Standing in the Fire

2 WEARE FIRE TENDERS

I get paid for two things. First is my ability in difficult and scary moments to pay attention to spoken and unspoken dimensions. Second is my willingness to feel overwhelmed and confused, and move into that rather than to sidestep it.

—Saul Eisen, PhDDeveloping Human Systems

IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO BE A knowledgeable and insightful leader with adequate meeting-management skills. We must become masterful conveners. Among the most challenging aspects of convening —bringing diverse people together to achieve a common purpose—are the struggles and tensions that will inevitably arise.

In any collaborative effort, people bring widely different and often conflicting points of view to the table. To make things more challenging, they ...