Appendix 1: Communities for Change – Teaching Theory U as a Change Leadership Process

My formal participation in the program began in the Fall of 2017 with a series of bi-weekly facilitator training session via Zoom call led by Presencing Institute trainers.  In addition to the training sessions, the Presencing Institute and Impact Hub Global provided us with a variety of materials including those developed and used by Brixton, core Theory U materials, and marketing assets to help promote our local programs. The focus of the training was primarily on how to facilitate a group's use of Theory U for understanding a complex, systemic problem and designing interventions to address it.  While not a formal pre-requisite, having a solid knowledge of Theory U proved important as I don't think I would have felt confident about facilitating this program based solely on the training. The pacing of the calls ( typically every two weeks ) and the timing of the delivery of assets provided time for facilitators time to digest the materials between calls.  Calls then served to further process the information and learn about the evolution of the program and the successes and challenges of past facilitators.

The Boulder team was anchored by a two-person administrative-logistical team who took charge of business administration and marketing as well as providing support for the facilitation team.  The facilitation team consisted of three co-Facilitators and a Graphic Facilitator or Scribe. In addition, we had a Support Team of three board members who are well versed in Theory U. 

 As the only facilitator to attend all of the facilitator training program prior to launch and all of the C4C Program sessions after launch, and having a strong background in curriculum design and development, I performed the function of rooting my co-facilitators in the curriculum provided by PI as we adapted it to our local needs.  I also assumed the responsibility of documenting the outcomes of each session for future iteration.  My two co-facilitators have decades of experience in group facilitation, and the graphic facilitator is a gifted artist and skilled observer and synthesizer of ideas and group dynamics.  They also created graphical materials for the sessions.  Each of us also had at least two years of experience studying and practicing Theory U.  Together we were able to support each other with the delivery of content and managing of group dynamics.

After our launch date (February 12, 2018), our core facilitation team met twice weekly to design upcoming sessions.  In addition, we met with the broader team the morning after each session to debrief what went well, what was challenging, and what we had to keep in mind for next time.  In this way the smaller group of four facilitators was able to work nimbly on designing sessions and also receive timely feedback from the rest of the team.  We identified this workflow after some false starts, and although time and labor intensive it proved a workable flow that created room for everyone’s voices.

Our program sessions met weekly, on Monday nights from 6 to 9 for eight weeks total.  The format typically opened with a somatic awareness meditation, a summary of where we've been and where we're going, and the presentation of the core concept of the day.  This was followed by dinner, which we often used as an opportunity for the participants to have generative conversation on a specific topic.  The last third of class generally consisted of exercises to apply what we learned in the first part of class.

The sessions were themed to follow the U process with the following session titles:  Co-Initiating, Co-Sensing, Presencing, Crystallizing, Prototyping (2 sessions), Co-evolving (see my Introduction to Theory U for details).  In practice, we had to make adjustments to the flow as the group regularly got stuck on certain concepts and processes.  For instance, during the co-sensing phase we ran into difficulties teaching systems mapping effectively and this had a cascading effect through the rest of the program.  Also, in the context of group dynamics, we failed to provide enough get-to-know-you activities early in the program and had to allot time later when a lack of participant cohesion interfered with deeper collective action.  It is worth noting that many of the other Impact Hubs held a Session Zero at the beginning for just this purpose and we started with Session One instead. In the parlance of Permaculture design, this proved to be a type one error: a foundational design mistake that costs a lot of time, money, or energy to replace, redo, or clear out of a system.

Since the program was intended as a collaborative problem-solving method to address community-wide issues, it was important for us to design the promotion and fundraising to cultivate a multi-stakeholder process.  To this end, we identified potential program partners through a list of criteria including how much leverage they had to effect lasting change within the community, what sector of the economy they represented, and the likelihood that they would be sufficiently resourced to send a person from their organization and pay for a seat for a community member (One financial goal for this prototype program was for none of the participants to have to pay their own way in order to make the program accessible to as wide a demographic as possible.).  As an initial contact, we sent a small team to visit with each prospective stakeholder and engaged them in a process of inquiring what they saw as the challenges around Climate Action and Resilience for Boulder and what characteristics would  encourage them to participate in a program.  With this feedback, we were able to craft a program description that incorporated the predominant community concerns and desires.  We were then able to revisit the prospects and pitch them on the program.  In this way we enlisted sufficient stakeholder participants to fund and launch the program, including city and county governments, the local hospital, nonprofit and private institutions and a number of private individuals.  One foundation also provided a matching grant to all donations.   

In addition to the Stakeholder participants, we put a call out for nominations for participants to the general public.  This we did primarily through our individual social media networks, and nominators were directed to an online form to submit their nominations.  We contacted nominees directly and informed them of their nomination and encouraged them to enroll via an online form.   Within a month we had received over 200 nominations and had a pool of 70 applicants.  By the launch date we had enrolled 28 participants from this pool. 

