Future Centers

World Carfe – Transition Towns in Japan: Bob Stilger’s Notes from Japan #46 ~ March 13th

By Bob Stilger · Comments (0)
Wednesday, March 13th, 2013

Okay, I have to begin this blog telling you about a new methodology we’ve just developed in Japan.  We call it World Carfe.  Here’s the story.  We’re sitting at dinner in an onsen near Renshoan after a day of talking about how we might bring some of the learning from Transition Towns in Japan in to the Tohoku region.  I think it is an important exploration, which I’ll describe in a moment.  We scheduled this meeting for March 11th so we could also commemorate the second anniversary of the disaster and pray for all of those affected.  At dinner one of our transition town members says that while he is in Fukushima he really would like to go to the coastal area to witness area of coastal disaster.  We all want to support him, and we also know we have a lot more to talk about the next day.

One member suggests we might rent a mini-van.  There are seven of us and we have two cars.  I thought about it for a while and suggested instead that we do World Carfe.  And we did.  We start off, three people in one car, four in the other.  After 45 minutes of driving, we stop at a rest area and harvest the first round, then change people in cars and drive on to the ocean, another 30 minutes away.  We reflect and pray at the ocean, get back in cars in the same groups and return to the rest area where we harvest again, switch people in cars, and continue back to Renshoan.

A new methodology is born — World Carfe!

Okay, a little silly — but a lot useful.  We were able to continue and deepen our dialog!  It might seem frivolous, especially on the anniversary.  I received a number of e-mails from friends around the world who were thinking about the disasters.  In Fukushima, I think for most of us, it felt important to remember, to recall, to pray on the 11th — and it also felt like “okay, we have work to do.”

Back to Transition Towns in Japan.

There are now about 30.  The start was five years ago.  Three people were with us who are leaders of the movement here and who each played key roles in starting transition towns in their own communities of Minami Aso (view in Google Translate) in Kyushu, Fujino just outside Tokyo and Tsuru in Yamanashi Prefecture, near Mt. Fuji. Others in this design meeting were local residents from Fukushima interested in Transition Towns as well as some of us from the Tohoku Futures Network.  We ended up having a helpful exploration of how Transition Towns have started in Japan as well as some starting points in terms of how this work might be shared in Tohoku.

It Begins with Friendship and Patience.

These three Transition Towns were started by “outsiders.”  They came because they were attracted to the town.  They knew that they had to become friends first, and then introduce new ideas.  One person spoke of how, “even when someone in the community looks and acts differently, perhaps we have more in common than we realize.  Even if they say something bad about me, I don’t dislike them.” They also spoke of not using a lot of fancy jargon or English words.  Work with simplicity.  “Gradually,” they say, “things begin to happen.  It’s so difficult to change radically, but many more people want to find new ways of living more lightly, they just don’t know where to start.”

One person remarked “I arrived with listening, and then we did physical work with local people.  Working together is a purpose in and of itself.  Then I began to make the connections and then I started to find my own place and activity.  I have gratitude that community provided me with a place to be and it stimulates my natural desire to give something back.

How Does it Start?

Before the triple disasters of March 11, 2011 most people had to be persuaded that transition was important.  Now, the questions are about how – not about why.  The organizers work consciously with excitement and joy.  “I love what I am doing, and it attracts others.”  Work always begins at a small scale and then travels through friendship.  “People who are sympathetic to the idea of transition are attracted to ideas about new ways of living. There’s a combination of sympathy and passion – transition is not something to be pushed.  It is something people feel.  Of course, as we work, there are many failures, but that’s okay — we continue to make joy.”

What is the Work?

We kept coming back to a key principle of working together for enjoyment.  This isn’t about doing something hard and trying to change the world.  It is about living in a better way with friends and neighbors.  When working with joy, it naturally attracts others!  Three key areas kept coming up in terms of what kinds of work:  local currency, permaculture and energy.  Local currency, first in the form of labor exchanges and then in the form of exchanging goods is an easy starting point.  It also starts to map the assets of the community.  Permaculture is another basic starting point.  More and more people want to grow their own food and eat more healthy food.  Beginning to develop alternative sources of local energy production is also just a simple starting point that makes sense to people.  Fujino has developed a workshop for people to create their own solar panels; people there have seen time and time again how much excitement gets generated!

