community resource (draft)

PACHAMAMA ALLIANCE COMMUNITY RESOURCE DRAFT VERSION

October 22, 2015

Welcome to the Community Resource for Pachamama Alliance Communities! We view every person in the Pachamama Alliance as an empowered leader, and we thank you for stepping into that role. Our goal is to build a global network of people committed to self-discovery and collective action in support of an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on this planet, and we are excited to work together towards that vision!

The Pachamama Alliance Engagement Team developed this packet to provide suggestions and resources to support your work, and to help align your efforts with our organizational values and practices. We strive to integrate personal transformation and community organizing to develop systems and structures that support meaningful change. We can only succeed in that process collectively, and encourage you to ask for clarification or additional information at any step of the process. We hope that you will share your thoughts and experiences so that this document can incorporate your insights as it is continuously refined and updated.

We expect that this resource will evolve over time to support Communities as they develop new initiatives and activities. Like our broader work, this guide is truly a collaborative project of Pachamama Alliance Communities and we are excited to see what we can create together. Our world needs a new dream, and we offer some resources to help create it. Thank you for embarking on that journey with us!

In partnership,

The Pachamama Alliance Engagement Team

Table of Contents I. Introduction to Pachamama Communities page 3

• Purpose of Pachamama Alliance • The Role of Pachamama Alliance Communities • Power of Community • Up to Us Engagement Pathway

II. Sharing Leadership in Pachamama Alliance A. Sharing Leadership page 5

• Empowering Each Other through Shared Leadership

• Circles as a Model for Sharing Leadership • Embodying Shared Leadership

B. Multiple Roles of Leadership page 8 • Leading in Any Role • Sharing Leadership Across Multiple Roles

C. Sharing Community Responsibilities page 11 • Sharing Leadership in Core Teams • Making Decisions while Sharing Leadership • Resolving Conflict

D. Structuring Meetings to Share Leadership page 14 • Experience Empowering Meetings • Empowering Meeting Practices • Sharing Meeting Responsibilities • Suggested Meeting Components • Appendix – Opening and Closing Suggestions

I. Introduction to Pachamama Alliance Communities In this section we connect the purpose of the Pachamama Alliance with the work of Communities, and discuss aligning that work with our shared vision for the world. We assume a familiarity with key tenets of the Pachamama Alliance, yet will still highlight important information about the organization to establish a common language and understanding. You can find additional information about Pachamama Alliance at www.pachamama.org/about.

Purpose of Pachamama Alliance Pachamama Alliance, empowered by our partnership with indigenous people, is dedicated to bringing forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on this planet.

Our unique contribution is to generate and engage people everywhere in transformational conversations and experiences consistent with this purpose. We weave together indigenous and modern worldviews such that human beings are in touch with their dignity and are ennobled by the magnificence, mystery, and opportunity of what is possible for humanity at this time.

We are here to inspire and galvanize the human family to generate a critical mass of conscious commitment to a thriving, just and sustainable way of life on Earth. This is a commitment to transforming human systems and structures that separate us, and to transforming our relationships with ourselves, with one another, and with the natural world.

Role of Pachamama Alliance Communities The vision that informs the Pachamama Alliance’s work is of a world that works for everyone: an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on this planet—a New Dream for humanity. Take a moment to think about that possibility! How would you work towards that goal?

Pachamama Alliance Communities provide an opportunity to pursue this vision at a local level, in connection with people in your area and in collaboration with Communities and partner organizations around the world. Communities connect people with common purpose to inspire, educate, and empower each other, to

support a higher vision for humanity, and to promote local action in pursuit of global goals as part of a far-reaching network. They tackle big questions that are hard to grapple with as individuals. Together, in community, we can make a tangible impact on the big issues of our time.

Power of Community Engaging with people in local groups applies the best aspects of human nature towards this work. People have a natural inclination to connect, create, and collaborate, and we need to access everybody’s insights and creativity to confront the challenges we collectively face. Studies suggest that humans have the cognitive ability to maintain relationships with about 150 people. The scale of modern social systems vastly exceeds this value, creating a barrier to contributing our gifts to society. We wind up seeing ourselves as individuals rather than a group, working independently rather than collectively. Communities work to engage and encourage everybody’s unique gifts by creating a collaborative space for them to flourish. Personal connection and cooperation is key to our evolutionary past, and we need to draw on these innate abilities to rediscover the skills that enable us to thrive in community for a meaningful future.

