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January 20, 2021
It’s inauguration day today. Many have written about the past four years, the months since November 3 and the days since the January 6th Washington riot. This collective examination of who we are and who we – the USA – want to be as a nation has at times been disheartening and at other times,
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Charting a Path to Bridge Divides (Part 3 of 3)
We have imagined we could say, “I won’t ask anything of you that I won’t ask of myself.” Which sounds noble. But sitting with it, it is simply not true. I want to ask more of you than I ask of myself. Because no matter what we say, we are deeply attached to our worldviews and especially the ones we consider to be at the heart of our moral certainty.
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The Divides that Need Bridging (Part 2 of 3)
There is an additional complicating factor here. On November 6, 2020, historian and public commentator Heather Cox Richardson wrote that the divide in America is not about principles and values. Rather it is between people who live in a reality-based world and people who live in a fictional world. This fictional world has been created by generations of right-wing media beginning with Rush Limbaugh in the late 80’s. This divide is part of the reason it can be so challenging to see a way forward.
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The Problem With the Moral High Ground (Part 1)
Our conversations and musings have led us to consider a new possibility. What if there is another space, as Rumi wrote, out beyond you and me that does not ask either of us to compromise our personal integrity but can lift us all up to discover new views and unexpected ways to bridge the divides in expansive rather than contractive ways?
This is the curiosity. This is the invitation we want to make. It will be hard to do because it requires personal examination and illuminating hard truths. There will be many not interested in this invitation. Our hope is that there are many more who will be so together we can build the capacity to seek and find new possibilities for dialogue and ways to be together better.
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We Are Never Going Back – Moving Past Denial in 2020
We are now in the autumn of 2020 and the reality of a changed future is settling in. We are never going back. We don’t yet know what the future holds and many of us have hit a wall, feeling like we are running out of steam against a pandemic that seems never ending. And,
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The Call to Defund the Police Requires a Worldview Shift
Whether police and police departments are helpful or harmful is a worldview based on individual and collective experience that has shaped how individuals, groups and communities have come to understand their relationship with police.
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Do Organizations Have Diversity and Inclusion Wrong? Part 2
Policy doesn’t tell us how to talk about the reality of inclusion and whether it is succeeding or failing? Like many change initiatives, when it comes to implementation the sentiment is often, we want the organization to change but we don’t want any disruption that might come with this change. We certainly don’t want to have to change as individuals, especially if we believe that means we have to give up something, like status or power.
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Do We, As White People, Have Inclusion and How To Go About It All Wrong? Part 1
What if how we have been thinking about inclusion is all wrong? What if how we have been trying to do inclusion is more like a system of assimilation than the welcoming of diversity? Who is doing the including? Who is being offered inclusion? Inclusion into what and why?
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What it Takes to Shift Existing Patterns, Norms or Social Contracts (3 of 3)
No matter where we live, the degree of freedom people are claiming or are willing to exchange for societal wellbeing, protection from harm and societal order is an active debate in need of renegotiation and regeneration. What is a collective worldview that could emerge that recognizes justice and equity for all, not just for a privileged few thanks to skin colour or wealth? How can more voices actively contribute to the shaping of a new future?
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When Social Contracts No Longer Work (2 of 3)
There is an urgent need for new, constructive and explicit social contracts where leadership and law enforcement are held accountable for administering them fairly and justly. However, disrupting centuries of patterns and worldviews is not an easy thing to do. We have walked these paths before. It will take dedicated, intentional and sustained repatterning to put in place a new social contract that is explicit, accountable and just for all.
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Social Contracts Are Blowing Up (1 of 3)
The social contracts that have provided guidance for individual and collective behaviour have been falling apart for a long time now, although it feels to some as if they are suddenly blowing up. Where do we stand? Where do you stand? What are the worldview perspectives that will help carry us through this time? Will this time of chamos destroy the structures and systems that have supported racism and injustice, allowing the new to arise from the ashes? How long will it take? What role will we each play?
