As someone who brings large gatherings of people together face-to-face to explore problems and solutions, the pandemic has been quite an adaptation for my facilitation practice! But when I put my organizational development consultant glasses on, I see the same need as before, in the midst of new digital constraints: working together effectively requires forethought and planning. Meetings shouldn’t just happen.

Thankfully, by working remotely for much of the past 2 years, I’ve been able to practice my facilitation skills in a digital environment, and plan and design gatherings with my collaborators and peers at a distance.

But until now…

A few weeks back, I was going to drive to the pool for some swim therapy. And to take a shower.

It had been over a week since my last shower, and the pool was the best opportunity to have one.

So, I “battened” the truck, and piled the kids in. When I turned my keys in the ignition, the engine turned over with a struggle. And nothing happened.

I tried again. More struggle, but even weaker.

I paused and took a deep breath.

I knew that my truck’s batteries were near the end of their lives, this day was…

The answer is easy, and we’ve implicitly known it our whole lives.

Ever since about 6 years ago, when I became a dad, I’ve had the fortune of being able to watch my two littles grow up. Growing-up, if you recall, has a lot to do with the basics. It starts with seeing, feeling, tasting – noticing familiar patterns.

Familiarity (coincidentally sharing the etymological root of family) is something we learn to seek-out from the big, new world around us. And over time we learn to master our ability to recognize the familiar. …

A few weeks back, I celebrated the 20th episode of The Working Together Podcast with a compilation of clips from previous episodes–all centered on the concept of efficacy, which is like a red thread running through my Minotaur’s labyrinth of conversations with thinkers makers and doers.

Have a listen to the episode on Google Play, or through any other podcast directories by searching for The Working Together Podcast:

In the episode I explore the concept of efficacy in personal, political and technical modes (in that order).

Efficacy is like a motif behind all good social innovations, community engagement efforts, co-design…

OMFG, I say to myself, as another speaker gets up to the podium to deliver another slide deck.

My ass is numb. My eyes are dry. I feel like I’m in solitary confinement even though I’m in a room with 100+ people. I’ve got the jitters because I drank too much conference coffee. But I’m also on the verge of falling into a conference coma.

Half asleep, bored and jacked on caffeine all at once. I am in a strange limbo.

While there is a bountiful supply of ice-cold water in the pitchers at my table (refilled again and again…

Quoting some interesting scientific studies about the evolution of aggressive and violent behavior, Tom Bartlett writes:

“We reliably stigmatize the other. We also reliably respond to certain kinds of information and interventions, our positions soften, we become more open. We’re more predictable than we imagine, less entrenched than we assume.”

While our default switch is hopelessly set to “exclude the outsider”, the switch is really flimsy. Like, it doesn’t even lock into place very well.

Under the right conditions, it reliably switches off. Because we're actually pretty warm and fuzzy. But we need the right setups and prompts. …

Charlottesville and its fallout has irreparably wounded the body politic in North America and beyond.

The situation was, and is dire. We need to be steadfast with the truth: hatred and the resistance to hatred, are not morally equivalent.

But how do we keep conflict from escalating into violence? If the worst has already happened, how do we heal these wounds? How do we bring groups that are prejudiced against one another, together?

In this week’s Working Together Review, I distill some insights from research that has sought to answer just these questions.

“To Improve Society, Spend More Time With People You Haven’t Met”

Although I’m fascinated by social innovations that…

Those of us who are familiar with design thinking are familiar with IDEO. These guys are the godfathers of interesting facilitation techniques that stimulate diverse groups of people to solve problems and come up with solutions.

So the story goes, the first thing IDEO does when they tackle a new design challenge is to begin with the question “How Might We…?” and then generate responses from there.

The technical term for their approach is “Challenge Mapping.”

But every time I’ve heard of this approach, I’ve wondered if there was more to this than just the HMW question. What does Challenge…