Communities represent an opportunity to create transformative systems and structures that re-imagine the way we organize ourselves. The systems people created to govern our society have caused the current environmental, spiritual, and social crises. We attribute these crises to the myth of separation, which holds that humans are separate from each other and from nature, and we believe that overcoming this myth is the key to transformative change. We cannot reverse the problems of society using the tools that created them. We need a new vision, a new approach, and new strategies. We strive to create systems that are connected, empowering, and fulfilling, and structures that account for everybody’s needs rather than privileging a few people over everybody else. Creating alternatives to conventional thinking, based in interconnectedness rather than separation, will provide transformative examples to other Communities, to other organizations, and to society at large.

Up to Us Engagement Pathway Pachamama Alliance Communities perform this work in the context of the Up to Us engagement pathway. Communities use other Pachamama Alliance programs to work towards a critical mass of people committed to creating a sustainable, just, and fulfilling human presence:

• Communities use the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium and Online Course to bring new people into their work. Awakening the Dreamer wakes people up to the crises humanity currently faces, and inspires them with a sense of hope and opportunity that they can make a difference in creating a new future.

• Communities use the online Game Changer Intensive to develop a deeper understanding of who they need to be and what they need to do to change the systems and structures of modern society.

• Communities interact with national Game Changing Movement Partners and develop local community projects that address the root causes of modern crises.

The Up to Us engagement pathway thus provides the larger context and ultimate purpose of the community itself: having a positive and lasting impact in changing the dream of the modern world at both the local and national levels.

II. Sharing Leadership in Pachamama Alliance Communities In this section we discuss sharing leadership and apply the concept to Communities. Sharing leadership is a key principle of Pachamama Alliance, and Communities represent an opportunity to develop the skill in local groups. We provide perspectives on sharing leadership in various capacities, including Community meetings. If we are going to transform society, we must transform the way we relate to each other. We see sharing leadership as a key to that transformation.

A. Sharing Leadership This section discusses the importance of sharing leadership for fulfilling the role of Pachamama Alliance Communities discussed in the introduction. Familiarity with the purpose of Pachamama Alliance and the role of Communities provides helpful context for this section, but you can benefit from reading this section in isolation.

Empowering Each Other through Shared Leadership We envision Pachamama Alliance Communities as a supportive framework that empowers everyone to follow their natural desires to connect, create, and collaborate. We believe that empowerment, engagement, and connection go hand in hand; people want to contribute to efforts they identify with where they see opportunities to use their skills and passion to have a meaningful impact in collaboration with others. Our collective challenge is to create structures that enable this work.

We develop empowering relationships in our own work by acknowledging that every single one of us is a leader, and that every single one of us plays a unique and critical role in social transformation. This approach may seem unfamiliar given the message we receive from existing systems about how to operate effectively - and some people may be inclined to apply conventional models to this work - but existing systems create the wrong outcomes so we need a new model. It is not possible for one person, or even those of us who created this document, to empower your Community; your Community has to work together to empower each other. Only by coming together and stepping into our roles as leaders can we create the harmonious systems a thriving, just and sustainable future requires.

Circles as a Model for Sharing Leadership When everyone is a leader, we can’t structure ourselves in the hierarchical pyramids that many institutions use to elevate selected leaders over everybody else. Instead, we use the model of a circle where every person, every leader, relates equally to all others. Individuals clearly have different strengths, different talents, and different interests, but we can all have an equal voice within our Communities.

The circle model isn’t new. It can be said that our political heritage had its beginnings in the primal circles of indigenous tribes, when a community of people sat around the fire, talking, telling stories and singing, surrounded by natural wilderness. Indigenous wisdom circles and councils often served as the basis for tribal decision-making. Contemporary thought leaders have embraced the circle model, suggesting that we undertake the challenges of our times by organizing our thinking and actions in small groups or circles. The illusion of separation is a huge obstacle to collective action and sustainable living, so the act of bringing people together is a vital part of the solution. Reintegrating this mindset into Communities provides a framework for transformational change.

Embodying Shared Leadership Shared leadership itself is a key goal of our work, not just the means to an end. Achieving this goal requires commitment, practice, and patience. It prioritizes hearing from everyone, valuing different perspectives, and collaborating to create uniquely wonderful processes and outcomes. Pachamama Alliance staff pursues this goal in our work, so we have some experience with this model. We take accountability for different tasks and projects just as in any other organization. The practice of aligning around goals and strategies ensures that we pursue work with a common purpose that benefits from multiple perspectives. The ability to collaborate dynamically without strict divisions and to participate equally in decision making processes as part of sharing leadership empowers us to pursue new activities and achieve exciting results based on collective wisdom. Our goal is to support your Community as it embodies shared leadership to empower and inspire each other in ways beyond what we experience in hierarchical organizations.

We base this approach on modern research and ancient wisdom that provide a deep understanding of the benefits that derive from sharing leadership in circles.

