Consultant as Plumber

About a year ago I was having my regularly monthly appointment with my oncologist (Homam Alkaied) when he came into the room and momentarily let his guard down. 

As a cancer doctor he sees sick people all day. He took one look at my numbers on the computer screen, smiled, and said, "Thank you. I needed somebody to be doing better today. The hardest part of my job is when I have to tell patients that we're out of options. Sometime the treatments don't work and we reach a point where there's nothing left to try. It's a heavy moment when I have to look someone in the eye and tell them the cancer is going to win. I've had a bad week of that and I really needed you—someone who's responding well to chemotherapy—to pick up my spirits." 

I told him, of course, that I was happy to be that guy.

• • •

I started with that story because there are times for me, as a process consultant, when my role runs parallel to that of Dr Alkaied's: when I have to tell clients the bad news. While in my case it's never literally life and death, it can nonetheless feel emotionally devastating—the death of a dream.

Perhaps half the time I'm hired to work with a group it's because of a crisis that the group has not been able to work through on its own. While the precipitating event may have been external (perhaps a nuisance lawsuit from a neighbor, or an adverse ruling by the county zoning board), when it comes to persistent conflict the heavy lifting always revolves around unresolved interpersonal tensions in the group. (Groups don't dial up the roto-rooter guy unless their interpersonal plumbing is backed up.)

When I'm called into those situations I never start with the assumption that it's too late. Going in, I always start with the idea that the tension can be ameliorated, and that I can guide the group back to health without losing anyone. The reality, however, is that I encounter a wide range of difficulties (the stakes can vary wildly: everything from hangnails to something terminal), and groups don't always call me right away. In the worst cases, I don't get brought in until well after the initial damage has occurred, and anaerobic infection is well advanced. Sometimes everyone can't be saved, and pruning is necessary for the health of the tree.

The Fog of Conflict
While it's tempting to chide groups for being idiots about the delay in asking for help ("Why did you wait so long to call? This could have been dealt with much more easily if I'd been asked in right away."), I've learned over the years to be more sympathetic, for a number of reasons:

o  When you're in it, it's often akin to what Robert McNamara styled "the fog of war." While the former Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson was referring to Vietnam, the principle is apt here as well: in the midst of conflict it's often confusing and difficult to see what's actually happening, much less the way through it. What becomes obvious in retrospect is anything but when events are first unfolding.

o  It further behooves the armchair analyst to keep in mind that living in intentional community is something that almost all members are doing for the first time in their life, which means that prior experience offers little guidance. They are traveling through terra incognita.

o  What's more, people don't come to community anticipating problems, so there is typically a miasma of distaste and shock (it never occurred to us that that could happen here) that enshrouds the uncertainty about how to respond. 
Considered all together, you have all the ingredients for a goat fuck—a lot of frenetic activity, accompanied by maximal messiness, minimal forethought, and more hurt feelings than you ever imagined possible. Yuk!

To be sure, not all crises spiral out of control to this extent. (Whew!) My point, however, is that they can, and it can happen to anyone. Good intentions are by no means a prophylactic against being visited by members masquerading as hormonal goats. Conflict can just do that to people, and groups, I've discovered, are never ready to ask for help until they're ready to ask for help. So I've learned to get over my dismay. Never mind how the group got there; here we are.

Testing for Will
Once I'm on site, I try to have as many one-on-one and one-on-two conversations as I can, the sum of which adds up to a picture of what's happened and where people are today (which may be quite different from where they were when the triggering incident occurred).

As someone who works a lot with cooperative groups in conflict, figuring out how to navigate tensions has become relatively straight forward for me (see Rules of Engagement for my thinking about that). The delicate part is determining what the group has the will to attempt, on the road to healing and righting the ship. Sometimes there's still a lot of fight left among protagonists and they're not ready to look in the mirror (no listening). Sometimes they're exhausted and so demoralized that half the group has one foot out the door (no hope). Sometimes, however, they're tied of squabbling, they're done being defensive, and they're ready to work—this is the ideal.

Commonly enough, I'm asked to be the plumber—the person brought in to unclog the crap that is stopping up the lines of sanitary communication. While it may be obvious to all concerned where the blockage is, it smells bad and no one wants to touch it. Some portion of the time this amounts to my being the one to have a come-to-Jesus meeting for the purpose of laying down reality about what's happening with one or more folks who are central to events and heavily invested in riverfront property in Egypt (living on the banks of denial).

In this line of work it helps that I've been buffeted around quite a bit. My resumé includes:
—40 years of community living experience
—30 years of consulting with over 100 cooperative groups
—Having been a community founder
—Having been divorced by my wife
—Having been asked by my community to not return after my divorce
—Surviving a near-death brush with cancer

Having lived through all that I'm pretty much shockproof and fearless. (What bad thing should I be afraid of?) While that doesn't mean I always get it right; it means I'm always going to try and that I have a large capacity to empathize with people in adversity. While I have a lot of scars, instead of making me tougher, I prefer to think I've been tenderized and made more resilient.

Finding the Right Words
A lot of my work revolves around being able to enter the chaos, quickly sort wheat from chaff, and set the table for the right conversations, in the right sequence. Not only do I have to understand the energy, but I need to be able to find the words that accurately convey its spirit. I need to be good in a storm—light on my feet in tossing seas, and calm amidst the howling wind.

What's more, I need to be able to get back up and brush myself off when I get knocked down, which invariably happens some portion of the time. While everyone enjoys clean plumbing, not everyone enjoys meeting the plumber, and it can be downright nauseating looking at what I find in the pipes.

While there can be catharsis and a tremendous release of tension when the things goes well, my work does not end with the first flush of clean water. I linger to assist the group in crafting a way to tell the tale, both to ground the lessons (no need to do that again) and to be able to share the story of adversity that is honest yet forward moving and dignified. In this the plumber's pen needs to be more incisive than his snake.

It's shitty work, but someone has to do it.

How My Approach to Clients Has Evolved

I've been a cooperative group process consultant for 28 years. Over that time I've made a number of adjustments to how I approach clients I'm seeing for the first time. While I have an a la carte menu of 12-14 training workshops (which has gradually grown from about three when I first started), most of the time I'm asked to tailor a program to the client. Generally that means there's a specific problem that the community has struggled to successfully address on its own, and there's the desire to learn how to handle that issue better in the future.

There is also a predictable range of support for bringing me in—all the way from yippee! to why do we need him? My liaisons to the group are generally from the yippee! crowd (which means that resistance may be understated) and I can count on the under-enthused to either skip the meetings that I'll facilitate (not infrequently they arrange for an "unavoidable" road trip during my visit) or constituting a skeptical peanut gallery. It goes with the territory.

My job is to arrive, sell myself as someone competent, and pull a rabbit out of the hat—all within 24-48 hours. Over my nearly three decades as an out-of-town gunslinger, I've adjusted my approach in some significant ways, all of which have increased the likelihood of my being effective. Here are half a dozen ways in which I work differently today:

I. I like to watch
It is often highly beneficial to observe a group in action before I start facilitating. While I rarely get the chance to do this (we're paying you to watch?) I can often see details and areas of struggle through observation that the group is not even aware of. Further, it helps me land my points about the theory of how to run good meetings if I can refer to actual, awkward moments while they're still fresh in everyone's mind.

II. I like to interview members up front
It used to be that if I was hired to work Saturday and Sunday that I'd show up Friday evening, and I'd jump into it from a cold start. Not any more. 

I've learned that it's better, if possible, to do considerable spade work before the plenaries begin. Talking with designated liaisons is good, but there's a danger of getting too little breadth of viewpoint relying solely on one or two spokespeople, plus I've discovered that it can help put everyone at ease if I arrive on site a couple days early (say Wednesday evening) for the express purpose of meeting with group members one-on-one or one-on-two for the purpose of their telling me directly what they think I ought to know, and to give them a chance to ask any questions about me. 

