Howard Stanten's Posts - The Art of Hosting2024-03-28T14:51:07ZHoward Stantenhttp://artofhosting.ning.com/profile/HowardStantenhttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2771497794?profile=original&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://artofhosting.ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=39v9wwauquqes&xn_auth=noThe Way Forwardtag:artofhosting.ning.com,2015-04-09:4134568:BlogPost:970432015-04-09T14:18:54.000ZHoward Stantenhttp://artofhosting.ning.com/profile/HowardStanten
<p><font face="Calibri" size="3"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2805671050?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2805671050?profile=original" width="215"></img></a> </font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">In the Engagement Circles and World Cafes I facilitate, a recurring pattern is emerging. This pattern is a weave of two threads. The first thread carries with it the desire we have to bring our humanity to our organizations and our work places. All of it. Not just the strands that hide…</font></font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri" size="3"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2805671050?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="215" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2805671050?profile=original"/></a> </font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">In the Engagement Circles and World Cafes I facilitate, a recurring pattern is emerging. This pattern is a weave of two threads. The first thread carries with it the desire we have to bring our humanity to our organizations and our work places. All of it. Not just the strands that hide behind our quick wits or the ones that slink into the corner hoping to go unnoticed. But the whole cloth of who we really are. The whole cloth. The part that is vibrant, attractive, and willing and the part that is faded, in need of repair, and bleeding its color a bit. This first thread is just beneath the surface. Sitting at the edge of the chair. Welled up behind the dam of pretending to be. Tears are its witness. And, its truth. Deep listening is its comfort. Trust is its reward. </font></font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">The second thread carries with it the firm belief that WE have the answers. The challenges, problems, and opportunities we face, run through US. WE are a wellspring of creativity ….waiting for the opportunity to be heard. To be encouraged by leadership to walk the path between chaos and order. A place where it is safe to go for it with all of who we are. </font></font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">Listen to Margaret Wheately describe this thread in her forward to <u>The World Café: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter</u>: <i>“We actually do know how to solve our problems! We can discover solutions that work! We’ve just been looking in the wrong places—we’ve been looking to experts, or external solutions, or to detailed, empty analyses. And all this time, the wisdom has been waiting for us, waiting for us to enter into meaningful conversations and deeper connections, waiting for us to realize that we can be wise only together.”</i></font></font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri" size="3">And so, these two threads come together to weave a beautiful pattern felt in the center of our Circles and around the tables of our World Cafes. And, it is in this weave that as Toke Moeller says, “The magic of life itself,” is found. I quote Toke’s phrase frequently because I keep seeing it in the conversational spaces in which I find myself these days. WE need to remind ourselves that WE are part of “the magic of life itself.” This “magic” is, to me, the simple self-sustaining natural order of things. The way a forest regenerates after a fire. The way a field re-blooms after a flood.</font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri" size="3">Often, when we come together we forget our natural capacity to create together. We chop ourselves up into strands of thread that form a collective cloth that is weak and filled with holes. Each time I sit in Circle or Host a World Café, I experience the mending. I see the strands come together to weave a pattern that expresses the whole cloth of who we are. A pattern that shows that the solutions and way forward for our organizations and work places live and breathe within US.</font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri" size="3">I see it in the tears. I hear it in the new ideas. I feel it as the group begins to speak from its collective heart. And, it always does. Why? Because that is the natural order of things. That is what happens when we live in, “The magic of life itself.”</font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">We look forward to sitting in Circle and around the Café Tables with you on April 22</font><sup><font size="2">nd</font></sup><font size="3">. <a href="https://www.klineseminars.com/1-day-engagement-leadership-training.html">https://www.klineseminars.com/1-day-engagement-leadership-training.html</a></font></font></p>
<p></p>Health Care Management Challenge: Building Trust and Social Capital Through Circle Practicetag:artofhosting.ning.com,2014-12-13:4134568:BlogPost:955072014-12-13T16:56:55.000ZHoward Stantenhttp://artofhosting.ning.com/profile/HowardStanten
<h1 class="article-title"></h1>
