Collaboration Compass: Finding Direction with Strengths

Want a quick, yet impact filled way, to start your next team meeting or community gathering? Try this activity that what we facilitated in a recent strategic planning session.

The Strength Compass Activity:

Draw compass points on a flip-chart. Ask people to pick the ONE compass point that most describes or reflects their personal preference (with the understanding that people likely have some aspects of all of these strengths).

Read out the following descriptions:
North: You are a let’s get it done person. All about the action
South: You are a let’s look at the big picture person
East: You are about inclusion of everyone’s feelings and voice
West: You pay attention to the details.

Have people stand and cluster in groups, based on their chosen compass points, and encourage them to talk about the strengths they each bring in their chosen area. Although people cluster together under one heading, it becomes clear that each person approaches their strength in a unique way. After small group discussion - capture the collective strengths on a flip-chart (like in the photo). Use this as a visual reference throughout any meeting to keep the various strengths in mind that can help influence things like strategic planning, goal setting or initiative task appointing. These strengths can help any plan come to fruition! Each time we have facilitated this activity there is a resulting buzz of conversation and a claiming of personal strengths that fills meeting rooms!

Here are two more resources filled with strength based approaches and community building tools:

1. We LOVE this Sierra Health Foundation resource that is chock full of asset minded activities. In particular take a look at their capacity inventory checklist and asset mapping activity. They ask things like... What do we have that will help us get there? What are our assets, resources, strengths or capacities? What are the gifts people can bring?
http://www.sierrahealth.org/assets/files/other_pubs/WDIO-We-Did-It-Ourselves.pdf

2. A Guide to Capacity Inventories: Mobilizing the Community Skills of Local Residents by John P. Kretzmann John McKnight and Co-directors Geralyn Sheehan. This document focuses on individual capacities and collective assets. One of the main questions they suggest communities should ask is: How will the skills and capacities of local people be translated into meeting community-building goals?
This resource takes community planning from thinking about needs (issues/problems) to thinking about capacities (tools to promote growth and enhance quality). Check out the capacity inventory checklist: http://www.abcdinstitute.org/docs/CapacityInventories%281%29.pdf

All of the above activities and resources speak to the power of finding collaborative direction with the STRENGTHS of the individuals and whole. Try it!

Discover the strengths that fill your collaboration compass!


Village Raising Question:

What is a strength filled activity you have used?

* Note: Does this activity interest you? If so, the collaboration compass can be found in our new book Village Raising: Learn, Think, Innovate and Act Together. This book is chock full of 60 engaging activities for group leaders.

* See related blog:
Who is the ultimate team member? Using collective strengths.  http://raisingthevillage.blogspot.ca/2012/09/who-is-ultimate-team-member.html 

RTV #17 Unite Families with a Group Garage Sale

Mothers United Community Garage Sale

A Year of Raising the Village: Week #17.  Baby gear for sale!


Recycling baby stuff is good for our environment. Recycling ideas is great for building community!

A mother from a local parent 'n' tot group attended a "Mothers United"Garage Sale in a much larger, neighbouring community. It was an event filled with great bargains for new parents and a way to pass along perfectly good, but no longer necessary, baby "gear" to those who needed it. It also was an opportunity steeped in sharing, connecting, supporting and celebrating parenthood.

This mom returned to town thinking that - if they can do it, we can do it too! Committed to sharing the experience with her local friends, she recruited vendors (parents with stuff to sell) and worked with the local Community School to arrange space with tables and chairs. The first year was a HUGE success - so much so that the Community School saw the garage sale as an effective vehicle to support local families and build community. It is now an event that is held twice a year.

Cathy Cross, the Community School coordinator says, "I am amazed by the number of pregnant women and women with young babies that I see. Young parents with young families; grandparents shopping for and with grandchildren; it's a promise for the future of our community. It is community building in a literal sense of the word. But there is also community building in the sense that a mom is a mom is a mom: no matter what the circumstance. Everyone in the room has a common starting point. Children and babies bring out the best in us and we work from there. I hear people exchanging information on programs, people, where to find this or that. We are not only recycling baby clothes (and money) but we are sharing information. Most exciting is the buzz in the room as everyone is talking and sharing."

Is there baby gear that could be recycled in your community? Are there some great community building ideas that can be recycled too?

Village Raising Tip: Here are a few tips from Cathy to help your version of a Mothers United Garage Sale work well:

• Be clear and confirm with vendors who are interested in setting up a table
• Always have a waiting list because there are always people who end up cancelling (life happens)
• Advertise, advertise, advertise - and enlist the vendors to spread the word (and posters) among their friends and connections

RTV Week #10 - Talk: Then Put it into Practice!

A Year of Raising the Village - Week #10.

Think about what you are putting into practice!