In a well-functioning Circle, members experience a strong sense of belonging, a compelling commitment to shared goals, a high level of accountability to themselves and to the group, a robust climate of joint problem solving and learning among peers, an intense feeling of involvement, and high trust relationships. Everyone sees herself as an equal part of the whole. The nonhierarchical nature that is the foundation of Circle interaction encourages every member to be a facilitator and a leader by sharing her knowledge and skills.

Achieving these goals can be challenging, but the opportunity to work together towards creative solutions is inspiring. The difficulties that arise from sharing leadership are much different from those that result in hierarchies. We own the challenges and commit to working together to resolve them. When we embrace shared leadership, we create an inspiring and empowering structure that provides the support to work towards our vision.

[A] Circle provides a stable community to grow and evolve with. [A] Circle is a space for fresh and meaningful conversations to take place. [A] Circle is a place to find support and feedback, and to hone your life’s purpose, and bring it into action/manifestation.

Creating the space to enable shared leadership drives our work with Pachamama Alliance Communities, but what happens in that space is up to you. Our goal is to

help you come together to engage in important questions in a supportive and trusting context, the outcome will depend on the unique talents your Community brings to this work. We invite you to create new visions, initiatives, and partnerships to change the dream of the modern world. In that process, Pachamama Alliance Communities can demonstrate empowering alternatives that manifest when we challenge the unexamined assumptions that constrain hierarchical systems. We can only succeed in this process collectively, so we invite you to build a Community of shared leadership with us.

B. Multiple Roles of Leadership In this section we discuss a model from the Coaches Training Institute that articulates multiple roles of leadership. This discussion builds on the previous discussion of sharing leadership. You can benefit from reading this section by itself, or in conjunction with the discussion about sharing leadership in Pachamama Alliance Communities.

Leading in Any Role Conventional leadership models based on a single leader dictating or directing action restrict our ability to address the big problems that confront society. Indeed, the philosophy underlying these models, which elevates people over nature and some people over others, created the intertwined environmental, spiritual, and social crises we face today. Conventional leadership has produced many impressive outcomes over time, but we need new models to create the empowering, responsive, transformative systems and structures this moment in history demands to create a thriving, just and sustainable future.

An expanded view of leadership helps empower people to act. Leadership is often defined as an active process in contrast with the passive process of following. In that model, only one person is fully empowered. Pachamama Alliance views everyone as an empowered leader, and relies on different thinking to support this perspective. By understanding leadership roles in different contexts, we can embrace our roles as leaders without being at the top of a hierarchical pyramid.

The leadership roles below come from the Coaches Training Institute and are designed to describe every role a person can play in a group. Each role contains

both positive and shadow forms, and it helps to be aware of both of them because everyone is always playing one or more of these leadership roles in one form or the other. No role is more important than any other, and sharing leadership involves playing different roles at different times. Think about which roles seem familiar and comfortable to you, and where you can challenge yourself to grow into new leadership roles in your Community.

Leadership from Within

This is the foundation, the starting point for every other form of leadership. Strongly related to self-knowledge, self-expression, and integrity.

Characteristics: Connected to inner self and integrity; I show up fully, fully aligned, making the choice at every moment to be my best self.

Shadow form: The ego-based self, seeking aggrandizement or avoiding what is seen as risk or danger, at the expense of integrity and self-expression.

Leadership from Front

Characteristics: This is “leadership from the front of the room,” leading others - the dominant model in our western culture. Has a vision of where we’re going, mapping the trail: “I have a plan - follow me.”

Shadow form: Domination of others, not listening, not collaborating, disempowering others, not knowing when to sit down.

Leadership from Behind

Characteristics: Responsibly empowering the “Leader from the Front” to succeed, supporting, offering help, engaged in looking for ways to help.

Shadow form: Abdication of power and self-expression, not expressing self, allowing the leader to founder or fail, passive-aggressive behavior, “not my responsibility,” co-dependency.

Leadership from Beside

Characteristics: Co-piloting, truly collaborative leadership, offering clear communication and accepting co-responsibility, partnership, sharing leadership.

Note: Adopting this shared leadership model is often seen as the panacea for groups and communities, trying to avoid what is seen as hierarchy or without having a clearly-denominated leader from the front - but it isn’t a panacea.

Shadow form: Co-dependency, co-leading in a way that is only negative or drains energy or stops action, identifying only problems in a disempowering way.

Leadership from Field

Characteristics: Accessing information from the field and bringing it back to the organization, providing the larger context, the big picture, “it’s worth noticing that…,” putting things in a broader perspective.

Shadow form: Always bringing an overwhelming bigger context or irresolvable questions, it’s all too overwhelming, or irresponsible use of the information, bringing in too many “considerations” or different viewpoints.