<div class="article-body"><p><img alt="" class="left" height="226" src="https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/4/005/0a4/11c/1ec596b.png" width="224"></img></p>
<p class="left">Health care organizations today are facing enormous challenges, not the least of which is long range planning in the face of acute systemic uncertainty. In the United States, The Affordable Care Act has been praised by some and vilified by others. The fact is the verdict is not yet known. This “not knowing” fuels the rampant uncertainty. Anyone who works on the financial side of health care institutions…</p>
</div>
<h1 class="article-title"></h1>
<div class="article-body"><p><img width="224" height="226" class="left" alt="" src="https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/4/005/0a4/11c/1ec596b.png"/></p>
<p class="left">Health care organizations today are facing enormous challenges, not the least of which is long range planning in the face of acute systemic uncertainty. In the United States, The Affordable Care Act has been praised by some and vilified by others. The fact is the verdict is not yet known. This “not knowing” fuels the rampant uncertainty. Anyone who works on the financial side of health care institutions is now scrambling to build some sense of coherence into their financial forecasts and budgets. The political storm raging over “Obamacare” makes financial, and for that matter, clinical decision making all the more difficult. Remember former presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s pledge to end “Obamacare” on day one of his administration. How do health care organizations design a 5 year strategic plan within that kind of political context?</p>
<p>I suggest that successful planning will be the result of investment in what social scientists refer to as “social capital.” Simply put, social capital is a reserve of trust that can be used by groups to help solve problems. Social capital might also be looked at as what comes next after organizations invest in physical capital (structures, tools, technology) and human capital (training and development of individuals). Health care leaders that want to maximize the capacity of their organizations to engage uncertainty head-on and use that uncertainty as an opportunity to prosper through innovation will invest in trust building as a precursor to collaborative problem solving. High trust environments encourage every voice in the organization to be heard. Low trust environments leave valuable insights and perspectives unspoken.</p>
<p>There are those who may argue that today’s healthcare organizations simply can’t afford investment in something as vague and touch feely as trust building. The folks at the Harvard Kennedy School’s <a href="http://www.hks.harvard.edu/programs/saguaro/" target="_blank">Saguaro Seminar</a> explain that, “The central premise of social capital is that social networks have value. Social capital refers to the collective value of all "social networks” and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other….The term social capital emphasizes not just warm and cuddly feelings, but a wide variety of quite specific benefits that flow from the trust, reciprocity, information, and cooperation associated with social networks. Social capital creates value for the people who are connected…” Professor Robert Putnam, the founder of The Saguaro Seminar, has been studying strategies to develop trust and engagement for decades and describes two kinds of social capital, bonding and bridging.</p>
<p>Bonding capital can be thought of as the trust that brings together like-minded folks from similar backgrounds and social/organizational settings. A church group’s bonding capital is built in part upon their common religious practice. Bridging capital is the trust that connects individuals and/or groups from diverse settings and backgrounds. The same church group joining together with a local Synagogue to run a program to help feed the homeless is using bridging capital to transcend religious differences for a greater good. Neither bonding nor bridging capital is possible without trust, the belief that I can count on you (or my group can count on your group) to act with integrity, consideration, and honesty. I like to say we trust when we believe we can walk our talk together.</p>
<p>The unbridled uncertainty that characterizes healthcare today can, if not proactively addressed, destroy an organization. Clinical decisions geared towards what t is best for the patient are increasingly pressured and, at times, dominated by what is best for the financial health of the organization. Productivity is the prevailing clarion call at staff meetings. Clinicians can find themselves demoralized and burned out as their passion for helping others becomes submerged in a sea of administrative directives that boil down to this unsettling message: “Being a highly skilled, effective clinician is just not good enough anymore.” Administrators and managers may isolate themselves from the front line health care staff rather than engage in what may be perceived as a no-win situation in the context of unpredictable reimbursement models that demand squeezing more health care into less time while simultaneously somehow producing improved outcomes and enhanced patient satisfaction.</p>
