[Oe List ...] Care for the ICA USA and its board of directors

Sat Sep 8 04:20:17 EDT 2007

Dear colleagues

G'day from "Down Under, where ......" (Men at Work: 1982?)

I do not want to buy into the internal ICA USA issues referred to.  I'm sure there are many nuances and not-in-the centre-of-the-table aspects that I am not privy to.  Maybe in the way that nuances and aspects were often hidden despite "the power lies in the centre of the table".

Was it every really true that "the power lies in the centre of the table" when on the one hand "lobbying" was frowned upon, and on the other hand you were expected to turn up with a thought-through model?  In other words, whatever you did, someone wanting to play power games, or guru games, would shoot you down.  You were a maverick if you had an idea of your own and pursued it, and on the other hand you were criticised for inacton if you tried to create/lobby/build (etc) consensus and nothing happened.  "Consensus" seemed to be another word with which to hit people over the head.

So I watch with interest, concern, pain and feeling.

But to my main point.  In Adelaide we have just completed teaching Module 6 in the Australian 6-module ToP sequence.  We now have a group of people, including a few members of our Facilitation Learning Community who presented the Module, who will now prepare a portfolio (etc) of their ToP work, and will be mentored in this work, and will be assessed in this work.  If succcessful, ICA Australia, as I understand it, can then title them ToP Certified Practitioner.  Setting up the structures to do this is the next stage for our national ToP network.

I have no problem with this, despite having been around this tradition since mid-1968, and having taught various courses, run various workshops, constructed various adaptations of courses and workshops, over the years.  The ToP Modules have sharpened my thinking and my practice, and revealed hidden depths of our methods in theory and practice.  

It's like "You don't know what Year 9 Trigonometry is really about until you've taught it for 3/5/whatever years".  I might also add "And then teach someone else your scheme on how to teach it".  (That's where ToP really got to me - it sharpened up a lot of wooly thinking.)  You might also see way in which to add your own twists, tweaks and wrinkles and add to the "How to teach Year 9 Trigonometry" wealth of experience and wisdom.

I have no problem with the requirement that I submit myself to the same training and rigour as anyone coming to ToP cold, "off the street", i.e. most of our participants.  It's a matter of credibility, for them, and for me.  And there's an element of confidence there, in being able to talk about the ToP work in the language of the person "off the street".  I found that our "off the street" participants wre so impressed with what they were learning that they came back for more!  The fact that we presenters had lots of practical stories up our sleeves added icing on the cake.  

Maybe "the way the world works" sometimes has a valid point.  I was never very impressed by anything reeking of the viewpoint "we're the greatest movement on earth, and therefore don't have to consider anyone else".  It sat next to the question asked by an Australian teenager in about 1974. "Why is everybody else, every other group, every other organisation, ...., always wrong?"

So I would hope that the people involved with ToP can communicate their integrity, and that of the ToP program, to the ICA Board.  And I'm talking about just plain integrity here (as in that old quote from JB Phillips, quoting someone else), not secondary, tertiary, quaternary, etc integrity until it's as convoluted as a protein molecule!

'Nuff for now.  See ya!