The idea of being a Transition Town evolves naturally and gradually.  People feel the transition in their own daily lives and then are more interested in thinking about it in broader terms.  This is not conceptual work in Japan — it is work with hands and with one’s own lifestyle.  Kato-san from Tsuru speaks of how now he spends about half of his time making his life sustainable and the other half of his time earning money for extra things.

How Does it Spread?

Transition Towns  Japan is the larger network of Transition Towns in Japan.  From the start five years ago, there are about 30 now.  The work and activities in each area is different — depending on what brings people in those communities joy.  They are developing a new website to share transition ideas and connect people from Transition Towns.  They do an annual gathering of people in Transition Towns and do another annual outreach and introduction.  There’s a commitment to grow the Transition Town movement, and to do it naturally and organically — not trying to push or insist on anything.

What About Tohoku?

Our World Carfe took a little more time than anticipated and we had a limited amount of time when we returned to Renshoan.  So ideas for work with Tohoku are still in preliminary stages.  It seems as if two things might be pursued.  The first is to reach out to friends in Tohoku who are already interested in Transition Towns and to invite them together as a kind of core group to consider how to bring more of this possibility into Tohoku.  The second is to do a Transition Town event in Tohoku, inviting people who might be interested in Transition Towns to come together and take a look at what’s being done in other areas.

We’re working with a interesting dynamic.  Transition Town folks don’t want to appear in any way to be pushing or selling anything.  They know that’s not how it grows.  People in Tohoku, perhaps especially those who might be interested in Transition, are very resistant to ideas being pushed in from the outside.  These reluctances fit together.  On the the other hand, there’s the old ‘you don’t know what you don’t know.” Which means it seems important to find a way that works with attraction and joy to invite more people in.

We’re definitely still learning!

It was delightful to spend the anniversary of 3.11.11 in this generative field.  We continue to find and explore possibilities!

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Getting to a new WE: Beyond the Categories– Bob Stilger’s Notes from Japan #45 ~ March 7th

By Bob Stilger · Comments (2)
Thursday, March 7th, 2013

I didn’t expect to be writing so soon again, but there’s a story that needs to be told.  Today I was at a forum organized by ETIC and the Learning Institute at Fuji Xerox.  The forum brought together a cross-section of 50 or so people from business and the nonprofit sector to talk with each other about social innovation.  I’ll make this short.

Here’s the sense that was in the room.  NPOs alone can’t make a difference.  Business alone can’t make a difference.  CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) is a poor cousin.  Neither the young or the old can do it alone.  Both men and women are needed.  In many ways, nothing revolutionary — but so refreshing to hear from so many different people.  We need each other.

My friend Hide Inoue, the founder of Social Venture Partners Tokyo who is currently a fellow at Stanford came back for the session.  He led off.  He began with a short period of meditation — on the 15th floor of a high tech office building in the middle of Tokyo.  He talked about how it’s time for us to have an integration of me=work=society rather than a separation.  He talked about how we now need to learn to work with our logic, our creativity and our bodies.  Again, not revolutionary.  What was refreshing was watching people lean in and nod.

What is your business vision?  What is your mission? What is the collective impact you want to achieve?

Here’s part of the back story.  Three years ago in Japan I found myself working with business in Japan on change issues.  I was surprised.  I’ve done a lot of work with business in the US, but I’ve never thought of business as a ally in change.  But it felt like they were in Japan.  If you’ve read my earlier blogs, you’ve heard me talking about Fujitsu asking questions like “what can Fujitsu do for people with dementia?” or Honda asking “what can Honda do for people too old to drive?”  As I thought about my own responses here, I reflected further and went back a couple of thousand years or so to a time when Japan was a country of small villages isolated by precipitous mountains.  With rice grown in paddies as the main food, it took a village to feed itself business and community were the same thing.  This base still prevails.  In Japan business is still part of community rather than apart from community.

