[Dialogue] "Our only job is to teach RS1"

[Wayne Nelson]

1. Stan Gibson had Lyn Edwards and Jim Addington here in Toronto for an RS-1 in the 90's. It was just before her last big birthday. I think they did a couple of them and experimented with teaching methodology a bit. I think there have been a few others - here and there. 

2. At ICA in Canada, we are using Brian Stanfield's ' The Courage to Lead" 

We worked hard for years  to articulate the pillars of our foundational understanding in transparent terminology.  Brain took all of our thoughts and did an amazing job of expressing our core wisdom. It's important to point up a difference between a secular RS1 and a transparent RS1. Courage to Lead steps away from traditionally religious terminology in order to sacralize the ordinary and raise existential questions. It is nothing like a word - word translation from churchy words to non-churchy words. No attempts to wrap something in a different package to make it appealing to those not into churchy metaphors. It transparentizes life experience. 

ICA Canada runs a multi week study group on Courage to lead. When they are offered in Toronto's University Health Network, the courses are fully booked within an hour of being offered on their website. People report things that would be solid evidence of a "changed life" to most anyone and certainly anyone with eyes to see. There are a team of people guiding these sessions and they do amazing work.

ICA Associates, for many years, taught a course we called "Participation Paradigm."  Developed around the same time we were doing the Courage to Lead research, we were looking for a way to take advance ToP facilitators into the foundations of methodology. We used RS1 as the overall template.   Limits and Possibilities  - Continual Affirmation - Inclusive Responsibility - Social Pioneer

A pillar of the course is what we call "Contentless Method" in which we attempt to help people see the connections running from facilitation practice down through guiding values to the foundational understanding that are the DNA of one's facilitation practice and  their own life.  Seeing and, indeed creating, that alignment blows people into a new world. They are practitioners with profound purpose and grounded life methods. 

We have since woven that together with our work in Imaginal Education into a three day course called "Human Development."  It is part of a series of advanced courses along with Advanced Facilitation Tools and Organizational Transformation and the 6 day Art and Science of Participation. Those who take that series of courses are firm, deep colleagues. and powerful facilitators who are able to enable groups to address their own existential situations. They walk the talk.  I'm speaking for my own experience. ICA and the US ToP Network have done the same sort of depth training, and mentoring with many people. Going to their meetings is nothing short of sheer bliss. To see that many people joined together in a substantially deep purpose and common understanding is, to me, sheer bliss.  These people are weaving new ways of human interaction into communities and organizations and it is making a difference in their lives and in their workplaces. 

Do we "teach RS1"? 

3. Courses come and go. We recreate our curriculum regularly. A course construct is a container.  They tend to get crusty and rusty. Renovate 'em. Toss 'em out.  Keep the good stuff and put it in a new dish. Keep doing it. Rapidly and with integrity. Welcome to life in the 21st century.

4. Viewing a metaphor used to describe core identity and purpose as a perpetual, specific program directive stretches the fabric just a bit too far.  

5. To do is more blessed than asking why others are not. 


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- - - - - - - - - - Wayne Nelson
wnelson at ica-associates.ca
O - 416-691-2316
M - 647-229-6910