<p>Health care leaders would be wise to consider investing in the creation of social capital. It is only by bringing front line health care workers, administrators, managers, and financial analysts together in the same room that a way forward will be found. Health care delivery systems are by their nature complex. Compounded by uncertainty, the complexity expands exponentially. Hierarchical management models that emphasize control at all costs miss out on leveraging the most powerful idea generating capacity they have, their people.</p>
<p>I recently returned from Tennessee beginning a yearlong project working with one of my mentors, Tracy Roberts, CEO of <a href="http://www.thecirclecenter.com/" target="_blank">Circle Center Consulting</a>. The work involves a leading accountable care organization committed to lowering healthcare costs and improving patient outcomes. The day I returned, I continued my ongoing work with another mentor and good friend Michael Kline of <a href="http://www.klineseminars.com/" target="_blank">Kline Seminars</a>. We work with local health care teams striving to increase staff engagement in a setting of recent mergers. In both cases, we use a collaborative leadership methodology called <a href="https://hstanten.wordpress.com/2014/07/27/build-a-circle-and-they-will-come/" target="_blank">Circle Process</a> to bring people into meaningful, productive conversations that create social capital. This process focuses on building trust first so that teams become more engaged with others within their team (creating bonding capital) and more engaged with teams from different departments (creating bridging capital). One participant echoed the sentiment of many when she said, “I so appreciate the fact that we work for an organization where the leader invests in this process where we can be with each other as human beings first.”</p>
<p>There is never a superficial magic bullet or a one size fits all solution. But, there is magic and there are solutions. Circle Process is one of many <a href="http://www.artofhosting.org/" target="_blank">relational practices</a> that create a space conducive to leveraging the deep self-organizing magic of life itself. It is a practice well suited for health care organizations committed to navigating these uncertain times and emerging as successful beacons of hope for an industry in desperate need of realizing a new path forward.</p>
</div>Build a Circle and They Will Come…tag:artofhosting.ning.com,2014-10-24:4134568:BlogPost:946312014-10-24T00:11:30.000ZHoward Stantenhttp://artofhosting.ning.com/profile/HowardStanten
<p style="text-align: left;">Regardless of where on the spectrum of formal structure a present day meeting may lie, a simple yet powerful assumption most often hangs in the shadows: “<em>Silence means consent!” </em>These words are specifically spelled out in Robert’s Rules of Order. Even meetings that take place with far less structure and order tend to make this assumption.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">“Anyone have anything to add? Any further comments?…..(silence)… Good then, it’s…</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Regardless of where on the spectrum of formal structure a present day meeting may lie, a simple yet powerful assumption most often hangs in the shadows: “<em>Silence means consent!” </em>These words are specifically spelled out in Robert’s Rules of Order. Even meetings that take place with far less structure and order tend to make this assumption.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">“Anyone have anything to add? Any further comments?…..(silence)… Good then, it’s decided…..” The leader smiles and nods. The formal meeting adjourns. And, the informal meetings begin to buzz in the hallways and parking lots. These whispered conversations defy both the implied threat and presumed reality that somehow if we don’t speak in a meeting we are giving our consent. These meetings after the meeting are most often interwoven with strands of creative ideas buried under the weight of disillusioned dissent.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The flip side of the empty promise of “silence means consent” is that point in a meeting when ideas are becoming so divergent and the energy so seemingly scattered and frenetic that the leader, with a raised hand and loud voice, shuts down the conversation deeming it “unproductive,” or “better left for discussion at another time.” Frequently, this declaration is followed by a quick unilateral decision intended to “move things forward.” And, the informal meetings begin to buzz in the hallways and parking lots….</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Consent is assumed while silent voices are left unheard and order is validated. Consent is lost while divergent voices are silenced and control is imposed. On either side of this same coin, creative ideas are either never heard or never given the chance to converge into meaningful action. If we can agree that our people are our organization’s most valuable asset, surely we can agree that in order to be most successful, we would be wise to leverage this most valuable asset to the greatest extent possible. When we leave voices unheard or squelch voices that diverge, we under-utilize our best asset and risk introducing unnecessary inefficiency into our decision-making process, leaving solutions unharvested in a field of unrealized possibilities.