Group Learning Interview With Sibbet

Aug 08, 2009

Group Learning Interview With Sibbet

Aug 08, 2009h in Cognition & Communications, Collaboration Strategies, Leading Change, Organization Development, Strategic Planning, Sustainability by David Sibbet 0 Comments

FiredUpImage - Group Learning Interview With Sibbet I was interviewed for Gordon Rudow’s web radio show “Fired UP” recently on the subject of Group Learning. Gordon began his own consulting business Bonfire Communications back in the 1990s and I was one of his mentors. If you can ignore the over-the-top intro music and rah rah framing from Webmaster Radio, it’s a great interview.

I’m increasingly impressed with how different speaking in the moment in direct response to other people is from composed writing or designed presentations. I always find myself saying things that surprise, and in this case, delight me.

Have a listen. I’d love to hear your reaction. You might also enjoy Gordon’s other interviews. The ones with Dawna Markova and Terry Pearce are excellent.

May 07, 2009

Connecting With Source—Experiencing Theory “U”

May 07, 2009h in Collaboration Strategies, Community Building, Leading Change, Organization Development, Personal Development, Process Theory by David Sibbet 2 Comments

Otto Scharmer ignited the Thought Leader Gathering at Fort Mason, San Francisco, today with his sharing about the application of Theory “U” to social transformation. Craig and Patricia Neal, the Heartland Circle sponsors, expanded the meeting to 110 people because of the interest in Otto’s work.

As a conversation starter, Otto’s job was to catalyze our thinking and conversations in wisdom circles and a larger group circle dialogue that followed. He really delivered. (He’s the third from the right.)

OttoScharmer - Connecting With Source—Experiencing Theory

In a nutshell, Otto’s work is building off of his prior research around “presencing” and the importance of re-connecting personal intention, purpose and being to work in groups that are trying to address our times and future.

Jan 01, 2009

Seeds of Hope

Jan 01, 2009h in Collaboration Strategies, Community Building, Leading Change, Organization Development, Personal Development, Sustainability by David Sibbet 3 Comments

It’s New Year’s and I’m filled with hopeful stories I heard at a Compassionet gathering I attended this week. About 12 of us gathered with Srinivas Sukumar at Rudite Emir’s house in Mountain View. Sukumar was a client of mine at HP in the 1990’s—head of strategic planning for the labs, and is now the Community Program Manager for the CAL IT²Institute at UC San Diego, having “retired” a few years ago. I went to India with him in 1998 to do strategic visioning for a Chinmaya Mission school in Coimbatore and we have been close colleagues ever since. Compassionet is a circle of his friends that all share an interest in spiritual matters combined with work in service of the community.

We meet a couple of times a year when Sukumar is back in the Bay Area from San Diego, and we’re beginning to deepen the threads that connect us. I’d like to share some of the things that inspired me when we recently crossed paths.

Compassionette - Seeds of Hope

Dec 22, 2008

Can We SEE Progress on Global Warming?

Dec 22, 2008h in Collaboration Strategies, Graphic Facilitation, Leading Change, Organization Development, Strategic Planning, Sustainability by David Sibbet 1 Comment

reamp_goals - Can We SEE Progress on Global Warming? Since late 2004 The Grove has been supporting an ambitious RE-AMP project in the upper Midwest to clean up the energy system there. Its goal is to reduce global warming pollutants 80% by 2030 from a 1990 benchmark. When we started there were six foundations and 27 NGOs who wanted to approach the problem with systems thinking and collaboration, funded by the Garfield Foundation. Now in 2008 the project has 15 foundations and over 93 members organizations, expanded beyond environmental groups to faith and youth groups, and 140 were going to Ames, Iowa for the annual meeting.

In talking over the design, Rick Reed, one of the initiators of the project at Garfield, posed the challenge. “We’ve got to see what we are doing and where the gaps are. How can we possibly do this at this scale?”

RE-AMP is without question the most organized effort in the country at the moment. But are we making progress? It’s challenges like this that always push us to something new… and this time our solution was a breakthrough in visualization at the system-thinking level.