Not only do I get a richer picture of what's going on (having heard from many more voices), but the group feels that much more comfortable with me because I've already demonstrated my ability to listen carefully and to understand the complexities of community life. Thus, on Saturday morning I can hit the ground running.

Though I don't generally charge for those extra days, the payoff is huge. What happens in the pre-interviews? I generally ask people to address questions like the following:
 
o  What’s precious to you about living at community x? 

o  What challenges exist at community x for you, such that if they were resolved it would make your life there measurably better?
 
o  Is there any kind of support or improvement in community life such that if you got it, you’d be motivated to invest more personal time in the community?
 
o  What do you want me to know about community x?
 
o  How do you think we should focus the plenary time?

In all of the above, please be as specific as possible.

III. I try to combine theory and demonstration
Time is always at a premium—there is a definite limit to how many topics on which we can usefully engage. One of the ways I've learned to stretch things is by laying out theory (say of how to work constructively with conflict, or an effective way to manage an issue through plenary), followed immediately by a demonstration of the theory on a live example. That way the group gets both progress on the particular concern, as well as a demonstration of the pattern that they can apply to future concerns of the same ilk.Two for one.

While this approach entails some risk (what if the demonstration doesn't go so well?—it is, after all, unscripted), it's a wonderfully effective way to ground the learning. Groups will tend to remember the example more vividly than the theory.

IV. I write reports
I took me several years to understand that groups typically absorb only about 20% of what they're taught orally. Too much is happening in a tight time frame for all of it to be absorbed. 

This led me to make two important adjustments: 
a) Developing handouts to make plain the theory I want to teach, so that they can be referred to after I'm gone.

b) Writing an extensive report (that I commit to delivering within two weeks of the live work) that provides an overview of what happened, my commentary about what happened, and my observations and recommendations about where the group might usefully work in the work future.

That way, much more of the good that we accomplish has legs.

V. I like to meet with the process folks early and late
If possible I try to meet with the process folks (or facilitation team) of the host group. They are typically the group that will be responsible for making system changes (or at least shepherding the conversations about changes) and my preference is to meet with them both first thing when I arrive on site (so I understand well their needs and how I can best support them) and then again after the plenaries are over so that we can discuss why I made the choices I did and how I can support them carrying on after I depart.

This step makes it much more likely that forward momentum will be sustained.

VI. I will not duck the hard stuff
While there's a fair amount of pressure on me to be effective (the community has invested considerable time and money in working with me, and, understandably, they want value for their investment), I've learned that it's my job to tackle the hard issues, to the extent that the group is willing to go there. Sometimes this means taking the issues to a level of examination that is beyond what was asked of me, but once it's in the room, there you are.

While this doesn't always go well, I feel it's my duty to make an attempt if I can see a constructive angle of approach. One of the mantras I pass along to clients is "Have faith in the process." So this is a matter of integrity and walking my own talk. (Group process work is seldom dull.)

The 100,000-mile Community Tune Up

I've been a group process consultant for 28 years. For the first 26 years most of my work was focused on weathering storms, or training groups in foul weather drills, so that they could better handle heavy seas themselves.

In the last 18 months, however, there's been something of a sea change. In addition to the crisis management work I've always gotten, I've been hired to help five different cohousing communities struggling with who they are, 12-20 years after move in. Plus I've gotten inquiries from a handful more who are thinking about hiring someone to help with reinvigoration, to reset their gyroscope. Apparently it's a trend.

What's going on?

Actually, there are quite a number of things going on, and I've enumerated 10 of them below. While all these don't obtain in all situations, the factors I've named can reinforce each other to erode a sense of cohesion and group identity. If you have a number of these dynamics at play in your group, unaddressed they will almost certainly lead to diffusion and confusion. The good news is that this trend is reversible—if the group has the will to address them.

1. Changing of the Guard
Some founders have retired from active community life, moved or died. New members have replaced them, but the group is now different and hasn't yet gelled in the way that the original group did. This phenomenon tends to happen earlier with cohousing groups because they often include founding members north of 60, so it takes fewer years for some of the originals to age out.

[Note that while aging is inevitable, not gelling is not. See more about this under Point 6 below.]

2. Accumulation of Unresolved Hurts
This is a big one. Overall, it's the most common thing I'm asked to help with (often packaged with other issues). The wider culture handles this abysmally, and thus well-intended folks tend to come into the community experience with: a) the naive hope that conflict won't happen in Utopia; rather than b) the personal skills needed to navigate conflict well.

When tensions don't resolve—I'm not saying they never do, only that it is highly common for some of them not to, and that there is a cumulative effect of ignoring these that gets increasingly expensive—it's often tempting to settle for the simplistic analysis that it's the other person's fault (that efforts at resolving tensions have stalled out). It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how myopic and limited that thinking is.

3. The Three Musketeers Don't Live Here Any More
Often there is a special all-for-one-and-one-for-all quality that is manifested for those who went through the rush of development together that creates a special bond among founding members. This is a real thing and the community can often ride that wave of good feeling for a number of years before it peters out on the endless pebbled beaches of everyday living.

It's one thing to bond over the exhilarating heady days of first meetings, recruitment, planning, and construction, when everything is new and everything is possible. It's another to renew and maintain that sense of cohesion. Groups sometimes make the mistake of thinking that after having successfully navigated the rapids of development together, that they're bonded for life. Not so. The experience fades and latter-day residents can never touch that experience.

Lacking some of the more nuts and bolts ways that groups renew and sustain cohesion (see Points 5, 6, 7, and 9), it turns out that groups may have only created a temporary sense of community during the intensity of development, analogous to how neighbors rally around crisis (such as a tornado or flood) to pull together in ways that they ordinarily don't. Then, when the intensity of pioneering eases off and it's  a matter of living the life (settler phase), there is rarely something so compelling or urgent that pulls everyone together in the same way.

It turns out that community building is a lot like gardening: you can't just turn the soil, sow seeds, and walk away hoping to return periodically to harvest sustenance year after year; if you don't cultivate the crops, pretty soon the weeds take over.

4. Increase in Transients
Many communities experience over time an increase in the percentage of renters living in the community—both in-house and whole house. There are three points to make about this phenomenon. First, some groups treat renters as second-class citizens, perhaps by not extending to them the right to block in plenary. I think this is a mistake. Renters can be excellent members and it behooves the group to allow that to happen, expecting renters to have the same set of rights and responsibilities that owners have, excepting perhaps that they're not allowed to block decisions with long-term financial implications (such as the conditions under which capital reserve funds can be accessed). On a day-to-day level, there are very few issues where you wouldn't want renters to actively participate.

Second, it's worthwhile for the group to pause and try to understand what the trend toward more renters means. Are owners struggling to make ends meet where they weren't before? If so, is the community doing anything to help with that? Are owners wanting out, but can't sell their home because of a poor market? Assuming you'd rather have owner-occupied houses, how actively is the community working to make that happen (as opposed to relying primarily, or even solely, on exiting members to handle marketing and screen prospectives)?

Often groups have an active Membership Committee in the beginning, to sell out the lots, and then that team goes dormant once the project is sold out. That's a mistake! You should always have an active Membership Committee, with primary responsibility for:
o  Recruitment (if you have no openings, develop a waiting list, including for renters)
o  Orientation & Integration (see Point 6 below)
o  Exit Interviews (why did that owner sell?)

Third, it makes a difference how long someone is renting. Most groups feel that investing in screening and orienting isn't worth it for short-term rentals (90 days or less) but probably is for longer rentals. Further, there is the contemporary phenomenon of Airbnb—very short-term rentals—which pushes the envelope around safety, strain on common facilities (Common House laundry, Common House kitchen, parking), and overall sense of connection because you know your neighbors. This is worth a conversation.

5. Weakly Defined Common Values and Mission
A lot of cohousing communities have a casually defined sense of what values are shared among members. In fact, a number of groups proudly tell the world that they make no attempt to screen people, trusting that the right ones will find their way to community without any active guiding from current members. I call this member roulette, and I recommend against it.