Sharing Leadership Across Multiple Roles In the context of multiple roles of leadership, your Community can create dynamic and empowering processes as you pursue your local vision. People will bring their own strengths, talents, and interests to your work, and your Community will thrive when everyone understands their different roles as leaders. You may lead from the front on projects you feel strongly about. Take care to avoid the domination and obstinance that comes with the shadow side of this role. You can lead from behind on other projects. Try to stay actively engaged in those efforts as well, and find ways to support the group from this different role. No matter what efforts your Community pursues, you have a unique and valuable perspective to bring to the group in every situation. By identifying and clarifying the various roles of leadership that you and others play in different contexts, you can empower each other to achieve incredible things by sharing leadership across multiple roles.

We offer some intentions to guide this process:

• Notice and become conscious of the leadership role we and others are playing at any one time

• Notice when a certain type of leadership is missing, and naming or addressing it

• Notice the role(s) we are most comfortable with

• Learn to be more comfortable with playing each of these roles well without falling into the shadow of any of them

• Learn to choose the right role to play at any moment in time

• Learn to support the role of other leaders in our team from our leadership positions knowing that every position in our team is a leadership position

Within this context, your Community can share leadership dynamically and benefit from everybody’s contributions while developing collective wisdom in pursuit of concrete goals. Think about how your Community can help each other lead in different ways. As we embrace our responsibilities as leaders in every role, we create empowering and transformative systems.

C. Sharing Community Leadership Having discussed sharing leadership and different leadership roles in the previous sections, we turn to some aspects of implementing these ideas in your Community. Those leadership concepts intersect with our discussion here in many ways and we will highlight some of them. We will do our best to identify those overlaps within the text and provide specific references to previous sections to help you connect the concepts.

Sharing Leadership in Core Teams Communities form around Core Teams that take responsibility for developing local visions, initiatives, and partnerships to enhance the Pachamama Alliance mission. Core Teams consist of 6-12 people that collaborate on projects and support each other’s work to create opportunities for the broader Community to participate. A diversity of perspectives, insights, and experiences are helpful in this process, and we recommend that you make participation in the Core Team open to everyone in your Community. Expect the Core Team to change over time. Some people may want to join after attending an Awakening the Dreamer Symposium, and others may step away temporarily or permanently because of a personal or professional situation. Sharing leadership ensures that Communities remain resilient as Core Teams experience natural fluctuations in participation.

By sharing leadership, Core Team members help each other avoid burnout. No one person (or even two or three) should feel responsible for the success of a Community. The success of your Community depends on your ability to work together to empower everybody to connect and create, which can only happen collaboratively. Ideally your pursuits garner broad support so that people want to

play an active role. Seek ways to engage people’s unique interests to facilitate this process. Remember that we are always playing a leadership role in either a constructive or not so constructive form (see II.B Multiple Roles of Leadership - Leading in Any Role) and we can support people’s efforts in many ways. Think about the roles that you and others play, and how these roles support everyone’s work. When we embrace our roles as leaders in every situation, we support each other and provide the energy necessary for our Community work.

Making Decisions while Sharing Leadership In order to truly share leadership in your Community, we recommend organizing yourselves as a circle - both philosophically and, during meetings, physically (see II.A Sharing Leadership - Circles as a Model for Shared Leadership and Embodying Shared Leadership). In this non-hierarchical structure, everyone is empowered to lead. The question then arises of how to make decisions when everyone is an equal leader.

Sharing leadership requires empowering decision making processes based in trust. We use the advice process in our own work, a method distinct from both consensus and unilateral decision making. In hierarchical structures, people at the top of the pyramid have ultimate decision making power. Everyone else is disempowered by the ability to be overruled and the requirement to carry out decisions they don’t support, which prevents them from showing up fully in their work and leads to mistrust within organizations. In consensus processes groups work to craft agreements that work for everybody, which has the advantage of including additional perspectives but can be derailed by individual dissenters and may produce negotiated results that nobody fully embraces or takes responsibility for implementing. As we describe below, the advice process provides a unique alternative to these two models. By encouraging broad participation in decision making and simultaneously empowering people to make their own decisions, the advice process allows groups to make effective choices.

The advice process is a simple and powerful approach for decision making that empowers all members of a group. The process is based in two simple rules:

1. Any person in a group can make any decision.

2. Before doing so, that person must seek advice from all affected parties and people with expertise on the matter.

Soliciting input from everyone affected allows people to trust that they have an important voice in decisions relevant to them. Their perspectives provide important insights into various aspects of implementing a decision, and helps avoid unintended consequences that their unique understanding can anticipate. Asking for input from people with expertise provides wisdom from related experiences and helpful context as the decision maker considers various options. Once those conversations have taken place, the decision maker can choose any path. Since we can’t compel people to follow our decisions, we are invested in making decisions that people align around. When people know that their voice will always be heard and that they are free to craft their own unique solutions, they can show up fully in their work with the trust and support of their Community.

