when I swoop in and help my teammate I may be harming my team’s ability to perform. It is often better to give your mates room to do their thing.

That means I have to trust them.

All these posts later, this thought pervades much of what has emerged as the Nest City book: as we each pursue our passions in our city, in our paid or volunteer work, we are improve the city. It is a selfless act to do the work you want to do because, in doing so, we recreate and regenerate our cities so they serve us better in return. It requires that we trust everyone around us – that their particular work is helping the whole in ways we do not know.

Nest City is almost finished. It began as a slow release, and now that it is tangible for me, while I my hunt for a publisher, I choose to share it with you. It makes no sense for me to keep it to myself.

If you’d like to receive these wee bits of book, starting April 13, 2015, please subscribe to my newsletter – Nest City News. Look for a box on the right that looks like this:

It’s all going to start on April 13, 2015.

What are you inviting?

The invitation you send out into the world matters – it says everything.

An invitation is both the physical (or digital) thing you send out into the world for an event, and it is also the vibe you send out ahead of it, with it, and afterwards. It is physical and non-physical. Two clients last week exemplify this.

First, a city planner colleague responsible to write a new affordable housing policy for his employer, a municipal government, knows that he doesn’t know everything he needs to know to do this. He wants to check in with a range of people to discern the municipality’s role – in today’s context. He knows he needs to know more. He’s actively inviting a range of voices to influence what he will write.

Second, a school division initiating gay straight alliance groups in its schools has reached a subtle but big understanding – there are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered adults in schools that need care and attention. They have realized that for schools to show up well for kids, the adults also need love, generosity and support. This is the conversation they are stepping into.

What is significant about these folks is the clarity with which they are inviting others to join them in conversations about their work – whether about housing or teaching. Long before an invitation to gather is extended, they are taking the time to get clear about why they need to gather, and deepening into the purpose of each gathering they will call. This is information they will share with the people they gather, and each time we gather, we will spend our time to serve the need and purpose articulated.

As you ponder any invitations you send out into the world, here is a virtuous circle I keep in mind:

When full of love, I invite compassion
When full of compassion I invite trust
When full of trust, I invite brilliance
When full of brilliance, I invite clarity
When full of clarity, I invite vision
When full of vision, I invite passion
When full of passion, I invite love

A spring of cosmic carrots

I have to laugh – a fork was in the road on the street in front of my house, recently released with spring’s warm embrace. It is not my fork; it is a found fork, a little worse for wear. It symbolizes the cosmic carrots floating around me at the moment.

Over the course of the winter, like my city planner friend Nola, I have been pondering my desire line – the path I want to be travelling in my work. In January, it was perfectly clear. My book is nearing completion and it is time to prepare for its release out into the world. For seven years, I have enjoyed a wonderful balance of time to write, and time for paid work with wonderful people, in the form of small contracts. This has been wonderfully nourishing and I long to merge what I have learned in writing with my work out in the world.

I long for two things:

to tangibly and practically put Nest City into action
to work with a team of great people

Of course, I have been putting into practice, and working with great people; I long to put these two things together for the long term, for larger contribution to the well-being of cities and citizens.

In response to these longings I extended an invitation to 13 local, wonderful people with whom I want to step out into the work world, to be a team of some sort. We quickly met to begin our dive into an evolutionary purpose I sense we serve for cities: to create the conditions for cities to serve citizens well, and for citizens to serve cities well. We to discern the work we are called to do for the city. We called it the carrot of potential.

And no sooner does this process begin and the Universe taps me on the shoulder to test my resolve. A cosmic carrot.

It came in the form of a phone call from a headhunter inviting me to apply for a job. I surprised myself and said yes to exploring the opportunity. I went for coffee with the bigwig to see if he and the organization were a fit for me, then had a first interview, and a second interview. I am now waiting for word.

And while I wait, another laugh as another cosmic carrot emerges. This time in the form of a tingling, an attraction to a big idea, to a way to serve my city and cities everywhere.

Invisible thresholds emerge to test me. Like the fork in the road, they are emerging as the snow melts. And because they emerge, my destination is changing too. I am emerging to a new destination. It may be a big job, or a big idea, or some combination of both. The discernment I have in front of me is to figure out which destination will move me in the direction I want to go. For now, I sit in the unknown, nourished by these cosmic carrots.

