Teaching the Rest of the Year—An Updated Menu

Back in December I posted a sneak preview of courses I'd be offering 2022 (Teaching in the Year Ahead).

While quite a bit of that has come to pass, some things have become more defined, and new things have gelled. So I'm inspired to offer this revised list of offerings for the remainder of the year.

Facilitation Training

As planned, I completed two rounds of my two-year training in recent months (I had been conducting three concurrently), which has made room on my dance card to launch another round. I have the teaching group lined up—all I need is students. Our hope is to start Sept 22-25.

If this interests you or your group, drop me an email (laird@ic.org) and I'll send you a flyer that lays it all out.

FIC Webinars

In addition to what's posted in Teaching in the Year Ahead I will be part of the faculty for a new offering, Aging Gracefully in Community, which will be offered for five consecutive Tuesdays (each session two hours long), starting June 21. To prime the pump there will be a free introductory gathering, May 31, that will last for 90 minutes. Click here for information about the teaser.

Workshops at the National Cohousing Conference • Aug 25-28

I'll be offering three things: 

• An all-day pre-conference intensive styled Consensus 301: Rx for Groups Struggling with Making It Work Well. This will happen Thursday, Aug 25.

Plus these two in-conference workshops (90-min each) occurring during the main event (exact times TBA):

• Participation: Issues in Member Contributions

• Consensus 101: Understanding the Basics

Podcasts

In the last month I've been interviewed for two different podcasts—which is a new platform for me:

Rebecca Mesritz put one together for FIC about Skilled Facilitation, and is available now.

Sen Zahn interviewed me this week as part of a segment on Conflict that she'll be editing for Peace Talks Radio, a program syndicated to 60 public radio stations in the US, and others abroad. As of today, no date has been set for when this podcast will be available.

Fortunately, I like being busy.

Laird on Tap

Welcome to my world of virtual consulting.

Now that I've had a chance to get into the rhythm of home quarantining, and to digest the reality that travel is a distant dream (as an at-risk senior it's not prudent for me to venture away from home sooner than there's a reliable COVID vaccine available), I've been putting serious thought into what I can deliver at a distance.

Here's what I've come up with so far:

I. Conferences
As gathering folks together in numbers for multiple days is especially contraindicated right now, community networks are scrambling to develop ways to deliver useful product safely. Understandably, everyone is thinking webinars, and I'm currently in dialog with three networks about being on their menus:

1. Foundation for Intentional Community
Elders and Intentional Community • May 27 • 4-6 pm (Eastern)

I'll be doing a 15-minute presentation at the front end of this, laying out the pros and cons of choosing a senior-oriented community (where everyone is 50+) or an intergenerational community. It's a more complicated choice than you might imagine.

2. Coho/US
The Heart of Community • May 30 • 12-6 pm (Eastern)

I'll be doing a one-hour presentation (2-3 pm) on Consensus Challenges—the places where groups tend to get stuck. For populations steeped in competitive culture (which is just about everyone), the transition to cooperative culture tends to be predictably bumpy. I'll lay out the roadblocks and potholes on the road to utopia… and what you can do about them.

3. Canadian Cohousing Network
TBA

This burgeoning network is mulling over what to offer and when. I've given them a host of possibilities but I don't know yet what will be selected. Visit the Canadian Cohousing Network website for updates.

II. Facilitation
I sat in, from home, as an observer on a cohousing community's two-hour Zoom plenary last weekend, affording me an initial taste of what this might be like, and I was buoyed to discover that I could accurately read the undercurrents of a complicated conversation without any visual clues about how the speaker was landing with the audience. 

This is an affirmation, I believe, of how I can bring my decades of experience into play. Having "been there before" I was able to recognize what was happening even without a full range of input. While it's still better having everyone in the same room, it doesn't mean that important work must be postponed until that can happen.

Thus, I'm now willing to offer my services as an outside facilitator—literally outside—maybe not in the same time zone. However, that's only one side of the equation. Now we'll see what demand exists for disembodied facilitators. (I know there is need, but that's not the same as demand.)

