The following are reflections in response to questions from a group of Indian practitioners. This group is in the early stages of co-creating and nurturing the development of a ‘Community of Practice’ (COP) among hosting practitioners in India. They are not intended as definitive answers nor as an introduction to the stepping stones, just some of my reflections and learnings from working with the stepping stones offered with deep gratitude to those Art of Hosting pioneers who discovered them and especially to Chris Corrigan for helping to deepen my understanding.
Your wonderful questions about the practice of the Chaordic Stepping Stones (CSS) stimulates lots and lots of thoughts and questions for me. It feels like the entirety of the hosting practice could be contained in answering them. The beauty of these practices is that there is no one right answer and that the answers that we discover through practice seem to have unending levels of wisdom. So, I don’t claim to have answers but I do have a number of reflections that I will attempt to share.
The CSS is a tool or perspective for working with emergence. It is all about conversation, listening to one another until some next level of clarity arises and leads to taking a next step based upon that clarity. The process is not about arriving at any destination or achieving anything. It is about trusting and allowing what wants to happen to emerge. As such, there are no specified time requirements. Enjoy the journey and don’t worry about the destination. Simply stated, a COP is a group of people who practice together. By walking the CSS in ongoing communication, you are a community of practitioners. Where this leads and what it will look like can only be discovered by walking the path. Enjoy the journey. Share your experiences and questions. Listen deeply. Deepen your connections and nurture the relationships.
The CSS offers suggestions for questions to be explored at various stages in the journey. Take as much or as little time as needed on each stepping stone and move on to the next as you find clarity. It is an iterative process so never hesitate to circle back to an earlier question to inquire more deeply.
The purpose of this process is not to ‘take it to scale’ up or to figure out how to engage others. It is based in personal needs and in the power of attraction and invitation. It all begins with someone or a few people voicing an experienced need (what I need and sense others may also need). It is not about fixing something. It is about trusting that something wants to happen in response to this sensed need and our role is to listen for what wants to happen. Be clear on the need. Who else feels it? Avoid the temptation to talk about what ‘they’ need or even what ‘we’ need. Speak from personal experience.
Not everyone shares the same sense of this need. Those who don’t are not meant to be part of the journey. There is no judgement or exclusion in this; their path simply leads elsewhere. But for those who do share a sense of need, this is the shared starting place. Be as clear and specific as possible. The expression of need becomes the strange attractor around which something will emerge. And it becomes the basis of invitation for others to join the conversation. It also provides a bit of a useful barrier discouraging divergent needs. There is a balance between tightly and rigidly defining need leaving little or no room for divergence and leaving it so open and loose that anyone can bring their own agenda and feel like they belong. How to allow the sense of need to naturally evolve and deepen as new voices contribute to the conversation?
Once a core group has a discovered and articulated a shared sense of need and purpose and they begin talking to others about it, this will invite others to join the conversation. It has been my experience that some agreement around principles is essential before the group grows much. The principles are agreements for how the group will be together. In time, they become collective practices and form a part of the strange attractor. People want to be part of the process that is emerging. If they are not comfortable with the practices and principles, then this is an indication that they are not the ‘right people’ for this process. No judgement. No competition. Nothing wrong with opting out. Better to have a small group of people who have agreement on principles and practices than a large group struggling to figure out how to work together.
Take as long as needed to reach clarity and resist the temptation to try and convince anyone to join. ‘Whoever show up are the right people.’ Practice together and share stories of your practice and see who is attracted. Attend to the needs of people who join by sharing the story of the stepping stones that brought the group to its current place. In sharing the story, deeper clarity and wisdom is likely to emerge. Be patient. Impatience does not serve the process and it implies an expectation of an outcome or destination. Remember that the process is a journey. That is all there is. And, on this journey, you are likely to experience a number of amazing destinations along the way.
Attend to relationships. It’s all about friendship and enjoying the process together. When there is tension, lean in and listen. What can be learned from listening to different perspectives? Keep the need and purpose in the center. Can you all stay connected to the common center even when feeling tensions and seeing it from different perspectives? What practices will help create a container strong enough to hold the tensions and invite emergence? Remember that emergence needs the energy and chaos that comes with tensions and diversity of perspectives. Ask yourself repeatedly and often ‘what are we learning?’. How does your learning inform you regarding need, purpose, principles and understanding of the emerging concept?
I do not find role definitions to be useful in this process. One exception to this is the need for host/guardian/harvester in every conversation. These need not be the same people each time. In fact, such rigidity gets in the way of shared leadership and shared ownership of the process. Rotating these roles builds skill and capacity. There may also be friends of the process that are not part of the core team and not directly involved in the process. For instance, an Indian Community of Practice needs to be comprised of Indian practitioners, I think. Yet there are some people (me included) who are supportive even if we don’t belong in the conversation. Keep them informed and ask for what you need. But don’t disempower yourselves by giving anyone else the leadership or responsibility.
Remember the beautiful Aboriginal saying: ‘If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together‘. If you are trying to build a community of practice to help Indian practitioners, you are wasting your time. If you, as practitioners, have need of a community, then co-create it. And co-create it by being in practice together. If it never becomes anything more than five people who care deeply for one another and who are in deep practice and learning together, you have a community of practitioners. Don’t worry about scaling up. It will happen naturally as appropriate. Let go of any desire for control and any attachment to outcome. Allow it to emerge. And enjoy the process.
Follow