Join the Book Tour for Taking Yourself Seriously: Processes of Research and Engagement by Peter Taylor and Jeremy Szteiter (The Pumping Station, 2012)—a “field-book of tools and processes to help readers in all fields develop as researchers, writers, and agents of change.”
At each “stop” (conference call) on the tour Peter or Jeremy spend 5 minutes to introduce themselves, the key “4Hs” theme, and one of five vignettes from the book:
- Phases of Research and Engagement
- Action Research Cycles and Epicycles
- Making space for taking initiative in and through relationships
- Four Rs of developing as a collaborator
- The many Rs of personal and professional development
Then participants are led through a 30-50 minute process involving writing, reflecting, speaking, and listening to make connections with their own work (http://bit.ly/FivePhase).
Sign up to join any conference call on this list or propose to convene an event at another time.*
* Conveners volunteer to find at least five people who will join a conference call at an agreed-on time (9am-9pm, any day, subject to confirmation), then post that time, the skype names or phone numbers of the participants, and their vignette preference. At the time of the event, the book tour organizers initiate the call (from skype name newssc1) and provide the link to the visuals for the introduction. Afterwards they send the convener a free copy of the book.
The Pumping Station 
From the first stop on the book tour, hosted by Jo Nelson of ICA Canada associates (http://ica-associates.ca), which trains and uses the ToP method of facilitation refered to in these comments gathered at the end:
1. Name one incident/comment/reaction/quote that stands out from this session(s).
• 4 H’s trigger memories
• X’s revelation that the 4 R’s for developing collaboration could be used with her coaching/mentoring project
• There are conditions and levels in each of the 4 R’s
• Journey
• The way the biographical stories bring people together
• People noticing correspondences with ICA’s work.
2a. What excited you?
• thinking about how to establish respect
• X’s application example – makes it more lifelike and useful – less focus on jargon
• There were intriguing parts of the presentation. It was helpful to discover the links behind each of the 4Rs that gave more information.
• The tour event took place
• The structure and its compatability with ToP
• Seeing a way to use Bohm’s ideas
2b. What frustrated or perplexed you ?
• linear-ness of dialogue in this format
• I was frustrated only about how to get connected – and was glad when I did – Also a bit perplexed by Peter and Jeremy’s “reading” script to us – I would prefer listening to their sharing via more “story form”
• The time it took with the technology to get set up
• Getting to the web site
• i’m cool
3a. What ideas are you going to chew on, develop, inquire into, or put into practice? (Feel free to take more time on this question.)
• how you create the atmosphere for these 4 phases to happen
• I plan to read the further descriptions about the 4 R’s – there was way more description under each one when I clicked on it – and I couldn’t speed-read fast enough to catch all that’s there.
• How do you develop this quickly in a group. Some people need more silence than others are prepared to give them. Some people need specific prompting to get them to share their insights.
• How to bring everyone to a shared sense of purpose where purpose is as much process as outcome
• I appreciate the focus on collaboration as a modality. Most of the work in this area has been based on the foundational concept of leadership.
3b. For the group as a whole, what patterns or trends do you see in the lines of INQUIRY or CONTRIBUTIONS to the TOPIC of the project?
• How about a book on how to participate?
4. What requests/suggestions/support needs do you have as a learner-participant in this project?
• gather stories of how this works in real life — examples
• I’m wanting to explore the creativity in groups work that I’m involved and its interface with this work – I also am exploring in my head how you’ve made a Skype video call and whether or not I want to explore this pathway further.
• None at moment
• Do test run of technology 15 minutes in advance. Have webpages linked into one file for ease of finding & following
• Send web address in advance so participant can have the site up before the call starts rather than dividing our attention during the session
From the third stop on the book tour with participants from Coimbra and Porto in Portugal, 19 April 2012
1. Name one incident/comment/reaction/quote that stands out from this session.
o feelings: frustrations, love, loss
o What counts as research? when we are involved in action-research projects! And how do we manage to relate the triade of Reseach/Self/Funding Entities
2a. What excited you?
o a dialogue across the Atlantic on reflectiveness in research, both natural science and social science
o The idea of an Academic Activism
2b. What frustrated or perplexed you ?
o how to make space for taking turns speaking when english is not the first language
o no answer
3a. What ideas are you going to chew on, develop, inquire into, or put into practice? (Feel free to take more time on this question.)
o who do we answer to? — this question does not have to have one answer
o I found very interesting the intersection of emotions, feelings, academic research, ethics, “hands” challenges and scale. For me, place is equally important. How to deal with the displacements of scientific laboratorial activities and put them back into place.
o The way we deal with feelings, with our own and the others. With others i mean human and non-human.
