What is the
“Art of Hosting”?
Intentional Dialogue around a Shared Purpose
The Art of Hosting and Harvesting Conversations That Matter is a training that builds our individual and collective capacity to self-organize together, to organize horizontally rather than with vertical hierarchy and to include the whole range of perspectives needed to find solutions to complex challenges. The Art of Hosting and Harvesting creates conditions for meaningful conversations, effective democratic practices, and learning how to work collaboratively in emergence as ways to move into wiser action together.
The Art of Hosting and Harvesting can be applied in various settings including:
Team work and Group Work
Planning and Facilitating Meetings or Events
Visioning and Strategic Planning
Community Organizing
Collaborative Project Planning
Personal and Group Reflection
Innovation Labs
Transdisciplinary work
This intro to the “Art of Hosting & Harvesting Conversations That Matter” will offer a deep-dive into an integrated approach to planning any size gathering (from a 1-hour meeting to a long-term multistakeholder engagement) with the Purpose at the center and the Outcome as a guide - we call that outcome ‘the Harvest’.
What tangible and intangible outcomes will you capture to best serve the needs of your clients, organization, or community?
How will you design & host a dialogue-based process that illuminates collective intelligence?
How will you invite meaningful collaboration that inspires action?
You’ll get hands-on practice with an integrated set of mental models, frameworks, and tools to follow the “stepping stones” for designing, hosting, and harvesting focused dialogue for collaborative action.
What will we learn & practice together?
During the Art of Hosting training, we will explore a range of participatory tools, concepts, and methods that may include:
The 4-Fold Practice
Circle Practice
World Café
Open Space Technology
Designing a participatory process
The Art of Harvesting
Chaordic Stepping Stones
Cynefin Framework, and more
What people say when this approach to facilitation based on hosted dialogue is used in real-life meetings & workshops:
“I learned so much in this workshop. In fact, I’d say out of the past 5 years of workshops I’ve been to, I’ve learned the most in this one.”
“The workshops are crossroads where people with different perspectives can sit down in a safe environment and share those points of view openly and honestly without criticism,” says Duncanson (MN farmer and WLN participant). “We can genuinely understand and make progress toward a solution.
”
“I think the facilitation was noteworthy and pretty exceptional. The team was able to include elements of more subjective and emotional intelligence-based group work. I thought the graphic recording was a creative and innovative way to record our progress; it provided a really interesting record of the meeting.
”
WHAT WILL THE TRAINING BE LIKE?
This training will be deeply engaging and interactive! You’ll have the opportunity to share your own stories while engaging in peer-to-peer learning and practice.
Learning and practice will be woven throughout the days, with time to design & practice hosting various dialogue-based methods as well as harvesting methods, always with a coach at your back.
We will explore and consider both the ‘calling question’ or theme of the training – chosen because it is appropriate to this time and place – and the deeper practice inherent in hosting & harvesting conversations that matter.
Because hosting meaningful conversations is, at its heart, complex systemic change work, you should look at your first Art of Hosting training as a point of entry into a continual learning journey – there is so much more to learn than what can fit in a 3-day workshop!
You will not become an experienced practitioner by attending one training, but you will be on the road to deepening and expanding your practice!
AoH COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
Participating in an Art of Hosting training is also an entry into a generous and active community of practitioners spread across the world. You will likely find a local community of practice, as well as learning from the international community. After you’ve completed this training, you will receive an invitation to join the global community of practice through our Facebook page and email listserve, both dynamic, supportive platforms!
Resource Links for The Art of Hosting Community of Practice are all listed on our website:
http://www.artofhosting.org
Additional Resources are shared by our generous community of practitioners at links like these:
Chris Corrigan's blog and resource page
http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/
New Stories' resource page
https://newstories.org/resources/
The Outside's insights page
https://www.findtheoutside.com/insights
Toke Moeller's resource page
https://web.archive.org/web/20170811010304/http://interchange.dk/resources/