Category Archives: All Resources

Codigital

Posted on by
Reply

Codigital’s cloud-based tool is used by facilitators and conference organizers to engage communities and stakeholders in a simple, participant-driven process that generates ideas, insight, consensus and solutions to the issue under discussion. The tool is used in live face-to-face situations and also in 1-2 week online projects such as gaining input from attendees when planning a conference.

codigital_logoCodigital’s tool incorporates features that (i) enable people to cross-fertilize their ideas so as to benefit from the different perspectives of the group’s members, (ii) avoid individual bias, (iii) establish the collective view of the group, and (iv) generate a concise summary of the top ideas and themes in real time.

Codigital’s tool works with groups from 10+ to many thousands. This scalability, coupled with the tool’s concise pdf report generation, makes it an effective solution when seeking creative input from entire communities or large groups at conferences.

Codigital’s clients include state governments, municipalities, large and small corporations, and individual consultants such as facilitators and conference organizers.

Codigital offers educational and non-profit discounts, and entry-level price plans that make Codigital affordable for single projects or events. Codigital’s plans include consulting and training around when to use its tool and best practice, and also includes full project administration (self-serve is also available).

Codigital’s tool was originally developed to help break down the silos prevalent in many corporate environments, and thereby to enable more and better balanced input to be gathered in order to improve decision-making. The tool combines evolutionary principles and algorithms, and gamification, in a way that establishes the collective intelligence of diverse groups in an engaging manner.

NCDD carried out an experiment with Codigital’s tool in March 2014 when it asked its members: What would you like to see happen when our field comes together at NCDD 2014? You can read Sandy’s blog post about the project and see Codigital’s project report.

Resource Link: www.codigital.com

This resource was submitted by James Carr, co-founder of Codigital via the Add-a-Resource form. Please contact James (james@codigital.com or +1 303 884 1260) if you’d like to learn more about Codigital or arrange a webex demo.

The Transpartisan Listserv

Posted on by
Reply

The Transpartisan Listserv was launched in March 2014 by the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation, Mediators Foundation, and over a dozen co-founders who are leaders in political bridge building work.

The purpose of this moderated listserv is to introduce potential colleagues to one another, to expand our knowledge of transpartisan theory and practice, and to showcase ongoing activity in the transpartisan field. Our goal is to provide a simple, safe communication channel where individuals and organizations that are active in this boundary-crossing work can connect and learn from each other.

What is transpartisanship? One perspective was published in the Washington Post on January 27, 2014. In Katrina vanden Heuvel’s editorial, she wrote: “At a time of paralyzing political polarization, partisanship has naturally gotten a bad rap. But a reactionary shift toward bipartisanship — toward an anodyne centrism — isn’t the solution. Passion, deftly deployed, is actually an effective political tool with which to advance good ideas. That’s the promise of transpartisanship.”

The Transpartisan Listserv was launched by the following co-founders:

  1. Mark Gerzon, Tom Hast and John Steiner of Mediators Foundation
  2. Sandy Heierbacher, National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD)
  3. Tom Atlee, Co-Intelligence Institute
  4. Steve Bhaerman, humorist and author
  5. Dr. Don Beck, The Spiral Dynamics Group
  6. Joan Blades and Debilyn Molineaux, Living Room Conversations
  7. Laura Chasin, Bob Stains, Dave Joseph and Mary Jacksteit, Public Conversations Project
  8. Lawry Chickering and Jim Turner, co-authors of Voice of the People: The Transpartisan Imperative in American Life
  9. Jacob Hess and Phil Neisser, co-authors of You’re Not as Crazy as I Thought (But You’re Still Wrong)
  10. Margo King, Wisdom Beyond Borders-Mediators Foundation; John Steiner’s networking partner
  11. Mark McKinnon, NoLabels.org
  12. Ravi Iyer and Matt Motyl, CivilPolitics.org
  13. Evelyn Messinger, Internews Interactive
  14. John Opdycke, IndependentVoting.org
  15. Michael Ostrolenk, transpartisan organizer and philosopher
  16. Pete Peterson, Pepperdine University’s Davenport Institute
  17. Amanda Kathryn Roman, The Citizens Campaign
  18. Michael Smith, United Americans
  19. Kim Spencer, Link TV and KCETLink
  20. Rich Tafel, The Public Squared
  21. Jeff Weissglass, Political Bridge Building Advocate

You are welcome to subscribe to the Transpartisan List if any of the following are true:

  • You are interested in learning more, and sharing what you know, about current efforts to transcend and transform unproductive partisan politics.
  • You want to meet potential colleagues who share your concern and are working to improve research, dialogue, deliberation, collaboration, and improved decision making across party lines.
  • You want to share what you (or your organization) do in this field that you consider “transpartisan” – conversations that break out of the narrow, predictable ideological exchanges.
  • You believe this subject is vital to our country’s future and simply want to learn more about how you might get involved.