How do we get collective impact?  We get rid of the categories.  We stop thinking in terms of customers and clients and consumers and we start thinking in terms of community.  It’s not that hard.  We are community.

This isn’t about CSR, which often feels like an anemic after thought, almost an apology.  It’s about the question of how we’re going to meet the real needs and opportunities in communities — AS A CORE BUSINESS.  Of course any business doing this is going to try to make a profit.  And any NPO that’s going to be around for the long term better be looking at a making a profit as well.

It’s not about making an obscene profit — it’s about making a fair profit.  Part of what is more catawompus (my Japanese friends will have fun with that) is the US is the increasingly crazy, unsustainable and dangerous distribution of wealth — have a look at this YouTube Video I received today, a pretty amazing commentary on wealth in the US.

Now, just one more wave in today’s tale.  Throughout the afternoon different people were talking about BA o Tsukuru  (場うつくる) which means, literally, making the space that holds us – our relational field.  And they were talking about how businesses don’t have the capacity to create “BA”; they need people from the nonprofit sector.  Reminded me of last weekend’s conversation that I wrote about earlier today about men wanting women on their teams because it changes the relational field.

I just find this terribly exciting and energizing.  I hope you do as well.  Part of the context here, of course, is what is the business of rebuilding the disaster area in Tohoku?  How can business be true partners?  How can we create the BA that allows this kind of generative space to arise.  And that’s part of what we’re doing with the Tohoku Futures Network.

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Old Normal?? – Bob Stilger’s Notes from Japan #44 ~ March 6th

By Bob Stilger · Comments (0)
Wednesday, March 6th, 2013

I’ve been back in Japan for a couple of weeks, supporting our new Tohoku Futures Network.  It’s been nearly three months since my last report.  Time spent resting, thinking, and working to see next steps.  This year some of what I need to do is sensing some of the underlying patterns, trends and guideposts which can guide our work on transformative change.  I’ve recently done a bit of deeper writing which is available here:  http://bit.ly/Transform_JP.  It’s the start of the theory/meaning making side of a book I hope to write this year.

As has been the case on each of my trips, things continue to change.  In many parts of the region I hear people talking about how the creative space available post 3.11 is closing down. People are caught up more in their egos, their fears and their personalities.  The disasters opened a crack in the old system.  There’s been constant pressure to close the crack and to get back to the old normal — even if things weren’t working so well.  This sense of return to the old normal is much less present in Fukushima, where there’s not really any old normal to return to in the radiated parts of the province — but even there some of the cooperative attitudes are diminishing.

At one recent FutureSession on “natural energy” in Fukushima I my attention was drawn to several things:

  • The clear determination of those present to make a new future in Fukushima.
  • The detailed work, by many, on alternative energy sources — everything from solar-supported auqaponic and hydroponic growing systems for food to careful analysis of where wind and solar would work best.
  • A sense of  “stuckness” in terms of moving ahead with these different ideas, in part because they are not visible to many people.

Here’s what’s going on in Fukushima and across the region.  Funds which were available for the “emergency phase” are almost gone.  The clear focus and purposefulness of what needs to happen next that was present in the emergency phase is gone.  The NPOs and others supporting communities during the emergency phase are cutting back — in part because they don’t have funding and in part because they are not sure what to do.  Meanwhile, things are stabilized, but the “new now” has not come into form.  Many, many small scale initiatives and projects and small businesses have been launched.  The government is busy creating City Plans and other plans to which most people feel no connection.  Climate of cooperation is decreasing.

Last weekend I led a FutureSession with 20 or so people in their 20s and 30s who have been working in the region.  Initially they came as “right arm” fellows from ETIC.  They completed their internships of 3-12 months, and then have stayed on in the region.  They have a deep commitment to service in Tohoku.  The question we moved to very quickly in the weekend is “how do we do our work now?”  We listened, we talked, we spent time in silence and we worked with play doh to help find answers.  They are amazing, committed people.

