Imagine your organization as a home.  Does your organizational decision making happen on the main floor of transactional life, in the basement of foundational fundamentals, or in the high place of the attic? My experience is that most organizational decision making is transacted on the busy main floor.  It is the highest trafficked place in the organization.  It is the mainstream business world where there is a sense of order and busy-ness...

Is your organization one that privileges new language, new ways of thinking and new ideas? Or is it bound by traditions and doctrines, unwilling to explore alternative worldviews?

With a tender heart, I rise to honor the passing yesterday of my Mother, Arlena Mahaffy. The passing of Arlena Mahaffy is the passing of the blessing. This woman of deep spiritual wisdom birthed me and held me in her heart. Arlena Mahaffy taught me how to live a life of faith and hope. Now, she models for me how to die with the same grace and dignity she manifested throughout the ninety-seven years of her life. The quintessential teacher,...

We are honored and humbled to join a company at the cutting edge of imagining a more effective way to do good in the world.

I confess that I am weary of arranging chairs in a circle to create more collaborative ‘open space’ for dialogue. Too often, it is a circle of empty chairs. Yes, they have bodies in them. But, when do we invite whole people to show up at our decision making meetings? I echo the call of Parker Palmer that it is time to allow whole people to show up at our meetings. We must make room not just for intellects, opinions and ideas. We must make room...

High in the mountains of Eritrea lives a Coptic priest who journeys every day to the edge of the mountain to pray for the village below. How do we make ordinary places sacred?  I call this the practice of sacred placemaking. My teachers for learning about sacred placemaking include this Coptic (Orthodox Christian) priest who lives on the mountain that nestles the village of Matera, Eritrea. On top of the mountain is a giant cross, a tribute to...