Practicing for Peace – a Dojo for Warriors of the Heart

Feb 15-17 2019 Montreal, Canada

Residential (at the Biology Field Station, University of Montreal)

Registration opens mid November

CULTIVATE INNER CLARITY, BALANCE AND STRENGTH

More Information and Registration

‘How do I strengthen my practice of peace to respond to uncertain and fragile times in our ever changing world?’

This DOJO is for if you want to explore your personal leadership and inner strength for wiser action.

How can I nourish and strengthen myself so that I can continue to work for a more peaceful and sustainable world?

How can I use my power consciously for wiser action?

How can we restore balance and centre to act courageously for the world?

You are invited to a workshop – a dojo – meaning a place to practice for your life.

The future is in business as commons | Samantha Slade | TEDxGeneva

20 July 2018/0 Comments/in apprentissage tout au long de la vie, Communs, Event Commoning, Entrepreneurship, Work and Employment Genève /by Hélène Brown

The future is in business as commons. In a world where business models are changing and even the traditional notion of work has lost its fit with current paradigms, Samantha Slade an innovator and pioneer in organizational and business models will present a new organization mindset focused on compensation as conversation, co-governance and sharing and collaboration.

Samantha is driven by the transition to future paradigms. With a background in anthropology, she pioneers novel organizational models and practices. Ten years ago she co-founded two businesses – Percolab, an international co-creation and co-design company and Ecto a co-working cooperative in her home city Montreal, Canada. Samantha works with governments, startups, and professional associations and foundations to tackle their complex challenges. She also co-creates commons-based collective impact initiatives and platforms. Engaged in the commons and social innovation movements, Samantha is currently writing a book – Going Horizontal – Creating a Non-hierarchical Organization, One Practice at a Time (to be released in October 2018 with Berrett-Koehler Publishers). Samantha believes that organizations can be a microcosm of the world we want to live in.

Samantha Slade at TEDxGeneva

22 March 2018/0 Comments/in apprentissage tout au long de la vie, apprentissage tout au long de la vie Commoning, Self-management, Work and Employment /by Hélène Brown

Today, Samantha Slade walks onto the TEDx stage in Geneva to present her talk: “Business as a commons“.

#businessascommons #futureofwork #TEDxGeneva

Calling the Art of Humaning

11 January 2018/0 Comments/in Art of Hosting, Événement Art of Hosting Commoning Canada, Montréal /by L'équipe percolab

as you take a step back to listen

to what is alive now

as you take a step back to listen

to the whispers

can you slow down

walk and see

what life is whispering

to me

to you

what is being called

into existence?

…

as I take a step back to listen

in the sounds

at the heart of the noise

I hear the echo of something old and true

…

as we are in turbulence

emergence is what we breathe

can we learn to be in it

fully

and consciously

and with generosity

and grace

recognize it

and thrive

and become?

can we learn

to host each other

in our capacity to become

the best humans we can be?

can we discover

our collective muscle

and learn to flex

in service of all that is alive

all that was

and all that will be?

can we learn together

and practice

being better ancestors?

can we name together

the complexity of here and now

and craft our weapons of love?

…

why do we need this

art of humaning?

we cannot change

the systems we are

when we stay where we are

addicted to the

already known

the predictable

the fragmented

and the linear

I want to learn to hold

movement and stillness

I need to see

the parts in the whole

…

can we learn

the subtle art of listening

for the patterns

that guide us to what needs to be?

can we become

in awareness

of the systems

of power

that shape and constrict us and

the field where we breathe

and feel

and find nourishment

and pain?

can we learn and practice together

to see and name

what we are up against?

and with the force of our stillness

move into action?

…

why do we need this

art of humaning?

calling

our power to work beyond

our structures of ego

to discover our future as eco

to co-create

to reconstruct

and discover

what we can truly do

calling

our future as co-sensing

and practicing grace

as we call out for collaborations

we cannot see yet

what happens when we put together

our whole capacities of fully sensing

human beings

in the service of a shift

towards eco-system conciousness?

what can we learn to sense

collectively?

what can we shift when we

discover and enter

our full collective power?