The truth is, not everyone is going to be a suitable member of your community, and not all collections of people are going to enjoy living together. There needs to be some discernment (by which I mean something more substantive than whether their checks clear), and that starts with defining what the group stands for and what it intends to do in the world—so that prospectives can do a better job of self-screening for appropriateness, and the community has a rational basis for rejecting someone who doesn't appear to be a good fit—what's the point of slogging through 2-3 years of mutual misery to conclude what you could have reasonably projected before move in? Grow a pair.

But defining common values has more application than merely helping with recruitment and new resident selection. Common values are the bedrock that you build all community agreements upon. They are the basis for discerning which factors need to be taken into account when wrestling with whole-group issues (because they are tied to common values) and which can be set aside as personal interests (because they are not tied to common values). Lacking clarity about this inevitably leads to getting bogged down in the swamp of strongly held personal interests (because there's no basis to exclude them).

By clarifying values and mission the community creates a beacon of light that will draw in people who are a good fit. Lacking clarity you have a fog, which doesn't particularly attract anyone, excepting the lost.

6. Weak Orientation and Integration of New Residents
I spoke above (Point 4) about the importance of having an active Membership Committee. Sometimes groups do a decent job of marketing, yet fall down on the second part of (what I propose as) their mandate: orientation and integration of new residents. Some groups feel that they've done their job if they hand new folks a fat notebook chock full of FAQ, member rules and guidelines, a map of the property, an explanation of the committee structure, and an agreement log.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea to have that notebook, but I don't think it's anywhere near enough. New people often don't even know what questions to ask. Give new residents a buddy for six months who will be pro-active in sitting down with the new folks to help demystify community life (including debriefing community meetings). Expect each standing committee to be responsible for providing an orientation about what they do in lay terms for the new people.

Remember: it's far cheaper to retain a member than to replace one. It falls to the existing members to take the lead on this (rather than asking the new folks to pound on the walls until a door pops open).

7. Martyrs and Slackers Dynamics
This is the most common aspect of community life that I'm asked to handle as an outside facilitator: the accumulation of tension related to the uneven level of participation among members (non-monetary contributions to the maintenance and well being of the community). People are labeled "slackers" because they do not appear to be doing their share of the work, even though it appears they are able-bodied and could. People are labeled "martyrs" because they pick up the slack and then act as if they deserve extra power (that is, additional weight should be given to their views and preferences) by virtue of their having done more than others—even though they weren't asked to do more.

Unaddressed, these dynamics lead to demoralization, a gradual build-up of tensions that leak into other aspects of community life, and a decrease in participation overall (why bother if others aren't going to do their fair share). Yuck.

This is a specific example of Point 2. I think that all groups have a periodic need to talk about this, to clear the air. Think of it like going to the dentist. While it may not be an enjoyable prospect, you need to regularly remove the plaque from your teeth if you want to keep them. Unattended to, your teeth fall out (the bottom drops out of participation) and you're left with little more than a neighborhood condo association—and have to live on a diet of applesauce and mashed turnips, which is not the community you had in mind.

8. No Lights on in the Common House
Over time, most cohousing groups experience a decrease in how much the Common House is used. There are fewer community meals, fewer community meetings, a seldom used library, and even a decrease in social events. While this tends to follow from some of the other problems listed here (rather than create them), it's a relatively easy symptom to track.

The sad thing is that the Common House was expensive to build, and represents an ideal of shared space, where everyone's occasional need for large-scale events could be accommodated. However, when the sense of community is weakened, so is the desire to share, and common facilities go underused.

9. Lack of Clarity about What's Wanted from Leaders 
All groups need leaders. While that role can be filled by different members at different times (that is, communities don't need a single person to be the leader), we need organizers, cheerleaders, bridge-builders, articulators, and people who'll stick their thumb in the dike.

Unfortunately, most groups have not taken the time to articulate what qualities they want in leaders, and someone volunteering to serve in a leadership capacity tends to be viewed as prima facie evidence of that person having inadequate ego management. We need to do better than that.

Groups need to be able to talk openly about how power is distributed in the group, and what can be done to adjust that if we want it to be different (short of lopping off heads). We need to be able to distinguish between good uses of power (for the benefit of all) from bad uses (for the benefit of some at the expense of others). We need models of healthy leadership so that we can celebrate when someone does a good job, and have objective criteria to use when trying to help someone improve.

Lacking this clarity there is a tendency for the criticism of leaders to get all out of proportion to their appreciation, with the result that people don't want to serve in that capacity (because they're tired of taking arrows). While I guess you could make the case that no one serving as a leader is equality of a kind, it's pretty miserable.

10. Size Matters
Finally, I want to note that it's harder to maintain cohesion in a larger group, and most cohousing groups have at least 30 members, with many over 50. While no cohousing group, to my knowledge, is so large that people have trouble learning each others' names, it gets increasingly hard to establish and maintain close friendships beyond 20, and it's close friendships that are the life blood of community.

When groups are seeking reinvigoration, they're looking for a greater sense of common identity with the group. While you don't need to feel like every other resident is a close friend in order to achieve that, it's important that your circle of close friends in the group associates that bond with the community.

• • •

When I'm asked to work with groups seeking renewal, I like to spend a couple days ahead of the whole-group time in one-on-one and two-on-one interviews to listen to the stories about what the community has meant to members in the past, to learn what's been precious to them in earlier years, and to assess what they're available for in terms of turning things around now.

While there are no doubt patterns as to how groups get stuck and how they might get unstuck, the key to successful work is building on the assets and desires of that group, and for that there is no substitute for listening. I've found that people will tell you what is in their hearts of you take the time to listen.

So that's the story of how I've recently become a community mechanic—helping with 100,000-mile tune-ups. Two years ago I didn't have the slightest inkling that it might turn into a market niche for me. Now here I am, trying to remember where I put that left-handed smoke bender…

Tarheel Transition

As a process consultant, almost all of my work involves traveling to the client and engaging with them in situ (much better than asking the group to travel to my situ).

Since hanging out a shingle as a process consultant in 1987, I've called Missouri my home the entire time, which afforded me the witty opener, "I'm from Missouri, and I've come to show you." OK, maybe it's not the funniest of one liners, but it was serviceable… until today.

I'm now a North Carolinian.

I piled what I could fit into a compact one-way rental Tuesday afternoon and drove away from Dancing Rabbit and into a new adventure. I'll be trying to reinvent myself in the coming months. Here's what I have in front of me:

1. Consulting/Teaching Transition
Though my work has been steady in recent years (unlike almost everything else listed below), I'm increasingly interested in handing off to others what I've learned, which means shifting purposefully from doing to teaching. The tricky part is that demonstrating what I can do is the main way I generate students, so there's a balance point. [For details about the facilitation trainings I'm offering currently, see my blog Facilitation Trainings on Tap from March 22, 2015.]

The context of my work has always been nurturing cooperative culture, as distinct from the dominant, competitive culture. Increasingly, my work comes in two flavors:

a) Process ConsultingFor the last 28 years my main focus as a consultant has been cooperative group dynamics. Mostly I've worked solo, but occasionally I partner up. Now, moving in with Joe and Maria, we'll be discussing whether it makes sense to form a process collective. They have both parlayed their experience (which includes being students of mine in the two-year facilitation program I run—but don't misunderstand; they were already the main facilitators in their respective communities before I met them—I was polishing diamonds) into occasional facilitation gigs in the region and would like to do more. Though neither has left their day job (yet) it may be a way to accelerate their facilitation careers and at the same time accomplish more of the handing off that I'm seeking.