If some or all of these statements apply to you, join the Transpartisan List by sending a blank email to transpartisan-subscribe-request@lists.thataway.org. Together, we can ask the questions that need to be asked about this challenging field, and seek the answers as a learning community.

As you may know, NCDD-sponsored listservs are moderated and embrace ground rules that have proven effective for our lists. Please follow the following guidelines if you choose to participate.

Transpartisan Listserv Guidelines

The following guidelines will help keep the list focused, manageable, and useful for subscribers. Please read these over before posting or replying to the list. The moderator may choose not to approve messages that break one or more of these ground rules.

  • Please refrain from over-posting (once per day maximum; 3-4 posts per week max). Aim for quality over quantity.
  • Identify yourself. Include your usual email signature (i.e. your name, organization, email address, where you’re from…) when you send a message to the list. This will help us get to know each other a little better and make it easier for people to connect with you.
  • Keep your messages relevant to transpartisan work. If it is not immediately apparent that your message is relevant to transpartisan work, explain in your message why you think it is relevant.
  • Please do not use this list as a forum for debating public policy issues. If you really want to delve into a specific social or policy issue with other members of the list, feel free to contact members individually via email or social networking sites.
  • This goes without saying, but please stay civil and treat other subscribers with respect. Model good dialogue behavior and refrain from name-calling, making unwarranted assumptions about people, and making sweeping statements about individuals or groups of people without backing them up with facts and data. If you’re unclear about why someone said something or thinks/feels a certain way, ask them. (Note: the moderator reserves the right to reject or ask you to reframe posts which seem overly confrontational towards another person on the list, since we are fostering a supportive, respectful space for leaders in transpartisan work.)
  • Direct your message to the subscribers of the list. If you forward an announcement or article, please offer some context. Emails with attachments/links and no explanation of what’s in the attachment/link will not be approved.
  • If your message is directed at one individual in particular, do not send your message to the entire list. If replying to an individual, click “Reply” instead of “Reply All.”
  • Please do not fundraise or send regular digital newsletters to the list.
  • If you ask the list for advice and get a variety of good responses on and off-list, consider taking the time to compile or summarize the responses and share them with the list. We’d greatly appreciate that!

Please note that this listserv has a daily digest option. If the list becomes busy and you’d prefer to receive no more than one message a day from the list, email NCDD office manager Joy Garman at joy@ncdd.org and let her know you’d like to be switched to the daily digest for the Transpartisan List. Joy can also remove you from the list or change your email address.

Subscribe by sending a blank email to transpartisan-subscribe-request@lists.thataway.org. Once you’re subscribed, use the email address transpartisan@lists.thataway.org to send a message to the list.

Using Dialogue Then Deliberation to Transform a Warring Leadership Team

Posted on by
Reply

This case study is on the use of dialogue then deliberation to transform organizational cultures. The authors are John Inman (the consultant) and Tracy A. Thompson, Ph.D. a professor at University of Washington. This case study was published in OD Practitioner in the Spring of 2013. You can reach John Inman at john@johninmandialogue.com and Tracy Thompson at tracyat@uw.edu.

The new organization normal is complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity. Old paradigms or mindsets of leadership based on positivist and linear approaches to problem solving worked well in predictable and stable contexts but they are less well-suited to address the complexity and challenges of the current world. If leaders are to create an organization that thrives in the world as it emerges, they need a different mindset, one that enables them to design and host transformative conversations (Groysberg & Slind, 2012).

Because they are rooted in constructivist and interpretive approaches targeted towards changing deep mindsets, Dialogic OD interventions (Bushe, 2009; Bushe & Marshak, 2009, Marshak & Bushe, 2009) offer an appealing means for developing leaders. We begin by discussing the importance of mindsets to OD practice, and we identify the key elements of a dialogic mindset, the kind of mindset necessary to tap into the power of conversation.

Building from methods that focus on dialogue (Bojer, Roehl, Knuth, & Magner, 2008), we identify a set of practices, what we term the dialogue then deliberation approach, which focuses on creating transformative conversations that alter mindsets and change behaviors. We illustrate how an internal OD professional used this approach to shift the mindsets of warring leaders in a business unit of a large telecommunication company, enabling them to work together more effectively. We conclude with recommendations on how to move forward with this Dialogic OD approach to changing mindsets and behaviors in organizations.