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Habit steeped in protocol, work appropriate social masking, and conformity to expectation tend to dominate our way of being together in the workplace. After all, control and order are the traditional pillars upon which efficiency is built, be it in production or service. The well thought out plan of leadership needs only to be executed and expected results should follow. So simple. So….why is leadership so often immersed in putting out fires that use systems as kindling? Why aren’t “they” embracing the system, meeting expectations, proactively solving problems, and committing to the program? Why does everything always have to be so complicated??</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Because, human beings <em>are </em>complicated. And, human beings are meaning makers. From the first hieroglyphics etched into the walls of caves, to the tribal councils sitting around the fire, to the Bible, Koran, the Renaissance, the industrial revolution, the space age, to today, human beings struggle and revel in the process of making meaning. The gift of consciousness allows us to be aware of our ability to shape and contribute to our world. The ability to make meaning using the tools of an evolved consciousness defines our humanity, what it is that makes us human. Most of us, at some level, strive to connect, share with, and contribute to each other’s lives and the world around us. We bring our humanity into the arena of community where our individual <a title="World View Seminar Nova Scotia" href="http://http//shapeshiftstrategies.wordpress.com/shape-shift-aoh-offerings/introduction-to-the-transformative-power-of-worldview-awareness/">world views</a> are tested, welcomed, challenged, and shaped.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">As we bring our humanity into our work places and organizations, we often encounter an unsettling shift that requires us to leave some part of who we are (as meaning making humans) hidden behind a mask. A tension often develops between the kind of person we feel we are and want to be and the person we are expected to be or think we are supposed to be in order to be successful. This tension may result in our giving silently resentful consent or loudly disrespectful dissent when we enter into meetings. Either way, our voices are often left unheard. And, valuable assets are left underutilized.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">What if instead of individuals trying to figure out what “mask” might offer them the best opportunity for success, the structure of the meeting was reshaped? What if this structure invited the participants to show up without any mask at all? The sign outside the meeting room might read, “Humanity Welcomed!”</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a title="Circle Process Leadership Training North Conway, NH" href="http://www.klineseminars.com/"><img width="300" height="224" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-55 aligncenter" alt="10494646_650008881734274_2586825307883043531_n" src="http://hstanten.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/10494646_650008881734274_2586825307883043531_n.jpg?w=300&h=224"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">C<a title="Circle Process Training" href="http://www.klineseminars.com/">ircle Process</a> is a meeting methodology that offers such a reshaping. Literally and figuratively. The rectangular table is removed and the chairs arranged in a circle. The center is filled with tokens of meaning for that particular organization, perhaps a mission statement, pictures and testimonials of delighted clients, or smiling patients recovered from illness. We speak with intention and listen with attention. We agree to guidelines that give order to the meeting as we share responsibility for holding each other accountable to adhering to those guidelines. Silent voices are respected without any presumption of meaning. These voices frequently emerge as trust is built through the sharing of stories. Divergent voices are respected without attempts to silence their input. The principles and practices of Circle Process provide a structure that allows and encourages <a title="Divergence-Emergence-Convergence" href="http://http//shapeshiftstrategies.wordpress.com/tag/divergence-convergence/">divergence</a> to follow its natural course increasing the opportunity for <a title="Divergence-Emergence-Convergence" href="http://http//shapeshiftstrategies.wordpress.com/tag/divergence-convergence/">convergence</a> around synergistic solutions. As silent voices find their voice and divergent voices find ways forward not previously imagined, human assets become highly leveraged and decision-making actually gains efficiency through the creation of sustainable solutions.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Everyone may not always agree with the final decisions. However, using a process that respects and values humanity will more likely result in time previously spent whispering in the hallways being spent accomplishing the shared mission.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a title="Circle Training" href="http://www.klineseminars.com/">Interested?</a> Learn more about the potential of this powerful process of engagement. Intrigued? <a title="Collaborative Leadership Training" href="http://www.klineseminars.com/collaborative-leadership-training.html">Immerse yourself</a> in a unique opportunity to co-create and learn together.</p>