We continue to notice that people everywhere seek
belonging,
connection,
meaning-making,
and accomplishment.
We do it as individuals.
We hope for it as groups -- teams, organizations, families, and communities.
Being and belonging
requires courage from all of us.
Circle guides us and gives format and structure
for pressing issues of these times -- injustice, pandemic, race equity, healing, wholeness.
In meetings and in community.
This workshop is about growing new culture as individuals and groups.
It's a culture remembered, and, imagined into being.
It's creating enough space to get to shared meaning.
It's creating enough structure to get to order and practice.
belonging,
connection,
meaning-making,
and accomplishment.
We do it as individuals.
We hope for it as groups -- teams, organizations, families, and communities.
Being and belonging
requires courage from all of us.
Circle guides us and gives format and structure
for pressing issues of these times -- injustice, pandemic, race equity, healing, wholeness.
In meetings and in community.
This workshop is about growing new culture as individuals and groups.
It's a culture remembered, and, imagined into being.
It's creating enough space to get to shared meaning.
It's creating enough structure to get to order and practice.
"All life is meeting."
Martin Buber, 20th Century Philosopher
"A circle is not just a meeting with the chairs rearranged.
A circle is a way of doing things differently than we have become accustomed to.
The circle is a return to our original form of community
as well as a leap forward to create a new form of community."
Christina Baldwin, Calling the Circle
Martin Buber, 20th Century Philosopher
"A circle is not just a meeting with the chairs rearranged.
A circle is a way of doing things differently than we have become accustomed to.
The circle is a return to our original form of community
as well as a leap forward to create a new form of community."
Christina Baldwin, Calling the Circle
A B O U T T H I S O N L I N E W O R K S H O P
This workshop connects The Circle Way as methodology, anchored in structural aspects of The Circle Way's Components Wheel, and, The Circle Way as way of being and cultural practice. It is founded in and grown from the work of Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea's, The Circle Way.
This workshop is guidance and teaching that supports practitioner application of circle, for the many circumstances where container is needed to be with the intensity of our times -- in conflict, tension, and in reactive polarities.
We integrate four themes and practices through four online time periods -- designed to grow skilled practitioners.
Being Circle -- We start with "being" so as to animate the feeling of circle, the feeling of connection, the feeling of showing up together from a rim to a center.
Doing Circle -- We continue with some key structure found in The Circle Way Components Wheel, to help encourage not just hope of a good circle, but practice grounding conditions.
Inviting Circle -- This third session takes on some of the worries and fears that come with hosting circle, and pivots to courage and hope found in the simple act of clear invitation in both words and being.
Integrating Circle -- Our concluding session invites bringing insight of the whole to your first next steps. It invites us to be skilled noticers together to influence helpful and grounded hosting.
Together we will learn in circle, connect in circle, ask questions in circle, and reground both structure and inner being.
This workshop is guidance and teaching that supports practitioner application of circle, for the many circumstances where container is needed to be with the intensity of our times -- in conflict, tension, and in reactive polarities.
We integrate four themes and practices through four online time periods -- designed to grow skilled practitioners.
Being Circle -- We start with "being" so as to animate the feeling of circle, the feeling of connection, the feeling of showing up together from a rim to a center.
Doing Circle -- We continue with some key structure found in The Circle Way Components Wheel, to help encourage not just hope of a good circle, but practice grounding conditions.
Inviting Circle -- This third session takes on some of the worries and fears that come with hosting circle, and pivots to courage and hope found in the simple act of clear invitation in both words and being.
Integrating Circle -- Our concluding session invites bringing insight of the whole to your first next steps. It invites us to be skilled noticers together to influence helpful and grounded hosting.
Together we will learn in circle, connect in circle, ask questions in circle, and reground both structure and inner being.
"Whoever you are, whatever ails or inspires you,
Quanita and Tenneson shape the space with an ease and curiosity
that invites a deep dive into what is essential and human.
You are held here."
Chris Smyth, Past Workshop Participant
Quanita and Tenneson shape the space with an ease and curiosity
that invites a deep dive into what is essential and human.
You are held here."
Chris Smyth, Past Workshop Participant
W H O S H O U L D A T T E N D
Formal and Informal Leaders
We welcome managers, facilitators, team leaders, consultants, coaches, entrepreneurs. We welcome educators, artists, poets, musicians, faith community leaders. We welcome those working with the older and those working with the youngers. We welcome community organizers, social change activists, government, and all positions of all people seeking a substantially better way of heart, mind, and belly.