Auspiciously, Joe & Maria worked with me to conduct sold-out pre-conference workshops (one on Facilitation & Leadership, and another on Conflict) at the recent National Cohousing Conference in Durham (May 29-31) and both were well received. In the days ahead we'll discuss what more we might do together.

b) Economic Consulting
In recent years I've gotten steadily more interested in opening a second front, turning my attention to the poor stepchild of sustainability: cooperative economics. For this, my primary partner is Terry O'Keefe, who lives in Asheville NC. While still 3.5 hours away by car, that's a helluva lot closer than Missouri.

We also did a packed-room workshop at the cohousing event, and it also was well received. Flushed with that experience, Terry and I need to cook up what's next in our efforts to light a fire among cooperative groups to take a pro-active interest in supporting their members having more economically sustainable lives.

While we're not sure what the business model is for our being fairly compensated for this work, we're both entrepreneurial by nature (read risk tolerant) and can't help ourselves from testing the market.

2. Home Transition
One of the casualties of Ma'ikwe's decision in Feb to end our marriage was that I no longer had a home. To be sure, I could have remained at Dancing Rabbit—both the community and Ma'ikwe were fine with that—but DR was Ma'ikwe's home before it was mine and it's too tender for me right now to be operating under her shadow. 

So I'm trying something new. I'll be experimenting in the coming months with what I can create with Joe & Maria: three people who care deeply about community, social change work, right livelihood, and leading an examined life. It's a great foundation. While I went through a period of wondering what the existential reason was for my being tested in this way, I've now worked myself around to being eager for the chance.

One of the larger unknowns for me is what I'll be able to manifest relative to connection to the Earth. Slowly, over a process of decades, that became an essential element of what made Sandhill Farm (a food-centered community) my home, and now I've moved into a house that does not include a garden. Maybe I'll wind up doing some canning from farmer's market surpluses in July and August. We'll see.

Chapel Hill is a great location for securing locally grown wholesome food, and there's a great local co-op (Weaver St Market) but I haven't been so removed from my food in over four decades. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

3. Partnership Transition
Obviously a huge shift happened for me when I lost my partner. I think being away from DR will make it easier for me to process my grieving to the point where I can again be open to a new relationship. I don't feel any hurry, yet I also don't want to be afraid to get back on the horse—despite suffering a nasty fall.

Among other things, I am blessed with many good friends (who have provided wonderful support for me the last four months) and I don't feel lonely or lacking in emotional depth in my life. My scars will heal and I'll get to the place where other women will be interesting again.

4. Health Transition
It has been an incredibly long haul trying to recover from back strain that originated in early October and persists to this day. But I'm determined to recover all that I can of my health and mobility. 

One of side benefits of my new digs is that I'm on the third floor and climbing two flights of stairs after pouring a cup of coffee is both aerobic and good for my right knee, which is still not 100% after I hyper-extended it in September 2012.

I am just about well enough to restart a regular (if gentle) yoga practice, and I'm looking forward to that.

5. FIC Transition
The year is about half over, and that also marks the halfway mark in training my two main successors in Fellowship administration: Aurora DeMarco as our Development Director, and Sky Blue as our Executive Director.

The trainings have been going well and I'll be ready to turn over the reins at the end of the year as planned. While I'm sure I'll still be involved in FIC affairs in the years ahead (I represent an enormous investment in relationships, after all, and it would be a shame to squander that asset), I don't know yet what that will look like.

In fact, there's a lot about my life right now that I don't know about. It's an interesting time.

Balancing Listening and Speaking

I got in trouble recently when working with a client that had brought me in to help the group understand consensus better. Though they'd been living together for six years—and making decisions by consensus all that time—they'd never done any training in it.

My work with the client began one evening when I listened to a subgroup of about 6-7 folks provide background on the topic they wanted me to use as a demonstration for how to handle a complex and vexing issue. After listening to a round of everyone saying what they thought I ought to know about the topic, I started asking questions about what they had tried or whether they had a committee in place who's job it was to be concerned with certain things bearing on the issue. When the responses were mostly negative, I proceeded to outline some suggestions for different things to try… and that didn't sit well.

At least for one person, I was making suggestions far too soon. She and her partner had put in a tremendous amount of effort over the years to help with the community's various challenges, and was put off by my suggesting initiatives less than an hour into my visit. (I couldn't possibly know all that had been tried, and she felt her family's efforts were being cavalierly dismissed.)

As a process consultant, I'm expected—in a short time—to accomplish five things: find out what's happening in the client group, connect the dots among people's statements about history and the current state of affairs, outline a pathway through stuck dynamics, lead the group down that path, and recommend changes designed to improve group function in the future.

Though I demonstrably have a lot to do under tight time constraints, sometimes I go too fast.

To be clear, my venturing into potential responses in the first hour of my visit did not land poorly with everyone. In fact, most of the others in that initial meeting were intrigued (and hopeful) that I had ideas of different things to try—which was the response I was hoping for. Yet for at least one person, that approach didn't work. While I was able to meet with her later and repair the damage—so that we could work together productively the bulk of the weekend—it would have been better if I had read her more accurately in the first place. While it's good to mend fences, it's better yet to not damage them.

Here's a fuller statement of what I'm typically attempting in a weekend:

I. Find Out What's Happening
This has several components:

o  What happening on this topic today (this includes existing agreements, whether they're being adhered to, and where the tensions lie).
o  What's the relevant history on the topic, leading up to where we are today?
o  How are people relating to the topic emotionally (irritated, bemused, concerned, angry, afraid, bored… )?
o  What, if anything, has already been tried to address this issue, and with what results?
o  How urgent is movement on this topic relative to other challenges the group is wrestling with?
o  Are there any players in the penalty box (by which I mean labeled intractable and badly behaved)?

II. Connect the Dots
On the surface, this means:

o  To what extent do the stories from group members differ? Is it a matter of different emphasis, or are they working from different "facts"?
o  What are themes that will need attention in order to work through the topic? How many strands are there to work?

Below the surface, this means:

o  How volatile does the topic seem to be? To what extent are the players holding unresolved tension that's likely to distort our ability to be productive in problem solving?
o  How are the personalities and styles of some likely to triggering poor reactions in others?
o  How well do people seem to be hearing each other—especially when their input and viewpoints vary?
o  To what extent is the stuckness attributable to poor process, a weak sense of common values, a clash of principles, a clash of personalities, or some combination of the above.

III. Lay out a Pathway Through the Thicket
Based on what I'm hearing and observing, I need to map out a route to guide the group from where they are to something more resolved and more unified. This means not only figuring what to do about the topic we're focusing on, but getting there in such a way that people feel better connected and less tense. In short, I need to attend to both energy and content.

Further, I need to be able to explain the route—both what we'll be doing and why—so that people know what's being asked of them, the sequence in which things will happen, and why I'm asking them to stretch and try something less familiar.

IV. Lead the Group Down the Path
Then, of course, I have to execute the plan. Sometimes this comes across as firewalking (when I ask them to follow me into the scary territory of unpacking emotional distress); sometimes this is experienced as pulling a rabbit out of a hat (when I'm able to see a workable solution to the issue before anyone else); sometimes it's mostly about managing the discussion: keeping people on topic, limiting repetition, summarizing frequently, altering formats to keep people fresh.

I have to walk my talk.

V. Recommend Next Steps
This comes in two flavors:

A. Work remaining to complete the issue
Most of the time groups ask me to tackle an issue that's both complicated (many threads) and volatile (impacted distress), and it's not possible to both teach what I'm doing and complete the work on the issue. Thus, it is common that work remains when the time runs out and it's my job to leave the group with a recommended sequence for how to frame the remaining subtopics and a recommended order in which to address them.

B. Changes in how the group handles issues
To the extent that I've been successful in moving things along on the topic, I've given the group a first-hand taste of why my approach may be worth adopting. In my report, I'll lay out discrete changes they may make in how they do things—a sample of which they'd just experienced—in order to extend that success to future issues.

• • •

With all of this in motion, it can be a strain at times to resist moving onto the next step when I'm ready—to allow adequate time for the client to complete the step that's gone before. Sometimes I get the timing wrong.

