My epiphany this summer that I am just figuring out now: I use the swimming pool strategy to find meaningful work.
For a few years out of high school my brother Scott and I worked at the local swimming pool as swimming instructors and lifeguards. Wonderful work, especially in the summer. A flexible schedule, well paid, new and unexpected friends and a lot of fun.
The challenge was that we were part of a huge pool of casual employees working part-time hours. Each of us was lucky to get 20-26 hours a week. When saving every penny for university in the fall, we had our eyes on the extra shifts that came up – some at a moment’s notice, others when we saw an opportunity and took it.
As I reflect on this, I see two strategies that play out for meaningful work – then and now:
Play in the pool
A hot day is a wonderful day to do what you love – play and float around in the pool. On a hot day the pool will also fill up with hundreds of other people. There is a head lifeguard whose job is to make sure that there are enough lifeguards keeping an eye on things and make sure everyone is safe. But since there are not enough lifeguards in the schedule, more will be needed.
When you love your work, it shows. You are available to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Let the head lifeguard know explicitly that you are ready to serve when needed. While it might not be your turn on the rotation, others might not be available and voila! There you are. Doing what you love and ready to serve.
The above applies to a hot summer day and an outdoor pool – I have to be conscious of the context each and every day
I will be called on when I am needed. If others are called, they are needed, or it is simply their turn
When having fun, genuinely, I make myself more available
I show up for work, even if I don’t know I will be needed, to see what will happen
Play and have fun, splash, float, swim, bob
Do the hard work
We also had our eyes on the work nobody else wanted. We cleaned the grunge off the waterslides. We tarred the filter tank. Crawled into the crawlspace under the pool and then crawled into a 1’ x 3’ hole into the surge tank to scrape the slime off the walls. Then volunteerd to do it again the next year. We cleaned the changerooms. In all of the above, we played music, joked around, and laughed hysterically – usually right when our boss showed up to see how we were doing. Every time we thought we were in big trouble, especially when our boss found a big blue happy face (the clean part) on the brown floor of the changeroom. Now we see that we were never in trouble because we were doing the work others did not want to do, we were doing it happily and we were getting the job done. Well.
Volunteering for grungy hard work is an opportunity to do good work
Volunteering for grungy hard work is an opportunity to have great fun with my mates
I am part of the design team leading the 2010 Alberta Professional Planners Institute conference October 17-20, 2010 in Lake Louise. We have chosen questions to guide a big conversation, rather than in speakers. We have done this with the express purpose of surfacing the elephants in community planning. It is easy to hide when we sit and listen to experts. A new possibility we are designing for: explore the untapped expertise and wisdom we already have amongst us. The metaphor we are using to guide our design: the elephant.
Either the metaphor of the elephant is resonating with people, or it is an elephant itself. We get comments about the questions that will be guiding our inquiry about planning and where it fits in the scheme of things. The questions are too big. What do you mean by the questions? Of course I am planning to survive, aren’t you? The questions are too big! The questions lead to so many other questions? Boy, do those questions ever stop to make me think…
In a way, one of the elephants in the room are questions themselves. How often do we think we have it right, without even asking questions. John Godfrey Saxe’s poem is in our consciousness as we design, and we are curious about how this relates to community/town/city/country/northern/rural planning:
I.
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
II.
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me!-but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”
III.
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried: “Ho!-what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me’t is mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”
IV.
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”
V.
The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“‘Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”
VI.
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”
VII.
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”
VIII.
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
MORAL.
So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean, And prate about an Elephant Not one of them has seen!
I am cleaning my office and noticing the magazines sitting here before I put them away. The titles, from Plan Canada and AACIP Planning Journals in the last several months, cause a stir in me…
Planners’ perspectives on art and culture
Rethinking infrastructure: going green
Planning for the homeless
Aging in place
Planning for changing demographics
Okotoks: staying within its limits
Welcoming communities: planning for diverse populations
Making it work: making it last; making it home
Food security: a growing concern
Planning without a net: the international experience
Looking to our past to plan our future
The stir?
Planners’ work covers a range of questions and matters that are deliberated widely in our communities – art, infrastructure, homeless, aging, sustainability, cultural diversity, food – and all of this on the home and international fronts. And then there is the conversation about how to accomplish what we are aiming for.
But who is the “we”? The perspectives offered are about how planners contribute to these questions, and these perspectives are offered to planners. It is tempting to drift toward an assumption that it is the planners who are going to make the difference and that others get in the way. What, however, if the “we” is planners along with the various stakeholders in our communities. What if our technical expertise is not where our power of influence lies?
This spring I had an opportunity to run APPI’s Professional Practitioners Course with Gary Buchanan, an alternative written examination format for prospective professional planners where candidates demonstrate their mastery through conversation and writing. The surprise at this particular gathering was the responses of planners in response to a question about the scope of planning today. The candidates did not reveal technical aspects, but rather interpersonal. To be able to do our jobs well these days, we need to be good communicators, negotiators, conflict resolvers, facilitators, coaches, and synthesizers. All this with a bold courage to take leadership roles in unconventional ways.