Resolving Conflict When we assume responsibility for sharing leadership and making decisions, we also assume responsibility for resolving conflicts. We can’t count on someone else to settle disputes or disagreements, it’s up to us. The ability to resolve conflicts skillfully is more about how we choose to be present and less about specific techniques, but we offer a few principles and approaches that we have found effective in their simplicity and broad utility.

Time Outs: Consider establishing a protocol for taking a time out whenever people are beginning to talk at each other or stake out positions that shut down discussion. Ideas include a bell, a hand signal, or a verbal cue. For thirty seconds, everyone stops talking and takes deep breaths to become present, consciously open their hearts, and remind themselves of their shared purpose before discussion continues.

Talking Stick: This practice, borrowed from indigenous communities, has particular relevance when people in a group hold different views or no clear view, or express confusion. The discussion can proceed based on an object that a person holds in order to speak. Those not holding the object concentrate on fully listening to the speaker, rather than thinking about their own remarks. When the speaker finishes, they either put the object back in the center or pass it to the next person who is ready to speak. You may want to pass the object around the circle so everyone can speak in turn. This process may seem slow compared to open discussion or conventional business meetings, but it honors group mind and process by enabling deep listening.

Heart Circle: You can use this approach to address overt conflict in a group. Go around the circle and allow each person to say everything they have to say about the conflict and their feelings (and searching deeply to make sure they are saying everything they want to say), while everyone else concentrates on listening deeply, with as much empathy as possible. After everyone speaks, go around the circle again so that people have a chance to reflect on what they heard. If everyone shares and listens deeply, the conflict is nearly always reduced or eliminated, or a new group understanding has emerged. There are several helpful principles to follow in this process:

• Try to speak from the heart rather than the head

• Speak to your own experience and feelings rather than arguing with or responding to someone else’s experience or feelings.

• Give everyone permission to speak with directness and express their perceptions. Everyone may have a different truth in the matter, so rather than arguing with other perspectives, experience it as useful feedback.

• Listen as fully as possible, with as open a heart as possible

• Keep everything confidential within the circle.

D. Structuring Meetings to Share Leadership In this section we offer concrete details and practices to implement during meetings to support sharing leadership in your Pachamama Alliance Community as discussed in previous sections. Although it may be useful to ground yourself in that narrative, feel free to dive right in to the specifics presented here if you are so inclined. We suggest these approaches to embody the values of Pachamama Alliance based on our organizing experiences. How you choose to stand for those values is up to you.

Experience Empowering Meetings Before we get into specifics, we want to provide some perspective on empowering people during meetings. Meetings may sound like the worst way to empower somebody, but don’t let bad experiences with meetings in other contexts deceive you - meetings can be empowering! What does an empowering meeting look like? Some possibilities include space to see and honor each other, processes that develop and strengthen relationships, and opportunities for everyone to contribute and demonstrate leadership. You may want to discuss ideas in your Community to come to an understanding about what would empower all of you.

We view shared leadership as a key feature of empowering meetings. Shared leadership is more than a means to an end, shared leadership is part of the goal. We work towards this goal every day in our efforts to bring forth a thriving, just and sustainable world, and ask you to do the same. Developing shared leadership takes a conscious commitment from everyone involved. The process can be challenging at times, but the beauty of connection and empowerment that drives tangible projects rewards the effort. Holding the goal of shared leadership can help frame your thoughts and actions before, during and after meetings. We want to support your Community as you explore this process, and we offer some suggestions to inform your work.

Empowering Meeting Practices Sharing leadership can take different forms, but we expect it will always have some key similarities and we borrow some fundamental ideas to inform your work. Remember that sharing leadership is more than just an approach, it’s part of the goal. Abandoning the idea for short term benefits may debilitate long term prospects for your work. We suggest honoring the following principles.

Leadership rotates among all members To truly empower your Community, every individual needs an equal voice in meetings and equal access to your meeting structures. Some people may be inclined to take on certain meeting roles and prefer to avoid others, but within reasonable constraints we suggest stretching yourself to share leadership in all roles. Invite people to try new tasks and take on new responsibilities. Make sure that key roles and responsibilities are shared broadly to avoid elevating (or burdening) any individuals. Truly sharing leadership involves going beyond giving everybody the opportunity to lead and actually developing shared leadership in your Community. That might require working together outside of meetings to gain

skills to use within them. When people are empowered to lead they are empowered to contribute, which will make your meetings more effective.

