Category Archives: All Resources

From Dialogue to Action: Climate Dialogues and Climate Action Labs

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This 2008 article by Phil Mitchell shows how a global issue like climate change can be handled gracefully at the local level with little funds by working in collaboration with the existing infrastructure provided by local environmental organizations. (Vol 2 Issue 2 of the International Journal of Public Participation, December 2008)

Abstract:
The Greater Seattle Climate Dialogues is a climate change education and advocacy project with its roots in dialogue and deliberation. Using an adapted study circles model, the purpose of its Climate Action Labs is to change grassroots politics in such a way that people can bridge the ubiquitous gap between dialogue and action. In overview form, this is the story of the project, intended to share the thinking that motivated it and the activities, design principles, and actual process designs that shaped its implementation and outcomes. The story is not complete without articulating lessons learned to date, and these are shared to benefit others, as is the major political challenge we believe we all face. For others’ projects based in similar motivation, the design principles and lessons learned may be a useful, transportable resource.

Excerpt from the introduction:
Practitioners of dialogue and deliberation (D&D) are keenly interested in two of the facets of public participation that remain underexplored: action and scale (Levine, Fung, & Gastil, 2005). We need action, especially in the many situations where our motivation for applying D&D techniques is to solve real world problems that require action outcomes, often political ones. Too often, however, in otherwise excellent deliberative processes, the links between talk and action are tenuous. Secondly, we need scale, because while most applications of D&D techniques have been on a local scale, it is clear that many larger, even global scale challenges could benefit from such approaches. Climate change is a perfect example.

Climate change—that is, the human-caused disruption of the Earth’s climate system—is arguably the most pressing global challenge society faces (CNA, 2007; Stern, 2005). Yet despite a broad scientific consensus on the facts, the very existence of the problem remains bitterly contested in the public sphere. The use of obfuscation and uncertainty as a political tactic cries out to be addressed by the wisdom inherent in D&D approaches.

Some attempts have been made to do so, as for example, the Empowerment Institute’s Global Warming Cafe (World Cafe), the Northwest Earth Institute’s Changing Course (discussion circle), the National Conversation on Climate Action (21st Century town hall), Deliberative Democracy and Climate Change (World Cafe, then next steps forthcoming), and the Greater Seattle Climate Dialogues and Action Labs (study circles/hybrid/experimental).

The Climate Dialogues/Labs are the subject of this report. The Greater Seattle Climate Dialogues is a climate change education and advocacy project with its roots in dialogue and deliberation. From its inception, we attempted to bridge the gap between dialogue and action. The Climate Action Labs model is our response to challenges we found in using study circles to support participant action. Here, I offer an overview of the programs: how we prepared for launch, how we approached design, what happened in terms of implementation and outcomes, and finally, the lessons we have learned to date.

The question at the center of Climate Dialogues was, How can we build a mandate for strong global warming policy when there is no public consensus and when public discussion is frozen into camps and undermined by disinformation? Our answer: (a) Start with well-designed dialogue; (b) take people through a learning and community-building process that gets past the obfuscations; and (c) use that as a launching point for collective political action. Our premise was that if we could create an opening for the public to actually hear and understand what the scientists are telling us, that members of the public would be moved to act.

Resource Link: www.ncdd.org/rc/wp-content/uploads/Mitchell-ClimateDialoguesToAction.pdf (free download)

Heartland’s Art of Convening Trainings: In-Residence Certification and Virtual TeleTraining

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Convening is a leadership capacity that has the power to integrate and magnify the individual and collective, or group, team, whole organization, to enhance business and organizational performance, or individual relationships. How we gather, communicate and deliver the desired outcomes through our meetings is critical to the long-term vitality and success of our organizations and communities and the people within.

Using The Convening Wheel, Heartland‘s The Art of Convening Training is a practical map that anyone can navigate and activate as a core leadership competency. We travel the inner and outer path of the reflective leader, from getting to “The Heart of the Matter” to a “Commitment to Action” and all the territory in between.

Core TeleTraining Format – 30% off for NCDD members

Each Core TeleTraining Series of 7 two-hour sessions combines guided teaching of session themes with collaborative learning. The format, based on Heartland Inc.’s work with the Transformational Leaders Circles and various convening designs, utilizes ancient forms as well as modern systems for group effectiveness. All sessions are a blend of virtual group interaction and engagement. Between sessions participants continue learning via experiential exercises, individual reading and reflection, developing a Case Study and are supported by a custom online learning platform. Participants will receive ICF CCEUs – 15.75 hours.

