ART OF HOSTING AND HARVESTING OF MEANINGFUL CONVERSATIONS – online workshop

Date: 12 May 2023
Time: 2-5pm CEST
Location: Zoom
Language: English

The Art of Hosting (AoH) is a global community, practice and participatory leadership approach that helps individuals and communities to work together effectively in complex, diverse and rapidly changing environments. In an AoH workshop, participants learn how to create spaces for meaningful conversations, cultivate trust, and engage in collaborative and participative process being, learning and acting. Through a mix of experiential learning, storytelling, and reflection, participants get insight on how to host conversations that matter, build resilient relationships, and co-create innovative solutions to complex challenges. The workshop provides insights on how the AoH frameworks and tools for facilitating meaningful conversations and participatory processes could be applied in developing leadership skills, fostering collaboration and building community.

The workshop covers:

• exploring how to identify powerful questions, create safe and welcoming spaces for authentic dialogue and active listening
• discussion on how to practice and sustain trust-based relationships that are diverse, resilient, and aligned around shared values and goals
• Theories, models and methods to facilitate participatory processes that encourage co-creation, experimentation, and innovation: Chaordic model, 4 fold practice of Art of Hosting and Сonversational Intellegence tools

You will experience:

• Facilitated apriciative online space
• Engagement in group discussions, reflective exercises, and experiential learning where individual and collective questions unfold the potential
• Hosting yourslef to be able to host others

This workshop is for you if:

• You are interested in new models of leadership and participatory processes.
• You want to learn how to facilitate meaningful conversations that foster active listening, constructive feedback, and authentic dialogue.
• You seek practical skills and tools for co-creating innovative solutions to complex challenges.
• You want to connect with a community of practitioners who share a culture of co-creation, participation, and care.

This workshop is part of a series called Designing Transformative Learning Spaces which aims to rethink different ways of learning in a world that is constantly changing. Regularly reviewing our learning approaches is necessary to ensure personal and societal growth, especially in light of issues such as personal and societal trauma and systemic crises. Transformative learning involves profound changes in a person’s perspective, beliefs, values, and behaviour through self-reflection and inquiry. This workshop series invites educators, facilitators, change-makers, and community builders to explore four topics essential to creating transformative learning experiences.

Facilitators

Maria Scordialos is a process artist, host and social entrepreneur, creating the conditions for individuals, teams and leaders to live their fullest potential. She offers her natural ability to see patterns, create structure and design processes so that new solutions and forms can be co-created. She is a co-initiator of the Art of Hosting and Harvesting Meaningful Conversations (also known as Participatory Leadership), a leadership approach that scales up from the personal to the systemic using personal practice, dialogue, facilitation and the co-creation of innovation to address complex challenges. Maria is also a co-founder of Living Wholeness Institute, a consultancy and place of learning with nature in Greece.

Maria has applied her practice of participatory leadership through being a consultant for over 20 years working in a wide range of contexts from the European Union Institutions, Agencies and bodies to foundations and non-profit organisations as well as through working with multi-disciplinary networks, social movements and activists. Maria supports people to be in meaningful and productive conversations that lead to new collective intelligence.

Maxim Smekhov is a firm believer in the transformative power of human connection and is passionate about unlocking its full potential. He brings a diverse set of skills and experiences to the table, including facilitation, storytelling, management, and communication working as a program manager and partner at horizontal school. Previously, Maxim was a member of the Civic Europe Program team at Commit by MitOst and has extensive experience working with civil society, capacity development processes, and civic education in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He is deeply committed to the Art of Hosting (AoH) method and is actively engaged in his own learning journey. He has practiced AoH processes in various contexts and is eager to share his insights with actors in civil society. Maxim believes in the power of the AoH method to foster co-creation, collaboration, and innovation, and he is excited to help others tap into this potential. 

During the workshop, Maxim will draw upon his experiences from the recent global AoH training in Berlin to help participants better understand the practice and its applications.