Responsibility is shared for the quality of experience When everyone is a leader, everyone shares responsibility for your meetings. No one person holds that responsibility alone, so don’t designate a single leader to manage the process. Engage in discussion about what works well and what could improve. Don’t be afraid to raise an issue that you think is important. At the same time, take care to identify or create a useful space for these conversations either within the meeting or in separate conversations. Interrupting a discussion about an upcoming event to raise a concern about the agenda ignores responsibility to the group. Work together to support your meeting structure. Collectively commit to an approach and honor it, while being open to continual re-examination in appropriate contexts.

Reliance is on wholeness, rather than on any personal agenda Prioritizing group function promotes shared leadership and creates a safe space for your meetings. We do not mean to suggest that you should suppress thoughts in order to defer to the group. Instead, work to present your thinking in a way that honors the group process. Derailing a meeting doesn’t serve any constructive goals. When we share leadership, we cede the ability to dictate group activity. Recognize that sometimes the most important leadership role is allowing the group to proceed in a direction other than the one you have said you prefer. Trust the collective wisdom of your Community to lead in a meaningful direction.

Integrating these principles into your meeting experience builds trust. As your Community strengthens its shared leadership practice, it creates a framework for transformative actions. Navigating these concepts can be challenging. Three guiding practices can help your Community share leadership.

• Speak with intention: note what has relevance to the conversation in the moment.

• Listen with attention: respect the learning process for all members of the group.

• Tend the well-being of the group: remain aware of the impact of our contributions.

Keep in mind that sharing leadership is part of the goal, so strengthen those collaboration muscles! Open your ears, open your mind, and open your heart to your Community.

Sharing Meeting Responsibilities Assigning and rotating responsibilities during meetings is an important part of empowering each other through shared leadership. You can define specific responsibilities to ensure someone takes ownership of important aspects of each meeting, or treat things more loosely to stay flexible. Feel free to see what works for your Community. Some of the functions we suggest may be unnecessary, and you may identify others that greatly enhance your work. We would love to hear about those! We discuss some responsibilities that may help your Community share leadership. Remember that everyone plays a leadership role no matter what their assigned responsibilities (see II.B Multiple Roles of Leadership - Leading in Any Role) and it is important for everyone to identify ways to contribute in order to produce effective meetings.

Facilitator - This person facilitates, rather than leads, the discussion. The facilitator takes responsibility for maintaining the integrity of the meeting with respect to the agenda and timeframes. The facilitator guides the Community through the sections of the meeting, creates the space for dialog, and monitors the conversation. Balance participating in the meeting with facilitating it. The facilitator may want to pose a question if conversation dwindles, or bring the group back to a topic when conversation wanders. A facilitator needs to be empowered by the group to move conversations from topic to topic, closing them when time is over and ensuring that all voices are heard.

Note taker - Documenting key points of your conversation can create a useful reference for people who could not attend and serve as a historical record. Detailed notes aren’t necessary, but a record of the topics discussed, the current status of projects, any decisions reached, and assigned action steps can be very helpful.

Time keeper - Anyone with a timekeeping device can hold this responsibility. Announce when time for a certain section is coming to an end, and perhaps provide updates at certain times throughout the discussion. (“It’s been 10 minutes,” or, “2 more minutes on this topic.”) The time keeper is not responsible for stopping a conversation - that responsibility falls to the facilitator and the group more broadly - the time keeper simply needs to raise awareness about the amount of time elapsed. The group can always choose to extend the time for a topic, but it is nice to have someone tasked to highlight that need.

Stack taker - One mechanism to determine speaking order is to keep a list of people who want to speak. Using a stack ensures that people can speak without having to jump in when someone finishes speaking, which helps democratize the

discussion and avoids interruption. The facilitator can run the stack, or designate it to a stack taker. People add their name to the stack by raising a hand during the conversation, and the stack taker keeps a list and then calls on people to speak in order. The stack taker can also prioritize someone on the list who hasn’t spoken much.

We suggest rotating responsibilities to share leadership. If one person is an experienced facilitator, consider enlisting them to train others in the group rather than leading every meeting. A regular note taker may experience more opportunities to contribute to discussions in another role. View everybody’s ability to hold multiple responsibilities over time as a valuable contribution to the success of your Community.

Suggested Meeting Components Articulating a clear meeting structure provides focus to your meetings. Since people may have many different visions for what meetings look like, clarifying the structure at the beginning of a meeting will make sure everyone has the same understanding to help keep things running smoothly. We recommend that meetings consistently include certain sections to provide a reliable format for personal connection and participation. Structure alone can’t create successful meetings (although it certainly is important!) so stay in dialog with each other about what is working and what could be better to continuously strive to improve. We encourage you to identify meeting components that work best for your Community.

