Our core methods
This is an overview of our core methods and awareness-based tools and approaches. It also includes links to proven practice tips, case studies and experiences from our facilitation in and for systemic change and social innovation.
This serves us to nurture a shared language of HOW we “do” this work of societal change no matter in which contexts or on what scale. They support to stay oriented when being in the midst of the work and for ongoing collective sense-making in our team, community and with our partners and clients. Together, they allow us to refine the way we work based on a long term action research approach. This is our coherent and shared foundation from where we approach and navigate in different, interrelated and complex topics.
The view from the mountaintop is the same, no matter what path you took to get there. But when you start hiking and climbing, it's important to be familiar with which tools and methods to use and especially as a group feel oriented as you go.
We have found this set of core methods to be useful in diverse situations and contexts. This is a grounding combination, yet we will continue to weave in other approaches and elements.
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The context of systemic change, societal renewal and its interconnected relationship to personal inner development is highly complex. In order to lead that change, we need robust articulation and depiction of the multilayered systemic challenges and possible pathways to solutions. Theory U provides frameworks, applicable theory and approaches as well as a lively and active global community through u.lab.
The principles of Theory U have proven helpful to systemic change agents such as political leaders, civil servants, and managers to break through unproductive patterns of behavior. Patterns that prevent them from empathising with their clients' or stakeholders’ perspectives and often lock them into ineffective patterns of decision making.
The Theory U approach offers a process or journey to connect to and lead from the emerging future. Its states that before we can change things in the outer we need to go - individually and collectively through a journey of opening up and enter into a state of Presencing, referring to the bottom of the "U" where we are invited to sense and be present to what is. From there we go into prototyping and moving on into actualisation and crystallization.
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Art of Hosting (AoH) is an approach that is highly effective for harnessing the collective wisdom and self-organising capacity of groups of any size, for a one-time event or long-term collaboration. It's a body of practice co-created and further evolved over the past 20 years by facilitators, consultants and a community of practice. Based on the assumption that people give their energy and lend their resources to what matters most to them – in work as in life. Art of Hosting blends a suite of powerful conversational processes to invite people to step in and take charge of the challenges facing them.
This blend supports the creation of open and meaningful conversations that lead to commitment and long-lasting results. Working with a range of collaborative methods – like Circle, World Café, Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space Technology, ProAction Café, storytelling and more – practitioners can tailor the approach to their context and purpose.
Groups and organizations using the Art of Hosting as a working practice to report better decision-making, more efficient and effective capacity building and greater ability to quickly respond to opportunity, challenge and change. People who experience the Art of Hosting typically say that they walk away feeling more empowered and able to help guide the meetings and conversations they are part of, in relation to moving towards more effective, participatory and regenerative outcomes.
At collaboratio helvetica our activities and events, the Catalyst Lab and work with clients are hosted and design inspired by the Art of Hosting approach. Through the implementation of these methods and tools, we ensure the participation of diverse and different voices, the support of a culture of shared leadership and the conditions for co-creation.
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Effective collaboration at any scale, be it in families, communities or organisations.
The idea behind Sociocracy as an organisational format resp. form of governance is based on the concept of “decision-making among equal individuals” and has its origins in the 19th century tough, was mainly shaped throughout the 20th century (read here more about its history). It is based on a set of principles, such as consent which means decisions are being taken in the absence of strong and reasoned objections - compared to majority decision-making or consensus - or the idea of organising in circles.
Sociocracy 3.0 (S3) is a body of Creative Commons licensed learning resources, synthesising ideas from Sociocracy, Agile and Lean. It offers a practical guide for evolving agile and resilient organisations of any size. Its aim is to make everyone feel engaged and accountable, be it within small start-ups and large international networks and nationwide, multi-agency collaboration.
S3 provides a coherent collection of principles based patterns for collaboration, to navigate complexity, adapt and evolve. It helps organisations to make the best use of the talent and collective intelligence present and to grow flexible organisational structures to align the flow of information and influence to the flow of value.
At collaboratio helvetica, most of our structures and processes, such as organisational circles (we call them domains) and decision-making and proposal making processes are organised according to Sociocracy 3.0. Through these processes, we ensure fairness, engagement and accountability among the team members and the different domains.
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What
A Social Lab is first and foremost a way to address complex challenges, which cannot be solved by linear strategic planning. It is anchored in a quest (challenge), a topic of systemic relevance as for example those contained in the Sustainable Development Goals. It brings together a diversity of people that are stakeholders from all sectors or in other ways have things to contribute, around the shared intention or guiding question contained in the endeavour. A Social Lab offers space and time to create an in-depth, holistic (body, mind, soul) understanding of the root causes and hold space for realignments. The room opens for individual (challenging beliefs, seeing beyond habits and assumptions, learn new ways of being) as well as collective transformation (becoming present together, surface collective knowledge). The process allows for experimentation, prototyping and fast learning cycles, opening space to fail and try again. Where we cultivate the ability of not knowing and hold the question, allowing things to emerge. It creates a space to train together how to become and be a conscious living system; a learning, sharing cycling organism. The outcome is prototype solutions that go through a continuous iteration of testing in the real world, collecting data for further refinement and testing again.
We understand and use Social Labs, as a process inspired by Zaid Hassan’s understanding of Social Laboratories by combining them with the U-journey after MIT’s Theory U, Art of Hosting as well as integrating diverse methods, tools, practices along the way (check out our toolbox). It is a format, a process, but also a type of strategic response to complex systemic challenges. Solutions coming out of this process are meant to tackle the root causes of a challenge and have a systemic impact, rather than fighting symptoms.
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By "Dialogue" we mean the kinds of conversations that change something in us when we take part in them, and that shift something between the people who are involved in the conversation. Dialogues invite us to take the “risk” of being authentic and to co-create a space where others can do the same. Dialogues are about challenging our habits of thought and conversation: listening with attention, speaking with intention and daring to turn the camera around to face ourselves and the roles we might have within the systems we are trying to change.
The Dialogue Space is a space where we try to learn and understand not through facts or intellectual knowledge, but through seeing another perspective through the eyes and story of someone else, and through getting a new sense of the broader ecosystem that the discussed issue is part of.
We understand Dialogue as a toolbox, a communication & relation technology as well as a lifestyle.
Every dialogue is a tailored flow of communication techniques which accompanies the individual and the group process.
“The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor.” - Bill O'Brien.
We believe that the outcomes of any intervention depends on the interior state, presence and awareness of the intervenor (being it a facilitator, moderator, coach, etc.), the dynamics and health in the intervenor team and on the social field and community in which the intervention is embedded and part of. As the Practitioners Circle of collaboratio helvetica, we are creating and supporting the conditions for our diverse facilitators to be well supported and enabled along this journey - as individuals and as a collective. It’s a circle of active facilitators who are practicing to live a new culture of working together, inspire and learn from each other. A culture of care and presence, which is the source of holding space, hosting and stewarding consciously change processes for our clients and community. We practice walking the talk by making the methods come alive, practice and refine them, mirror each other along our growth path as professionals and humans. We always facilitate in pairs or groups to bring in different perspectives, skills and qualities and to shed light on blind spots and the fringes in and of a system.