Resource Link: http://www.johninmandialogue.com/wp-content/uploads//2012/09/ODP-V45No1-Inman-Thompson.pdf

This resource was submitted by consultant and NCDD member John Inman via the Add-A-Resource form at www.ncdd.org/rc/add. John included this generous note:

I would welcome a conversation on this work any time. Please email me at john@johninmandialogue.com, visit my web site at www.johninmandialogue.com, or give me a call at 425-954-7256. I am located in the Greater Seattle area and am open to working with others.

The Ecology of Democracy: Finding Ways to Have a Stronger Hand in Shaping Our Future

Posted on by
Reply

This 2014 book written by David Matthews, president of the Kettering Foundation, focuses on how to put more control in the hands of citizens when it comes to shaping the future of their communities and country. It was published by the Kettering Foundation Press.

From the Publisher:

Ecology-CoverThe Ecology of Democracy: Finding Ways to Have a Stronger Hand in Shaping Our Future is for people who care deeply about their communities and their country but worry about problems that endanger their future and that of their children. Jobs are disappearing, or the jobs people want aren’t available. Health care costs keep going up, and the system seems harder to navigate. Many worry that our schools aren’t as good as they should be. The political system is mired in hyperpolarization. Citizens feel pushed to the sidelines.

Rather than giving in to despair and cynicism, some Americans are determined to have a stronger hand in shaping their future. Suspicious of big reforms and big institutions, they are starting where they are with what they have.

This book is also for governmental and nongovernmental organizations, as well as educational institutions that are trying to engage these citizens. Their efforts aren’t stopping the steady erosion of public confidence, so they are looking for a different kind of public participation.

The work of democracy is work. Here are some ideas about how it can be done in ways that put more control in the hands of citizens and help restore the legitimacy of our institutions.

David Mathews is a husband, father, grandfather, gardener, and a member of the Clarke County Historical Society. Although a nonpartisan independent, he served as a Cabinet officer in the Ford administration (Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare). He is a former president of the University of Alabama, where he taught history. Now president of a research organization, the Kettering Foundation, he writes books like Politics for People, which has been translated into eight languages. He doesn’t sail or ski and has no musical talents, but his dog loves him.

Table of Contents includes:

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introducing the People Who Make Our Democracy Work

Part I. Democracy Reconsidered

1. Systemic Problems of Self-Rule

2. Struggling for a Citizen-Centered Democracy

3. The Political Ecosystem

Part II. Citizens and Communities

4. “Here, Sir, the People Govern.” Really?

5. Putting the Public Back in the Public’s Business

6. Citizens: Involved and Informed?

7. Public Deliberation and Public Judgment

8. Framing Issues to Encourage Deliberation

9. Opportunities in Communities

10. Democratic Practices

Part III. Institutions, Professionals, and the Public

11. Bridging the Great Divide

12. Experiments in Realignment and Possibilities for Experiments

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Ordering info: The book is currently available for purchase from the Kettering Foundation

Resource Link: http://kettering.org/publications/ecology-of-democracy/

Community Rhythms: Five Stages of Community Life

Posted on by
Reply

Communities have rhythms to them that we must come to understand so that our approaches, programs and initiatives — and the building of public capital — work with those rhythms, take advantage of them, even accelerate them. This 1999 report from the Harwood Institute describes five stages of community life: The Waiting Place, Impasse, Catalytic, Growth, and Sustain and Renew.

CommunityRhythmsImageAccording to the Harwood Institute, while a community can accelerate its movement through the Stages of Community Life, it cannot violate, or simply pass over, the hard work that needs to be done in each stage. For as Five Stages of Community Life reveals, each stage has its own purpose; indeed, within each stage, different approaches must be taken to grow a community.

For example, Growth strategies for the most part will not work for a community in Impasse. Why? Because the community simply does not have the kind of support — structures, relationships, networks, norms, sense of purpose, in short the level of public capital — required to undertake and sustain such strategies.

Written for the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Community Rhythms report helps you understand what stage your community is in, so you can choose actions that will best fit current conditions.

The Harwood Group’s work in communities reveals that there are stages of a community’s life and that each stage has deep implications for understanding your community and what it means for moving forward. These stages echo the development of all living things, such as a person or a plant or an ecosystem. Only if you know and understand the stage in which your community rests, will you be better able to figure out what kinds of approaches, strategies and timing best fit for seeking to move your community forward.

Each stage brings its own set of challenges and opportunities. The problem in many communities is that too often we do not think about stages of community life, or are even aware of them, much less approach them strategically in terms of what they mean for our actions.

