Stepping Up to Big Questions

Oct 07, 2014

Stepping Up to Big Questions

Oct 07, 2014h in Graphic Facilitation, Leading Change, Organization Development, Personal Transformation, Sustainability by David Sibbet 0 Comments

I’m on my way to Germany with Gisela Wendling, The Grove’s Director of Global Learning, to conduct a new kind of workshop for me and The Grove. Called a Visual Interventions LAB, it is moving into the space long held by the National Training LABS that have been so instrumental in developing the professional field of organizational development.

A LAB isn’t a training in skill and content, but a deep inquiry and exploration, where the group process and its knowledge is the primary content. We came up with some big questions that will drive our inquiry.
Images - Stepping Up to Big Questions

Aug 01, 2014

The Power of the Pen: At EuViz Berlin

Aug 01, 2014h in Collaboration Strategies, Graphic Facilitation, Leading Change, Personal Development, Visualizing by David Sibbet 1 Comment

“You pulled your punches,” Karolina said, standing below the stage at the July 2014 EuViz conference where I was sitting along with three other “elders” in the field of visual facilitation. “I and some others felt like you didn’t really say what you thought. You are the founders of this field. You need to tell us what you really think.”

We were at the Hotel nhow in Berlin with 220 visual practitioners from 29 countries. The conference was a collaboration between the International Forum of Visual Practitioners (IFVP), now 19 years old, and Neuland and Kommunikationslotsen*. It was by far the biggest and most professional IFVP conference yet—beautifully organized and a powerful experience. Participants included the full range, from beginners in the field to longtime veterans and skilled practitioners.

Elders - The Power of the Pen: At EuViz Berlin

Jul 22, 2014

Berlin: An Urban Futurescape

Jul 22, 2014h in Global Learning, Leading Change, Visualizing by David Sibbet 0 Comments

My second visit to Berlin is haunting me. I think I’m glimpsing our collective future here. The evidence wasn’t in the obvious things—the daring architecture and rebuilt Potsdamer Platz, site of the old wall—but in the corners and crevasses, the young people, and the Michelberger Hotel!

Rachel Smith (Grove Director of Digital Facilitation), Gisela Wendling (the Grove’s Director of Global Learning and a native of the area near Cologne), and I were in Berlin for The Grove’s Advanced Visual Facilitation Workshop, scheduled to coincide with the EuroViz conference the following week.

MichelbergerBar

Dec 12, 2013

Lessons from the High Sierras—Taking Stock of 2013

Dec 12, 2013h in Family, Leading Change, Personal Transformation by David Sibbet 2 Comments

Bishop-OwensRiver&Range - Lessons from the High Sierras—Taking Stock of 2013 I always spend time in the dark of the year thinking through what is lying deep in the soil of my life that will spring forth in the next cycle of the sun. This year I’ve drawn deeply from the lessons I learned as a boy growing up on the East Side of the Sierras in Bishop.

This is a picture of where I grew up, a bit out of town to the north near the Owens River, close to the mesa where I went on my first vision quest in 1986. I know in the very fiber of my being that valleys and mountains are not separate, but completely interdependent ideas. And so are grief and love, freedom and constraint, hope and depression, life and death. This has been the deep lesson of 2013. I’d like to share some of these reflections for those of you who are following my journey.