_____

And yet another laugh. In this fertile ground of carrots volunteering themselves for my nourishment (including a fork to eat them with??), I find a post I wrote 2 years ago today, the spring equinox. As I made the transition from writing Part Two of Nest City, to Part Three, I noticed that I had no idea what I was going to write. I had no idea what would come next. The helpful tips I found for myself in Focus, learn, emerge, for life while emerging to new destinations, apply as well now on 2015’s first day of spring:

We learn consciously and unconsciously, spurred on by persistent practical problems.
We chaotically reorganize ourselves by exploring our in-tuition.
We take a step back from the edge, as needed, in order to choose the right leap for the context.
We are learning how to let a scary idea warm us up first, then explore the inner struggle, recognizing that each struggle is powering us up for something bigger and more challenging.
The more we consciously explore the thresholds before us, and their nature within us, we will make wiser choices, to either go forward or turn away, as appropriate.
It is in each of us to reach the places we wish to go.

The possibilities before us are known and unknown. The cosmic carrots, the thresholds, play an essential role as we chaotically reorganize ourselves to move in the direction we long to go.

What carrots are nourishing you?

Kosmic playmates

My Integral City colleagues and I are offering an unconference within a conference – the coming Integral Theory Conference in San Francisco this summer. Here’s a bit of poem I caught this week when we circled up to work together.

A playful invitation

to kosmic playmates

to close the distance

to discern the direction

of momentum in place

to co-create a centering space

that nourishes the

flow of relating

at scale

Carrot of potential

I have to laugh. The moment I feel I finally have a clear sense of purpose and direction in my work, the universe delivers a tantalizing carrot, enticing me to other work, testing my resolve.

Before this carrot arrived, I called a circle of 14 remarkable people, to begin a dive into an evolutionary purpose I sense we serve for cities: to create the conditions for cities to serve citizens well, and for citizens to serve cities well.

Each of us, in our own ways, are in the throes of discerning the work we are called to do for our city.

Here’s what I caught in our closing words before parting. A carrot of potential…

A carrot of potential

A carrot of potential

personally inviting

me to grow

the innovation

in me stretching

amalgamating

energy in the heart

of the dragon

here, in me

in my city

emerging

in an ensemble

growing a whole

journey

_____

Alternative prosperity

The words “alternative prosperity” are alive in me today. As I’m contemplating the work that I want to be doing in the coming year, it is about so much more than money – the usual form of measuring prosperity. What about all the other things?

What about the time I get to play with my family?

What about the time I get to flop around in bed, read a book, play in the snow, ride my bike?

What about the charge in my soul when I get spend time with fabulous people and we do great work together?

What about the great pioneering feeling I have when I understand something for the first time, and it fills me with joy?

What about the thrill of being paid to be me?

What about the feeling after an intense three day meeting, when I leave with more energy than I had when I arrived? The words I caught in our closing check-out circle were wise:

Alternative prosperity

Welcome in

the layers

of a rippling universe

of blessings

in a fire

bursting

nursing

what’s to come

caring to ride

the alternative

prosperity

that accelerates

magic vows

healing

joy

welcoming

the layers

of a rippling

universe

_____

A poem caught in the closing circle of fantastic business meeting last week. Wow.

Land and stair

Yesterday I went for a walk on the shrinking shores of Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, Washington. With my friends Ann, Christina and dog Gracie, we descended rickety stairs to a dodgy bulkhead to explore the ocean shore near their home, on Puget Sound.

As we walked we noticed the sandy bluffs above us, and their constant sloughing. We noticed homes on the edge. We noticed grey water drainage pipes that drain onto the bluff, accelerating erosion, accelerating the risk to their homes.

Perhaps they have a great view of the ocean and do not have a relationship with the ocean.

Perhaps they have not noticed this:

Nature erodes the shores of land. This is unavoidable and undeniable. Where we choose to settle and how we choose to settle is best done when in relationship with Nature.

Moreover, when we realize that we have a structure that is no longer useful, we have to figure out how to ensure that structure causes no harm. If this stair falls toward land, it will accelerate erosion. It will accelerate the shrinking shore, hastening peril to the homes above.

Ann and Christina’s community has to figure out how to build new stairs – I know what they won’t do.

Any structures like this in your life?

Re-membering my inherent wilderness

When my Integral City colleague (and founder) Marilyn Hamilton was asked to serve as guest editor of the Integral Leadership Review, she extended an invitation to me to write an article, about whatever I wanted.

And the only story I wanted to tell was about the wilderness quest. The story started to come out here, but here is where it ended up.

Re-membering my inherent wilderness.

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Category: Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities

Transition cycles

Sharing book bits

A spring of cosmic carrots

Kosmic playmates

Carrot of potential

Alternative prosperity

Land and stair

Re-membering my inherent wilderness