…

I need to see the art of humaning

and inquiring about the world

and ourselves

as we enter in the questions

we listen together

…

the art of humaning

finds stillness

in nature

I breathe

I take a step back

I see life

I see the art of humaning

to help usher an old culture

where we can listen think and act wisely

as the multitudes we all are

where power and love are the

anchors of the inquiry

and experiences

and stories

connect us

and help us see the future

and the complexity

that moves us

…

act in complexity, wisely

try the art of trying (shit out)

try the art of listening

be strategy

…

I listen to the whispers

of the present that is yet to come

I want presence

I want my steps

to discover the new paradigm

of the alliance of humankind

with life

in my steps in the new snow

I see our ability

to see one another

for the miracles we already are

…

I call for the art of humaning

I call for our gift of sensing together

what expects to be born

in the places we work

in the places we live

in the places we love

something is simmering

and awaits to rise to its possibility

…

I call for our capacity to call

I call for our capacity to hear

I call for our capacity to dance

I call for our capacity to love

and sustain life

I call for our capacity to do together

what can’t be done

and yet is done

countless times, everyday, forever

I call for our capacity to hear the screams

beyond walls and borders

with clarity

in the chaos

in the noise

I call for our capacity to dream together

and grow in dreaming

and grow in humaning

and grow in gardening our connections

and our learnings

and our heartbreaks

and our joys

I call for our freedom in the face of complexity

I call to see and be seen

in the web of life and change

…

what is the discovery path

we are carving for ourselves

and how will we care for each other

on the way?

there is

so much to learn

and to ask of ourselves

and of others

asking for help

is the kind

and wise

thing to do

as we are practicing

creating

world making

to unlock the potential

of the human field

to unlock the power to call

conversations that matter

what is the conversation you are craving?

…

if this is about life

then let the world be part of the conversation

then let imagination flow

in all its human

and non-human

shapes

what becomes possible

when we learn together

to be present

to the world?

a community

sensing and practicing

together

change as a constant part of life

…

this is not about you

you are just practicing

modeling something

in honesty

and vulnerability

calling is

letting go

of old patterns

and old ideas that are not in service

of the work

calling names

what is non negotiable

…

what is not negotiable

is allowing space for paradoxes

to live

what is not negotiable is

the humanness in nature

and the nature in humanness

what is not negotiable is

practicing in honesty

and openness

and transparency

what is not negotiable is

space to fumble

and work out loud

through our tensions

and our paradoxes

what is not negotiable is

talking about money

and value

what is not negotiable is

kindness and learning

what is not negotiable is

walking the line

between openness and boundaries

what is not negotiable is

conversations about complexity and power

within ourselves

within our communities

what is not negotiable is

the art

in the art of humaning

together

…

we invent the dance

of what good work is

and feels like

we dance in our bodies and our hearts

we dance our new structures

of possibility

and belonging

and in the dance

we hold each other

in learning

in growing

in exploring

in grieving

in trembling

we are learning to be

the archeologists of our future

…

what can we dream together?

are we breathing new worlds yet?

where is our center of gravity

in all of this?

what will hold the new together?

what holds us back?

…

I am calling

a life full of meaning

and work that makes me feel

alive

I am calling the revolution of humaning

can we live it yet?

I am calling

the revolution

of humaning

Also publish in Medium

What are you doing on Tuesday? Or why Percolab has open team meetings.

7 September 2017/0 Comments/in Développement professionnel, leadership, Non classé, percolab, Processus collaboratif Art of Hosting, Collective decision-making, collective sense-making, Self-management, Self-organisation Commoning, Work and Employment /by L'équipe percolab

“Well, why don’t you just come to one of our team meetings?” I say to the barista, “They are every Tuesday from 10 am to noon at the ECTO Coworking.”

He nods seriously and notes the time and place on a napkin behind the counter. I pick up my latte and wander off to one of the tables in the corner to work out a team budget proposal for one of our upcoming projects.

Inviting not-so-random folks to Percolab’s team meetings has become one of my everyday practices. I must extend at least 5 or 10 of these invitations a week. Sometimes these invitations are received as a gift and a possibility, like in the case of this barista who has just finished a graduate degree in urban planning and is interested in citizen co-design and consultation – one of Percolab’s areas of expertise. He had recognized me from a strategic planning session I had facilitated for one of the units at the university he attended.

