Today you are hearing from Marco, the youngest member of Common Ground, on Alive organizing. 

What if organizing was not simply the means to produce something? What if we look at the way we gather, relate, and organize as already part of what we are creating? A little ecosystem that we are all nourishing and that we can be proud of. Not only because it is life-giving, but because it is also real and effective.  

That ecosystem is a place where we tend to what is growing, and listen to what is emerging. A space where people can bring more of themselves and work is meaningful and joyful.

What if we organized for aliveness?

Something alive cannot simply be controlled or managed. It needs to be tended, stewarded, and cared for. With curiosity, presence, and attention to what is actually happening. This shifts some of the questions we ask about our organizations.

• What are we creating between us, and how are we showing up?

• Can we meet each other in honesty and trust the relationship enough to bring ourselves into it?

• Can we let go of the need to be right, and discover the pleasure of being aligned and finding our way together?

But we also need structures that make this possible. Structures where the people who are affected by decisions can genuinely participate in making them. Structures that make contribution easier, coordination clearer, and collective work more joyful. And structures so effective that we'll look back wondering why we thought bureaucratic hierarchies were the ones serving our organizations.

In this light, alive organizing entails not only talking about the world we want to create, but practicing it in the way we work together: every meeting, decision, conflict, and relationship is already an opportunity to practice one.

Because alive organizing isn't one methodology; it's a practice of continually asking: What’s happening here? What’s needed? What’s emerging? And what structures, relationships, and ways of being would allow it to grow?

That's the territory we're exploring through Common Ground. And perhaps one of these doorways into alive organizing is calling you.

🌻 Upcoming Offerings 🌻

🕸️ Power in Networks: The practice of distributing power 🕸️

Networks often begin with a beautiful promise: we can achieve together what none of us could achieve alone. But as networks grow, new questions emerge.

• Who holds power and who gets to decide?

• How does value flow, and what happens when the founding team needs to step back?

• How do we create enough structure without killing the very thing that made the network alive?

In Thriving Networks, Alicia Trepat, David Weingartner, and Francesca Pick draw on a decade of lived experience working in impact networks to explore these questions and get to explore the often-hidden dynamics that emerge as networks mature, from leadership and decision-making to power, value flows, and financial literacy.

Join the 8-week experience for seasoned and new network weavers, starting October 12.

💰 Money Unpacked: The practice of transforming value flow

Money shapes what we value, what we believe is possible, how we relate to one another, and how we organize our lives and our work. So what happens when we get curious about our own relationship with money?

The Money Game Experience is a space to explore the beliefs, emotions, and patterns that shape the way we earn, spend, ask, give, and receive. It's playful, experiential and often surprisingly revealing.

And perhaps this is another part of alive organizing: learning to relate to resources differently, before trying to build different economic systems around them.

The first public edition is happening September 27. Sign up via this link.

And if you're a founder and want to take this exploration further, the Founders Money Lab, with Ashish Arora and Manuela Pagani Larghi, starts November 13th.

See all our upcoming offerings at
events.commonground.now