Show for Shirt and Shine

As a consultant I float a lot of bread on the water.

Every year I attend community events and offer workshops without compensation so that people can get a taste of what I know, and how I deliver it. Sometimes this leads to paid work directly (within 12 months); sometimes the seeds are slow germinating and the fruit doesn’t ripen for years (last year, for example, I worked for a group that I first interested in 2003—it was a long wait); sometimes nothing happens.

I was doing a version of that at the Twin Oaks Communities Conference last weekend, when I moderated a panel on Radical Sharing Platforms, conducted a discussion exploring Community Businesses (their challenges and opportunities), and led an introductory workshop on Consensus & Facilitation.

Following the weekend I spent three days in Floyd VA visiting my dear friend Annie. While there, I was approached by a nearby forming community who got excited about how I might be able to assist their formation based on the taste a couple members had gotten at the Twin Oaks event. Thus, on Thursday (while Annie worked for a neighbor) I was whisked away for three hours with the new group: a quick one-hour tour of the built facilities and the new construction in progress, followed by a two-hour power lunch with nine folks, none of whom had ever lived in community before. Happily, they were an eager audience, the conversation was fast paced, and I had a lot of fun.

I knew going in that this was a pro bono demonstration of what I might be able to offer as a consultant, and it’s too early to tell if any seeds I sowed with this group will sprout or not. In the restaurant business, they’d call what I did a “show,” where would-be customers are given a look at servings of what’s on the menu to see if it’s ample enough and mouthwatering enough to order. (For some reason this request is particularly common at barbecue joints.)

After two hours of fielding rapid-fire questions about foundational structure and community agreements (we ran out of time, not questions) people were in a pretty good mood. As a thank you, my host offered me a t-shirt with the community logo on it, which I gracefully accepted (I can always use a new t-shirt). While I’ve collected quite a few of those from clients over the years (as well as bill caps), I enjoy getting them. Then it got better.

Among the nine gathered for lunch was a neighbor who was somewhere north of 60—yet sharp, spry, and entrepreneurial. We'd had some productive exchanges and I'd enjoyed the repartee. As we were getting up from the table she asked me to keep a lookout on her behalf for a new husband. I double clutched for half a second to make sure she was serious (she was), and then promptly promised to keep my eyes open. While that request is much rarer than the offer of a t-shirt, it’s not the first time I’ve been asked to provide yenta services on the side, nor do I expect it to be the last.

When I related the story to Annie and Carla (a mutual friend who arrived at Annie’s for an overnight just as I returned from my “show”), they both wanted to know if the woman was indirectly inquiring about my availability to play stallion. While flattering on some level, I quickly quashed that idea. I’ve got all the woman I can handle back in Missouri.

Then it got more interesting still (so to speak).

In our final minutes together we somehow wandered into a light-hearted conversation about local culture, and before I knew it someone had gone into the kitchen and returned with mason jar of clear, local moonshine—which the husband-seeking widow was happy to sample straight from the jar (at one in the afternoon, mind you) offering me an on-the-spot testament as to its authenticity and potency—after which the remainder was pressed upon me as a token of their appreciation for the day.

This exchange immediately evoked for me the 2008 novel by Matt Bondurant, The Wettest County in the World, which describes (with poetic license) the wild bootlegging days of his forefathers in Franklin County VA (which is quite close to where this exchange took place). And I naively thought this activity had largely evaporated in the first half of the 20th Century. Ha ha.

There was definitely something different about this group, and they’d finally hit upon something I’d never been offered or requested before. While there’s no knowing where this might lead, one thing is certain: we took a shine to each other and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Talking to My Laptop

Starting July 2, and continuing every week until Aug 13, I'll be conducting a series of webinars about group dynamics every Wednesday afternoon. (See Laird's Greatest Hits for details.)

On the one hand, I'm thoroughly familiar with the material that I'll be presenting—all of the topics have been selected from workshops that I've delivered multiple times:
July 2: Consensus 101
July 9: Conflict: Fight, Flight, or Opportunity?
July 16: Membership: Questions You Should Have Asked Before Joining
July 23: Participation: Navigating the Swamp of Non-monetary Member Contributions to the Group
July 30: The Essentials of Dynamic Facilitation: How to Get Through the Agenda and Build Energy at the Same Time
Aug 6: Power Dynamics & Leadership in Cooperative Groups
Aug 13: Stump the Chumps: Q&A Session with Laird and Ma'ikwe about Cooperative Group Dynamics

What's different is that I'll be talking to my laptop rather than a roomful of faces, and I wonder how that will go.

As I have two hours set aside for each webinar, I think the time will naturally divide into two segments: 60-75 minutes of presentation, followed by 45-60 minutes of Q&A. The big question mark for me will be operating without the visual cues about how my presentation is landing with the audience (my laptop never smiles or even looks confused). Fortunately, Ma'ikwe will by monitoring comments and questions, funneling them to me as appropriate, so I won't have to be tracking chat boxes or hand waving graphics while working through my presentation outline (whew).

In the next couple weeks I'll prepare by walking through each of my presentations, looking for natural places to pause and ask questions of the audience, so that I'll be better able to gauge how well my points are getting across, adjusting as needed.

While we'll be offering electronic downloads of the webinars for people who miss the live presentations (look for this offering on the Ecovillage Education US website), the people joining us on Wednesday afternoons will get the greatest value, as they'll be able to pose their questions on the spot.

While I love working directly with people in the room, venturing into the electronic future seems inevitable. Not only does this give prospective clients a taste of who I am and what I can deliver, it bridges distance and eliminates commuting. What I'll be offering here is a small taste of the online instructional possibilities being offered by MOOCs: massive open online courses, where many people can get access to information inexpensively, and is already impacting university enrollment.

The difference in this case is that the number of webinar participants will be small enough that each can reasonably expect to get personal questions addressed. If this were being offered to 1000 people at once (in a real MOOC) that wouldn't be the case. While there's no question that being electronically connected is not the same as being in the same room, the exchange requires a much smaller investment of time and money and it's good to be experimenting with this medium. I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes and having some fun with it.

I hope some of you will join us on the 2nd.

Waging Peace

Whenever I work with a group for the first time I start off with a brief introduction of who I am and how I approach my work. (Of course, the folks who hired me already know my background—I hope—but usually the whole group doesn't.)

I tell them I've lived in intentional community for 40 years, and have been a process consultant for two-thirds of that, which, when combined, means I've been to a lot of meetings. Not only do I have plenty at home, but I travel around the country to attend more.

For the most part, groups hire me to help them: a) get past a stuck dynamic that's proven resistant or beyond the capacity of internal facilitators (Laird as hired gun); b) learn how to understand group dynamics better—I offer a la carte or customized trainings in consensus, conflict, delegation, facilitation, membership, diversity, power dynamics, and cooperative leadership (Laird as mentor); c) find out what other groups have done when wrestling with the same thorny issues (Laird as Google); or d) some combination of all three (Laird as magician).

While the client group is invariably thinking about how I can guide them through the wilderness—hey, after 40 years I've been there—I make sure they understand that my context is much broader. I see a world in trouble, and cooperative groups as potential points of light in the darkness.

I see increasing alienation and fragmentation. I see a marked degradation in political civility. I see the steady erosion of community (the sense of connection, identity, and belonging) in neighborhoods, schools, congregations, and the workplace. I see a squeeze on planetary resources and a human population that is out of control. 

I anticipate a future not very far in front of us where people will need to learn how to consume resources at 10% of the current US rate or there won't be enough for all. While I think this is doable, it will require a great deal more sharing than we're currently used to. It means we'll have to learn how to cooperate.

Unless we're OK with sorting this out through war—which I am not—we're going to have to learn how to solve problems collaboratively. We're going to have to learn how to disagree about things that really matter and come through that engagement feeling closer and energized, rather than worn down, divided, or defeated.

