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Summer Institute Module

June 22-28, 2008
Halifax, Nova Scotia

The Art of Hosting and Harvesting: From Strategic Conversation to Wise Action and Systemic Change

with Chris Corrigan, Toke Møller & Monica Nissén

Powerful questions and conversations create fundamental shifts in the way we perceive challenges, engage with others, and move into action. In this module we will explore the art and practice of hosting the process of systemic change that begins with asking questions that matter. We will also practice the art of harvesting the results of our conversations — the collective intelligence and emerging patterns that are the basis for shared learning and the creation of new stories and higher-order meaning.

We will also cultivate our own capacity as host as we explore these questions:

How do we bring ourselves and our work into the generative space between chaos and control?
How do we host spaces in which collective wisdom is revealed?
How do we recognize and sustain the fractal nature of change?
How do we enter into collaborations with open-heartedness?

This module is for leaders, social entrepreneurs, and other agents of change who are working with teams, core groups, companies, or communities who are inspired to co-create more resilient, meaning-full, and sustainable futures.

Printable (PDF) module description

Chris Corrigan is a facilitator of conversation in the service of emergence. His business is supporting invitation: the invitation to collaborate, to organize, to find one another and make a difference in communities, organizations and lives.

To read more about Chris and his work, see his site. You'll also find there, a taste of the art of hosting.

“In a changing and complex world, there are no answers, there is no certainty. Leadership and questions are everywhere. We are called to be in active engagement with the world around us, to make sense of things we are seeing and to act on our visions and ideas for the good and benefit of all.”

Toke Møller has been pioneering in the fields of sustainable entrepreneurship, sustainable leadership, educational renewal, and social responsibility since the early 1970s. He is co-founder and CEO of InterChange, a training and process consulting company based in Denmark. He has co-led a module on convening strategic conversations at the Shambhala Institute's Summer Program for the past five years.

“For 40 years I have worked with my own professional leadership development and personal mastery through work, professional trainings and the practice of the art of self knowledge, aikido and meditation, as an expression of who I am professionally and as a person. I choose consciously to co-create, co-learn and co-operate with bold people, leaders, companies and organizations that want to explore and take responsibility for the needs and possibilities at this time both in global and local contexts. I consciously 'invest' in the growth of bold and young leaders, new 'learning centers' and new ways of working and doing business. I participate actively in learning networks to stay a learner.”

Monica Nissén started her professional life with a degree in architecture; she found very early on, that designing processes, was just as interesting as designing buildings. For the past 25 years she has worked as a process consultant.

“Since Toke Møller and I co-founded InterChange in 1991, we have worked with dialogue based, participatory processes, engaging larger groups of people in co-creating solutions, strategies or the futures they want. In working with larger groups, my special interest has been 'Learning Ecology' — that is, to harvest the results of these conversations, so that the collective wisdom and insights can be captured and put to good use.”