Other times, the invitations are received by eyes wide with disbelief as though I had invited this human I have just met to my Sunday family brunch: please bring the mimosas and then you can go jump on the trampoline with the kids and Matante Guylaine.

“Why would you invite me to a team meeting?” said human demands, “Don’t you deal with, like, internal stuff at your meetings?”

“Yes,” I confirm, “we deal with internal stuff. Some of it is strategic, some of it is operational, some of is has to do with our personal dynamics, the first Tuesday of the month is about Percolab International. Some meetings deal with money and how we self-attribute our earnings, sometimes we even process conflicts in our team meetings. Like I said, Tuesday at 10 am – you should just come participate.”

“Um, OK, I can come observe,”says the human, “I am really curious. I won’t be distracting. I promise.”

“Yeah…well… no, that won’t work,” I reply with a suppressed smile, “I’m not inviting you to come observe us. We are people not hamsters. I’m inviting you to come be with us, to participate. Help us think through our challenges and issues, bring in all of your experience, and intelligence, and wisdom, contribute to our decision-making.”

“Really?” the human inquires, “But you only just met me! How can I understand all of your context and policies and regulations? How can I possibly contribute to decision-making? What will your boss say?”

“Well, to start off with there are no bosses at Percolab, we are a truly flat organization and we make decisions through a consent-based approach. And of course you can’t possibly understand everything we are about. But attending a team meeting is sure a more effective way of getting to know us than reading our “About” page online. If we are discussing an issue that needs to be decided upon and you, from your understandably limited perspective, are able to see a potential risk to the organization, we are gonna listen and take that into account as we move forward.”

“OK,” says the human – I can see that they are getting really curious, “but will I be the only stranger there?”

“I have no idea,” I say, “we’ll know when you show up! Some weeks we have no guests (we don’t call them strangers), often we have one or two, and a few times when several members have been out working with clients, we have had three times as many guests as Percolab members! Those weeks are usually great for brainstorming about issues we’ve been trying to work through, like rethinking our website.”

“Doesn’t it get exhausting having new people at your meetings every week?” inquires the human.

“It can be,” I admit, “Some weeks I’ve been downright grumpy about having to host new people into a team meeting, especially when there is a topic that is really important to me. Yet, again and again, I find our guests help me think through some tough questions about both our work with clients and how we work together as a team. Especially, if the person doesn’t “get” what we do easily, it challenges us to be clearer in how we speak about ourselves and cleaner in how we work together. So I might arrive grumpy but I almost always leave energized… coffee helps.”

“What type of people come to your meetings?” they ask.

“Some of the guests at meetings are interested in collaborating with us, some want to study us for academic purposes, some attend our meetings so they can learn about self-management and maybe even bring new practices to their own organizations, some are international experts passing through Montreal who want to jam with us, some are clients we already work with or are thinking of working with us – attending our meetings gives them a really good practical sense of our applied knowledge. One of my favourite things to do is invite all the participants in my workshops to come to a team meeting. You should see their faces!”

“OK, I’m in!” exclaims my new human friend, “I’ve been wanting to learn about self-management for a long time but I haven’t been too sure if my team is ready for it. Seeing it in action would really be helpful. It makes me feel a lot better to think that I won’t just be some voyeur and I can contribute with any knowledge or experience I already have. I find this idea of open meetings really inspiring and unusual. You guys sure are brave to do this!”

“Well…” I respond cautiously. I want to be able to accept this compliment but at the same time I am slightly irked that this practice that I find so normal is deemed as brave. “Well, we have a choice: we can talk about collaboration or actually experiment and experience what it is like to work with “strangers”. We can talk about transparency or open ourselves up to others so we can truly be seen, for better or worse, and understand ourselves and our blind spots better. We can talk about collective intelligence or actively engage in thinking with other people who come from really different backgrounds. To me and to probably everyone else at Percolab too, opening up our team meetings is a practical benefit to the organization, the generosity people show us by sharing their insights into our work is amazing. But opening our team meetings is also a meaningful and symbolic act: we are a fractal of how we would like organizations to function in the world. Imagine, if governments and institutions and corporations and foundations and community organizations had as their base model meetings that were open, transparent, collaborative, and drew on collective intelligence? Just that. Imagine that. ”

“Whoa!” says the human, “I’m gonna need to wrap my mind around that one. Maybe we can talk about that after the meeting on Tuesday.”