I tell clients that I am developing the fundamental building blocks of world peace, one group at a time. I tell them that I am working as hard as I can to instill the skills needed for a soft landing as the world hurtles toward a brick wall defined by oil depletion, climate change, rising population, and the gross imbalance of wealth.

After that stump speech I move on to tell them how I'll operate. While I'm deeply committed to peace and cooperation, I'm not Mr. Nice Guy. While I'm not grim (where's the fun in that?) I'm a passionate person who operates mostly in an up-tempo mode (I don't believe in dull or unproductive meetings). I will cut off repetition and I'll redirect off-topic comments. If someone is spouting bullshit, I'll call them on it. 

I'm agreement prejudiced, which means that if I get a whiff of a meaningful way to connect two parties at odds, they're going to hear my idea at the first opportunity. To be clear, if I miss the mark (and my proposal is not so brilliant), I'll back down gracefully. I don't twist arms or impose resolution; I just don't pussyfoot around. (I'm often the first person in the room to see a workable solution because I take the novel approach of looking for common ground before looking for differences. And when I see a potential agreement I'm ruthless about getting it on the table.) 

If people are in distress, I lean into it. Not because I'm an emotional vampire, or enjoy people squirming, but because there's information concentrated in the reaction and I know we're close to the energetic center, which is the wellspring of inspiration and heart-forged agreements. That is, the accurate and compassionate recognition of upset will invariably lead to the heart—both of the players and of the issue—and will provide the clues needed to create a durable bridge between parties in tension.

I think of what I do as waging peace, and there's nothing wimpy about it.

Making Omelets for Cooperative Groups

As a process consultant, most times my work with a client involves putting out a fire. To be sure, I'm often asked to teach how to prevent fires as well, but most times there's one already burning before I get the call.

Sometimes, in the process of extinguishing one blaze I uncover another and there's not time to handle both. Several months ago that happened to me and I made the choice to keep my focus on the problem I was asked to address, letting the new fire smoulder while I attended to the original one. 

In the final hour of my time with that group, we were headed toward a solid conclusion—where the fire was coming under control—when suddenly someone in the group unexpectedly tossed a gas can into the meeting, a couple folks got badly burned (I'm still speaking metaphorically) and stomped out of the room, leaving me to pick over the charred remains, and tend to the wounded as best I could. It was not the ending I or anyone else was looking for.

The group was frustrated at not getting a happy ending, and the people at risk from the new fire (the one I uncovered and didn't address) were doubly disappointed because now there were two fires and I was going home.

While I tried to set up a fire brigade for the new blaze (a plan for how it would be dealt with as a priority after my departure), and I pointed out that knowledge of the new fire was itself product (because it's much better knowing there's a fire and its location then mistakenly thinking there isn't one), those offerings brought scant joy. In consequence, there is a significant fraction of the group that came away from the weekend with the feeling that they were burned by me, and want no part of my working with the group again.

While that's sad for me, it goes with the territory, and that's what I want to focus on in this blog. 

While I'm brave enough (or foolish enough) to always think I can help a group in trouble, the truth is my work is not always effective. Perhaps I don't learn enough about the full dimensions of the problem ahead of time; perhaps I don't find a way to connect with all the stakeholders; perhaps I make a poor choice about how to proceed, or misinterpret a key statement; perhaps I underestimate how long it will take to clean the wound, apply the salve, and bandage the patient.

In any event, my souffles don't always rise; sometimes they fall flat. What I don't do is play it safe. If I was hired to put out a fire, then I'll do my best to extinguish that sucker, which almost always means working close to the heat and under pressure from the clock.

Completing the transition to a cooking metaphor, I'm reminded of the famous Harry Truman quote, If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. As a process consultant I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, trying to turn grease fires into tasty meals. With the group I mentioned above, the dinner party was naturally disappointed by the food displayed at the end of the weekend: charred on the outside and undercooked in the middle. 

On the one hand, it makes sense to not bring back a guest chef who didn't produce a delectable meal the last time. On the other, I was asked to work in a kitchen that no one else wanted to enter, to demonstrate how it was possible to produce good food (unifying agreements) without building a new kitchen (switching to a different decision-making process), or firing some of the kitchen staff (asking some challenging folks to leave the community).

In a hot kitchen, I work deliberately and with purpose. While I try not to rush, I meet people head on, making sure I've heard what they have to tell me, letting them know how that fits (or doesn't fit) with what others have said, what I'm doing with all that I've heard, and what the plan is.

Not everyone responds well to my directness. Not everyone likes it when I share news from others that they don't want to hear. I don't always make a good choice in how I share hard information. There is always room for me to improve; ways in which I can learn to be less triggering and more compassionate. In short, I can always be a better short order cook, and it's on me to find the lessons when meals I prepare go uneaten.

All of that said, if someone wants an omelet, it will necessarily mean breaking eggs. Even though there may later be remorse over the unborn chickens or the lost beauty of whole eggs—for which I can have genuine sympathy—I will always break the eggs once an omelet has been ordered. Even when the customer tells me after the fact that they didn't really want an omelet, it's my job to hear that with as much grace as possible… and then prepare myself to go back into the kitchen.

If you need clients to like what you cook every time, I agree with our 33rd President: stay out of the kitchen.

Having a Good Time Playing at a Consensus Workshop

I've been a process consultant for 25 years now. My first gig was back in December 1987, working as an outside facilitator alongside Lysbeth Borie from Alpha Farm assisting Appletree, a fledgling income-sharing group outside Cottage Grove OR that's no longer extant (they slid below the waves in the early 90s).

From that tentative start, I've slowly built up my consulting business to where I do 15-20 jobs a year—ranging from workshops and trainings to crisis management, which includes mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, expulsion hearings, and soft landings for groups trying to split up (without tearing each other apart).

Throughout, the two bread and butter services that I'm asked to provide most frequently are consensus training and outside facilitation. I spent yesterday doing both for a collection of 19 brave souls who chose to spend a nice spring Saturday with me at the Raleigh Court United Methodist Church in Roanoke VA. It was a lot of fun.

I had six hours for the workshop, which is incredibly spacious when contrasted with the much more spartan 90 minutes I typically have to shoehorn my delivery into. My audience had a nice range: one woman had spent the last five years as part of a Quaker meeting; six came as part of a forming cohousing group in Floyd VA (Jubilee) that had committed to using consensus as their decision-making process (and had gotten far enough along to realize that was a good idea to learn how to do it); one guy was hoping it would help him figure out how to have more meaningful conversations with his seven adult daughters (two of whom were in the room); a few were connected with local peace and conflict resolution centers, hoping to expand upon their skill set; one was a minister curious about the ways that he might develop a more robust sense of community among his congregation; and one young man in his 20s was there because his mother had suggested it and he couldn't say no (she was sitting right next to him). In short it was an eclectic, more-or-less average group.

During the morning I was able to cover the highlights of consensus theory, with ample room to explore interesting side inlets as they opened up along our way traveling down the main channel of my presentation. There was also enough breathing room to tell illuminating stories that reinforce the theory (or showcase my aha! experiences en route to consensus enlightenment).

After an hour-long lunch break (where yummy locally-produced food was brought in), we shifted in the afternoon to test driving my theories. Participants were encouraged to name tricky group dynamics to see how they might play out using consensus.