Reflecting then on the titles above, I recognize the value of planners. We offer technical skills to make contributions to our communities’ dreams. Our value is no longer just conventional technical skills. Our value is in cultivating the conditions for all the players and stakeholders involved in these complex issues to clearly articulate where they are going, why and how they will get there.
From time to time we’ll employ our technical know-how, but these are not front-seat skills by default any longer. Not if we want to make a difference.
We explored how conversational leadership takes place, and how through conversational leadership, the doors open to co-create wise action and change in our organizations and communities.
Last week I relished the opportunity to show up and be hosted, rather than be host at the latest Art of Hosting gathering in the Edmonton area. While I worked hard to get the word out to people I know who are searching continually for ways to be well with others, it was wonderful to arrive without having to organize anything. Rather than attending to the details of the venue, process design considerations etc., I was able to arrive in a different way: most fully and selfishly expecting to learn at every turn. As host, I expect to learn at every turn, but there is a slight but meaningful distinction when being hosted – a bit more freedom to explore and invest in self. It is a marginal distinction with significant implications.
The implication – and gift – for me is remembering how difficult it can be for me to be hosted. Hence, I have been pondering the difference between being host and being hosted.
Host - Hosted
The smililarities between being host and being hosted are striking: both require welcoming the stretch of learning together, offering self fully and deeply to each other, and engaging together around a passionate call.
The distinction between host and hosted lies in the invitation, intention and the design. Being host means noticing and responding to a burning question, the passionate call to gather. Being hosted means responding to the resonance of that call. Being host means holding space (the physical and metaphysical) for the invitation and the gathering itself. Being host also means designing process to create the conditions to release holding the space to allow those hosted to co-create space. Hosting means intentionally letting go. Being hosted means following resonance and choosing where to place attention.
In the setting of an art of hosting gathering, the hosted have an opportunity to become hosts. The hosts also welcome being hosted. In this relationship, both the host and hosted are actively engaged in co-learning. Around the right question, this learning relationship takes place in connection to meaningful work.
Beyond the setting of an art of hosting offering, living the conundrum of being host and being hosted remains alive. To host well, I must be willing to be hosted. Willing to be hosted, I am open to surprise, willingly receiving what is offered.
Last week I recognized that I have been “holding” the art of hosting in Alberta for quite a long time with a couple of others – Marg and Hugh. It is hard to hold space – even with mates. It isn’t something that can even be held. It can only be.
The art of hosting is about co-creating space, and opening space. It isn’t something to hold long.
As we have just wrapped up an Art of Hosting and Harvesting gathering in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada yesterday, I sense a distinct gift received by the participants. Not unlike the first bicycle we long for – a whole new way to move through the world.
This is a wondrous gift to receive, but that first bicycle does not come ready to use. In fact, great support is needed to figure out how to ride a bike: love and encouragement from my teachers, a hand on the seat for balance as I figure out this new movement, a hand near the seat when I don’t believe I can do it on my own, and a teacher who know just when to let go to let me try it on my own. And of course, scraped knees and hands as we fall and start all over again. Until we are ready to roll, practice for many years, then teach what we know to another.
Event: Sept 17-19, 2010, Pigeon Lake, Alberta. Register now.
Click for Event Details
A variety of people working and volunteering in a variety of disciplines are gathering to explore the following question: How do I and we move beyond what is getting in the way of bold, innovative and sustained action?
This three day event will bring together a dedicated group of people asking questions and seeking common solutions and innovative ideas. Read more and register here.
My brother asked me over the weekend what the goal of my business was.It was Sunday afternoon and I didn’t have the jam for a tough conversation so I begged off.But since I didn’t want to answer it, I knew it was a question worth spending some time with.Alas – what is the goal of my business?
POPULUS exists an infrastructure for me to do the work I want to do.As a legal entity for accounting purposes, as an entity to engage in contracts with clients and partners, and as a name and image that reflects what I believe about people and communities.In a strict sense, that is all it is.It doesn’t have a goal of its own separate from me, because I am the sole owner.POPULUS is a means for me to do my work.
So the next question is: what is the goal of my work? I aim to support people who see a whole new possibility about how humans can work together to meet and adapt to the challenges communities face.I create the conditions for people to see new possibilities and take bold, innovative and sustained action to make those possibilities possible. I do this work in collaboration with others, always modeling collaborative conversation.The nature of this work shifts from conversation to conversation, from situation to situation, intentionally responsive to the conditions at hand.While there are common ingredients everywhere I go, there is no hard and fast recipe.(Another big question for another blog – what are the ingredients?)
My perfect clients and collaborators see possibilities and recognize that we need to engage each other in different ways to get there. Sometimes the path is clear, sometimes confusing and muddy, but the quality of what we do on and with the path is key; they know that they wish to create opportunities for learning, and that quality conversation will support them in seeing and taking action toward new possibilities.
My intention is to co-create, with clients and collaborators, the conditions for people to get the best from themselves.There is not a clear, linear path to do this, so this work is messy and confusing at times.The truth is, it is challenging for me to articulate this work, yet my clients, collaborators and I find that we speak the same language in non-traditional ways.There is no list of credentials, or competencies.It is visceral,experiencial and even intuitive.Rather than a checklist of skills, it is a way of being with self and others. It is unconventional work to remind us of what we already know – how to listen to each other.
