Is it ever useful?
Ethical?
Sharing?
While directing or being a therapist?
Dialogue Diamond
Finger Painting
The art that graces the cover of this week’s New Yorker magazine is entitled “Finger Painting.” It’s the ideal name, since the artist created it using nothing more than his finger and trusty iPhone.
Artist Jorge Colombo designed the scene of a New York City hot dog vendor using an iPhone app called Brushes, software he only started using in February. Created by developer Steve Sprang, the $4.99 program lets anyone from amateur to professional draw and paint using the iPhone as canvas.
Note: I was there first!
Life – and a note on delegation
I am up at Mt. Lyford for a week working – or so it was planned on the Horse treks business with Kate. I am the finance manager. Of course I have a swag of other commitments I have made. Mostly to do with my work in the area of supervision with NZAP and the CITP.
Busy, busy, busy.
But we have made a great plan! I will extract data from the MoneyWorks file to make a Grid (see footnote 1) to work out our marketing strategy. OK, upgrade MoneyWorks, talk on phone. Learn how to extract data. But first the February and March reports, then the Annual report, then the April report! And not just reports, but do the data entry work first!
Busy, busy, busy.
Focus, says Kate, but she does not know how unbelievably focussed I am! Yes but that is not your job, you should DELEGATE that! Who the hell to? So I sent her a verbal Memo: Finance department under stress. Need more staff. Urgent. EeeeeeK.
Busy, busy, busy.
IT department in demand. (That is me too.) Website assistance please. Kate has done a great job learning to tweak the websites. Mt. Lyford & Otahuna, but there are complexities, FTP passwords won’t work etc.
Busy, busy, busy.
Marketing – needs a video. Kate made a wonderful video… well took the raw data. To get it on YouTube took ages, extracting the WAV files from the AVI and then editing them back in. DONE! I am really pleased! Look at that video!.
Busy, busy, busy.
Now, crocodiles killed. I am focusing on The Discipline of the Financial Leader. Chapter in E-Myth Mastery. Our bible. Wonderfully inspiring.
Love this line page 191:
“first you have to make sure you are delegating accountability rather than abdicating accountability”
Busy, busy, busy.
So am I in Focus to be writing here?
I think so. There is a theme in this blog & in my mind. It includes the psychological aspects of life & work. I see a connection with GTD and its operationalisation of delegation with the waiting for list and the weekly review.
I also see a connection with dialogue. Delegation can be an order: You do it. That is fine if there is an agreed process. Processes like that require structure. Before struture comes dialogue if we are to eschew “I – It” relationships.
Busy as I am it is useful to get this out of my head!
Two Versions of Psyberspace – and pingbacks
I occasionally get ping to the old WordPress.com version of this blog. I’ve kept it online even though I’ve moved it here to my own server with a new URL, and never post anything in the old blog.
Occasionally it behaves as if it is alive, though I think of it as dead. Today a pingback arrived for my Apophenia post – back in 2005! from Editions of You he links in a post called apophenia-1
Interesting looking blog! The blogroll looks good too!
Pinging Blogs
Everything
Everything depends on how the system is defined, and this in turn depends on who is the observer. (DC 274, 346)
Walker, there is no road
Walker, there is no road
Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atr’s
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.Walker, there is no road.
The road is made as you walk.
As you walk the road is made
and when you look behind you
you see the trail
you will never step on again.Antonio Machado (Spanish, 1875-1939)
Friday, 30 December, 2011
Safford Beer, Cyberneticist.
I’m following up on a suggestion from Josh to research Safford Beer, a Cyberneticist.
His story about the system in Chile is amazing. Right now I am intrigued by his dialogue approach! It seems that using the maths of the geodesic dome there is a way of structuring discussion. ?? I have just downloaded some audio, will be interesting too.
More follows from syntegrity.com
Creative Insight Council April 2009 – Audio
I am delighted to bring this audio here. Please download and listen!
Creative Insight Council April 2009 Austria
It is a podcast about Dynamic Facilitation and the success of A Creative Insight Council (close to a Wisdom Council) in a city in Austria.
This does not really explain what Dynamic Facilitation is, or the principles of an CIC, or Wisdom Council. It is a process developed in the USA by Jim Rough. See my earlier blog post.
I hope this audio will motivate you to explore that.
If you are familiar with Psychodrama, I can say this: it is a highly sociometric process with strong facilitation from a neutral facilitator. The group of 12 or so is created by lottery in the whole population of the city or country! Such is the nature of systems, there is isomorphy (self similarity) from the microcosm to the macrocosm and the group, if well publicised, is the protagonist group for the whole community. A microcosm CAN experience the deep heart-felt transformation of a small group process and give back its wisdom to the whole, who are likely to be receptive as the group was made up of a diverse, non-expert group.
For people familiar with Imago Relationship Therapy, this is a process of facilitation that used a dialogue process. Not so much *between* the participants who do not need to learn how to send or receive, but through the facilitator.
One difference between DF, Dynamic Facilitation and the two process I mention above, Psychodrama and Imago, is that the facilitation works towards solution statements.
Note that these councils do not seek any formal power, nor will they meet again after the council is over.
~
I am really inspired. I have always had a hunch that the small group process which has been so powerful in my life would change the world but I could never quite see how. Now I get it! Fantastic.
Moreno, Buber, Hendrix
In a recent post I quote the story of how the idea of Encounter found its way from Moreno to Martin Buber. A passage follows by Harville Hendrix where he describes the roots of his idea of Validation in the dialogue process… Martin Buber.
It is no wonder then that with this sort of whakapapa, having trained in both Imago & Psychodrama that I see such connection in the approaches.
A passage from Harville Hendrix “The Evolution of Imago Relationship Therapy” in Imago Relationship Therapy: Perspectives on Theory Follows, showing how he connected with the work of Buber.