The afternoon flew by as way sampled a smörgåsbord of group issues. Along the way, the group got to see:

o  How tricky it is to respond to distress with curiosity (instead of reactivity).

o  A demonstration of translation: being able to restate what Person A says into language that Person B can hear better (with less reaction) while still conveying the essence of what Person A intended.

o  The importance of a group being clear about the expectations of members providing a known channel for receiving feedback to each other about their behavior as a member of the group, and being able to recognize when interactions that would normally be seen as private drift across the line into having an impact on the group. (The issue here was a forming group that two women both wanted to join—but not if the other was a member. The group was too new to have any agreements in place about how to handle interpersonal tensions. As if that's not complicated enough, dynamics were further compounded by the fact this was a peace group. Uh oh.)

o  How to work a thorny issue (whether or not to have restrictions on outdoor cats in a residential community) by giving two people with tense energy a lot of air time (rather than just their proportionate share), so long as neither is stuck and they're moving toward common ground. The idea here is that sometimes it's more efficient to give outliers a greater focus under the notion that if you can find something that will work for them, the rest of the group is likely to go along. While demonstrable unequal, it can be surprisingly effective.

o  The value of a facilitator who can maintain an open and connecting attitude to all statements. We worked the topic of whether to allow musical instrumentation other than an organ in church services. We discussed whether other instruments were somehow less spiritual (by virtue of being less traditional), whether it made a difference if the other instruments were acoustic or electric, whether the congregation could afford it, and the potential impact of attracting younger and/or more culturally diverse members by embracing instrumentation that was more appealing to those under-represented segments of the population. They were inspired by how I could weave together all the threads of that conversation in one summary, honoring everyone's input.

At the and of the day, I got a bucketful of positive comments:

o  Can see clearly how skilled facilitation can make a large difference to the tone and productivity of a conversation
o  The day was done without Power Point (or any electrics)
o  Interactive and inspiring
o  The interactive role plays worked wonderfully after lunch to counteractive the near-universal desire for a nap

o  Was able to apply the principles to a variety of real issues
o  Laird's enthusiasm and passion for this work
o  The material inspired one participant to reevaluate their life (not just their meeting behavior)
o  Ability to manage workshop time well (protecting breaks and ending times)
o  There was plenty of room for questions
o  Introduction to working emotionally
o  Use of brass bells to call people back to their seats after a break (much nicer than shouting)
o  Humor and up-tempo energy
o  Stories that illuminated the theory
o  Accessibility of the information
o  We want more!

On the the other side of the ledger, people mentioned that:
o  I could have done a made more room to hear from those who were more quiet and less assertive
o  The amount of information was overwhelming

• • •

My favorite moment of the day was right before lunch when someone asked how to work with feelings in consensus, and I gave a five-minute overview (condensed radically from a multi-hour presentation) of the importance of being able to connect with a person's feelings as an essential first step if that person is reporting non-trivial distress (yes, there's nuance to knowing whether distress is "non-trivial" but I was just driving down the middle of the road).

At this point there was a woman in the circle who started wiggling in her seat. When I paused and asked her what was going on, she leaned toward her husband (sitting two seats away), waved her hands excitedly, and blurted out, "Did you hear that, honey?"

With any luck, I'll get some takers for the next round of my two-year facilitation training that will start in Pittsboro NC this coming Sept. If you're interested, contact the coordinator, Maria Stawksy: mariastawsky@gmail.com

10,000 Hours of Meetings

In recent years I've occasionally taken to introducing myself to people attending one of my process workshops with the one-liner, "The first thing you need to know about me is that I've been to more meetings than you."

While this invariably gets a laugh, it turns out there may be more substance to my claim than I first knew...

In Malcolm Galdwell's newest book, Outlier (released earlier this year), he makes the case that highly successful people are a combination of above-average capacity (relative to their craft), dedication to developing their skill, and luck. His sample set ranges from the Beatles to Mozart, from Bill Gates to Canadian hockey players.

Let's take these one at a time.

1. Above-average Capacity
Gladwell's research suggests you don't need to be a genius to be highly successful. You just need to be good enough. It's important to have sufficient raw ability that you're encouraged to develop your talent, but you don't need to be a child prodigy in order to ultimately excel. It turns out that practice counts for much more than innate ability.

2. Dedication to Developing Your Skill
One of the most interesting outcomes of Gladwell's investigations is that people are able to achieve a quantum leap in skill once they approach the 10,000-hour mark in practicing their craft. Amazingly, in broad strokes this holds true independent of the skill. That is, this principle obtains just as well for lawyers proficient at managing hostile takeovers as it does for professional hockey players; just as well for hit musicians as for IT wizards.

3. Luck
In all of Gladwell's stories, the person makes the commitment to putting in the hours because they're following an interest rather than because they know there will be a pot of gold at the end. Often enough, it is just dumb luck that there is a surge in demand for the skill that a person has been honing, giving them a temporary yet significant market advantage (because competitors cannot quickly replicate the mind-numbing 10,000 hours needed to catch up).

• • •

Walking over to Sandhill for my FIC Office shift yesterday, I had time to contemplate how many hours I'd put into attending and facilitating meetings among cooperative groups. Here's what I came up with:

o Sandhill Meetings
I've been a member of my community for 37 years. My best guess is that we average 2-3 meetings per month, with most meetings running at least two hours. That's 2200 hours of community meetings. Given that I'm on the road a lot though, let's say that I participated in only 1600 hours.

o Sandhill Retreats
My community has been in the habit of holding annual retreats for the purpose of long-term planning and working on deep issues the last 20 years. Typically we meet for 4-5 days. If we average 25 hours of meeting time that would be another 500 hours.

o FEC Meetings
I was a Sandhill delegate to the Federation of Eglalitarian Communities for 22 years, and attended every Assembly from 1979 through 2001. As meetings would generally run for five days, and there were two per year during my tenure, I estimate that was 60 hours of sessions annually, or 1300 hours in all.

o FIC Meetings
I've been involved with the Fellowship for Intentional Communities since it's inception in 1986. This coming spring we'll celebrate our 25th anniversary. The board meets every spring and fall and I've never missed one, which means I've attended 50 in a row. In the early years meetings would last four days; in the last five years or so, we've been able to complete our work in three days. In addition, there's an agenda setting meeting that lasts about four hours in front, and a wrap-up meeting that last for a couple hours at the end. All together, I figure the average board meeting translated into at least 25 hours of my time in meetings. That's another 1200 hours.

o FIC Oversight Committee Meetings
For the last 15 years, the FIC has functioned with an administrative committee whose job it is to steer the ship between board meetings. The Oversight Committee (which I have always been a member of) meets on average once a month for a one-hour conference call, plus twice a year for two days of face-to-face interim meetings. In a year's time, that equates to 25 hours of interim meetings, plus another eight hours of conference calls. That's totals another 500 hours.

o PEACH Administration
I ran a self-insurance program for the FEC communities from 1987-2009. While most of this was done remotely, by letter and email, there were occasional conference calls and a handful of live meetings with representatives of the participating communities. All together, I figure that's another 100 hours.

o Process Consulting
I've been a cooperative group process consultant since 1987. While my workload started out quite slowly, it's gradually ramped up to the point where I do 10-12 jobs annually, plus trainings (of which I did 11 this year). As best I can estimate, I've worked about 250 days as a consultant all together. Figuring I'm on the job an average of six hours/day, that's 1500 hours.

o Facilitation Training
I launched a two-year program in Integrated Facilitation Training in 2003. To date I've delivered 45 intensive three-day weekends in this modality. With an average of 27 hours of group time each weekend that's 1200 additional hours.

o Event Workshops
As a regular member of the presenting faculty for a variety of events that focus on cooperative living, I've logged the following hours offering workshops the last two decades:
—NASCO Institutes: 90 hours
—Twin Oaks Conferences: 70 hours
—Cohousing Conferences: 60 hours
—FIC Events: 60 hours
—Miscellaneous: 20 hours

That's 300 more, bringing the total time I've been actively involved in meetings with cooperative groups up to 8200 hours. But it's more than that.

Writing about Group Process
Early in my career as a process consultant, I realized that clients only digest about 20% of what happens in a weekend. In an effort to give them more useful product, I've committed to sending a detailed report after the fact, offering an overview of what happened, my analysis of the dynamics, process observations, and recommendations. I try to get these written reflections into the clients' In Box within two weeks. Because this effort involves concentrated analysis of what happens in live meetings, I figure it fully counts as practicing my craft:

—Facilitation training weekends: There have been 45 of these. At 14 hours per report (eight for the host group report and one hour each for every student facilitator) that's 600 hours.

