I lived in England for 13 years, in a seaside town on the South coast called Brighton. Part of me still feels like those rolling hills and rocky beaches are “home”, so imagine my surprise (and pleasure) to come across this notice in my Google alerts: World Café Meeting to Save Much-Loved Post Office. I know that post office!!! 🙂 And … I had NO IDEA anyone in Brighton had ever even heard of World Café!
It’s delightful when the circles of one’s life overlap in these unexpected ways…
This video of David Isaacs talking about collective intelligence and how it emerges in the World Café process is one of a series by documentary videographer Martin Rausch. I’ve found it particularly helpful in describing the role of the table host and why the harvesting form matters.
David’s interview is part of a film Martin is currently working on called The Blindspot – Unleashing the Power of Collective Intelligence.
When I prepared to teach leadership, I faced a pedagogical bind: I needed to determine which learning tasks will get across the material effectively to other adults-who are not necessarily less “leaderful” than me – and what content to select.
I knew what I didn’t want to do: that was teach leadership “in the third person,” through mere descriptions and explanations or five-step slides. And I struggled with how to create a space for my students where leadership was lived in the first person rather than studied like a theoretical concept…
Then the light bulb went on.
I am a passionate World Café host and from its practice I learned the art and value of hosting conversations that matter.
So when asked to design a leadership course, I decided that, rather than teaching or preaching, I would rely on evoking, naming, reminding, recognizing, questioning, acknowledging, and affirming.
I stopped asking “how can I teach?” and instead started asking “what if leadership is already in the room, and my work is to give it the space and freedom to manifest itself?”
Thank you World Café for 20 years of collective leadership impact.
This video of Juanita Brown talking about the challenges and opportunities of working in systems of growing complexity is the first in a series we’ll be publishing here over the next few weeks by documentary videographer Martin Rausch.
I’m paraphrasing a bit here, but I love her opening line; “It’s not only possible to have a systemic breakdown, but by the same token I believe it’s possible to have a systemic breakthrough...”
Juanita’s interview is part of a film Martin is currently working on called The Blindspot – Unleashing the Power of Collective Intelligence.
For the last 25 years, the State of Vorarlberg has been pioneering different methods of public participation. Since 2008, they have been working intensively with Jim Rough’s process, originally named Wisdom Council or Creative Insight Council, which in their context they have named Bürgerrat or “Civic Council”. Austria is currently among the three most preferred destinations in Europe for refugees, next to Germany and Sweden. To deal with this situation adequately, the government of Vorarlberg organized a Civic Council to address the question “How do we deal with the rise of refugees well.”
This short video by Martin Rausch documents the work they did in June 2015 to help create a “Culture of Collaboration”, using World Cafe for the Citizen Cafés at the heart of the Bürgerrat. Their work is ongoing.
The Civic Council (“Bürgerrat”) in Austria on: “How do we deal best with the influx of refugees” – June 2015 from Martin Rausch on Vimeo.
“The World Cafe is a marvellous tool, the best I know, for tapping into the collective wisdom of a crowd.”
~ Paul Borawski (Chief Executive Office (Retired) ASQ)
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