3b. For the group as a whole, what patterns or trends do you see in the lines of inquiry or contributions to the topic of the project?
3c. For the group as a whole, what patterns or trends do you see in the process of our interactions and contributions?
o It´s very difficult for me to establish patterns.
4. What requests/suggestions/support needs do you have as a learner-participant in this project?
o can the chat feature help participants who are more comfortable writing English than speaking English
Second Stop on the book tour, 9 April 2012, hosted from a Minneapolis-area ToP facilitator
1. Name one incident/comment/reaction/quote that stands out from this session(s).
the conversation on the role of writing in the midst of other process to gather thoughts
REspect – a challenge – journal – drawing kindergarten skills needed.
N’s comment that when people speak from their own experiences, their heart, the dialogue is different – same with Peter’s comment about how even people’s bodies changed for plenary speeches.
respect very challenging in Tucson civil dialogue
P’s autobiographical stories with the Israelis and Palestinians
The structure around the “writing” portion, and seeing that it could be drawing. I just attended a workshop of highly educated folks and some refused to write and instead drew their thoughts. The goal is to awake the deeper sense of who we are in relation to the topic
2a. What excited you?
the use of this virtual format is intriguing
I need to write more
The addition of free writing to our ToP processes (BEYOND brainstorming)
seeing new parts of the online process, e.g., chatting in parallel
Looking at things through the 4 Rs
I am reaffirmed of the necessity to make sure all aspects of our essence are brought to the conversation.
2b. What frustrated or perplexed you ?
nothing important, lost when I was multitasking on the virtual session I had just been leading before we got on
I was wanting to see your style and process and missed some of your explanation regarding the 4Rs
Wanting more – to go deeper – this felt like “just getting a little acquainted”
the shortness of the dialogue and the lack of feeling of attention that we get in facef2face settings
The brevity of the session. Would like more of this “good stuff”
3a. What ideas are you going to chew on, develop, inquire into, or put into practice? (Feel free to take more time on this question.)
The idea of free-writing, as part of a process
Start Journaling how to get respect going well
I’ll definitely give at least 10 minutes to any free journal writing (that isn’t during breaks when people will be encouraged to use their journals) that is incorporated into processes – and will BUILD that time into the processes at strategic (hmmm – wonder what that means??) points
How to set the scene so as to acknowledge the need for self-respect (and for this to be heard). Encourage parallel chatting or not?
I already ask people at the beginning of a session what their intentions are for the time we are together. I will find other ways to give them thinking and writing time to bring a deeper level to the interactions.
I like the additional step of helping people become present in the room and will work with the writing portion a bit more.
3b. For the group as a whole, what patterns or trends do you see in the lines of INQUIRY or CONTRIBUTIONS to the TOPIC of the project?
Increasing interest in sharing ideas, especially at a deeper level
I get reaffirmed that our ToP methods are very good – we could follow your process easily since it is similar. That we could all have conversations like this more often when we have a troubling situation
Reflection.
3c. For the group as a whole, what patterns or trends do you see in the PROCESS of our INTERACTIONS and contributions?
I’ve noticed you’ve utilized an effective order and flow of these questions, and we would call that our Focused Conversation process, based on how the brain thinks effectively
We love our ToP methods and train them and maybe I do not always use them in our own processing – meaning while I am with the Sisters of Virtual Facilitation
4. What requests/suggestions/support needs do you have as a learner-participant in this project?
I’m curious about the virtual tools you used, glad to see a link to “take a look under the hood” — coming late, I may have missed an intro to the virtual tool and how to move around on it, although I eventually figured things out
Put more pictures or slides into the part where you are teaching us about the 4Rs.
A little more visual at the beginning while you are talking – just that I wasn’t quite cleared and had trouble concentrating on your spoken content – I’ll be looking more at the content on line. THANK YOU!!!!
How to help people listen, e.g., through visuals
It would be great to have ongoing sessions (monthly) to delve deeper into the material and share how we have used it.