One great thing leads to another and that is how landed up at the Art of Hosting Training’24 Bengaluru, earlier this month (7-19th Dec’24) . I got its leads from one of the participants of the #Play14 event. After attending the training, it feels as the missing piece of my formal education is now complete. I wish I had It earlier but it’s not late either :).
From the AoH website :-
The Art of Hosting is a highly effective way of harnessing the collective wisdom and self-organizing capacity of groups of any size. Based on the assumption that people give their energy and lend their resources to what matters most to them – in work as in life – the Art of Hosting blends a suite of powerful conversational processes to invite people to step in and take charge of the challenges facing them.
From the last 15 years or more, AoH trainings have been happening across the globe. In India, only a few of them happened in 2016. For this year’s training to happen in Bengaluru, India; a lots of volunteers have worked behind the seen for a very long time and I am thankful to them. Each AoH training has a calling question and for this training it was :-
How can we listen to the layers of wisdom in India to co-create a thriving future?
We discussed about above in detail, in the World Cafe session. More about it a bit later.
Day 1
Check-IN
We started the training after the lunch and did a Check-IN by sitting in a Circle. Check-IN is process that allows participants to transition from outside world or other distractions to the present in a meeting. We did this every morning before starting and for the first Day did a quick introduction of everyone, sitting in a Circle. After that we listened to the AoH history and story.
Chaordic Path
Post that we had our first learning session after a football game :), to learn that new practices are created when we work between chaos and order.
In India as we know there is a lot of chaos and if we see around a lot innovations at the grass-roots level. Companies say that if we are able to get it work in India then it would work anywhere. So as Indians, we should be proud of chaos we create. In the recent times we can see that AI is creating a lot of chaos for many different professions. I am sure something new would come up after this chaos.
4 Levels of Listening & Story Trios
After that discussion we explored 4 different levels of listening and it is a very important skill to have. To practice it, we created groups of 3 each. Out of 3, one was the storyteller to narrate his/her story of overcoming a difficult situation; one witness, who would listen with heart & emotions and one harvester, who would capture that facts and wisdom.
This was a very important exercise; where we shared what we could not have ever imagined to share with strangers but here we were, sharing with someone whom we met just a few hours before. This is the power of AoH practices.
AoH Pedagogy
We explored about the AoH Pedagogy to learn about where different Models Methods, Tools fit.
Sign-Up and Check-OUT
After the first day, all the participants are invited to become the hosts for different activities which were scheduled for the remaining days. This was done using the sign-up process. I signed for the World Cafe, which was scheduled for the next day.
After sign-up we did a Check-OUT, similar to Check-IN. Just before and after the dinner we had the coaching sessions, in which existing hosting team has briefed us in-detail, about our roles and responsibilities for that next day.
So that was our first day.
Day 2
This was most intense Day of training, packed with lot for content and practice.
Feed Forward & Check-IN
We started the day with the Feed-Forward, in which one of the participants summarised previous day’s sessions and harvests. Post that we had our Check-IN activity.
The Breath Pattern
It is also referred as “Diamond of Participatory Decision-Making”. We can map its 3 phases Divergent, Emergent and Convergent phases as Breathing-In, Holding and Breathing-Out respectively.
In the Divergent Phase, we start with the clear purpose and group begins to explore different perspectives, opinions, stories to collect data. We need to make sure enough time is given to this step to collect different data-points, else the opportunity for newness or innovation would be lost.
The Emergent Phase is the most difficult part but this where all the magic happens. It is a bit messy and a very uncomfortable position to be in. It is also referred as Groan Zone, which reminds us that it is ok to be in position. Something new and innovative solution would emerge. I can very much relate to it, as at personal level I am going through this now to see what emerges in the next few months.
In the last Convergence Phase, the path now seems clear as group will be in a co-creation phase to take things forward with a clear goal.
World Cafe
World Cafe is a method in which we do a network of collective dialogue around that chosen questions. In this method, different groups of participants (max 4 – 5 participants per group) are created and then each group is given same question to discuss.
After the discussion the groups harvests (create summary) of the discussion and then participants change the group and discuss other related questions on different tables and again harvests. After few rounds (2-3 rounds), we do a group harvest and see the emerged pattern. Based on the calling question of this AoH training, following were our questions :-
- What is happening in my life and community now that calls me to seek old and new wisdom ?
- What wisdom is already available to us that we want to nurture and grow ?
- How do we want to nurture and grow ?
The world cafe format is very flexible and can be used for many purposes like relationship building, deep reflection, information sharing and many more. There is a dedicated website to the World Cafe.
4 Fold Practice
One of the fundamental practice of AoH is the Four-Fold Practice in which following are the 4 ‘folds’
- Hosting self
- Being Hosted
- Hosting Others
- Community Hosting itself
Hosting Self means being present fully at the time of discussion, without distraction for active contribution. This requires a lot of practice and patience. Personal practices like running, journalling, yoga, swimming etc can help keeping us centred. Being Hosted means, being ready to keep the judgement aside and take part in the conversation with curiosity. This also requires courage to put yourself in an un-comfortable situation to answer difficult questions.
Hosting Others fold requires both above of earlier folds, along with clear purpose of the meeting, setting up the context and coming up with powerful question to initiate the conversation. Post conversation, doing the harvesting of the discussion is equally important. When we can co-create with others by showing up in the conversations or in collaborative spaces, on a regular then it becomes like Community Hosting itself. With this collective efforts we can sustain the results.
We can think above as four faces of the one practice. In my opinion this is the core practice of AoH and looking forward to practice it on a regular basis.
Solo Walk
After the session on the Four-Fold Practice, we turned to nature to get more inspiration. We first did a short meditation to centre ourselves and then took a solo walk around the beautiful Fireflies campus and observed the nature.
While taking the walk I observed how fallen leafs from the trees are first get dried and then act as the mulch for the tree. Eventually leafs become compost and then converted into the soil. Similarly we all are made of 5 elements and eventually our body takes the similar route of the leaf to become part of the nature. After the walk, we all had to share our experience in one line and I wrote below.
मिट के भी मिल जाओ
Powerful Questions
The last training session for the day was on importance of asking the right questions and how to work on a question to transform it into a powerful question.
To transform our questions, we all came up with our initial question and then sat down in a group of 3. Then each of us shared our question with other 2 in the group and they took multiple turns to ask different questions on top of our shared question. This way the person who asked the initial question received inputs from others and then created new version of the question.
Above is called as Wicked Question Game.This is very simple exercise we can do before coming up with any problem statement.
Check-Out and Coaching
After the Question game we did the checkout by listening to everyone on what was their learning of the day and how they feel. After that there were coaching session for next set of hosts for the next day. So this was our 2nd Day of the training.
I remember that someone asked that if I am tired after the day 2 and I said NO. There was still energy in us and it was just because we enjoyed and learned a lot from all sessions.
For the remaining two days and conclusion I’ll write another blog in next few days. So, stay tuned !!
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