Leadership Learning Community

Bay Area Learning Circle Brown Bag Lunch

August 5, 2009 11:30AM-2:00PM

at The California Endowment

1111 Broadway, 7th Floor

Oakland

 

We will explore a new tool, Emergent Learning Maps, that can help you and the participants of your program build your capacity to learn together over time.  The group will generate and select a question that matters most to them.  Starting with sharing key learning moments and insights about the question, the group will then develop new ideas to strengthen their work and consider what opportunities they have to test these ideas in their programs.  For more information on this tool click on Emergent Learning Mapping.

 

Learning Circle Notes

 

Learning Circle Participants:

     Tom David (Tides, Community Clinics Initiative)

     Janet Birgenheier (JB Change Consulting)

     Stacy Ramirez (IIE)

     Christine Stansell (IIE)

     Regina Sheriden (BTW Informing Change)

     Bruce Honig (Idea Guides

     Antoine Moore (Fabulous Facilitators, independent consultant)

     Hanh Cao Yu (Social Policy Research Associates)

     Kathleen Rice (KL Rice Consulting)

     Celia Davis (Data Center)

     Betsey Morris (Planning for Sustainable Communities)

     John Kelly (Interactive Scenarios)

     Raines Conen (Planning for Sustainable Communities)

     Lailan Huen (Data Center)

     Julia Hendrickson (Institute of International Education)

     Diane Johnson-McCarthy (Mmapeu Management Consulting)

     Deborah Meehan (Leadership Learning Community

     Bella Celnik (Leadership Learning Community

     Natalia Castaneda (Leadership Learning Community)

     Elizabeth Arkell (Leadership Learning Community)

 

We encourage everyone to join the LLC Meetup group so that we can continue conversations and get in touch with each other.  Click here to join now!

 

Posed Question: What does it take to learn through discomfort and conflict?

 

I.      Introductions

a.     LLC

                                               i.     Intro/summary of our work in general

                                             ii.     Summary of learning circle today and norms:

1.     Emergent Learning – experiential learning

2.     Here in a shared mission – mission for social change

3.     How we want to be together in our work: Commit to the success of others, take risks, deep listening, suspend judgment in pursuit of understanding, leave roles outside, use humor, authenticity, speak loudly

II.    Image and learning exercise/general introductions

III.  Split into four groups

IV. Emergent learning mapping exercise

a.     Ground Truth – Think of a moment when you (or participants in a gathering you were responsible for) were able to stay with and learn from difficult interactions, the actions taken and the results achieved.

                                               i.     Share stories with group and reflect

                       ii.  Write headline of your story on half piece of paper and post in 'ground truth' quadrant

b.     Insights – After listening to stories think about the insights you have about factors that seemed to support learning from discomfort and conflict

                                               i.     Discuss with group

                       ii.  Write insights on half pieces of paper and post in 'insights' quadrant

                                             ii.     Themes: 1) Actions that can create insight 2) Insights related to higher good 3)Communication/story telling – process/quality of insights (“how we’re going to be in the space together”) 4) Miscellaneous

c.     Hypotheses – Write “If…then…” hypotheses and then share as a group.  Group will decide on several hypotheses that want to test

1.     If we, as facilitators, are not afraid of conflict, then we can lesson the discomfort of the group and increase their ability to learn.

2.     If the group moves toward the pain, then they will dissolve it faster.

3.     If a group focuses its attention on the higher goal and/or relationships, then the group will be able to handle their conflict and discomfort and therefore learn from it.

4.     If we develop ground rules, then we can engage in more honest and fruitful discussions.

                                             ii.     Questions: Are these hypotheses factual or just intuitive? Do we already know all of this? Is it necessary for us to test them?

d.     Opportunities – Look for opportunities to test the hypotheses in existing work and give some examples.

                                               i.     Questions: Are these hypotheses testable? What type of methodologies would we use?

