Here is a sampling of engagements that have brought us to this point. Learning is reciprocal. It flows in multiple directions. We are grateful to all those we have walked alongside.
ARRIVING AT THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER
The Russian River Confluence was a multi-agency collaborative effort that explored our relationship with the watershed we live in, beginning with kayaking the entire river over ten separate days and culminating in a day-long 250-person interactive conference at the Shone Center.
Changing the Culture at a large oil refinery, over several years, one of the operating units (coker) evolved from a place of authoritarian management to a place of teamwork that the workers could be proud of.
AFTER THE FIRE IN PARADISE
Regenerating Paradise was founded in the spring of 2019 as a heartfelt response to the most destructive fire in California's history, focusing on facilitating the social, cultural, and collaborative aspects of the rebuild process.
Co-ordinating six different vendors building an IT application for a large HMO required them to communicate - for the teams to step out of their silos to see all the parts of the system. The approach required all the players to come together, listen, and collaborate.
A citizen group tracking their city’s General Plan update crafted a document of “Guiding Princples” to provide residents a plain language interface to the policy document.
GRAPHIC RECORDING
In another town concerned about the way their General Plan Update was proposed, residents implemented their own discovery process based on World Cafe. With four large venue events and weekly planning meetings, ideas were harvested, and their updates to the General Plan were included in the process.
A candidates forum for County supervisor was designed for voters. The candidates’ ground rules were set to generate dialog instead of campaign speech. A poll to those who RSVP’d provided input to create word cloud posters allowing everyone to see what was on the group mind. It set the tone. An unexpected outcome was how the candidates interacted and built on each other’s contributions.
WISDOM TREE MURAL
The Mural Projects emerged from the first mural, which commemorated the 240 agencies that responded to the Kincade fire! The second mural, The Wisdom Tree, depicted the cultural values and objects of the indigenous people of the region. The third mural celebrated the dogs of the community.
MASTER PLAN
Following the destructive Valley Fire, which devastated a small community, a three-day charrette and a year of gatherings led to a master plan for a cohousing development. Using Nested Systems, the design responded to the questions, “How can individuals, the social system, and the broader community benefit, with reciprocity between all three?”
A housing development proposal was becoming divisive. A day-long event was set up in which individuals from the developer team stayed put at the round tables while the community members rotated every half hour. The community was buoyant by the end of the day, feeling properly heard. The developers responded with a more inclusive engagement, and the revised architectural renderings presented to the council illustrated that the community had been listened to.
These projects represent efforts the guilders have been involved in over the last decade.