III. Training
Since 2003 I have been delivering a two-year facilitation training program where a group of students (typically 10-12, but occasionally more) concentrated in a geographical area gather eight times for intensive three-day weekends, spaced approximately three months apart. I have delivered this program a dozen times in its entirety, with an additional two programs currently underway. 

Understandably, the pandemic has interrupted the current programs and I am in the process of figuring out how to continue the work without gathering in the same room. (Who's zooming who?) I'll be experimenting with this in both training groups in the coming weeks and I'm excited by the challenge—there are even advantages to changing up the formats and doing things differently. I like to think of the training programs as teaching improv, where the trainers adapt to what's happening. In that context, this is just another opportunity, both for the students and the instructors.

IV. Mentoring
Although this has never been a large part of my portfolio, it's been a steady one and something I've been doing for more than 10 years—almost all of which happens via phone or email, augmented in recently by teleconferencing, such a Google Chat or Zoom. Although this is not a service I have particularly marketed, it is highly personal and usually quite enjoyable. I'd be happy to do more of it if there was interest and the fit seemed right.

If this possibility appeals to you, send me a note.

Together, we'll figure this out.

Profits at Home

Have you ever noticed how people start to appear wiser the further they get from home? You may laugh, but this is a dynamic of biblical proportions. Matthew 13:57 says: … but Jesus said unto them, "A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own house."

It's enough to make you want to take a road trip.

In this day of upward spiraling travel costs (we really are running out of oil), it seems prudent to contemplate the future for consultants. Being one, I think about it. After 27 years of going to my clients (or to events where I can showcase my wares in workshops), I am pioneering a webinar series that will offer a half dozen of my most commonly requested workshops, plus a seventh Q&A session styled Stump the Chumps, where Ma'ikwe and I try to hit whatever cooperative process curve balls people toss our way. While being connected via video and audio is not the same thing as being in the same room, it starts to approximate it, and no one has to travel. I figure my future will definitely include more of this.

[While the webinar series was scheduled to start July 2, we aborted when the software (GlobalMeet) started spontaneously malfunctioning 20 minutes into the presentation—gremlins started arbitrarily muting the speaker and unmuting the audience. The whole series has now been moved back one week and will begin July 9, and will run every Wednesday through Aug 20. It will be live 2-4 pm Central time, and will be available as a downloadable recording to anyone who signs up. This Wed we'll be switching to Adobe Connect to frustrate the gremlins. So if you missed our opening (comedy) act last Wed, the boat has still not left the pier.]

Webinars aside, I've been aware for a long time that there's been little interest in my skills within my zip code. Yes, I've facilitated my share of meetings at both Sandhill Farm and Dancing Rabbit, but I'm almost never asked to facilitate conflicts, which is probably the number one thing I'm known for on a continental level. (On a state level, I've only been hired to facilitate five times outside of 63563 in 27 years, yet four of those were to teach about or to facilitate a live conflict.)

Of course, at Sandhill—which is a very small community, usually around six adults—it was nearly impossible for me to be sufficiently neutral (or perceived to be sufficiently neutral) to be acceptable as a conflict facilitator. But it's more than that. My community hasn't even been interested in learning my theory of working with conflict.

I recently witnessed someone in tears over his frustration at how little interest there had been among his fellow community members in taking advantage of his offer to help people be more financially successful (this guy works only 15 hours a week and generates enough surplus to make annual donations north of $20,000, so he's demonstrably good at being financially generative). While I felt his anguish, it's no longer acute for me. I'm a good bit further down that road and my disappointment is more of a dull ache because I've grown accustomed to it—and because I get plenty of work in different time zones, which satisfies my primal desire to be helpful. I've adjusted my expectations and no longer look for people to seek my talents at home.

I'm also seeing another shift. Now that I've moved over to Dancing Rabbit (to live with Ma'ikwe) I'm not centrally involved in community dynamics and people are more open to me as a result. At my new community I'm highly selective about what community issues I insert myself into, and I'm not seeking influence as I did while living at Sandhill. Oddly enough, two people at Dancing Rabbit have approached me in the last half year to be a mentor for them. This is something I very much enjoy doing yet have done precious little of my first 39 years of community living (excepting twice I served as adjunct faculty for Prescott College, guiding—by email and phone—students doing independent studies on intentional community). Having let go, the opportunities have come to me, which I experience as something of a cosmic joke (which is better, I think, than a cosmic tragedy).