The city of the future is the one people narrate together

6 September 2017/0 Comments/in Nacelles, Non classé collective sense-making, Collective story harvesting Commoning Canada, Montréal, Québec /by L'équipe percolab

Guest Author: Mary Alice Arthur, Get Soaring

If you’ve ever been to Montreal, you will have experienced the vibrant hum of the city. It is a city that has distinctive neighbourhoods and an international flavour, and it is also a city committed to exploring and vitalising diversity. 2017 marks 375 years for Montreal and the city is helping to mark the celebration by making a public process of community storytelling.

Imagine, if you will wooden circular structures popping up in the midst of St Catherines walking street or in your local neighbourhood. They look very much like an open basket, because that was their inspiration.

Their intention is to create a network of points in space that transform people’s narrative about where they are and how they inhabit the space. Although they appear like little separate pods, they are all connected to the element of surprise and forming community, enabling people who sit in them to imagine space in a different way and create possibilities that were not there before.

They are called Nacelles, a French word meaning the basket of a hot air balloon, but conceptually pointing to network or multiplicity. In a tangible, physical way, they create a commons, a place to gather and share. By their very shape, they create an interesting bounded object in a public space in the shape of a circle. You’re exposed like you would be in public space, but you have a container of intimacy, and intentional collaborative moments in conversation. The nacelles create intimacy while you’re outside.

Each Nacelle is a set of pre-fabricated pieces which are easy to build together in about 20 minutes. In fact, the very act of building them starts creating community. They are about 12 feet in diameter, and seat around 12 – 15 people on two tiers of benches with a small table in the middle. But they are also permeable. People can stand outside the structure and lean in, making it possible to take part in something, even if you’ve just arrived.

Using these structures for public dialog and storytelling is the brainchild of French-based group Comm1possible. It fits seamlessly into Montreal-based practice Percolab‘s approach to dialogue and storytelling. Cédric Jamet explains: “We need more ways to connect people than social networks. The “smart city” as we think about it, is not enough. We need structures that allow us to do this in a real and physical way. That’s how Nacelles emerged.

“There was a consciousness around the circle as a way to connect people that informed the structure of the Nacelle. The idea of the city of the future is a city created by the people who live in it. Nacelles become a physical representation of that.

This project around inclusion is also around sharing individual stories, and what comes up is a common story of inclusion.

“When we think about it, this project around inclusion is also around sharing individual stories, and what comes up is a common story of inclusion. Nacelles help create a commons. The original idea was how can we experiment to create urban commons and cities as commons. That’s where it came from and where it’s headed. Really at the heart of the project is the idea of what becomes possible when we build the spaces we live in together.”

“The physical structure invites curiosity. And when you go over the threshold of curiosity it invites in relationship,” says Elizabeth Hunt. “One of our upcoming projects is around diversity and multi-culturalism with a borough of Montreal. Around their multi-cultural citizen day, we will be working with storytellers in the nacelles and then we will invite citizens with their own stories of how to shift the dominant discourse from integration to one of inclusion.

“It’s about building this together, shared responsibility. People show up with strollers, walking their dog. When a whole bunch of different kinds of people are there, you have the permission to go see. It’s a strange attractor. You enter the structure as strangers and emerge as allies. We are continuing to ask ourselves how we can use Nacelles as a collective sensemaking structure.”

Cedric chimes in again: “It shapes a bunch of things, experimenting with the Nacelle as a natural way to inclusion. We all have a relationship to this theme, whether we are born here or not, came here or not. I was hosting during the storytelling process – the storyteller was indigenous and his theme was around what it is to welcome and host people in. I was thinking ‘I’m an immigrant here. I’m French originally. I have a colonial background in me.’ Everyone who participated and shared stories verbalized their connection to this place in ways that were not anticipated. There’s something that happens when story gets shared and space gets held. Holding space is the condition for emergence. Something special happens.”