V.   Feedback (plus, delta)

a.     Time deepening story

b.     ‘Another tool in the tool kit’

c.     Experiential aspect – teaching by having us do it

d.     Sharing images good way to begin

e.     People jumped into experience, came in as co-learners

f.      Start and end time?

g.     Seeing the model helpful

h.     Should have something stating the purpose of the gathering (as an orientation) – objectives on the wall

i.      State purpose of the meeting (and objectives under it)

j.      Breaks

k.     Ventilation

l.      Small groups good

m.   Connect story insights

n.     Written instructions

o.     Good space for reflection

 

 

Emergent Learning Map:

 

INSIGHTS   Actions that can create insight “When to agree to disagree vs. when to keep working” “Recognizing limitations” “Be vulnerable, take risks” “Risk telling the truth and possible fall out” “Stay committed and benchmark programs” “Take time to build relationships” “Find a place where people are equal (as basis for respect).”   Insights related to higher good “Finding the highest common denominator” “Commitment to relationship or higher goal” “Being clear on what is important” “Love helps people stay open and vulnerable” “Commitment to each other’s success”   Communication – how we are going to be in this space together “Need to reflect on when it is time for change” “Pay attention and be flexible” “Listening is the first step in conflict resolution (with openness to learn)” “Deconstruct Expectations” “Language and framing is important” “Being ‘real’ is important” “Listen for what wants to emerge” “Modeling honesty and vulnerability” “Look at things that are not consistent with self views” “Opportunities to connect, share stories, share the pain, heal” “Less is more” “Content (program) over structure” “Trust the process” “Listening and hearing” “Building trust and respect” “Naming the dynamics and dimensions” “Lay the groundwork (often face to face) essential for a potentially conflicted conversation” “Sharing different histories and perspectives helps to heal division between staff and board” “Take risks and speak honestly”   Miscellaneous “Be responsible, pay attention, action!” “Change needs pain” “Time (in due time) space between interactions” “Don’t be afraid to take on difficult discussions re: race; diversity” “Identify why important and how currently going about it” “Successful learners become more risk-averse” “Safety in learning increased with intra-cultural groupings” “If there is pain/discomfort, then examine/explore it!”

HYPOTHESES   “If we, as facilitators, are not afraid of conflict, then we can lesson the discomfort of the group and increase their ability to learn.” “If the group moves towards the pain, then they will dissolve it faster.” “If a group focuses its attention on the higher goal and/or relationships, then the group will be able to handle their conflict and discomfort and therefore learn from it.” “If we develop ground rules, then we can engage in more honest and fruitful conversations.” “When/if dealing with and confronting learnings around race and culture (i.e. organizational racism), then creating opportunities to build and support relationships, trust and communication will result in deeper understanding and more impactful learning.” “If organizations become more like communities than corporations, then we can build more loving and understanding relationships to get us through the hard stuff.” “If we tell the ‘real truth’, then learning will happen deeply and more easily.” “If we acknowledge that the solution might be a different one than we are expecting, then we could more successfully resolve conflicts.” “If we know what is ‘true’, then learning will happen easier.” “If we focus on listening to our clients/customers/constituents, then we will not need to spend as much on program development.” “If we build in transparency of process, then we will get more help.” “If we focus on how to structure processes, then we will have stronger rewards.” “If the group has high commitment to its goal or relationships, then the group can push through discomfort and conflict.” “If time is structured to reflect on work/life, then you will be better able to identify/change/encourage current practices.” “If you keep your eyes on higher goals, then you will be better able to change/create innovative tactics/structure.” “If you can’t change the (external) conflict, then find an internal (community) resource to change our experience of it”

GROUND TRUTH   “Greater understanding reached through personal stories” “Aren’t you lucky we are here to help you?” “Recognizing Cultural Differences” “Allowing for Multiple Realities to Exist” “Distracting intense conflict can override learning opportunity” “Moving from ‘Tell us how…’ to ‘We are the answer’…” “Let it go! Let it emerge!” “Share the hot tub with the frog…” “Creating Space IX” “Community Outlives Organization” “Utilize Teams” “The Rug” “Interpersonal Conflict” “Work style clash” “Look deep into the pain” “Changing Dynamics – Conflict or Success?” “ ‘If I’m really honest…’”

OPPORTUNITIES   “Do we really need to test this?” Survey participants – before, after