Vision quest is a rites of passage usually undertooken by native americans and brought into a modern context. It is a very powerfull time for people to prepare for transistion (or confirmation), go out into solitude & wilderness and then come back into a community to share their gifts. Usually it is hosted by experienced guides or elders and in its full length it consists of 4 days preperation, 4 days/nights of solotime in nature and 4 days of integration. But the basic flow and the … Read more
Presencing The movement of letting go, listening into the silence and letting come
Presencing, described as a stage within the Theory U Process as well as other contemplative methods, is the capacity to connect to the deepest source of self, which allows the future to emerge from the whole rather than from a smaller part or a special interest group. Danish sculptor and management consultant Erik Lemcke describes his experience of this process as follows: “After having worked with a particular sculpture for some time, there comes a certain moment when things are changing. … Read more
Presenting your Project show your gifts and learn
Presenting your project is a great tool for many things: ● It helps you become more clear within yourself because you have to think about what you want to tell ● You can get great feedback from others and learn ● It is an important part in giving birth to your project: by talking the world starts to see it. So do it. This can be done in many ways (and is a fine art) here are some: ● create a poster (with premaid topics) and speak about that in front of one person, a group or an … Read more
Feedback skills Giving or receiving feedback is the Art of keeping our mind and our heart open to always be a student.
Increase our ability to give and receive feedback as a team will help us grow. Developing this capacity will help us face major conflicts or prevent them escalating. However, we need to be careful with the context in which people are not used to give and receive feedback. It is important to note the target goal, and my intention: am I releasing something and feeling better, or will this feedback serve to the common good? REFERENCES: https://www.cnvc.org/ … Read more
Project Management Making things happen on time, on budget and with ease
Planning and managing projects are core to your work as a social entrepreneur. Within any project, you will have to manage your resources people, time, money, materials, tools and combine them to get things done. And you need to do all this in a way that ensure you do not run out of money, lose your team, or become despondent. Ultimately, you are doing what you are doing because you love it! So, if you are not loving it, it is a good sign that something is wrong. Setting up a project … Read more
Systems Blindness Overcoming blind spots in planning for sustainability : spatial and temporal systems blindness
The first problem is exacerbated because problems like atmospheric pollution are increasingly cause by millions of small, incremental damaging contributions to the biosphere (eg aerosols, car exhausts) rather than large scale, more obvious ones (like oil spills, factories). It is a death from a million tiny cuts. We see the parts but not the hole: out of sight is out of mind. This is spatial blindness The second issue, temporal systems blindness, is caused because problems are often … Read more
Learning from Failure Daring to face what we’ve defined as failure
Take time to reflect on past failures. Feel the emotions that accompany these experiences. Make space for these. This might lead to a deeper integration. With support, create a space from which we can look back at these experiences and place them in a bigger context. Notice insights and learnings. Connect to the original intention and see if we feel drawn to revisit the scenario, in the light of this newfound wisdom. References: Exercise: Facing Failure Exercise: The Truth Mandala – … Read more
Embodying Success Exploring the roots of our leadership
Taking time to reflect and reconnect. This can be done in many different ways, including journaling, regular meditation, going into nature (e.g. vision quest). It is also helpful to create embodied experiences or “rituals” that honour our roots. References: ● Hillman, James. The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling. New York: Warner Books, 1997. ● Vision Quest: Retrieved March … Read more
Political Influencing Engaging in political reality so that what we think is right and needs to be done actually happens.
To become effective we need to understand how power operates, e.g. how decisions are actually made, how to build alliances and coalitions and how to sense the right moment to act. We need to give up the wish to be popular and understood by everyone. We need to surrender our naivety and be willing to take difficult decisions. In essence, to act ‘politically’. References: ● Exercise: Political Influencing (to be linked) ● … Read more
Negotiation Skills Win Win Win for Everyone
This is a metaskill and used in nearly every human situation where people have to share resources. Some people treat human relations as a war and so negotiation is a war. For others, where ensuring the best possible outcome for everyone is at the heart of the negotiation process, a very different approach is used. You need to listen attentively to what the other person wants. In some negotiation approaches, teachers or trainers suggest you learn as much about the other person before you … Read more