—Consulting weekends: According to my records, I've written reports for at least 84 consulting jobs. At an average of eight hours per report, that's comes to 700 hours.

Beyond that, I'm a regular author for Communities magazine. In the 17 years that FIC has been the publisher, I've written about 80 articles. I figure at least half of those dealt with some aspect of cooperative group dynamics. Counting an average of five hours per article, that's 200 hours.

Finally, there's this blog. I've cranked out over 460 entries in four years, with the focus oscillating among the themes of homesteading, community, and cooperative group dynamics. I figure at least a third of my entries have been about group dynamics. If it takes me an average of 2-3 hours to complete a blog entry, that's 400 hours more.

Adding my writing about meetings to my actual time in meetings, the grand total is a whopping 10,100 hours. In short, it turns out I've made it (barely) across Gladwell's threshold for due diligence, and probably goes a long way toward explaining why the demand for my services as a process consultant has not diminished with the poor economy.

While none of this proves competence, it's nonetheless exciting to think about the possibilities in the face of current trends:
o Widespread dissatisfaction with traditional, competitive ways of doing business and making political decisions.
o Interest in community living has never been higher.
o Transition Towns are focusing on local, community-based responses to Peak Oil and Climate Change.
o The Occupy phenomenon has demonstrated a surprisingly resilient commitment to cooperative decision making.

I may be one of the lucky ones who accidentally focused on the right thing at the right time, so that I'd have my 10,000 hours in when opportunity knocks. Anyone care to have a meeting to discuss it?

Sunshine in Portland

I've got sunshine on a cloudy day.
When it's cold outside I've got the month of May.
—the opening two lines of the Motown classic "My Girl" by Smokey Robinson

Back in 1984 I made a trek to southeastern Alaska. Mostly I was stayed with friends and explored the area in and around in Juneau, which is smack in the midst of a temperate rain forest. They average about 55 inches of rain annually and it was a dance finding sunny days sprinkled in amongst the liquid sunshine.

As impressive as that was, however, just a little bit down the coast is the town of Ketchikan, where it really rains. They average a whopping 150 inches of precipitation—nearly half an inch a day. There is a mountain overlooking the town and the locals say that if you can see the top, then it's just about to rain; if you can't see the peak, it's raining.

• • •

Twenty-seven years later. I'm in Portland OR, where I'll be working for the next 10 days with a trio of communities: Trillium Hollow, Columbia Ecovillage, and Daybreak. While the City of Roses has a reputation for rainy days, they don't get nearly as much accumulation as Juneau—Portland averages only 37 inches a year. Mostly they get mist and drizzle. Still, that adds up to a lot of cloud cover. Because most of their rain comes in the stretch November-February and then tapers off gradually in the spring, the natives are relatively starved for sunshine by April.

When I arrived yesterday, the skies were partly sunny. Today was even better: mostly sunny. Understandably, people wanted to be outside, or at least within sight of the sunshine. The past two days I've had about 12 hours of one-on-one (or one-on-two) conversations to get background for the plenary work I'll be doing with the whole community Saturday and Sunday. While no on blew off a date with me to play outdoors, people would position themselves so that they could look out a window.

Metaphorically, my job as a process consultant is to help bring sunshine into places where there's been a lot of rain, so this is all fitting together nicely. While it's tempting to play up the idea that I deserve partial credit for the upbeat change in the Portland weather ("Notice how the sun came out as soon as I arrived?"), I'll content myself with focusing on the weather we create inside the meeting room this weekend. If we can successfully navigate some stormy dynamics, people may not even notice the rain that's been forecast for the weekend.

When I was asked how I wanted the meeting room set up, I told my hosts that I wanted to be on the side of away from the windows, so that I wouldn't have to compete with the outdoor vistas for the community members' attention. While I'm fairly confident that I can be more stimulating than a steady drizzle, why take the chance?

Among other things, Trillium has asked me to demonstrate how to work authentically and constructively with conflict. They got some frozen dynamics in the group and my job, to paraphrase Smokey Robinson, is when it's cold inside to be the month of May. Even though it's only April, I'm up for the challenge.

You Thought I Said What?

This past week I submitted a report to a client and the front end of it was a lengthy summary of background that I had captured over a couple days with the group, setting the stage for my summary of the issues we wrestled with and my recommendations for how to proceed. This is a normal feature of my reports, and generally clients like what they read under the Findings section. Not this time, however.

I was knocked off stride when this comment came back from the client: “In the history section especially, I am surprised at the information, since I think you must have gotten all or most of it from me, and so many things are quite far off.

Gulp. And this was from someone who liked what I’d done with the group and had no ax to grind—she just didn’t care for how I’d captured her story. I author a lot of reports and edit a lot of minutes (on average, I crank one out about once a week). While there’s no doubt I occasionally miss things, or jumble facts (luckily, most of my work is reviewed by careful eyes and the mistakes are caught early), I can’t recall the last time I got the feedback “most things are quite far off.” What happened? 

The first message was followed by this amplification of how she experienced me in our time together. She reported thinking to herself at the time, “He really doesn't seem to be asking the right question or listening well to facts.” Yikes! And I didn’t even think I was having an off weekend. To be fair, the client also reported that she felt I’d done an excellent job of listening emotionally, so I reckon I got partial credit. As a professional facilitator though, it’s my job to listen carefully to both the story and the feelings. Half a loaf really doesn’t cut it.

Groping for an explanation, it’s not hard to believe that the client and I could disagree about what aspects of a story we thought were important, so it’s relatively easy to picture moments when I wanted to follow a different track than the speaker and that may not have landed well. However, regardless of the strength of my insights about what threads to follow, it can’t have been a good result that the client felt I was missing her. So this is important feedback, albeit embarrassing.

Fortunately, the client has offered to give me specific feedback on the things I botched, so I’ll have a clearer picture about where (and how often) I went off the rails. The exchange is fresh enough that I haven’t received the specifics yet, so my comments today are about receiving critical feedback in general. Even though I know I need it, that doesn’t mean I don’t squirm when I get it. It’s my ego that’s struggling. (And thus I get to be further embarrassed that I’m still so susceptible to the anguish of bruised pride. Why haven’t I evolved to the point where I’m more adept at sidestepping this elemental trap after 60 years? Shit.) 

OK, enough wallowing in it. I’ll devote the remainder of this blog to laying out why taking accurate histories is important. There are a number of reasons:

—It helps the client feel heard, and is often a key step in developing trust with the facilitator. Whenever you’re working a stuck dynamic, the facilitator knows the point is coming when they’ll ask the players to take steps outside their comfort zone, and this request is much less apt to go well if sufficient trust has not yet been established with each protagonist. 

—Knowing the history helps the facilitator see patterns of behavior among the players (such as how they respond under duress and what their trigger points are).  

—Understanding the history reveals what’s at stake for each player and provides important clues about how to weave a solution that holds their truth and their core interests. (Hint: it rarely works to suggest a course of action that requires anyone, from their perspective, to violate a core value, admit to acting with bad intent, or to change their personality.) It’s enormously helpful to understand how each person defines “integrity,” and what signals to them that another is acting outside of it. 

—Histories often reveal the tender spots, where the unresolved hurts occurred. While (fortunately) it’s rarely necessary to visit all the hurts when trying to repair a damaged relationship, it’s probably necessary to visit some of the hurts and it’s important to select one or more that are representatively awful—so that healing achieved there can reasonably be projected as a balm onto the other hurts, affording the players a graceful and honorable way to let go and move on. 

—Finally, histories offer insights into what movement is possible for each player, so that the facilitator can make good choices about what behavior shifts to request—no matter how valuable or sensible a request may seem to others, at the end of the day it will not help a lick if that action is deemed inaccessible (not doable) by the person you’re making the request of. You've got to be real, and histories give you a good idea about you how each person defines reality.