Frank Bremner

> Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 14:16:23 -0600
> From: david at mirrorcommunication.com
> To: OE at wedgeblade.net; Dialogue at wedgeblade.net
> Subject: [Oe List ...] Care for the ICA USA and its board of directors
> 
> On 9/6/07 3:34 PM, "Milan Hamilton"  wrote, among other comments:
> 
> > I continue to be mystified and totally puzzled at the arrogance and
> > insensitivity, and might I say, ignorance (in the technical sense of the word)
> > of ICA US Board and staff [in its relationship to the ToP Trainers'
> > Network]...
> > 
> To which Marshall Jones replied:
> 
> > I'm not totally clueless about what's going on with the ICA-USA board and
> > staff. But, like many who are proficient in using our methods and who
> > participated in their evolution, I was never officially 'baptized' as a ToP
> > Trainer, so I haven't seen the relevant documents... [that express a concept
> > of the relationship of the ICA USA to the ToP Trainers Network that is
> > rigid and authoritarian rather than collaborative and collegial]...
> > 
> > ...we wouldn't expect [the ICA USA Board] to be on ToP [of ICA's "ToP"
> > facilitation methods] But I DO expect them to be respectful and sensitive to
> > the collegial issues...
> 
> Dear colleagues,
> 
> The correspondence quoted above has to do with the posture that the ICA USA
> has adopted in its relationship with the network of professional
> facilitators and trainers who are authorized to deliver ICA USA's public ToP
> facilitative leadership courses.
> 
> This email has a slightly broader context: one possible relationship that
> conscientious stakeholders might choose to take to the ICA USA Board of
> Directors. I'm going to share some background and context, describe my
> experiences with this Board, offer some analysis of the situation and make
> five recommendations.
> 
> FULL DISCLOSURE and RECENT BACKGROUND
> As a laid off former employee, I am not a disinterested or unbiased observer
> or advocate. I have, however, worked very hard at being balanced, open and
> engaged with the people who now run the ICA USA, including the board of
> directors. I believe that I have said on this listserv before that I have
> not been engaged by that board and I have been explicitly excluded from any
> dialogue about an aspect of ICA USA's future in which I have serious and
> creative interest-- the care for the ICA Global Archives in Chicago. Several
> emails to the ICA USA board have been ignored and a face-to-face
> conversation with Kirk Harris resulted in my being barred from the basement
> of 4750 N Sheridan Road.
> 
> That's the old news, pre-July 2007.
> 
> PRESENT CONTEXT
> In early July this year I decided it was time to send a written letter to
> the board of directors, to share some of my observations, to raise the
> issues to which I believed the Board needed to address itself, to offer some
> contradiction statements as a basis for dialogue about the future and to
> make some proposals for moving forward. I sent copies of the letter to 35
> respected movement colleagues around the US and Canada. (See the list
> below.)
> 
> Carolyn Antenen, the board's president, to her credit extended the courtesy
> of a telephone call and a brief phone conversation in response to this
> letter. I have not, however, from either Carolyn or any other board members
> had any response of any substance to my analysis or my recommendations.
> 
> I am making one last attempt to put before the ICA USA board and the
> constituency of which we all are a part, some serious analysis and several
> serious proposals for an authentic way to move the ICA USA forward with
> integrity.
> 
> I live out of the assumption that the primary values that should be guiding
> both the ICA USA board and staff are what we've characterized as "inclusive
> participation" and "profound respect." I affirm and embrace the ICA's
> mission: "Releasing the capacity to create positive, sustainable futures in
> every individual, organization, and community." I also affirm as of central
> and fundamental importance a phrase that has been meaningful to the ToP
> Trainers Network: "Be the change you want to see." It's a quote from Gandhi
> if memory serves.
> 
> MY EXPERIENCE OF THE CURRENT ICA USA BOARD OF DIRECTORS
> I've tried to understand behavior that seem logically and emotionally
> totally the opposite of what one would expect from the board and staff of an
> organization whose mission is 'releasing capacity,' whose values are
> participation and respect, and whose posture has been to 'be the change'
> that leads to 'positive, sustainable futures.'
> 
> In the absence of information to the contrary, this is what I conclude:
> 
>  - This board feels responsible for the collapse of the ICA USA
>  - Embarrassment and guilt have lead to a defensive, huddled posture
>  - The pendulum has swung from the chronic disorder of laissez faire
>    governance to the acute disaster of command and control governance
>  - The present members of the board are exhausted, overwhelmed and
>    paralyzed, rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding.
>  - There simply is not enough functional depth of common memory in this
>    board to conceive of 'facilitative leadership,' let alone provide it
>  - Overwhelm has reduced a rich and varied program capacity down to
>    'supporting' a single program thrust--ToP facilitation and training--
>    the practitioners of which are mostly self-employed professionals
>  - The only tangible program asset remaining to ICA USA is the supposedly
>    proprietary intellectual property of the "Technology of Participation."
>  - The rhetoric rings hollow when the posture and behavior of board and