Elizabeth agrees, even though her story is completely different: “I’m born and bred in Montreal – same hospital as my dad – 11 – 15 generations each side. Those streets I’ve walked as a child, my parents, my grandparents also walked. I graduated from University on those steps over there. I had supper with someone there a few blocks over. My relationships to this space – what else is possible in my relationship to this city – is forever transformed by being there with the nacelles. We can transform an area into a storytelling platform, what else can we do in terms of moulding this city?”

Percolab has been partnering with French company Comm1Possible, which developed the concept and has used the nacelles in France and Morocco. Percolab is their only North American partner, but it seems obvious that the nacelles are far more than a way of creating community conversation and storytelling. Even the way the two organisations are working together is seeking to create a commons out of the application of nacelles.

“Nacelles help create a commons,” Cedric tells me. “Then there’s the whole aspect of how we work together — if our purpose is to create commons, then Nacelles itself has to be a commons. That’s what we’re building on with Comm1Possible – how do we develop the system supporting Nacelles that is thought of and lived as a commons? Yes, there’s the object, but there’s a whole philosophy and business model that goes around it.”

Elizabeth continues: “We haven’t explored the questions, but the physicality of it invites the questions – how do we share this? Who does it belong to? How do we share the decisions? What is our vision for greater social change? We’re trying to work a commons based agreement – our working relationship is a commons relationship.”

In the end, it comes back to the magic of creating a space for people to narrate their common future.

As Cedric says: “The more people there are in the Nacelle, the more the Nacelle becomes invisible and it becomes a circle that’s about people. When we were using them on St Catherine and I walked away for a few minutes, I could see a conglomerate of people, but you couldn’t see the Nacelles. It was like a bunch of grapes but you can’t see the stem. It is an architecture that is holding people together but that you can’t see when its working well – it becomes invisible. That’s a metaphor for excellent hosting work.”

Find the original post by Mary Alice Arthur

Community Flow Games

10th 2019 Montreal, Canada

Going Horizontal Training

Feb 12-14th, 2019 Montreal, Canada

Practicing for Peace – A Dojo for Warriors of the Heart

Feb 15-17 2019 Montreal, Canada

Flow Game Discovery Workshop

Feb. 10th 2019 Montreal, Canada 9:30-13h

Going Horizontal Training

Feb 12-14th, 2019 Montreal, Canada

What if organizations were equally skilled at caring for humans and doing good business ? What if horizontal ways of working was the key to unlock our organizational potential ?

Practicing for Peace – a Dojo for Warriors of the Heart

Feb 15-17 2019 Montreal, Canada

‘How do I strengthen my practice of peace to respond to uncertain and fragile times in our ever changing world?’

The future is in business as commons | Samantha Slade | TEDxGeneva

Samantha Slade at TEDxGeneva

Calling the Art of Humaning

What are you doing on Tuesday? Or why Percolab has open team meetings.

The city of the future is the one people narrate together

This project around inclusion is also around sharing individual stories, and what comes up is a common story of inclusion.

In the end, it comes back to the magic of creating a space for people to narrate their common future.

Location

Our initiatives

We are members of

Sign up for our mailing list

Archive for: Commoning

Community Flow Games

10th 2019 Montreal, Canada

Going Horizontal Training

Feb 12-14th, 2019 Montreal, Canada

Practicing for Peace – A Dojo for Warriors of the Heart

Feb 15-17 2019 Montreal, Canada

Flow Game Discovery Workshop

Feb. 10th 2019 Montreal, Canada 9:30-13h

Going Horizontal Training

Feb 12-14th, 2019 Montreal, Canada

What if organizations were equally skilled at caring for humans and doing good business ? What if horizontal ways of working was the key to unlock our organizational potential ?

Practicing for Peace – a Dojo for Warriors of the Heart

Feb 15-17 2019 Montreal, Canada

‘How do I strengthen my practice of peace to respond to uncertain and fragile times in our ever changing world?’

This project around inclusion is also around sharing individual stories, and what comes up is a common story of inclusion.

In the end, it comes back to the magic of creating a space for people to narrate their common future.

Location

Our initiatives

We are members of

Sign up for our mailing list