[Dialogue] Go Gordon!

[steve har]

What a mensch Gordon is!

Still practicing being in the game being a social pioneer even with --
gasp 20 somethings.  Shades of HR Neibhur addressing the needs of the
times. Still willing to have integrity

Integrity. Yes, that Joe Mathews Invention.
My personal working definition: what you say is what you do; what you
do is what you say, except when it isn't and then I get to clean up
the mess, --- 100% free, a100% responsible.

Gordon It must be exhilarating being with 20 somethings engaged,
fearless. Tell us a STORY! Better yet make a YouTube or a
VoiceThread.com, 21st C style. Make the local story sing a global
song.

By the Way...Ellie Stock is working on an Internet story about
Dreaming the Dreamer and it isn't going to live in an email or a text
thread.

For me, is exhilarating being with 20 somethings on my Stanford
University Project Team. They are all about engagement not detachment.

On my team are all about making something happen -- not having a
bigger better gestalt or a better plan. They are fearless. They are
making a software product they don't do "Rusty" they do Jane style
we're in this together making something happen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDDO3ob-4ZY

They respect this 69 year old fart when I row the boat as well as they
do and when I get tasks done like everyone else.

Sometimes they ask me to "navigate" from experience, but they sure
don't want some one to "facilitate" from the sidelines, they want
someone fully engaged in the task at hand. Here is a piece of their
work: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1yNi_WmF_qNddSLulOxc1yOYXUeBR72n02wiovlGK33U/edit

Re-reading Jon & Maureens book -the 9 Disciplines of a Facilitator Ch
12 -  this morning they say [paraphrasing]
If awareness is is about understanding, action is about accomplishing

[there are] three issues facing facilitative leaders
They all have to do with effective action:
-intent [which has do do with changing not planning],
-implementation,
-impact

Re Lee's Dag quote: If you get past the nostalgia and the
romantic/poetic words, what you see is a guy who is fully engaged and
taking the risks he chooses to take [and in conversation with himself
about it].

One time in NYC I met Kofi Annan on his very last day as
Secretary-General  of the United Nations at
Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Another guy with an intact value
system who chooses to navigate in unsettled waters. Still in the game,
long since retired.

Thank-you Gordon for your leadership example, for being a guide, a navigator.

 Hunting for some stories of women navigators - not people of the
peanut gallery but people who have an intact value system and lead in
un-chartered waters. like the navigators in the Marshall Islands who
used to navigate with stick charts and according to Wiegel bounced the
babies on their knees and sang songs, teaching the young ones the
sound of the wind and the waves.

Grace Lee Boggs is a heavy hitter. Wish I could hear a 1st hand story
of someone I know. Someone out there like Gordon. If you look at Kaze
Gadway, she is hanging out with young-ones too. She might be achieving
"universal grandmother status"

Anyone know any other female navigators, any other female guides like
Kaze? It would be powerful to develop some new leadership examples
beyond the stale ones that get shared over and over again.

We should do this kind of work now with and for 20 somethings --  and
stop trying to amuse ourselves with one more client, just one more
consulting contract, just one more set of custom workshop procedures
from an unnamed but paying client.

The role of Elders is to pass on practices worth practicing not
nostalgia and opinions about the way it ought to be. It is past time
to pay it forward. I'm getting older by the minute.

How about you?

--
Steve