A Collaborative Response to COVID-19
— Transforming Organizations, Revitalizing Communities and Developing Human Potential
Collaborative Change & Participatory Practice in 2020:
Seeking a collaborative community of communities coronavirus response
1. The Invitation: Presenting Issue
Collaboration and the creation of synergistic environments have never been more important than right now. In this time in the history of humanity when we are all facing the same challenges at the same time, nation-states are failing in their response. How can we synergize the people and potential, and the energy of the methods/ tools/ activities/ practices of collaborative change and participatory practice – to come together and make a difference in the world right now? How can our community of communities support the peoples of the world as they face this global synchronous challenge? How can we serve?
2. Purpose and Outcomes: Why?
Outside of medical expertise and research, and public policy – it is our field of engagement and collaboration that will save lives now and profoundly change how humans interact for future generations.
Consider CERN as a metaphor: To strive on our planet, collaboration has become essential, even necessary for survival. We have stretched the resources of the planet and are increasingly working in systems so complex that no one person can see, comprehend, or even fathom the whole. The CERN particle accelerator complex near Geneva is shooting nuclear particles into a 27 km loop deep below the border of Switzerland and France. It took tens of thousands of scientists from more than a hundred countries, countless universities, laboratories, and areas of expertise to build. Its operation is governed by a council with members from 22 nations. No one person can possibly understand all of the complex science and engineering, from nuclear physics to kryo-technology, involved in operating and experimenting in this massive laboratory that some had initially feared would create black holes underground.
How can we be like CERN? No one person who works there can explain it, yet it does amazing things and it succeeds with a diversity of thought. We can help build a world where everyone can have a voice, and all the voices needed to make a decision are in the room to make that decision.
CERN accelerates particles, we accelerate peoples, purpose & potential!
A shared effort has the potential to make a tangible contribution to the crisis at hand and to create a lasting change in society to make it more dialogic and participatory.
Outcomes:
Some of the possible outcomes identified in various conversations over the last few weeks are:
A ‘channel’ to communicate across the networks and communities of collaborative practice.
Putting the field and all of the networks of collaborative practice “on the map”/ into public consciousness .
A one-page resource or brochure for non-facilitators with the 12 best “Tips for being better together: Better conversations and decisions” or similar.
Shared access to resources.
A calendar [curated/ ability to filter/ ability to publish to/ link to personal calendars].
Access to the tools and methods.
Building new empowering relationships and coalitions.
Increasing collaboration and compassion in our world
What other outcomes have not been identified?
3. Who to Involve and Include
3.1. Communities of Practice:
Applied Improvisation
Appreciative Inquiry Commons
Art of Hosting
Future Search
Genuine Contact
Liberating Structures
NCDD (Conversation Cafe)
Open Space Technology
Polarity Thinking
Theory U
Whole Scale Change/ Dannemiller
World Café Community
Who is missing?
3.2. Associations & Organizations
Alternatives to Violence Project & Alternatives to Aggression
Change Library Authors
Dialogue&Facilitation Network
Educator/ Teacher networks
Inclusion Allies Coalition
IAP2
Intern. Assoc. of Facilitators
Internet Identity Workshop
Mid-Atlantic Facilitators Network
Movement Strategy Center
Networks around NonViolent Communication [NVC]
NowWhat
Other (international) Facilitator networks
Organizational Learning networks
Restorative Circles
Systems Centered Therapy Research Institute
unConference.net
Who else? and Who can/should represent these networks and communities in this conversation?
4. Action Steps
4.1. A Survey for members of all networks/organizations identified:
Name / Email [optional]
County:
How did you find this survey?
Years of experience in collaborative practice
Top 3 best practices or tools
Top 3 biggest mistakes to avoid
In order to:
Create a sense of alignment around our shared best practices/ design principles/ purpose/ overall vision.
Create a one-pager brochure or pamphlet for anyone [our members, clients, families, community members] to be better together.
4. 2. An effort to convene a conversation among as many of the representatives of these networks/ communities/ organizations as we are able to reach.
In order to:
Test our channel[s] of reaching/ communicating across the networks,
Identify the level of support for a joint response to the current crisis,
Identify the level of interest in an on-going learning community of communities of practice.
Are you a part of this?
Check out NEXUS4change’s webinar series of 30-min. high-impact change tool talks. Check our events page [www.NEXUS4change.com/events] for more.