Part of what is needed is personal practice — learning to be in what I now think of as the dance of intention and surrender:  having deep and clear intention and surrendering time and time again to how this will manifest in the world.  Holding the intention while surrendering certainty about the path forward. At one point during the weekend, after a Skype with my spouse Susan Virnig, I followed Susan’s suggestion and got the six women present together in a group.  Later my interpreter told me one of the interesting things they talked about was that they were hearing men frequently say we need to get a woman on this team.  This is just astonishing in Japan where there are still pretty strong gender boundaries.  I think it speaks to men seeing the capacities women bring to be with the work in a more relational way.

Another part is learning how to work collectively with a view of how change can happen.  I’m hesitant to call this a theory of change because that always sounds so pretentious.  At least in my case, I can claim to have some ideas about how change happens, but not much more.   I’ve had so much chance over the last three years to work with so many different people here in so many contexts and have had the chance to bring the ideas about change that we developed in the first decade of this century at The Berkana Institute.  Part of what I am called to do this year is to combine the stories I have been writing in this Resilient Japan blog with some more theoretical framing like I started with  http://bit.ly/Transform_JP.

The next thing I am focusing on this year is how to bring in new knowledge and perspective in ways that support rather than overwhelm people in local communities.  FutureCenters seem to be an ideal place for mixing outside and inside knowledge.  We’re working on three ideas:

  • Last week some of us gathered to consider whether or not a Transformative Scenario Planning approach might be helpful.  Those are big words.  What they really mean is gathering diverse people together to think about what could be and how we would act to create it.  It may be that this approach of developing New Stories might be helpful.  We’re looking closely at it, studying Adam Kahane’s work together, and looking at some work beginning in May which might lead into an event in November introducing transformative scenario planning.
  • Over the last handful of years there has been a growing Transition Town movement in Japan.  A friend of mine, Hide Enomoto, introduced Transition Towns in Japan and speaks about them a bit on a video.  Next week Hide and I are convening a small meeting of some of the leadership from Transition Towns in Japan with some people from the Tohoku Futures Network on how this learning might be shared.
  • Finally, I’m working with several different business groups around the question of how businesses can form new partnerships in Tohoku.

All of these take a lot of patience.  Frequently, I use a small turtle here as a talking piece.  It helps me remember that we have to go slow at first in order to go fast later on.

There’s a lot moving in Japan right now.  What happens, how we proceed, is one of those ongoing mysteries.  Next week is the second anniversary of the disasters.  I’m sure I’ll be writing more.

Blessings,

Bob

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Nurturing Innovation — Bob Stilger’s Notes from Japan #41 ~ December 2nd

By Bob Stilger · Comments (0)
Sunday, December 2nd, 2012

Dear Friends,

I’m on my way home to Kyoto for a brief visit before returning for a for five final days of work in Fukushima.  Deep learning continues for me and for all of us as we discover how to support communities in Tohoku in creating a new future.

We’ve found the person who will be the regional director for this work.  He’s a perfect choice.  I’ve known Iwai-san for almost three years.  When I met him he was a senior executive of a medium sized firm in Tokyo who was one of the first in Japan to embrace Future Centers as a way to bring innovation into business.  After the triple disasters he was pulled by his heart to Ishinomaki where he joined hundreds of others in shoveling out the rubble, serving soup and listening to people’s stories.  He kept going there and eventually decided to leave his job and devote himself to the restoration of the region.  What a wonderful partner!

I’ve been quoting an old African proverb recently:  if you want to go fast, go alone.  If you want to go far, go together. We’re going together in Tohoku.  Much of my time in October and November has been spent listening to people.  Sometimes in one-to-one, sometimes in small groups, sometimes in FutureSessions I have hosted in different parts of the region.  Listening people into relationship with each other.  Looking for the patterns.  Sensing the story under the story.  This is not logical, linear work.  It does not fit on a spreadsheet.  It doesn’t, in these formative stages, lend itself to project planning.  It is listening.  Here are some of the parts.