While part of this may be about me (can you ever rule that out completely?), I think part of what's going on is a generic avoidance of the schizophrenic dynamic where two people are simultaneously in a peer-peer relationship (by virtue of being fellow community members) and in a teacher-student relationship. It can be awkward to navigate the shifting power gradient, and some would rather avoid it all together, accepting the price of foregoing whatever might be learned (either from the teacher, or from juggling the roles).

When the teacher comes from outside—especially from way outside— all of that awkwardness can be neatly sidestepped. The consultant goes away Monday morning. At Sandhill, I think I'm more valued for my tomatillo salsa, my skill at wildcrafting morels, and my knowledge of how to file the community's tax returns, than for my ability to be sure-footed when navigating complex community dynamics.

While it remains to be seen how my opportunities to be an honorable prophet (much less a profitable one) may diminish as gas prices soar, for now I'm savoring that I still have work all around the continent—which may be extended by my nascent career as a webinar presenter (and indefatigable blogger).

It's a quirky world out there, and every now and then you need to stop and make sure you're still heading in the direction you intended.

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.

Laird's Greatest Hits

This coming July I'm coming out… as a webinar presenter!

After 27 years in the saddle as a process consultant, I've developed a soup to nuts series of workshops covering most aspects of cooperative group dynamics. Think of it as the social side of sustainability. This is my current menu (in no particular order):

1. Consensus Headaches: Rx for meeting moments that are a pain for everyone
What's your worst meeting nightmare? Yelling & screaming? Participants breaking down in sobs? Sarcastic jokes? Nobody saying a word? Everyone talking at once? How about having no idea how to make things better? We'll look at all these and more. Participants are invited to bring their own consensus horror stories; I'll provide the wooden stakes (and answers).

2. Membership: questions you should have asked before joining
This workshop will present a set of basic questions that all groups must face in defining who they are and what it means to be a member: how to handle feedback among members, level of engagement in each other's lives, rights and responsibilities, grounds for involuntary loss of member rights, and the process by which someone joins the group and is asked to leave. We'll discuss why it's a potential disaster to delay answering these questions until they come up, and why most groups do it anyway.

3. The Essentials of Dynamic Facilitation: how to get through the agenda and build energy at the same time
Good meeting facilitation can make the difference between pain and gain. We'll look at the basic qualities needed to become a full-service facilitator, the process agreements needed to spread your wings, and how to recognize those magic moments when passion can be harnessed to transform binding into bonding.

4. But Seriously Folks... a close look at the two-edged sword of humor in meetings; how to encourage the good kind, and put a lid on the bad
All jokes are not created equal. With a light touch at the right time, a joke can relieve tension and buoy group energy. However, if it comes with a sarcastic bite, some may be laughing while others are steaming. And a joke at the wrong time may undercut a precious moment of vulnerability. We'll look at how to sort the good, the bad, and the ugly, and options for damage control if you get either of the last two.

5. Conflict: Fight, Flight, or Opportunity?
Does conflict mean your group is sick, or just paying attention? Starting with the premise that conflict is healthy and normal, we'll explore options for unlocking its potential using the whole person—rational, emotional, and intuitive. Rather than talking about "I" statements or being nice, we'll focus on what happens and what can be done when things get hot, concluding with a four-step plan for constructive engagement. Special attention will be given to the advantages of working in a group and in the dynamic moment, facilitated by those not in the stew.

6. Stump the Chumps
Ask our team of crackerjack consensus facilitators (cleverly disguised as Laird & Ma'ikwe) your tough questions about meeting dynamics, and we'll try to come up with brilliant and entertaining responses, showing how you don't have to be stuck (or stay stuck) after all. The format will be Q&A: you bring the Q and we'll supply all the A you can stand.

7. This is Delegated to the Ones I Love: a focused look at what should be done by the group as a whole and what shouldn't
For large groups working with consensus, it is crucial that they learn to delegate effectively (or the meetings will never end). This workshop will break down what work should/must be done in plenary and what can/should be delegated to a committee or manager. We'll lay out the essentials of a clear mandate, and the proper sequence of consideration that will empower committees and managers, yet keep their work in balance with whole group responsibilities. We'll talk about groups whose work is re-done in plenary and runaway committees who do way more than they were asked (bad, bad, bad.)