You might choose to hold a meeting at some point to talk about meeting structure so that everyone has a space to contribute to that conversation. You may experience a lot of give and take as you align around meeting processes, which is part of the idea. Trying to hold that conversation as part of a meeting intended to discuss hosting an Awakening the Dreamer Symposium, though, could be complicated. Everybody has an important perspective to contribute about how to make meetings work for them, and learning to incorporate many voices is part of the process. As we suggested above, collectively commit to an approach for a meeting and honor it, while being open to continual re-examination in appropriate contexts. We provide some suggested components based on our experiences.

Opening - Use the opening section to bring everyone’s focus to your meeting. People can be distracted by their to do lists, the phone conversation they just had, or what to eat for dinner. Take this opportunity to build commitment to the meeting for its duration. Welcome everyone to the meeting space, articulate its purpose,

and use an activity to connect people around a shared experience. Possibilities include sharing a thought, idea, story, or quote that you find relevant to your work. See the Appendix and circleswork.net/resources/centering/ for additional meeting opening suggestions.

Check In - After the opening, go around the circle to have everyone check in and continue building commitment to the meeting. Give everybody a chance to share with the group to connect formally and create the space for the meeting. Have everyone share names and answer a check in question. Questions can prompt people to share how they are feeling, a recent memorable experience, their inspiration for this work, something they are proud of, something they are grateful for, something interesting about them, something from the past week they wish they had done better, a book or film suggestion, or anything else to help you all connect. You may choose to provide the question in advance to give everyone a chance to prepare, which expands possibilities to include bringing items of significance to share with the group. You may choose to provide inspirational messages for people to read in lieu of a question. We do recommend using some sort of check in. Even if everyone at the meeting knows each other, this section helps bring everyone into the discussion.

Ground Rules - Once everybody is engaged in the meeting, take time to agree upon expectations for participation. This process may go quickly if you have a regular group of participants, but it can be beneficial to remind everyone of the expectations to have them in mind during the meeting. Here are some suggestions you can use in your Community:

• Speak briefly, being mindful of time for all to share. Share on the topic of discussion.

• Speak to the whole group, not to an individual. Avoid one-to-one cross-talk, which can exclude others or seem attacking.

• Step up, step back: try to speak if you haven’t contributed much and let others speak if you have shared a lot. Make space for people to participate without having to assert themselves.

• Don’t take things personally. Be open to seeing each unique perspective as a valid experience.

• Help evolve the discussion. Listen deeply, contemplating contributions for deeper understanding.

Establishing these types of expectations at the outset helps create space for everyone to feel safe and contribute in meaningful ways. Feel free to brainstorm other ideas as a Community that seem beneficial. Remember that everyone is responsible for the health of the group, and agreeing on ground rules ahead of time enables everyone to collaboratively create an effective meeting dynamic.

Announcements - With ground rules in hand, people can share announcements of important news or upcoming events. If anything requires extended discussion, consider including it as an agenda item in the Discussion section of the meeting. The Announcement section allows people to share information that may not require extended discussion. People are usually passionate about their announcements, so it helps to keep the first ground rule above in mind: speak briefly! You may consider establishing a one or two minute time limit for the time keeper to track.

Reports - Distinct from announcements, this section provides space for people to report on their ongoing Pachamama Alliance work. Progress towards hosting a guest speaker or stories from a recent event fit well in this section. As with Announcements, consider establishing a time limit and adding topics to the Discussion section of the meeting if they require more time.

Discussion - This section typically comprises the bulk of a meeting and can take on many forms. Perhaps you are discussing something you read. Maybe someone is presenting a new idea or you invited a guest speaker. You may be identifying opportunities to collaborate with local groups, or planning an Awakening the Dreamer Symposium. Maybe you’re brainstorming and planning for the future. Perhaps you’re still getting to know each other or deepening existing connections. There are lots of possibilities! You may want to create an agenda in advance, or generate one at this point based on everyone’s input. Regardless, be clear about the process and be willing to modify an existing agenda based on needs that arise in the meeting. You can prioritize topics to make sure you discuss the most important ones, set time limits for each discussion, or just see how things develop. Maybe you want conversation to proceed around the circle so that everyone can share without interruption, or have an open conversation where anyone can share their thoughts. Feel free to try different formats based on the goals for any particular meeting and talk about what works best for people. It can be very helpful to be clear about the intention and format before beginning the discussion so that everyone knows what to expect! Be mindful of the ground rules everyone agreed to earlier in the meeting, and collaborate to create collective wisdom to move your Community forward.