Since the conclusion of Communities for Change we've had several team debrief meetings, interviews with all of the participants and stakeholders, anonymous written surveys, and have collected pages of notes.  The picture that emerges is that we did a fair job of running an innovative program and the participants enjoyed the experience and feel that they have learned some new skills and ways of thinking that will help them in their personal and professional lives, although figuring out how can be a struggle.  The following are selected quotes from our participants.

"I came into the course with the belief that technology is the answer, that with better and more efficient technology we can just work our way out of this crisis. I now think after taking this course that this is only partially true and it ignores a huge human connection aspect to getting people to re-align their incentives and redevelop their empathy."

"I generally found the instructors to be absolutely fantastic, supportive people who took the time to get to know the members immediately and make us feel at home."

"The whole of Theory U has given me strong food for thought regarding an emerging sustainability governance structure here at the University and the sorts of people that we should seek to have serve in that capacity.  I have spoken about C4C and Theory U with a wide array of colleagues here."

"Last month, I used the skills I’ve developed at C4C to host the first community listening session about the Ag Center. It went spectacularly: 200 citizens, including 20 farmers, helped us understand what they want to see in agriculture center and how it could serve the needs of a diverse community."

Following are some observations from my experience as part of the C4C team, and a few suggestions on how to improve with a next iteration:  

Team Structure:  The breakdown of the Program Team into Facilitation, Logistics, and Support teams was a useful and productive decision.  The communication between these teams needs improvement and I believe it is important to look at the “storming” that took place for lessons (See my Pattern Analysis, below).  The tension and breakdowns between the Facilitation and Support teams was particularly troubling. Part of this I relate to the process of Naming Norms, which I believe the Facilitation Team did well internally, but we did not do as well within the larger Program Team.  Of most concern, the role and functions of the Support team took too long to define and we missed valuable input and feedback from this group in the early weeks. The relationship between these two teams has the potential to be powerful for all, but clearer agreements on norms (working agreements), roles, and processes will be critical moving forward.   

Workflow: The pattern we established (design session, present to team, deliver, debrief, record for future improvement) appears to be a good one.  Significant challenges included the Facilitation team’s consistent inability to complete the session plans last minute, without time to thoughtfully present it to the wider team and have a discussion on roles and best practices before each session.  This definitely played a role in the tension between the Facilitation and Support teams.

Lead Time:  Assembling the Facilitation team too close to the start date compromised our ability to stay true to the Presencing Institute’s content, and to prepare our weekly sessions in a timely manner (as stated above).  As the sole Facilitator who had gone through the entire Presencing Institute’s training (as did the Graphic Facilitator, but they had such a specific role to play) and had the time to review all of the materials, I never had the time to properly brief my co-facilitators fully on the nuances of the PI’s program design.   Likewise, we were never truly able to take a strategic view of the whole program and found ourselves responding tactically week-to-week. Having at least one month before program launch to carefully plan the entire program would be most beneficial.

Session 0:  By choosing to skip Session 0, which is mostly dedicated to orientation and introductions, we found ourselves forced to choose between improving group cohesion or delivering content for the remainder of the program.  For example, the participants never successfully grasped systems mapping, without which knowing how to boundary and study a complex issue like Climate Change and identify accessible leverage points eluded the group and we never had sufficient time to correct this gap.  This affected us later in the program when we had to extend Presencing/Crystallizing by an additional session, which then cut into Prototyping, and so on. Thus, this initial decision compromised our ability to bring the participants to full closure by the end.

Celebration:  I experienced a pervasive sense of scarcity (variously around money, participant engagement, time, people feeling listened to, pleasing stakeholders, etc) as a cultural characteristic of this project.  I feel this undermined our ability to have as much fun with this as we might have, and therefore to maximize fun for the participants.  Celebration of victories ( even small ones) and of completion needs to be a central ethos moving forward.

Staffing:  I believe we were a little top-heavy and that it would be possible to run this program with fewer facilitators and staff overall, but I would recommend dropping the maximum group size to twenty if doing so. 

One of the conditions that the Program Team set for ourselves was to live the U process as we created this program.  This requires constant attentiveness, as habitual patterns of thought and behavior are apt to derail the process. Regular intention setting and reminders where key to keeping us on the path.  Being individually alert to one’s Level of Listening and collectively to Levels of Conversation (See U Lab Source Book) both within the Program Team and as Facilitators was continually necessary. Because developing and delivering intellectual materials in a team setting is always challenging as creative differences, conflicting priorities, and interpersonal tensions threaten to derail the process, it is critical to work with Theory U's requisite open mind, open heart, and perhaps most importantly, open will. An example of the last would be my ongoing experience of having content that I wanted to include and elements I thought should be taught differently, but letting go of those desires in support of a generative process where everyone could more easily contribute to the outcome. We all learned a great deal from each other and about each other and the result was both a rich and varied program with reasonable harmony and bonding within the team.

