Convening Powerful Conversations

“Every gathering is an opportunity to deepen accountability and commitment through engagement. It doesn’t matter what the stated purpose of the gathering is….The leader’s task is to structure the place and experience of these occasions to move the culture toward shared ownership.” — Peter Block

One of the biggest challenges in our world today is an inability to create effective, powerful and transformative conversations - whether in workplace or community meetings or even during informal gatherings with family and friends.  All too often, as a way to avoid conflict or to disengage from difficult issues, we resort to “just talk” conversations that lack the ability to move us forward.  As a result, nothing changes.  

In contrast, artful conveners are skilled in creating and managing spaces for connection and engagement that facilitate conversations that include both meaning and consequence.  

They do this by following the framework of the 9-steps Convening Wheel (which also provides the framework for each Essential Conversation session).

The Art of Convening creates the possibility for nurturing a creative and purposeful alternative future by providing a foundation of welcome, safety and belonging solid enough to hold the ambiguity and discomfort that comes with asking and exploring powerful questions.   Through the use of powerful questions, we can become more accountable and committed to ourselves, each other and the whole–even as we become more intimate, vulnerable and connected.  

Each of us has the power to heal the world’s woundedness.  This isn’t about guilt, but rather, accountability.  Our choosing to come together and to be accountable will enable us to become the change we want to see in the world.