The Art of Hosting

Breaths of Process Design: How many breaths have we reached now?

Hi All,

This (email)string has made me realise that I simply don’t get the 5, 6 or now 8 breaths. Perhaps I’m just being stupid, and it wouldn’t be the first time.

Obviously I understand the specific elements and the flow. However it has been presented to me as the way to take AoH to scale, a very desirable intent. But the bit I don’t get is that so many of the breaths are about one meeting. So if the 5, 6 or 8 breaths are a more detailed pattern for an individual meeting – helpful in itself - where is the piece about taking AoH to scale? I also wonder if the whole 8 breaths approach is a little over-engineering one meeting?

My final confusion is about the addition of the breath of action within the new picture/process. My understanding of the Divergence-Emergence-Convergence framework is that it starts with intent and leads to action. Suddenly we now have action within the framework. Do we need to revisit the D-E-C framework?

I’d love to hear other thoughts – does anyone share my confusion, can anyone clear the fog for me/us?

Kindest

Stephen Duns

-----------------

Hi Stephan and all,

Well, we all have different styles, but I tend to agree with what you are saying, Stephan.
This feels a bit as if several different stages -- convening, inquiring, acting and informing have been smushed into one process and collected under emergence and groan zone.  
With thanks and respect to those involved in this synthesis, I know it has a level of presentational complexity which would keep me from using it.
Cheers,
Bob Stilger
------------------
Interesting, Stephen, thank you!
For good or ill, without any training in the 8 breaths whatsoever, just the diagram and conversation here online, I found myself using the 8 breaths in a meeting yesterday with non-AoH-ers to describe where we might be "stuck" in a 2-year project development process. The call two years ago was clear. Since then, we've been in a cycle of clarify, invite, meet, clarify, invite, meet, clarify, invite, meet... with what feels to me like very little action so far (except building relationships, which has been delicious and enormously valuable in its own right).
Looking newly, I can see we've shorted energy for harvesting. When we produced formal meeting minutes, they were insufficiently deep. When we circulated meeting notes (stream-of-the-moment typing verbatim into the computer) they provided only indiscriminate documentation of EVERYTHING, requiring a pair of wading boots to get to the "good stuff." Yesterday, again, we found ourselves saying, "But we know all of this already!" while a new person wondered, "But where would I find that? I don't know what you know." While the group is eager to next issue an invitation to a larger group, I'm sensing a deep need to pause, really harvest what we know -- in a form that serves the future we're out to create -- and then act from there. That next action may indeed be a broader invitation, but with the wisdom of what has gone before behind it.
Stephen, I hear your frustration with the "un-whole-ness" of this (or any) model, framework or diagram attempting to describe in words or pictures the full complexity of what's really going on, and your concern for over-engineering a single meeting. I took from the 8 breaths model something entirely different, but not necessarily what was intended! I am grateful for the non-linear (even in a linear representation) invitation to attend to ALL of the breaths that collectively build relationships, foster stakeholder connectedness, and create fertile ground for wiser, more informed action everywhere -- in work, in civil engagement, and in life.
From Madison, Wisconsin, where I'm noticing how my para-sympathetic system will breathe for me even when "I" forget...
-AB
--------------------
Thank you, AB, for sharing how you have used the insights from this model. And for articulating the age-old harvesting challenge so well.

Thank you, Stephen, for voicing your suspicion that this model is on its way to morphing into something else… It has invited me to take a closer look and sense into what that might be. What I see when I look at this string of breaths is that - if we look at the process from outside - some are visible and others invisible. 
In our women's work, we are trying to articulate some of this invisible stuff (much of which seems to be of the 'feminine realm'), and we see the progression from the very subtle (sensing unmanifest potential) to the very solid (action). Much of conversation - even though a meeting is visible and tangible - is still talking about the immaterial - concepts, aspirations, visions, strategies, etc. Action is the most material harvest of the process, but each stage needs a harvest that will bring the content (that which is seeking to manifest) one step closer to manifestation. Each stage must produce a harvest that will feed in all the relevant substance into the next stage. So each stage should always include some time for considering next steps, and those should be acted on/fed forward to the next stage.
I guess the iterative nature of the breaths begs for a circular/spiral structure. The nautilus comes to mind as I think on this, the every widening canal indicating the expanding impact of an initiative as it draws in ever more people…
All for now
:-)
Helen Titchen Beeth
------------------
Thank you all
the danger of trying to visualise something complex is always oversimplification.
However for me the 8 breaths are a way of being aware of some phases (a generic pattern) in a single meeting or a project over time (a series of meetings) - with a number of divergent - convergent phases. - 
Personally I do not necessarily see this as a pattern for taking change to scale although a longer time project can follow a similar pattern.
The visualization makes it look linear - but of course it is iterative.
As Helen says there is harvest at each step and the beginning phases need time - the harvest being clarity of the need & call (is this needed or not?) - clarity of purpose etc. (all the "soft stuff" that is the foundation) 
The reason I have suggested to add a breath called "harvesting" or "meaning making" is because we have a tendency to neglect this part and my experience from large scale participatory meetings is that we do not necessarily reach a collective emergence (collective new clarity) in the meeting itself - simply because the amount of in-put, data, expressions and impressions is overwhelming. 
The harvesting we do during the meeting / event is to capture and share as much as possible live - so that it informs the inquiry - but the real meaning making  is often done by the main stakeholders after the event - when all the inputs have been processed and digested.
I also find that the key stakeholders and decision makers have, first of all a different level of knowledge of the context which should not be ignored - just because we are doing a participatory process - and they also have the final responsibility and authority / power to move issues forward. 
So many times the follow-up meeting is where the input matures to clarity. (the earlier 6 breaths moved pretty much straight into action after the engagement)
Emergent decisions (decision happening) sometimes happen live in the meeting - staring everyone in the face - at other times it is a much more iterative process.
..
Thank you for stirring the pot - also all the juicy stuff about convergence
Best
Monica

Views: 221

Reply to This

© 2024   Created by Rowan.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service