Adhering to the structure of Theory U, we openly discussed which stage of the U we might operating in at any given time and strove to performed the functions required for that stage.  Co-Initiating took place during the summer of 2017 when, having already identified that we wanted to do a program of this sort (Listen to what life is calling you to do) we answered the Presencing Institute’s call for collaborators.  From there we entered a Co-Sensing phase (Go to the places of most potential and observe with your mind and heart wide open) in which we learned about the program and explored what our community wanted and needed. This included talking to numerous stakeholders and potential participants, demoing the program to get feedback from the public, having ongoing discussions amongst ourselves, and interacting with the other Impact Hubs.  In Presencing (Retreat and reflect, open up to inner knowing and connect to the future that wants to emerge through you), from my perspective as a facilitator, we sat with the gathered information and waited for a clear image of the program design and content to Crystallize (Crystallizing vision and intention, envisioning the new from the future that wants to emerge.).  The program itself could be said to be a Prototype, although a high commitment one, and it is also true that each segment of each session could be considered a prototype in its own right.  We put great thought into what we learned about our audience, ourselves, and our team from each session. As for the last phase, Co-Evolving, I believe we will see true instances of that as we re-iterate this program and create other, spinoff workshops. 

In an effort to better understand and improve the team processes surrounding the Communities for Change project, I have conducted a pattern analysis using Adam Brock's Social Permaculture Pattern Language.  The link below opens a Google Doc containing that analysis.

A Pattern Analysis of the C4C Team Process

In order to prepare for facilitating this course I:

• Took Theory U 0.x course with certification
• Took Theory U 1.x course with certification
• Took the Communities for Change online Facilitator Training
• Studied the textbook "Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges."
• Studied "Leading From The Emerging Future:  From Ego-System To Eco-system Economies."
• Designed and gave the presentation “An Introduction to Theory U: Leading from the Emerging Future” at the Front Range Bioneers Conference one week before the launch of our program.

In the context of team building I took the following actions:

•  Advocated for hiring and training facilitators from within the organization with the aim of capacity building
•  Formed an alliance with a facilitator to negotiate favorable terms for all parties and assure sufficient time budget to properly develop our materials
•  Endorsed the Impact Hub's sponsorship of our graphic facilitator’s formal Scribe training by the Presencing Institute
•  Remained available and in dialogue with all team members to gauge and assure their satisfaction with processes and content
•  Encourage the use of Sociocracy as a governance model for the Program Team

As a facilitator:

•   Scheduled and attended all program design and post-session debrief meetings
•   Attended all program sessions save the last
•   Worked with my co-facilitators to identify each of our strengths and weakness and divide our facilitation duties accordingly
•   Documented all variances from our intended session plans for future reference
•   Documented all feedback from our debrief for future revisions
•   Organized a shared folder for all facilitation team members to have access to program materials
•   Solicited and reflected on feedback from participants and co-facilitators on my facilitation style and content.

In spite of many struggles and imperfections in our implementation of the C4C process, I consider this program a resounding success.  Judging it as a prototype and not a completed project transforms the shortcomings, as long as we recognize and correct for them, into opportunities for improvement. In running this program, we have demonstrated that Theory U can be used as a collective changemaking process, and refined the process for doing so.  In convening a slate of stakeholders and more prospective participants than we could accommodate, we have proven a public desire for such programming.    

What went well?

We successfully delivered a locally adapted version of the Communities for Change program.  This was the first program of this type that this organization, let alone this team, had delivered. We improved processes and procedures for the creation and delivery of future programs and formed important alliances.  Because we had a large facilitation team, we were resilient to the absence of any member of the team. Both as individuals and collectively, we acquired valuable skills in facilitation, teaching, and Theory U.

What was challenging?

As a team, we continually felt pressed for time.  Since our full facilitator team was not recruited until near the launch date, we started well behind in our program design process and on several occasions did not complete our session plans until the afternoon of delivery.  This did not allow time to brief the rest of the support team on what we were doing and how they could help, and left no time for prepping them on specific skills they might need for small group facilitation. Similarly, the lead facilitators were often unable to rehearse sections of content delivery.  Continuing on the theme of time, electing to not hold a session zero compromised us from the beginning both in terms of content delivery and group cohesion. The time pressure manifested within the sessions themselves, although we learned to limit our expectations for each session.

Within the broader program team there where significant tensions around content selection, delivery style, and whether everyone’s voice was heard in the design process. While we worked to address these questions, even by the end there was residual tension and one important player had recused themselves from the process.

Next steps/ what would we do differently next time?

Improvements to the process could include:  Making sure the facilitators are chosen well in advance of the start date to provide more time for planning; adding a session zero and holding space more deliberately for participants to know and learn to trust each other; keeping the post-session debriefs and also providing more opportunities for the wider team to see the session plans well in advance of each session; identifying those areas of content that gave the participants most difficulty and refining how we teach them.