>    staff violates long standing traditions and practices that are the basis
>    of the integrity of the intellectual property.
>  
> Whatever validity and merit this train of thought might have has arisen from
> lengthy reflection and considerable prayer over the ICA USA over the last
> eight years.
> 
> ANALYSIS
> I have identified, named and described several contradictions. The most
> interesting observation and provocative contradiction statement has to do
> with the ICA USA's culture and organizational patterns. Over time, we
> replaced the "driver patriarchies" of our distant past with a succession of
> "driver-matriarchies" over the last twenty-plus years. It may have been an
> unapologetic patriarchy that launched us into history, but it has been a
> chronic conflict among immensely creative, matriarchal fiefdoms that has
> thwarted the ICA USA's collective aspirations for the last two decades.
> 
> I write with the utmost respect for each of the creative women who created
> the human capital and program genius with which the ICA USA was blessed up
> until last fall and winter. The ToP series, the ToP Trainers Network, the
> Learning Basket Approach, the Community Resource Center in Chicago were all
> inventions of humanness that were willed into being by colleagues whom I
> hold in the highest esteem.
> 
> But as an organization, neither I, nor any of my staff colleagues, nor any
> board member, ever got a handle on the dysfunction created by not
> acknowledging the energy sapping, fog producing tyranny of a structure and
> set of relationships that lead to an unruly collection of programs that was
> an single organization in name only.
> 
> These were effective programs and ingenious projects, but not an effective
> organization with a coherent, sustainable presence in the marketplace. And
> for the last twenty to thirty years, no ICA USA board of directors has seen
> what was there plain as day to see and no group of staff members found the
> functional wherewithal to seek and craft anything different.
> 
> Now this particular board has inherited three and more decades of separation
> from reality. All the rest of us have been handed a do or die, put up or
> shut up opportunity to work with one of the children of our labor and the
> vast organizational gap between rhetoric and reality that has been its
> protracted undoing for years. There are plenty of other organizational
> contradictions that have contributed to the ICA USA's demise that anyone who
> chooses to be serious about the ICA USA's future must attend to. I believe
> that it is disingenuous at best and self-sabotaging at worst, not to
> acknowledge and attend to contradictions, of which I've identified only one
> above.
> 
> It seems to me that the observations and the contradictions that gave me
> clarity about what's what, lead necessarily to the five inescapable
> implications.
> 
> FIVE RECOMMENDATIONS
> 1. double the size of the present ICA USA board.
> 2. split off the Ecumenical Institute as a separate, distinct organization
> and double the size of the two successor boards. (This is exceedingly
> important. The ICA has held EI incognito for entirely too long and EI must
> not be hijacked by a new regime without any clues to its significance.)
> 3. Sell 4750 North Sheridan road to an Uptown nonprofit.
> 4. Use proceeds from the sale to support ICAI, HIV/AIDS work being done by
> the African ICAs and a participatory conciliar process to reinvent both
> organizations.
> 5. Enlist movement guardians to oversee and facilitate this process.
> 
> DOWNLOADS
> You can download my July letter to the Board and movement guardians from
> which this train of thought arose at:
> http://homepage.mac.com/dmansel/filechute/JulyLtr2Board.zip
> [you'll have to unzip this .rtf file]
> -or- 
> in a password protected .pdf requiring Adobe Reader at:
> http://www.mirrorcommunication.com/people_and_partners_with_wh.html
> (Click the link under downloads.)
> 
> Let me know 'off the list' if you want a Word document attached to an email
> or a text document pasted into an email. I'll be happy to respond.
> 
> 
> Give me feedback.
> 
> David Dunn
> 
> -- 
> David Dunn
> www.mirrorcommunication.com
> david at mirrorcommunication.com
> 720-314-5991
> Skype: dmirror
> 
> -- THANKS FOR UPDATING MY EMAIL ADDRESS --
> 
> COVER LETTER sent to the board in July
> 
> Colleagues:
> 
> My intention in sharing the three-page ³talking paper² with you and others
> is to urge and support broader and deeper dialogue. The listservs may be
> venues for ³getting real,² but they¹re not up to finally ³getting serious.²
> 
> I¹ve mailed identical copies of the paper to the following, somewhat
> arbitrarily-chosen but arguably widely respected and able colleagues. Are
> there people like these in our network who would share with you the role of
> transitional leadership in support of broader participation?
> 
> Pam Wilcox, Nelson Stover, Ellen Howie, Janice Ulangca: Linda Alton, Terry
> Bergdall, Marie Blanchard, Karen Bueno, Ray Caruso, John Cock, Forrest
> Craver, Marilyn Crocker, Rafael Davila, John and Ann Epps, Susan
> Fertig-Dykes, Kay Hayes Gadway, Ken and Ruth Gilbert, Duncan Holmes,
> Dorothea Jewell, Tim Karpoff, Heidi Kolbe, Wes and Sharry Lachman, Sue
> Laxdal, Gene Marshall, David McCleskey and Pat Webb, Mary Warren Moffett,
> Anne Neal, Lambert Okrah, Sherwood and Eunice Shankland, Oliveann Slotta,
> Raymond Spencer, Jim Troxel, Larry Ward and Peggy Rowe, Jean Watts, Bruce
> Williams and Rob Work
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> OE mailing list
> OE at wedgeblade.net
> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/oe_wedgeblade.net
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20070908/856e1689/attachment-0001.html 