Think about how to use everybody’s time effectively. Sometimes your Community will benefit from holding certain discussions outside of a general meeting. As one example, if your Community is hosting an event soon and half of the people at a meeting have not engaged in the planning process, participating in an extended discussion about it may not benefit them. In such a case, consider prioritizing other discussions and even ending the meeting early to allow them the option to leave before delving into planning details. At the same time, perhaps they could help with publicity and outreach so an announcement or short discussion along those lines could be very useful. Be clear about the agenda and open to receiving feedback in order to empower people to collaborate effectively during meetings.

Check Out - Before wrapping up your meeting, go around the circle again and have people answer a check out question. The question can prompt people to discuss one thing they will take away from the discussion, or something they are looking forward to after the conversation. You can ask what worked well about the meeting structure, or ideas to improve it. Perhaps there is a final thought people want to share to be complete. The check out round allows you to collectively sum up everyone’s meeting experience and provides some feedback on what resonated with people.

Closing - Finally, close the meeting with a shared group experience to mirror the opening. Possibilities include sharing a thought, idea, story, or quote that you find relevant to your work. Consider adding some fun with a group song, cheer, or dance! See the Appendix for additional meeting closing suggestions.

There are infinite permutations you can use within this structure, and many others you can try out as well. We encourage you to identify a core of meeting sections that work reliably, and to be willing to experiment in other areas to continue growing as a Community to serve everybody’s needs. We’ll be here to support you with our insights and experiences along the way, and to connect you with other Communities that can share theirs as well. We hope that process models creating empowering meetings by sharing leadership.

Appendix – Opening and Closing Suggestions

We suggest using a ritual of some sort to both open and close meetings, and offer some ideas to spark your imagination. You can use an opening to bring everyone’s focus to your meeting and connect people around a shared experience. You can use a closing to honor the work you did together to leave happy and connected. In addition to the ideas below, you may find inspiration at circleswork.net/resources/centering/

Openings Create the Center: Set up the center of the circle with a slightly raised platform or some fabric. In the center, place a candle, some flowers, or another meaningful item to serve as the central axis of the group. Have each member of the circle place a special item around the altar, expressing why they have chosen that item for the circle gathering.

Meditation: A silent meditation serves as a good practice for leaving the hustle and bustle of everyday life and entering the sacred work that takes place in the circle. A few minutes of sitting in silence with eyes closed helps members of the circle focus on the work that is about to take place. A guided meditation, such as offering the members of the circle visualization suggestions, is also rewarding. Just remember, when doing guided meditations, less is more! It should be a gentle guiding that leaves lots of spaciousness for people to feel and breath into what’s true for them in the moment.

Music and Movement: Engaging and enlivening the body is a great way to focus the mind. Members of the circle can share a recorded song, play music on their own instruments, or sing a song a capella. Perhaps one of the members wants to lead everyone in a movement meditation. Shaking off the dust of the day can help the circle come alive.

Hold Hands: Everyone in the group can stand in the circle and connect by holding hands. This allows the members of the circle to see and feel the connection that is the basis for the circle gatherings. Have everyone go around and mention the name of an inspiring person, or have everyone say something inspiring that happened that day, or have everyone offer a single word that encapsulates their current feelings.

Readings: Someone can offer a passage that is important to him or her. After reading the passage, perhaps take a moment of reflection, then have a few people respond to what was read. Reading responses can serve as a means for entering into conversation, which is the foundation for any circle gathering.

Closings Stand and hold hands

Share a word or phrase of choice, expressing what each member of the Circle is feeling

Play a song

Read a poem

Music: Play a piece of contemplative or inspirational music to give members of the circle some time to reflect on what was said during the day’s meeting. You can even use the same song each week to create a sense of continuity - to build a thread that connects each circle meeting. Feel free to add some movement as well.

Gratitude: One by one, each member of the circle offers a few words of gratitude for another member - for an insight that was shared, a kindness that was offered, or simply for the presence that they bring to the group. Be careful not to leave anyone out inadvertently, though!

Spiral Hug: The spiral hug is a really fun way to close a Circle and engender a feeling of closeness between members of the group. One person breaks hands with one of the people they are standing beside while keeping contact with the other, moving into the center of the circle. This winds the group tighter and tighter until eventually everyone is rolled together in a hug.

Hold Hands: Everyone in the group can stand in the circle and connect by holding hands. This allows the members of the circle to see and feel the connection that is the basis for the circle gatherings. Have everyone go around and offer a single word that encapsulates their current feelings.

The Pachamama Alliance is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco. Its mission is to empower indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest to preserve their lands and culture and, using insights gained from that work, to educate and inspire individuals everywhere to bring forth a thriving, just and sustainable world. Learn more at pachamama.org

Pachamama Alliance Presidio Bldg #1009, 2nd Floor P.O. Box 29191 San Francisco, CA 94129 +1 415 561 4522

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