The task of leadership is to be intentional about the way we group people and the questions that we engage them in.

Advice is unfriendly to learning, especially when it is sought. Most of the time when people seek advice, they just want to be heard. Advice at best stops the conversation, definitely inhibits learning, and at worst claims dominance.

Invitation is not only a step in bringing people together, it is also a fundamental way of being in a community. It manifests the willingness to live in a collaborative way. This means that a future can be created without having to force or sell it or barter for it. When we believe that barter or subtle coercion is necessary, we are operating out of a context of scarcity and self-interest, the core currencies of the economist.

If you need ownership and responsibility from core workers, patriarchy can't get you there.

We must act as if our institutions are ours to create, our learning is ours to define, our leadership we seek is ours to become.

Good questions work on us, we don't work on them. They are not a project to be completed but a doorway opening onto greater depth of understanding, actions that will take us into being more fully alive.

I discovered that resolution of conflict comes from people being able to express their own feelings and their own needs in the face of another. Making agreements and setting goals without building upon the feelings of the parties involved is empty, because it does not consider the vulnerabilities of our own humanity.