Certification Training Format  – 30% off for NCDD members

The Certification Training combines a 3-1/2 day in-residency Retreat with a series of 5 guided cohort calls based on Heartland Inc.’s work with the Transformational Leaders Circles and various convening designs. The Training utilizes ancient forms as well as modern systems for group effectiveness. All calls are a blend of virtual group interaction and engagement. Between sessions participants continue learning via experiential exercises, individual reading and reflection, developing a Case Study presentation and are supported by a custom online learning platform. Once training is complete, participants will be certified in The Art of Convening and receive ICF CCEUs – 36.0 hours.

You will learn new practices and processes including:

  • Utilizing the Convening Wheel
  • Coaching Council Process
  • Stringing the Beads
  • Design Elements Checklist
  • Working with Transitions
  • Working with the Principles of Convening

Learn more at http://heartlandcircle.com/aoc-main.htm. Heartland offers a permanent 30% off discount for any Art of Convening Training to all NCDD Members. To receive this discount, use this code when registering: DSC-NCDD-30%

The Art of Convening: Authentic Engagement in Meetings

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Art Of Convening coverIn their book, The Art of Convening, authors Craig and Patricia Neal explore their “Art of Convening” engagement model and how it goes “beyond facilitating”. According to their book, convening creates an environment in which all voices are heard, profound exchanges take place, and transformative action results. The heart of this book is the Convening Wheel — a series of nine steps, or Aspects, that bring the practices and principles needed for authentic engagement together as a whole. The book provides exercises, stories, and questions to help you master both the inner and outer dimensions of this work — because, in convening, the state of the Convener is equally as important as the physical preparations. The book…

  • Details a powerful set of principles and practices for making any gathering productive, meaningful, and transformative
  • Draws on the authors’ decades of experience convening meetings in all kinds of settings
  • Offers practical wisdom on both the inner and outer aspects of convening

Convening works in any setting and can be adapted to virtually any group process. With this book you have all the tools you need to develop this essential life and leadership skill, one that will lead to improved outcomes in your organization, community, family, and relationships.

Some “back of the book” quotes…

“In this wise and thoughtful book, Craig and Patricia Neal help readers understand what’s needed to create the kind of authentic ‘meeting’ where true collective wisdom can emerge in group settings. They remind us that convening is an ancient art, one that can be critical to our capacity to survive and thrive in today’s challenged world.”
- Juanita Brown and David Isaacs, Co-Originators, The World Café

“Few people have refined the process of bringing people together as gracefully and elegantly as Craig and Patricia Neal. How we convene is much more than simple technique or facilitation; it is an expression of who we are and what kind of world we want to create. If their thinking and methodology were to become common practice, there would be more peace and connectedness and good will all around.”
- Peter Block, Author & Troublemaker

“These days we spend so much time working together in groups, doesn’t it make sense to learn how to do it better, smarter, deeper, and more authentically? If your answer, like mine, is “yes,” then like me you’ll love this book! It is both wise and worthwhile, profound and practical.”
- Alan M. Webber, co-founder, Fast Company magazine

As co-founders of Heartland Inc., Craig and Patricia Neal have led over 170 “Thought Leader Gatherings” with leaders from over 800 diverse organizations. Their new book shares their Art of Convening model — developed in these gatherings and refined over six years of intensive trainings.

Resource Link: www.heartlandcircle.com/aocbook.htm

This resource was submitted by Patricia Neal, co-founder of Heartland Inc., via the Add-a-Resource form.

e-Deliberation™

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e-Deliberation™ is a web-based platform used by teams and communities to collaboratively deliberate to resolve a focus, which can be a complex problems or a goal. The teams include a rich variety of stakeholder perspectives (between 15 and 80 participants) who all contribute to define a consent-based, strategy to address the said focus. The strategy develops as several complementary vectors which are integrated and harmonized as part of the process. e-Deliberation™ can be used for face to face summits as well as entirely web-based collaborations. e-Deliberation is based on Stafford Beer’s Team Syntegrity process.

e-Deliberation events or summits have defined start and finish dates/times, and follow the e-Deliberation process. All this is facilitated by a full-featured web-based user interface that supports each phase of the process. This interface can be used to support a conference where people are present in person, or it can be the virtual town hall meeting place for an entirely online event.

The e-Deliberation process starts with a named focus such as “What would it take to….” (resolve a difficult issue, achieve a goal, or manifest a vision). The proponent provides an initial Focus and description and lists stakeholder groups who ought to be concerned with or affected by the focus. The event can be private (participants are invited) or public (participants can also sign-up). A project manager/facilitator ensures all stakeholder groups are represented and sets a schedule for the phases of the e-Deliberation process based on how many hours per day participants can commit to the process (ranges from full-time to 1 hours/day). Signed up participants can offer suggestions to improve the wording of the Focus and the event description, as well as upload briefing documents and presentations.

