Monthly Archives: August 2013

ICAI Winds and Waves – Edge thinking in human development

ICAI Winds and Waves, August 2103 - coverThis article was written for ICAI Winds and Waves, August 2013.

Welcome to the 6th issue of Winds and Waves, the online magazine of ICA International.

This issue on the theme of Edge Thinking in Human Development is packed with insightful and thought-provoking articles including stories of outrage and hope in the UK and the Arab world, of self-esteem and humility in Chile, of myth and metaphor in political science in Venezuela, of restorative practice in Australia, of Theatre of the Oppressed in Tajikistan and of higher education in public health online and worldwide – even of a comprehensive perspective from the international space station! Also included are news briefs from ICAs around the world, book reviews and much more. Woven through-out are the values of human development and the methods of facilitative leadership that are the hallmark of our global ICA network.

It is the role of ICA International to facilitate international peer-to-peer support and collaboration among ICAs and ICA colleagues, so I hope you will find something here to inspire or provoke you to reach out to colleagues you may or may not know, and to connect and perhaps to collaborate with them.

In our last issue in April we reported on the appointment of new ICAI Board members, and the development of a new 2013 business plan for ICAI. The ICAI Board took the opportunity of our July meeting, a little over half way through the year, to reflect on progress against that plan. I would like to share a little here on two key elements of our plan, as a couple of immediate opportunities for readers to get better connected and more involved in ICA globally.

The new network survey is intended primarily to enable ICAs and ICA colleagues around the world to know each other better, to facilitate peer to peer support and collaboration. It also includes questions designed to indicate how ICAs meet the ICAI membership criteria, to enable the ICAI Board and General Assembly to monitor that and take membership decisions, and questions on activity with UN agencies to enable ICAI to report on that to maintain ICAI’s consultative status with UN agencies.

We are grateful to the many ICA colleagues around the world that contributed to the survey design, and to the 19 ICA locations that have already completed and returned their responses – five from Africa, three from the Americas, seven from Asia and four from Europe. It is too early yet to draw any conclusions from the responses received to date, but we look forward to making all the data available to all members when all responses have been received. If your ICA hasn’t already responded, then please do so as soon as you can by completing the online questionnaire.

ICAI’s online regional gatherings are convened three times per year, for three regional time zone groups – Asia/Pacific, the Americas, and Europe/MENA/Africa. These gatherings are open to all ICA members, staff and volunteers worldwide, and people are welcome to attend another region’s gathering if they cannot attend their own.

The aims of the gatherings are to connect ICAs and ICA colleagues with each other, and help to build and strengthen relationships between them; to share information and facilitate peer-to-peer support and collaboration among ICAs and ICA colleagues; and to hold ICAI accountable to its members, and seek input and support to strengthen our global network and advance our global mission. The first gatherings of 2013 were held in March, and reported in the April issue. The recent August gatherings will be reported in the December issue of Winds and Waves. Everyone with an involvement or interest in ICA worldwide is welcome and encouraged to attend these on-line meetings.

Thank you again to the Winds and Waves global editorial team, and to all of our contributors, for so generously sharing their time, expertise, experience and ideas with us all in this issue!

The RSA Small Groups methodology – facilitating innovative practical solutions to today’s social challenges

Margaret-Mead-QuoteReaders familiar with my work with the RSA may be interested in a couple of recent posts to the RSA blog (links below). For others interested but not yet so familiar, first a little context…

In January 2011 I had a speculative meeting with RSA Chief Executive Matthew Taylor to talk about facilitation and how it might add value to the RSA and its mission of ‘finding innovative practical solutions to today’s social challenges’. I found Matthew intrigued by the practical and philosophical questions of what it takes for a small group of people to transform a good idea into practical action and social impact (I thought to myself ‘yes Margaret Mead, of course, but how exactly?’) We quickly concluded that skills and methods of effective facilitation might indeed add value, and set to talking about what could be done to develop them systematically within the RSA.

Matthew then introduced me to the RSA’s Head of Fellowship Michael Ambjorn. The result was an ongoing partnership between ICA:UK and the RSA to develop a ‘small group methodology’, founded on ICA’s Technology of Participation, to help the RSA to engage with and mobilise its Fellowship – to increase it’s social impact, and achieve its ambition of being ‘the best place to have an idea’.

Michael has now recently stepped down from his RSA staff role, as I stepped down from my ICA:UK staff role last year.  In reflecting on his tenure in A few notes on Fellowship 2010-13, he describes the RSA Small Groups methodology as one of four planks of the strategy by which the Fellowship Team has sought ‘to deliver on Trustees’ ambition that the RSA should support its most active, engaged and innovative Fellows, and that they should see the RSA as a major resource for the achievement of their goals’.  In another recent post, RSA West & South West Regional Programme manager Lou Matter reports in Learning through facilitation and working in partnership on recent facilitation training for Fellows held in Bristol, one of a series of recent courses around the regions and the latest phase in the unfolding partnership. An overview of the partnership and the methodology can be found here on my blog, in the presentation I prepared for the Moscow Facilitators conference earlier this year Facilitating innovative practical solutions to today’s social challenges.

As I commented on Michael’s post, it has been a real pleasure working with him and the RSA these past few years. Two and a half years is not a long time to embed significant change, however – least of all for an organisation founded in 1754, with a Fellowship now numbering 27,000. I believe we have barely begun to see the impact that facilitation could have for the RSA, so I do hope that this approach may continue to enjoy such support under new leadership. I certainly hope to be able to continue to lend support as an active and engaged Fellow myself, and I hope and expect we can count on Michael to do likewise!