Compost Patterns

A FEW NOTES COPIED OVER FROM WAGN

Plus a few of Tree's favorite composted patterns

NOTE: Most or all of the "compost" pattern texts are available in Daniel's electronic archive and/or in Tree's printed file.

Fairness or neutrality of process and/or convenor/facilitator (from C2D2). Category: Modelling. Decision: Include in values statement rather than as pattern.

Love is at the heart of engagement. We are moved to engage when we care and want the highest good for another, the commons, the work we do, or for ourselves. We can intentionally design systems that allow for and promote love. We increase its power when we name it. (Pennie) Decision: Include in values statement rather than as pattern.

Random Selection is an alternative to elections or appointments. It brings the unknown into play, reducing the ability to manipulate outcomes or professionalize functions. Perhaps paradoxically, this increases security and stability. Random Selection unexpectedly includes people and provides for diversity of perspectives and ideas. (Pennie)

4 Rooms or Cycles - Tree

Contracting

Humour - Dave [I believe this is now included in Discharging, above]

Nonverbal Gestures - Dave

Trust the Process (might include honor the method, keep the faith, valuing process as well as goal) - Dan

Walking as Knowing - Dan

Personal Practice

Heart

The ongoing (often daily) activity one does to maintain connection with Source.

Description

In conducting group conversations, the leader performs as an instrument. Like any other instrument, we need regular tune-ups. This nurturing attention supports us to be a Letting Go to meet the group's needs.

In North America today, there is a fertile profusion of personal practices. Some common ones include:

meditation
tai chi, qigong, and other eastern-influenced movement sequences
walking, especially in natural settings
therapy (or co-counseling)
prayer

These practices are commonly done as part of a daily or weekly routine. In addition, many people choose to do a session specifically as a prelude to a group event, before acting in a leadership position. (Such preludes may be shorter than a regular full-length practice.) As the name implies, a personal practice is normally done alone, or (as in the case of counseling) with someone whose role is to support the person in getting clear. Some groups also have a collective equivalent, such as the reading of a mission statement or ground rules, as part of an Opening and Welcome that fulfills a similar purpose

Whatever the specifics, the goal here is to get beyond one's own needs, preferences, and ego, so as to be of service to the larger whole.

Mystery at the Centre

Heart

The question that takes a group to what it already knows, does not awaken any of these patterns. The mystery at the centre is the question that takes the group to what it does NOT already know. Mould clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that makes the vessel useful.

Description

The non-physical centre, beyond the purpose …a couple of levels. A group needs a purpose, and placing the purpose in the center is very powerful. The purpose still needs at its centre hollowness, hole in the volcano, generative emptiness, the Tao of the centre (Chapter 11, Tao Da Ching, the power of the wheel comes not from the wheel or the spokes but the centre where the axle sits)

(QUOTE: from Chris
30 spokes, are joining together in a wheel, but it’s the center hole that allows the hole to function. Mould clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that makes the vessel useful. We fashion wood for a house but it is the emptiness inside that makes it livable, We work with the substantial but it is the emptiness that we use. )

In the Art of Hosting community of practice, trying to understand the concept of stewardship, we began by asking ourselves, by reflecting (30 of us) what the stories were, “What stories of your work inform your stewardship of this community?”, and we mapped those, and then we asked the question, “What questions or insights are about stewardship that arise from your stories of work in the world”, and we mapped those. The diagram were that the stories were outside of us, and the questions and insights were inside of us, and so when we are doing our work in the world we are facing away from each other, but we have this centre of insights “at our backs’. When we are engaged in questions and insights in our community of practice, we are facing each other, facing towards the centre, and we have our stories and our work in the world, propelling us into relationship. So what we discovered was that there is a constant flow… a cow standing on a torus looking over a fence at a piece of grass on the other side, and the cow fears that it can’t get to the other side, and then it climbs into the torus to get to the other side….there’s no inside and out, in this kind of a journey, our work turning in always leads us to coming out, when you’re part of a group, your going out always takes us back in…and so the shape that forms is actually a torus, with each of us rotating around our own centre, AND touching into an empty centre that lies between all of us, and this is the place of the mystery, of generative space of emergence, of creativity. We each also bring our own empty centers, our questions, … every group has an empty center or…we’re bored, we’re dead…it’s the mystery,

Cautions & Caveats:
An attachment to outcomes can collapse that centre (hired by some body, with a budget and a schedule and other constraints) – ego strength for facilitator…don’t fear the unknown, Fearing the unknown will prevent a group from holding its empty centre…(so for the facilitator, work out your fear in advance, so in the group you can be CURIOUS!)

Reframing

Heart

Reframing offers a new interpretation for the same facts, one that opens up possibilities. From a new story, model, metaphor or explanation, we learn that the way we previously viewed a situation is not the only way to see it, and we can choose the interpretation providing the best route forward.

Description

[Copied in, may or may not be needed:

It may be useful when a group is stuck, or at odds, or unable to appreciate each other's perspective due to different information, values, experiences or worldviews.]

Each participant brings to a conversation or other group process, a worldview that is informed by their culture, language and experiences -- "where they come from" -- what their story is, what they know, what they think the group is or should be doing, or what they think is happening.

Seeing diversity of perspectives and worldviews as a strength of the group to broaden collective knowledge and understanding, instead of a liability to be negotiated and overcome.

This can lead to an impasse, a conflict, a blindness to possibilities, or a lack of appreciation, that can prevent shared understanding, effective collaboration, creative problem-solving or consensus from happening. For example, Bill Mollison broke a group's anxiety about "too many slugs" in a permaculture garden by reframing it as a situation of "too few ducks." This opened up whole new sets of ideas on how to approach the situation. Likewise, when waste managers stopped looking at waste as a problem and started seeing it as a resource, their industry was transformed.

This requires getting the group to suspend judgement, and be open to changing their minds about how they perceive something, to open up new possibilities, hence altering preconceived ideas and changing the meaning participants ascribe to what they know and to the issue at hand.

When this happens, it can move participants to a position of strength, appreciation and creativity instead of a position of anxiety, helplessness, and conflict.

Reframing genius is moving from something that shuts down, that darkens, that removes life, to something that opens, that invites, that gives charge, e.g. from “acceptance of limitations" to “the power of constraints”.

Story-telling and metaphor can be very effective ways to reframe perceptions and worldviews, as can asking open, and even ambiguous, questions.

For example, a group might be feeling stuck, blaming its founder for her unwillingness to follow new procedures aimed at making the group more inclusive. They then learn about life cycles of organizations, and find out that their dilemma is a classic stage in organizational development. So they stop blaming the founder, and learn more about how best to move through that stage transition.

Cautions and Caveats:
The facilitator must create an atmosphere of trust, must exhibit sincerity and transparency, and the group must be engaged, attentive and connected before a reframing will be accepted.

Examples

Dawn Smith tells of a situation where a foreman and carpenter could not agree on appropriate action to deal with a construction problem. Dawn was able to defuse the conflict and bull-headedness by finding a frame for the problem that allowed both the foreman and carpenter to play to their strengths and craft an appropriate part of a collaborative solution that worked for them both. --THIS STORY NEEDS A BIT MORE DETAIL--WHAT WAS THE NEW FRAME?

At a meeting of Greens trying to develop ideas and positions for development and conservation of their island community, a conflict between those who wanted no development and those that wanted high-density, low-footprint-per-capita development, was resolved by reframing the challenge with the question: What will we do when there are no more ferries to the island? Both antagonistic viewpoints were set aside and the group developed a consensual approach from scratch that informed each about the other's worldview and sparked remarkably creative new approaches.