Sun., Dec.
4, 1-3
Organized by Kristen.
McKim Conference Room at The Boston
Public Library located in Copley Square.
The BPL is easily accessible by T; it abuts the Copley Square stop on
the Green Line and is a two blocks down Dartmouth Street from the Back Bay stop
on the Orange Line. Metered
parking is free on Sunday and there are plenty of garages around as well.
Contact
people: Tracy Duggan: tduggan@bpl.org
Catering there, Sebastian's - 617.385.5660
Phases:
What did we learn/notice?
Kristen: More command & positive approach as life goes on. (Peter: Perhaps an artifact of who
comes to this group.)
Peter: Reflecting on the past in this way might help us have more
command & positive approach in the present. Hearing other people’s articulation of themes about
one’s own life might help us have more command & positive approach in
the present.
Allyn: 9/10 of my life I have been
having hard knocks and learning from them. Now things work and I am happy.
Peter: Could hearing others reflect on their life changes give us
perspective on how we changed in how we see things and what the future could
hold out for us?
Laura: “Change as a patient friend. Beckoning you:
Are you ready today? If
not, I’ll stick with you.”
Do we have control…?
Allyn: Don’t expect control – that’s like Newtonian physics. Just as quantum physics gives a large place for chance, we need an attitude of acceptance.
Kristen: Balance of control and
acceptance.
Peter: We develop themes/insights
as we grow up/get older that allow us to deal better with the uncontrollable.
Why do we want a Reflective
Practitioners Group?
Allyn: people
share challenges in their work and/or experiment with new tools using the group
as guinea pigs
Peter: Doing this away
from one’s workplaces and communities allows more distance from
“going practical” (=pressure to solve the problem) and thus more
opportunity for surprises
Kristen: Instead of
where is this taking you, start with your ideal and ask how to get there.
Maho: Important to meet
and talk with CCT types. Feels
very comfortable to participate?
Q: How to convey the experience of this
group to those who haven’t attended.
Overall Impressions
of What We Take Away from Reflective Practice Group:
Laura: The group environment in
Reflective Practice Group is a supportive place to explore different issues and
feel comfortable discussing things that you wouldn’t want to discuss with
people at work or elsewhere.
Allyn: Bringing in different
activities gets the juices going.
Peter: There is an element of
surprise to the discoveries made in this group; we move through issues in a
non-linear fashion that makes them more interesting.
Laura: Reflective practice helps
clarify your voice as you move toward your goals.
Kristen: We can take the shared
experience from the group, and what we’ve learned, to apply it in the
“outside world.”
References and connections:
Activity drawn from listserv of IAF
(International Association of Facilitators) – see below
Based on William Bridges, Transitions
Every transition has three stages:
Bridges builds on Prokoff’s
journaling method.
Newell Eaton, "Facilitating Intentional
Change".
I recently facilitated a short
experimental workshop on one’s relationship to change at one of the
regional creativity events organized by the Creative Education Foundation
community. The central idea being
your response to change (newness), impacts your capacity to try on new ideas or
to innovate. At the end of this
90-minute session participants said they had a richer understanding of their
personal response to different kinds of change and a better appreciation of why
others experience change events differently than they do.
The activities:
1. List on a timeline the major
change events in your life from birth to now. Describe don’t analyze. (20 minutes- 15 would have worked for most folks at this
event)
2. Share your story with a partner
(10 minutes each- should have been longer for this group)
* Partner with someone you
don’t know well.
* Partners just listen.
3. Share with your partner any
themes you noticed about your partner’s relationship to change. What themes did you notice about
yourself.
4. Share with your partner themes
you notice about yourself.
5. Individually code the types of
change events in your life.
* Unexpected, surprises
* Intended, sought after
* Gains * Losses * No control over
6. What patterns do you notice
about yourself? Share with
partner.
7. Group discussion
1. What did you notice?
2. What did you learn about
yourself and others?
8. Short training on William
Bridge‚s change and transition concept
9. Closing feedback
I would like to have had a day for
a full change management workshop but this 90 minutes segment worked fine to
have participants receive basic insights about their relationship to
change. In some organizational
situations I would change the main exercise to: List your experiences with
change in the past 3-5 years.