The first phase of the e-Deliberation process is called Perspectives. In this phase, the participants do an unrestricted brainstorm of ideas that have to do with the e‑Deliberation Focus question or issue as seen through the lens of each participant. These ideas will reflect the various perspectives of the participating stakeholders, creating a universe of ideas from which the next step will draw inspiration.

The next phase is called Topic Jostle. Here, participants are asked to submit topic proposals for further deliberation. These topics are proposals that would inform or resolve the e-Deliberation Focus question or issue. Here we encourage “outside the box” thinking and provocative, creative thinking, so new avenues of thought and possibility are explored.

Once a topic is endorsed by at least 5 participants, it is included in the potential agenda of the e-Deliberation. Topics that are ill-conceived tend not to get endorsed or be replaced by better idea; this is a normal part of the creative process. Similar topics may get consolidated. The Perspectives brainstorm (previous step) is used to inspire these topics, as well as to validate that we have topics that talk to or advance the essential parts of that universe of ideas.

Participants are then individually polled to rate each of the topics that got 5+ endorsements based on how important they see that topic is with regard to resolving the event Focus. The topics that aggregate the highest importance score are conserved – how many depends on the number of participants (12 topics for 30 participants, 8 for 20, etc.) The participants are then polled to indicate on which of the conserved topics they would like to personally work on. This drives the assignment of the participants to teams formed around each topic. Each participant is a deliberative member of 2 of these teams, and a facilitator/guardian of up to 2 others. The formation of the team membership ensures that each team has direct access to all the other teams via the co-memberships of it’s team members.

The next phase are the Waves of Deliberation. Each Topic Team is tasked to deliver a document, called an Outcome Resolve, which puts forward proposals to the rest of the event participants on how the Team’s Topic can be put forward in support of Focus statement.

The mandate of each Topic Team is to ensure that their Outcome Resolve is consistent with the Outcome Resolves of the other Topic Teams, and that it has the support of all the participants of the e-Deliberation event. This means that while each participant is accountable to him/herself to speak their mind and be true to their values, they are also accountable to the deliberative community as a whole to help it deliver a wholesome and fully consented resolution to the Focus issue.

To achieve this integrated result, the process includes up to three Waves. In each wave, each team deliberates and drafts an Outcome Resolve document for their Topic. The deliberation is supported by a number of tools such as interactive team mind maps, threaded discussion forums, conference calls, Skype, even meeting face to face is an option if all the members of the Topic Team are collocated. The Outcome Resolve is edited online and is version controlled.

At the end of the first wave, each participant reviews the Outcome Resolves drafted by the various Topic Teams. The participant is asked to consent to the Outcome Resolve, or to object to it by providing an argued objection. Each Topic Team therefore gets feedback from all the Participants to understand gaps, blind spots and where others are coming from, as input to the next wave of deliberation.

This feedback also gives the Team guidance on how well their Outcome Resolve “fits” in the big picture and they also understand where the other teams are going with regard to their own respective Outcome Resolves.

This feedback, quantitative and qualitative, becomes an input to each Topic Team as it enters the second wave, which then proceeds the same way as the first wave, with a second draft of the Outcome Resolve and a feedback poll. A third wave follows the second, especially is during the second wave, several participants still had objections.

The goal ultimately is that the Outcome Resolve will win the consent of the whole e-Deliberation team and that it also dovetails with the Outcome Resolves of the other teams.

The last Outcome Resolve from each team is again polled to validate that it meets the approval of the whole team, and to allow a final round of adjustments to obtain the consent of everyone on the final version. An Executive Summary report is compiled which included all the deliverables from each of the process phases.

Not all the phases of the process are needed for every situation. Sub-sets of the process, called Variants, can be used for simpler situations.

The entire process is facilitated by a dynamic user interface that self-adjusts given the then current phase of the process. The website includes a number of automated workflows that simplify the job of facilitating the process: process phase changes execute according to the event schedule, and participants get emails to wrap up their work on the current phase as the next one is introduced. Summary as well as detailed “how to” instructions are provided for each phase so each participant always knows what is expected of him or her.

The e-Deliberation platform is entirely encrypted and hosted in a high security Canadian data center.

Resource Link: www.e-deliberation.com

This resource was submitted by Jean-Daniel Cusin, Managing Director of e-Deliberation Inc., via the Add-a-Resource form.

Human Migration: Policy Possibilities for Public Discussion

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The Interactivity Foundation (IF) has recently published a discussion guidebook entitled “Human Migration: Policy Possibilities for Public Discussion.” The guidebook was edited by IF Fellow Ieva Notturno, who also managed the long-term project and two discussion panels that explored and developed the ideas that resulted in the six policy possibilities listed below and further outlined in the guidebook.