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In-Person Social Connectedness Matters – It Impacts Brain Health
Short-term employee efficiencies and cost savings could result in the longer-term in decreased problem-solving and judgment skills. It could lead to poorer relationships or an inability to establish relationships. We could have less ability to manage amygdala hijacks.
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Interruption or Disruption? What Worldview Shifts Will Outlast Post Covid-19 Recovery?
Here we are, not knowing what we don’t know. We can begin to identify potential disruptions and start making preliminary responses to them. But caution may also be the byword as we sort out the difference between an interruption and a disruption.
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Chaordic Leadership and Resilience During Covid-19
Covid-19 is wreaking havoc and disorientation around the world. Leadership responses during this global pandemic, and in the months to come as restrictions are eased and movement returns, will be the stuff of legend. Individual and collective actions will be studied and analyzed for decades to come. There are many leaders who have been responding
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Disruption and Innovation Sparked by Covid-19
What happens when the disruption is not intentionally introduced, but is forced upon us? What happens when that disruption is global, unpredictable, and, downright scary? This is Covid-19 and we have been impacted and disoriented individually and collectively, all around the world.
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Disorientation and Presence in the Midst of Covid-19
There is such a sense of disorientation in the air as this pandemic affects the world in a way humanity has never experienced on this global scale before. This will impact both collective and individual worldviews in ways we will only fully become aware of upon the extensive reflection we know will take place in the coming months, years and decades.
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Can We Have A Rational Discussion On Macro-Economic Policy?
We need a better, less polarized discussion about what a market-based economy could look like that encourages innovation, investment, financial reward and protects consumers, the environment and ethical businesses. Can we have that discussion?
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Artificial Divides or Not?
There is a river that runs through a county in Nova Scotia where we have been working with a client, hosting conversations about health care and community. Since day one of visiting, beginning with one-on-one interviews with community leaders, we have heard about the “east/west divide that is not really a divide”. Yet, in five
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Ability, Disability or Differently-Abled? What’s Your Worldview?
We are more and more likely to encounter people who are different from us in some way. It could be physical, sexual orientation, gender, skin color, political or cultural. Or it could be with respect to what many consider ability or disability, or what we might call differently-abled. Each of us, when we meet a
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Alignment Between Traditional Lakota Conversation Practices and Art of Hosting
Recently I (Jerry) co-hosted an Art of Hosting (AoH) training at Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa with LeMoine LaPointe. LeMoine is an elder from the Lakota Nation at Rosebud. Turtle Mountain Nation residents are mainly Ojibwa or Meti. LeMoine is a good friend and wise leader. He is an active practitioner of the Art of
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50 Years Ago Still Impacting Worldviews Today
Recently I attended a cabaret style program about the year 1966. It was a lot of fun and brought back memories of events and music. The program consisted of the performers moving back and forth between roles as news broadcasters talking about key events and singers of then popular songs. This all came to a
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Clash of Worldviews at the Heart of Cultural Conflict?
On a TV news program recently, I heard a guest suggest that what we are experiencing now in the United States (and elsewhere, I would add) is a clash of worldviews. The speaker contrasted this with the clash of civilizations that Samuel Huntington suggested we are experiencing. Samuel P. Huntington, in his 1993 article “The
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Cognitive Dissonance to Creativity
Have you ever been in a conversation with someone who had very different views on the subject you have been talking about and, as the conversations ends, they ask you to “just think about it”? Meaning, they want you to reflect on and consider their perspective. Or, maybe you said it to them. That request
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When Have Quick Fixes For Complex Issues Ever Worked?
When faced with an issue or challenge, the instinct is to problem-solve to find a quick solution. When the complexity of the problem is not fully understood, solutions created are often only designed to address a symptom of the underlying issues. Solving symptoms can lead to resolution but, far more often, the solution will fail
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The Sweet Spot Between Relational Leadership, Work and Learning for High Performance Teams
High performance teams are highly valued and often difficult to cultivate in the world of teams and team development. And to be clear, not every team needs to be a high-performance team to deliver results. However, leading edge, innovative organizations interested in attracting and retaining highly motivated employees want to encourage high performance teams, and
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