The quality of everything we do turns on the quality of our conversations.Everywhere I go, I aim to host myself and others well.And learning to ask – and receive – questions that stop us in our tracks.
I was describing to a friend last week about a tough situation in which I found myself recently.In room full of teachers, I told them that they appeared to have shut down on their own learning.Her response:ohhhhhh, you just poked the bear.
I have been wrestling with this bear now for several days.I hold a deep intention to cause no harm to the people with whom I live, work and volunteer.But this intention is not superficial. It is not just about protecting the people around me from harm; it is as much about noticing when I and the people around me may be causing harms to others.And with this in mind, I find myself often telling clients (and other people in my life) things they might not want to hear.
But in the spirit of doing not harm, my intention is to do this in a compassionate and direct way. As my Art of Hosting colleague Toke Moller put it, a dull knife through a tomato is an aggressive and harmful act.A sharp knife through the tomato is compassionate.This isn’t about cutting people up with nasty things to say.It is about providing honest feedback – whether to an individual or a group – that is in some way what they need to hear.What they need to hear, but not necessarily what they want to hear.
So my own personal wrestling with the bear is about being brave enough to be direct and honest, because once I have poked it, I have to be prepared for the consequences – it might take a swipe at me.It is this consideration that makes me think of timing options to poke the bear:
Right then and there – when it needs to be said
Later – when it is a better time
Never – just leave it be
As the bear pins me to the forest floor, I deliberate about what would have happened if nothing was said: nothing would have changed and teachers would teach rather than learn.If something was said later: nothing would have changed and teachers would teach rather than learn.Right then and there – the quality of the work that followed, and commitment to it, was significantly higher.The down side, I realize, is that people’s feelings were hurt because they were told something they didn’t want to hear.Some people were angry with the feedback.Some closed ranks and got defensive.Some said thank you – we needed to hear that.
The bear swiped around to protect itself. And in the end, I ask myself what it is protecting itself against, and the answer is astounding:learning.
I have slipped out from beneath the bear, for now, and I look it in the eyes.I will continue to poke the bear and give it feedback from time to time – always compassionately – because I trust that over time it will be received, constructively and positively, in ways I will never know as it makes its way through the wild world.
Isn’t it funny how even when you have heard it before, it doesn’t actually “hit” you until some later date? While it rang true before, the noise is a lot louder today for the meaning of this statement: when planning a meeting, we are really planning a harvest.
4 mates and I are preparing for an Art of Hosting (and Harvesting) gathering in Edmonton, Alberta next week http://berkana.org/pdf/AoH_Edmonton_Feb_2010.pdf. And of course, now that we are getting into the design of the gathering, we are contemplating what it means to harvest the conversations we will be having. We are contemplating this diligently in service to the invitation we have extended to explore how to cultivate Albertans’ collective ingenuity in order to renew and sustain Alberta’s communities.
When in conversation with anyone, including myself, meaning is generated. There is the tangible meaning, such as a record of what decisions are made. In addition, there are the impressions we make of each other, the conflict we carry, the assumptions, the sabotage, the agendas, as well as goodness and love. Yet we struggle with our conversations – especially the ones we choose not to have. Bad feelings are clearly a pattern, and this leaves a lot of conversations never held.
But what if we are more than that? What if instead of leaving the fruit to rot on the tree, we choose to enjoy it? What if we consider every apple, blemishes and all, as a sweet treat? What if we planned for that when we gather? More importantly, what if we planned to explicitly expose those sweet treats for us all to see? What if we held the intention to fully harvest the abundance that is just sitting there – each apple, and all the things we can make together?
A harvest is about both content and process, the tangible and the intangible. The content is not about a message to be delivered to others, but about pulling out of ourselves what is just sitting there waiting to emerge. Our unconscious, or semiconscious knowledge. In terms of contemplating a harvest, content is about knowing what the conversation is for: is it to explore ideas, or to nail down a plan for action. To build a common sense of direction, or generate a diverse range of options? Knowing the overall purpose of the conversation assists greatly with ascertaining the appropriate design for the conversation – the process- as well as sense of harvest (to design for) that is in service to the intention. Intention provides clarity for both content and process.
The form of a harvest is various and unlimited: photographs, a movie, a song, a poem, a report, a picture, a performance, a document. The harvest at times tangible and explicit (such as a report or document) or more intangible and implicit (a song or poem). Both add value and meaning when aligned with the purpose and context of the people gathering.
Skillful design for conversation is the process, and when aligned with the purpose/intention, conversation will provide wonderful fruit for harvest. Our design choices dictate whether we gather effectively the collective wisdom. The quality of our presence in the gathering will dictate what we notice – whether one apple, the whole tree, the whole orchard, the ecosystem, etc.
Whether from an individual or as a collaborative effort, the harvest takes the unarticulated and unconscious to the articulated and conscious that is an expression of value and meaning. It is an expression of learning.
In times of abundance or scarcity, just like an apple, the harvest of conversation is nourishment.
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
