Samuel Mahaffy

Passion, Presence, and Poetry: A Relational Approach to Transforming Organizational

Conflict

I was pretty good at sharing when I was little: I shared my cake on my 3rd Birthday!

There wasn’t much conflict at first, where I grew up by the Red Sea in Eritrea, East Africa

People were neighborly and helped each other. There was lots of space to get around

Villagers built simple homes that left plenty of room for everyone to get along….

And if you didn’t get along with your neighbor, you could always pack up your home on a camel and move away!

When I came to the United States, I was approved by the Idaho Supreme Court to help folks resolve conflicts

I built a pretty good business helping people mediate conflicts…

It was hardest to mediate disputes about children, because I cared about the children…

As a mediator, I tried to be unbiased and find a neutral space to help resolve conflicts

Mediator (Unbiased)

Party 2

Party 1Neutral Space

The job of the mediator is to be the neutral party helping to find agreement between two adversarial parties

I started making story telling part of mediation…Imagine that we are by a fire….

Mediator

Party 2

(Story-Teller)

Party 1(Story-Teller)

The job of the mediator is to be the narrator between the stories

Then I tried to help people find better ways of peacemaking through better communication…

I was really excited about helping groups try to reach CONSENSUS in decision making…

There was even a lot of conflict about change processes in organizations….

I returned for wisdom to my African roots and remembered the HYENA MAN OF HARAR

The natural world has lots to teach us about learning to get along and being intimate…

The Voices of our Common VisionFinding Shared Voice with Passion and Poetry

PRESENCE!

Poetry

Passion

The Voices of our Common Vision

Instead of mediating conflicts, I am now the facilitator of shared stories from which new meanings emerge

Story teller 1

Story teller 2

Story teller 3

Faciltiators' of Stories

This is the shared story of how we have loved each other, shared purposes, and how we have deeply wounded each other…This is our story.

The Voices of our Common Vision: Stories Told with Passion, Presence, & Poetry

I invite you to join me in further conversation about relational presence

www.samuelmahaffy.com samuelmahaffy@gmail.com

Finding the ‘truth’ in a situation now seems much like winnowing in my village in Eritrea

My work with the Taos Institute has brought me to this notion of ‘relational presence’

ParticipantsGathered CommunityStrangers Welcomed

RelationshipsRelationship is

CentralMimetic Movement

DiscoursesSilence is Valued

Talk Back to Situation

KnowledgeUnknowing is

Valued

Permission to make mistakes

AtmosphereQuietly Inviting

Intimacy

AgendaRelational Presence has no Agenda: It is

the Agenda

With ‘relational presence’ I abandon my search for THE BRIGHT AND SHINY OBJECT OF AN ‘AGREEMENT’