Groundwork: practising generative collaboration
How do we support teams and communities to organise and do their best work together?
So many situations in our lives demand that we collaborate, and do it well. Never before have our collective efforts been so needed or the outcomes so critical. Groundwork is both a personal and collective practice for strengthening collaboration which can be integrated and applied to any aspect of life.
Groundwork practice has been foundational in our own organisation. We are in deep learning of what it means and takes to be a self organising system that nurtures its members, the people we work with, and the planet. We've all benefited immensely from the wisdom and practice, and experienced that sweet spot when a group really sings and is able to do awesome work together.
While our friend, colleague and Groundwork co-founder, James Ede, was visiting Australia in 2019, we organised and co-hosted trainings in Canberra and Brisbane, with a team of local hosts. This followed two Brisbane workshops in 2017, and a training in Denmark that one of us co-hosted the same year.
The purpose of the training was to build our individual and collective capacities to collaborate effectively and with more powerful results. We explored Groundwork principles, practices and tools to support us in more conscious collaborations and applied it to projects and initiatives that participants were already working with, .
Some of us in Campfire are stewarding Groundwork practice in Australia, sharing the model in work we do, and offering in-house or public trainings.
In the words of ...
Participants expressed their gratitude for:
Generational change in the room - participants, mentors, ancestors and wise ones.
Hope and optimism amidst “groan zone” of the world, the energy, stories and diversity in the room
People who are re-awakened, people committed to inclusion and collaboration, teachers.
A map to navigate, ongoing support, sitting in circle with such diversity, richness of everyone.
Integrity in the team and their modelling a way of being with us. Extra layer of clarity this framework brings, learning more about myself
The conversation and wisdom of this powerful work
Thank you for this space and the model. This is process I’ve been waiting for
More ...