1.  Partners.  I’m finding partners, connecting them with each other, and the Tohoku Future Center network.  We see four partner roles:

  • Some are advisors — people in positions of influence who are aligned with our way of working in community and who occasionally enter the playfield in various ways.
  • Others are “members” of Future Center work.  They are the people who are or will direct and coordinate this work in their various communities.  They are the people who want to learn how to design and host FutureSessions. “Members” is an English word that has special meaning in Japan.  Basically it means those who are committed to being in relationship with each other around a particular purpose.
  • Some are “themeholders” for work in their communities or the region.  Another special English word, “themeholders” are people who are committed to a particular purpose — decontaminating, supporting children, helping residents of temporary housing, building new community businesses — who believe that FutureSessions will help them further their work.
  • Finally, there are supporters and friends, people inside and outside the region who believe in this work and who want to be connected to it.

First stage of the work is finding these people and connecting them.  Listening and sensing.  Not doing a dramatic launch.  Working with the energy present.

2.  Places.  Intimately connected to the partners are places.  Our work is first and foremost local.  We know that nothing happens unless it happens in a place.  Nothing lasts unless the people in that place co-create and own what happens.  Where are the places where people are ready to come together to create a new future?  What are the themes which engage them?  With our partners, we are identifying these places.  There are many.  We’re beginning in about nine:

3.  Just Do It.  We’re starting.  Building the airplane while flying it.  Looking for places with people who  want to hold FutureSessions for almost any purpose.  I remember a conversation ten or so years ago with Wink Franklin, then President of Institute of Noetic Sciences who had led IONS to its home on a mountain south of Petaluma.  Wink talked about how they were letting almost anyone who the facilities who wanted to.  He paused and said that the only users they had turned down was a nudist colony.  That image has stuck with me. When beginning, cast your net wide – you can narrow it down later. So those of us who can are hosting FutureSessions wherever we can.

4.  Create Infrastructure.  We’re building our own website, finding “co-located” space for Future Sessions in different communities, and finding partners whose virtual infrastructures will support our work.  One new company — FutureSessions, Inc. — is developing an ourfutures.net website which will support people in designing FutureSessions, inviting and registering people, sharing designs with each other, and reporting results.  Another virtual publishing company is creating a virtual Tohoku journal in Japanese and English.  Another virtual publisher is committed to sharing stories from the region.

5.  Establish and Train a Community of Practice.  I still dislike the word training, but I don’t yet have a better one.  There are things people need to learn if they are to support communities in creating innovation and they don’t have to learn it all from the ground up.  We’re working with others in Japan to develop a curriculum for what we are calling “Innovation Facilitators.”  They are the folks who will design and host future sessions and who will support “themeholders” as they work to create innovative action.  We will connect them in the partners networks described above and we will create a monthly rhythm of gathering for learning.  The foundation of the community will be sharing their learning from their own context and design and hosting of spaces for innovation.  The pillars of the community will include systems being and thinking, expanding consciousness and world view, design thinking, transformative scenario planning. project management, forming locally grounded partnerships with outsiders, bringing knowledge in from the outside on with local control, Theory “U” and methodologies to sense, shape, act, learn, reflect and measure.  The larger plan is to invite and support learning groups in three parts of Japan and to connect them.  The Tohoku plan is to have the monthly sessions hosted in different communities and to do work in the hosting community after the training.

When I wrote about creating a Future Center Network a year ago, I saw glimmers of this possibility.  I held the intention.  We’ve continued to make this path by walking on it.  Holding the intention while looking for the ways in which it might unfold.  A year ago I had a few relationships with people in Tohoku, now I have hundreds.  This work comes alive in a different way through their faces and voices and stories.

We have far to go, but I know we have begun.

At many levels, none of this is complex.  It’s just doing the work.  Finding the partners.  Building the connections.  Holding true to principles and beliefs.  Continually sensing for patterns and connections.  Operating with clear intention.  Being open to surprise after surprise after surprise.  Trusting in original blessings and human kindness.  Practicing generosity, curiosity and respect.  We’re also following the learning developed over the last decade at The Berkana Institute where we learned that if we paid attention to naming, connecting, nourishing and illuminating, we created the conditions for self-organizing systems to emerge.

With gratitude,

Bob

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