The discussion panelists initially worked thru a series of fundamental questions and concerns about human migration, including “What could human migration mean? What are the forces that drive it? What societal goals and public policies might pertain to it? What are its different dimensions and how might these different dimensions conflict with each other? How might human migration and the conflicts that arise from it affect the ability of democracy to achieve its goals? Might immigration and emigration, as special examples of human migration, pose special threats to democracy? And if so, what are they? What concerns might Americans have about human migration? How might our public policies address these concerns? What conceptual policy possibilities might we develop that might affect the future of human migration?”

Human-Migration-coverIn response to these and other questions and concerns, they developed the following six policy possibilities for further exploration and discussion:

  1. Put Security First
  2. Privilege Human Rights & Humanitarian Needs
  3. Promote Assimilation into Local Communities
  4. Put the Economy First
  5. Keep Families Together
  6. Embrace Freedom of Movement

For each of these possibilities, the discussion guidebook also describes possible implementations, effects (or consequences), and further discussion questions.

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 reports. For more information see the Foundation’s website at www.interactivityfoundation.org.

Resource Link: www.interactivityfoundation.org/discussions/human-migration/

This resource was submitted by Peter Shively of the Interactivity Foundation via the Add-a-Resource form.

The Human Impact of Climate Change: Opportunities & Challenges

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The Interactivity Foundation (IF) has recently published a guidebook for public discussion on “The Human Impact on Climate Change,” edited by IF Fellows Dennis Boyer, Jeff Prudhomme, and Adolf Gundersen. The guidebook was developed from the group discussions of 16 panelists in two groups from south central and southwestern Wisconsin.

Human-Impact-on-Climate-coverTest discussions facilitated by former Wisconsinites in Tucson, Ariz., and in Sonora and Mazatlan, Mexico, further developed the text of the discussion guide.

Six contrasting policy possibilities emerged from these group discussions and are described in this discussion guide along with possible implementations, examples, and consequences:

  1. Promote climate awareness: Improve public understanding of climate impacts, their consequences, and options for action.
  2. Change consumer habits: Focus on human consumption as a source of atmospheric carbon and greenhouse gases.
  3. Go for results: Identify efficient and low-cost solutions that are currently available for short-term action.
  4. Heal the planet: Plan and implement long-range recovery and rehabilitation of ecosystems.
  5. Deal with a different world: Adapt to changed conditions and plan for climate emergencies.
  6. Focus on the developing world: Assist developing nations in reducing climate impact activities and help them “leap over” traditional industrial development to clean technologies.

In developing these possibilities, the project panelists felt that much of the existing political “debate” about climate impacts has been unhelpful to citizens and policymakers. Eventually, their discussions designated certain issues, such as “Is the planet getting warmer? How is the climate changing? What role does human action play in global climate change?” as questions that rely more on empirical scientific research for their answers. Conversely, they designated other key questions, such as “What public policy choices might we make about climate change? What, if anything, might society do about global climate change?” as public policy questions that need exploration by all citizens.

This distinction helped the panelists to side-step much of the highly partisan and interest-group-driven “debate” and engage in a public conversation that was more anticipatory and imaginative. Their explorations seem to be shaped by three realizations:

  1. Universal agreement on the precise nature and extent of climate impacts is difficult to achieve and waiting for it could forestall consideration of workable impact policies.
  2. There is sufficient current evidence of dramatic environmental consequences connected to climate impacts to merit development of policy responses.
  3. Significant institutions and interests are assuming that human climate impacts are real and must be accounted for.

This last point accounted for a dramatic shift in the project discussions. Among the more conservative panelists, the realization that major financial institutions, large investors, risk managers, insurers, and military and national security leaders take climate impacts into account in their planning was a turning point. It was seen as evidence that the politicians often lag behind in both consciousness and practical problem-solving.

The sense that emerged from the climate project was that these starting points for public conversation represent a possibly useful foundation for discussion of the opportunities for innovation, economic development, and prudent planning related to climate impacts. Now it’s your turn.

Resource Link: www.interactivityfoundation.org/discussions/human-impacts-on-climate/

This resource was submitted by Peter Shively of the Interactivity Foundation via the Add-a-Resource form.

USAonRace.com

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Since 2008, USAonRace.com has been dedicated to increasing understanding about race, ethnicity and sponsoring the National Collegiate Dialogue on Race Relations and other community forums. USAonRace.com solely covers, on a daily basis, race-related news and events across the United States and around the world. USAonRace.com provides a place to go to learn and enter into a dialogue about race, racial tension, racism and discrimination that continue to impact contemporary society.

USA-on-Race-logoNCDD members who are interested in accessing the latest information on news, events and forums from USAonRace.com are invited to subscribe to their newsletter at www.usaonrace.com/content/members-and-supporters.  You are also welcome to contact publisher and executive director Janice Ellis directly at jellis@usaonrace.com or (816) 931-2200.

Resource Link: www.usaonrace.com