We have spent the last two days in the Fraser Region (just outside of Vancouver) at an Early Childhood conference "Put it into Practice". We were stoked to share our Village Experience with others as well as to learn from an interesting troupe of keynote speakers in the areas of evidence, quality and leadership. Taking time to think about the application of evidence brought to mind a passage from our book Raising the Village. See if this scene is familiar to you at all...

Sleeves rolled up, furrowed brows, slumped shoulders, a heaviness in the air...Weighed down with an all-consuming responsibility, no one in the room dared pause for so much as a coffee break. The participants were focused, intense, and determined to wade through the fog and confusion. In front of each chari was a stack of papers bursting with negative statistics and cold statements about the well-being of children in the community. On the one hand, the documents held great validity and interest for those around the table. On the other hand, the information they bore failed to reflect the spirit of the community or the hard work that this group and others had dedicated to children and families. The overwhelming task before them was to make sense of the data, define the key issues, and make a plan to better meet the needs of the community. (Raising the Village, 2009)

This is a situation many of us working with communities can relate with. It can feel heavy when faced with cold hard facts and yet it is these cold hard facts that can be the fuel to keep us seeking new ways of working together. When faced with data - take time to talk about it, ask questions, vent emotions, look at it from different perspectives and then talk some more. Through conversations that matter, a process will be revealed.

It's worth the heaviness.

At the conference we heard some great ideas about HOW to "put it into practice" that resonated with how we try to show up. Here are our top 3.

1. Working together is what it is all about. Truly! We could choose to work harder (hmmm) or get smarter (huh?) or partner better (yeah!!!)

2. It is never just ONE thing that derails development...so it's not going to be just ONE thing that fixes things either. This is so true whether it is applied to child development, business development, collaborative development - you name it.

3. Take time for deep conversations so that WE change and then we'll actually be able to MAKE change. (oooh gives goosebumps!) As Einstein said, you can't solve a problem with the same mindset that created it.

Village Raising Question:

How do you deal with cold hard facts?

What are you putting into practice?

RTV #8 - Build a Community Play Space

A Year of Raising the Village - Week #8

Find an under utilized play space – it holds amazing potential with some creativity and a lot of elbow grease!

In Qualicum Beach, tucked behind a centralized elementary school is a true community play space. Storybook Village is a place that inspires imaginative play and fosters community connections.  Partners from the early childhood community, schools, business and seniors have co-created a play space for young children and adults young at heart. The village is made up of a paved roadway (trike sized with real traffic signs) that is warmly circled by miniature replicas of community buildings – the theatre, the library, the gas station, the bank, the medical centre … 

These 10’ by 10’ wooden buildings, each sponsored by a local group or business, beg for the creative spirits of children to make them come alive during play. What a “village-like” opportunity for children to role-play, interact with their neighbours and care for their little town!

Just behind Storybook Village, you can also find Alphabet Garden. There are 26 raised beds, each in the shape of a letter and each tended to with care and attention by community groups and businesses. A thoughtful way to blend generations. 

The end products - garden and play space - are delightful – but the incredible benefit to the community also comes in the long process of taking this project from idea to plan to build! The stories of new relationships, generosity and community spirit fuel all those involved to keep working together.

For more information, check out their website: http://www.sd69.bc.ca/programs/BLT/Pages/default.aspx 


Village Raising Question
What creative play spaces have been created (and are used) in your community?

Derailed by Group Dynamics – get back on track!

Last week we shared a “real life” facilitator learning moment that sent us back to the books for reminders on group facilitation. Here are some tips we discovered that might help prevent being derailed by group dynamics.

1. In his book, The Secrets of Facilitation, author Michael Wilkinson offers tips for dealing with behaviors in a group. Catch participants being positively engaged and give them some attention, a head nod, a smile, or get them to have the floor to share an experience. People are more likely to engage if they feel they are contributing and offering to the process. Ask for their thoughts.

2. In the book The Skilled Facilitator, Roger Schwarz talks about two sets of knowledge and skills that assist a facilitator to help intervene in group dynamics. First, you need to know what type of behavior to look for…the ones that reflect key dynamics of the effectiveness of a group. Establish quick ground rules with every group- as the key way to know and identify a behavior that is in contrast of agreed upon principles. Second, a process for diagnosis is needed…figure out how you will observe and make sense of behavior. Facilitators have to deal with high-level inference (such as control and trust) that cannot be observed directly but must be inferred. The next steps are to decide whether, how and why to intervene. If you do intervene describe the observed behavior in an open and non judging way and share your intent in addressing the dynamic.

One of the learning’s we have taken away from our “de-railed” group facilitation is to remain grounded ourselves, stay curious with others, and clarify any behaviors that may be rippling in the room.

Raising the Village Question:

What are the behaviors that best boost a collaborative spirit? How might you discuss this regularly with your community group?