Coro’s Graduation: A Personal Adventure in Immersive Learning

May 23, 2009

Coro’s Graduation: A Personal Adventure in Immersive Learning

May 23, 2009h in Community Building, Leading Change, Personal Development, Service Learning by David Sibbet 1 Comment

CoroGraduation - Coro's Graduation: A Personal Adventure in Immersive Learning I was moved and challenged by the invitation from the 2009 Coro Fellows class to be their graduation speaker. It said, “We as a class have decided that we would like to have a speaker at our graduation who can represent our experiences as Coro Fellows.”

I felt confident about this part since I was a Coro Fellow in Los Angeles in 1965, then on the staff from 1969 through 1977 in San Francisco, and on the Board in the 1990s and now again in the late 2000’s. I understand what it feels like to have a series of very disparate internship and projects experiences in government, business, labor, media, politics, and community organizations and try and make sense of the larger system. That’s what the 12 Coro Fellows do for nine months, along with the 66 different Tuesday evening and Friday seminars held to make sense out of it all.

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

Jul 18, 2008

Facilitation Mastery: Experiencing the Four Flows

Jul 18, 2008h in Graphic Facilitation, Leadership, Leading Change, Organization Development, Personal Development, Process Theory, Visualizing by David Sibbet 0 Comments

Davidlaurie - Facilitation Mastery: Experiencing the Four Flows “I didn’t realize that we would be doing so much personal development,” one participant said in our closing circle at the Facilitation Mastery Workshop, held recently at Islandwood Conference Center on Bainbridge Island in Washington. “The way you and Laurie showed up made it possible,” someone said. “This was transformational for me,” another said.

I’m still deeply moved by the experience, and so is the group. We are all communicating still through a Base Camp website that Grove Senior Associate Tom Benthin (who attended the workshop) set up for everyone. Poems and reflections are flying!

This was the sixth time that I’ve opened to spending a week with a group of people who have attended other Grove workshops but want to work more deeply. It’s come to be a benchmark for me and my own development. In fact, that is a good part of why we conduct the workshop. I do it with Laurie Durnell, the head of The Grove’s consulting group, and our own dance of preparation, delivery, and learning afterward is part of our development.