Collective Story Harvest

Process

Working with Stories of systemic change

Theme:  What are we learning about hosting change for good?

Time:  60 – 90 minutes minimum

Harvesting Threads & Roles

ROLES
Host:  Hosts the process, helps harvester choose an arc to listen to, invites the story

Teller: Offers a real world story on the theme — it could be a story about a project, an initiative, an organisation, community or a personal life story

Harvesters:  Choose an arc to harvest or harvest in a way that fits your talents (music, movement, poetry, art, etc)
  • What are the deeper qualities of leadership in this story?
  • What are some of the conditions that were crucial for change to happen?
  • What did I learn from this story that I could apply in my work?
  • What potent question arise from this story that anyone could use in their work?
  • Witness - Listens with full attention to the storyteller, takes notice:  what arises in me, in the circle listening to the story?

PROCESS
  • Host welcomes the group, describes the process, introduces the harvesting arcs
  • Everyone chooses a role and takes a moment to prepare themselves
  • Storyteller is introduced and the story invited
  • Storyteller tells/Harvesters harvest (remember, this is not a Q&A session, save that until after the harvest)
  • Harvesters report in/Storyteller harvests
  • Storyteller reports in
  • Witness reports in
  • If there is time, questions can be asked and the group take time for sharing 
  • Host closes the circle

OUR CAFÉ HARVEST
Deeper qualities of leadership
  • Vision:  moral compass, integrity & values, keep boundaries and everyone is an open space
  • Find your tribe — learn to dance with unlikely partners, host your heart
  • Is leadership a gift, a burden, a curse, a calling, a choice?  Is it your time?

Conditions
  • Cracks in the ice
  • Finding the right question
  • Trust

Applications
  • Dance the journey in a team
  • Letting things/outcomes emerge in the process within the boundaries and common purpose
  • Pay attention to what is going well and welcome setbacks

Questions
  • What language can we use to welcome others on this journey and give space to hear voices that aren’t being heard
  • How do we prioritise genuinely, process over product, and cultivate space and time for the emergence of experiments?
  • How do we deal with failure, and in what ways can we develop our response when something doesn’t work?

Witness
  • The witness bears the intimacy of the experience — through emotional connection
  • The witness validates the story by just listening — not by judging or analysing.  Lots of this done through non-verbal communication (nodding, eye contact, etc)
  • Witness is freed from the pressure of responsibility — can relax into the listening (this relaxation seeps into the group — essential to learning and creating!)

The gifts of being hosted (Storytellers)
  • The space was held for the story to do its own work.  I was nothing other than the conduit.
  • Reciprocal process — mirroring back we gifted the story and received unexpected gifts back.
  • The process created a very intentional and conscious space (everyone active and participating; tools to give us access to reliable and sustainable leadership)

The gifts of hosting the process
  • Tension between invite and time
  • Creating the internal space and the space to hold the story
  • Scaffolding for creative harvest

Experience

Harvest
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