8. Consensus 101
Making decisions by consensus is an unnatural act. At least it is for people raised in a hierarchic and competitive culture—which is just about everybody. We'll go over the cooperative roots of consensus and explain why it requires unlearning old adversarial responses in order to succeed. We'll go over the essential ingredients of consensus, explain blocking and standing aside, and make the case for why it's the most efficient form of decision making, once you've learned how to do it well. Really.

9. Power Dynamics and Leadership in Cooperative Groups
While meetings are meant to be equally accessible to all members, the reality is they are not. This workshop will examine why power is unbalanced, and what a group can (should?) do to level the playing field. Not everyone is equally comfortable speaking in front of the whole group; not everyone finds rational discourse their strongest suit; not everyone can sit still for a three-hour meeting. We'll distinguish between "power over" and "power with" and discuss what groups can (must?) do to adopt healthy models of cooperative leadership.

10. Overview of the North American Intentional Communities Movement
In the world of intentional communities, there's kaleidoscopic variety. Find out from a community network veteran (who just earned his 40-year pin) what all is out there. I'll identify the major flavors available and how they're similar, yet unique. It's a big world out there, and the good news is that we all have more allies in our efforts to build a better world than we know.

11. Should You Start a Community or Join One?
For some people hungry for community life, this can be a fundamental fork in the road. While starting your own group may look like the clearest pathway to getting what you want, we'll explore the brambles you'll find along the way, and lay out the pros and cons of joining versus starting. There's more here than you might think!

12. Economic Leveraging Through Income Sharing: living the life you want without chasing so many dollars
Very few people choose to live in income-sharing communities. Yet many wish their lives were more economically sustainable. This workshop will explore the incredible economic leveraging available through sharing income. It's not just for families any more! Not only do you have more control over how you spent your time, you can more easily select work in line with your values and—through the miracle of sharing—you won't need nearly as many dollars to achieve a satisfying quality of life.

13. The Limits of Diversity
Almost all cooperative groups aspire to hold diversity as a core value. But how much diversity can you stand? Sure, you allow pets, but what about alligators—who eat small dogs and cats. How about people who can't stand any garlic in community meals or they'll throw up? More tenderly, how many people suffering from mental health challenges can you realistically accommodate? The key here is figuring out how to have a compassionate and authentic conversation about what's possible when you think you're close to the edge. It's work to stretch to include people who are different from each other and not everyone is inspired to stretch the same amount or in the same directions. Let's talk about how to talk about it! If you wait until you're there it may be too late.

14. Navigating the Swamp of Non-monetary Contributions by Members to the Group
This is the single most commonly requested topic I’m asked to help groups figure out—because it’s messy. While there are many ways to handle this well, in this workshop you’ll learn all the questions that need to be addressed, or the ambiguity will bite you in the butt. We’ll explore why groups want members to volunteer in support of the group, how to handle people’s wide variance in their skill and availability to do so, and understand the Martyrs & Slackers dynamic to which every group is susceptible.

• • •

Starting July 2 (that's a Wednesday if you're keeping score at home) and running for seven consecutive weeks ending Aug 13, I'll be offering through Ecovillage Education US two-hour live webinars on workshops 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 14. Participation will run $30 a pop, and you get $90 off if you sign up for all seven.

In addition, EEUS will be offering a couple of mini-courses this summer:

—Starting an Intentional Community • July 26-Aug 1
Faculty: Ma'ikwe Ludwig, Alyson Ewald, Laird Schaub

Seven days of total immersion at Dancing Rabbit, this is a boot camp for would-be community founders. (It turns out that good intentions and a pure heart are not enough!)

—Encountering Climate Change • Aug 22-24
Faculty: Ma'ikwe Ludwig, Alyson Ewald, Danielle Williams, Joan Shagbark

This three-day retreat at Dancing Rabbit will be a Joanna Macy-style exploration of the overwhelm many of us experience when trying to cope with global change.

I hope you can join us for one of more of this cornucopia of offerings!