It all began when someone called Harrison Owen noticed that the best learning and best conversations at most big conferences and events were happening in the coffee breaks.  Oh dear.

Conference organisers spend loads of time, effort and money arranging formats, flying experts across the world etc; when actually all the resources that everyone needed were in the room all the time.  So, the breakthrough thought was ‘What if events could be like one long coffee break ?’

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Do you know that feeling of four or five people sat at a table having an absolutely brilliant conversation ?

Absolutely brilliant conversations start with great questions, continue with a diversity of perspectives and finish with everyone understanding things differently.
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The essence of action learning

(image used in UK National Health Service)

The world is a mad place.  Many of us have mad jobs and sadly many of us don’t have jobs at all.  The training course to tell us what we need to know to deal with all this madness and complexity doesn’t exist.

And yet we know, we need a focus for our continuing learning.
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That's simple enough then ....

I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this site how useful I find the Einstein quote along the lines of ‘you can’t solve a problem at the same level at which it was created’.  Theory U is, I reckon, the best answer going to the question ‘how do you get to a different level?’
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“One of the best things I have ever done” So there.

The ‘Art of Hosting and Harvesting Conversations that Matter’ - what kind of snappy name is that? - how about ‘The Arts of facilitating and having the most brilliant deep conversations with wonderful people about the most amazing things and then doing something about it’ ? - maybe we’ll stick with ‘The Art of Hosting’ for now.

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A web of strands comes together

I have it on good authority that birthing processes can be painful and that labour can go on a lot longer than you want it to ….

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Where do you get your thrills ?

There are two types of work that really thrill me :

(i)  when diverse people come together and share perspectives so that new understandings emerge and new thinking is made possible

(ii)  when existing groups of people have really important conversations that they have never had before

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