Harwood’s Stages of Community Life emerges from over a decade of research and on-the-ground initiatives throughout the U.S.

Download the report: http://ncdd.org/rc/wp-content/uploads/Harwood-CommunityRhythmsReport.pdf

More about the Harwood Institute: www.theharwoodinstitute.org

Perspectives on Theory U: Insights from the Field

Posted on by
Reply

In recent years, the utilization of Theory U has pushed the boundaries of traditional leadership and management thinking, making it an important aspect of change across a broad assortment of international businesses and communities.

Perspectives on Theory U: Insights from the Field, edited by Olen Gunnlaugson, Charles Baron, and Mario Cayer (all of the Université Laval, Canada), brings together an existing array of research on Theory U, including specific aspects of the theory, through diverse interpretations and contexts. While exploring key theoretical concepts and outlining current approaches and blind spots, this book will act as a reference source for researchers and practitioners intending to raise awareness of the applicability of Theory U to colleagues, students, and international business leaders.

See our post on Theory U at http://ncdd.org/rc/item/2817 for more details on the theory.

Resource Link:  www.igi-global.com/book/perspectives-theory-insights-field/78265

This resource was submitted by Ann Lupold, Promotions and Communications Coordinator, IGI Global (Publisher) via the Add-a-Resource form.

Crime & Punishment: Imagining a Safer Future for All (IF Discussion Guide)

Posted on by
Reply

Crime & Punishment: Imagining a Safer Future for All  is the newest discussion guide published by the Interactivity Foundation (IF). This booklet describes five contrasting policy possibilities or frameworks for addressing concerns over the future of our criminal justice system. These concerns include both the racial inequity and the many costs of our policies of mass incarceration, the “War on Drugs”, and general get-tough-on-crime policies.

Crime & PunishmentThe five policy possibilities are:

  1. Get Smart[er] to Prevent and Better Deter More Crime
  2. Support Families, Strengthen Community, Reintegrate Society
  3. Less Prison and More and Better Treatment for Mental Illness and Substance Abuse
  4. Fix our Prison System
  5. Do the Right Thing

The Crime & Punishment discussion guide also includes introductory sections on:

  • Why we should talk about crime & punishment
  • “You be the judge”: a real life fact pattern to spur discussion
  • “Just the facts, Ma’am”: some recent data about our criminal justice system, and
  • Some Key discussion questions and considerations for evaluating all crime and punishment policies

Copies of the Crime & Punishment discussion guide for individual or small group use may be obtained, free of charge, from the Interactivity Foundation’s website by either (a) downloading a pdf (42 pages, 1.5 MB) or (b) submitting a request for printed copies (via a form also on IF’s website).

The Interactivity Foundation is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that works to enhance the process and expand the scope of our public discussions through facilitated small-group discussion of multiple and contrasting possibilities. The Foundation does not engage in political advocacy for itself, any other organization or group, or on behalf of any of the policy possibilities described in its discussion guidebooks. For more information, see the Foundation’s website at www.interactivityfoundation.org.

Resource Link: www.interactivityfoundation.org/new-discussion-guidebook-crime-punishment-now-available

Envisioning the Role of Facilitation in Public Deliberation

Posted on by
Reply

This 2013 article by Kara Dillard argues that academic research has neglected a critical factor in promoting successful citizen deliberation: the facilitator. In outlining a continuum of a facilitator’s level of involvement in deliberative dialogues, the author finds that facilitators are important to the forum process. More academic investigations into facilitator actions should reveal more of the logic that turns everyday political talk into rigorously deliberative forums emphasizing quality argument and good decision-making.

ABSTRACT
Academic research has neglected a critical factor in promoting successful citizen deliberation: the public forum facilitator. Facilitators create the discursive framework needed to make deliberation happen while setting the tone and tenor for how and what participants discuss. This essay brings facilitators more clearly into scholarly discussions about deliberative practice by offering an expanded and nuanced notion of facilitation in action. I modify David Ryfe’s continuum of involvement concept to outline three distinct types of facilitators: passive, moderate, and involved. Using this continuum, I investigate how various moves, types of talk, and discursive strategies used by each of these facilitators differ during six National Issues Forums style deliberations. Results demonstrate that most facilitators are not neutral, inactive participants in deliberative forums. Analysis indicates that the pedagogical choices made by facilitators about their involvement in forums affect deliberative talk and trajectories. Scholars evaluating deliberation should take into account facilitation and its different dimensions.

Citation:  Dillard, K.N. (2013). Envisioning the role of facilitation in public deliberation. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 41, 3, 217-235.

Resource Link: www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00909882.2013.826813#.UrdW8mRDunE