We welcome managers, facilitators, team leaders, consultants, coaches, entrepreneurs. We welcome educators, artists, poets, musicians, faith community leaders. We welcome those working with the older and those working with the youngers. We welcome community organizers, social change activists, government, and all positions of all people seeking a substantially better way of heart, mind, and belly.
Learn the Shape
There are more choices than rows and podiums; The Circle Way reclaims a structure of turned to one another rather than away.
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Learn the Feeling
There are more choices than sound bytes and speeches; The Circle Way reawakens connection found in thoughtful speaking and listening.
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Learn the Practice
There are more choices than announcing data and plans; The Circle Way invokes, practices, principles, and structure to be communal.
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D E T A I L S & C O S T
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I told my friend that it was food for the soul;
a rare time to be authentic and vulnerable in a safe space
around people willing to be the same.
It restored my faith in humanity.
In a time when we are surrounded by all the awful things in the world
to be in a group of 15 humans that are all on their journeys was inspiring.
QT helped me move from seeking community
to being and inviting community.
Genevieve Sofranec, Past Workshop Participant
a rare time to be authentic and vulnerable in a safe space
around people willing to be the same.
It restored my faith in humanity.
In a time when we are surrounded by all the awful things in the world
to be in a group of 15 humans that are all on their journeys was inspiring.
QT helped me move from seeking community
to being and inviting community.
Genevieve Sofranec, Past Workshop Participant
M E E T T H E T E A M
Together, Quanita and Tenneson have over 40 years of combined experience in the fields of leadership, community, dialogue, and change. They have both learned directly with The Circle Way Founders, Ann Linnea and Christina Baldwin. Tenneson and Quanita bring unique perspective garnered over the years with good colleagues and friends in wide-ranging layers of organizations, systems, and learning communities. Their individual and shared work is rooted in a deep friendship, love of learning, growing in community, a belief that there is more unseen than seen, that is needing to be discovered, and that there are simple, needed ways to be more wise in times such as these.
Quanita Roberson
www.nzuzu.com Cincinnati, OH I love circle. Circle is a place where we can not only remember that we belong to each other but that we are each other. It has birthed me into this world. I remember. 1st in my grandfather’s church, standing in the center as the elders laid their hands on me in prayer guiding me to circle as a communication line to spirit. Next, in my Montessori preschool class, teaching me circle as a tool for learning. Then through my spiritual teacher in ritual, practicing circle as access to the ancestors. And finally through The Circle Way, connecting me to circle as a structural framework for community. I am a facilitator dedicated to addressing embedded trauma. I am a spiritual teacher, speaker, author, life coach, and a storyteller. My work over the past 20 years has been focused in the areas of healing, initiation, grief, leadership, diversity, and inclusion. I have a background in Organizational Management and Development with a concentration in Integral Theory which has supported me in looking at the world in a more holistic way. I also have had the privilege of studying with some amazing elders. Including Sobonfu Some and Jojopah Maria Nsoroma, keepers of ancient indigenous wisdom from the Dagara Tribe of Burkina Faso, Fanchon Shur in Embodying Creative Leadership through Growth in Motion, Peter Block, and Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea of The Circle Way. I live in Cincinnati, OH with my two children. I am inspired by the Ohio River and the stories of freedom that were birth from here. |
Tenneson Woolf www.tennesonwoolf.com
Lindon, UT. I am a facilitator, workshop leader, teacher, blogger, and coach committed to improving the quality of collaboration and imagination needed in groups, teams, and organizations — to help us be in times such as these with consciousness, kindness, and learning. My work over 20+ years has been to design and lead meetings in participative formats. From strategic visioning with boards to large conference design to communities just learning to listen again to one another. Lately I have been working with faith communities, educators, and foundation leaders. I post a daily blog, Human to Human, in which I offer reflection on varied aspects of participative leadership practices, insights, and human to human depth. I recently published a collection of poems and reflections, A Cadence of Despair: Poems and Reflections on Heartbreak, Loss and Renewal which invites and maps relationship with the deeply personal that so often is surprisingly universal. I tell people that if they want to get good at participative leadership, get good at circle. Living systems, self-organization, and emergence inspire all of my work. So does emptiness, breath, or a fresh-picked garden tomato. It was in 1993 that I began working with Margaret Wheatley through The Berkana Institute, a group of global friends and practitioners committed to bringing forward new leadership forms. It was the early 2000s with Berkana that I first encountered Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea, and began practicing deliberate forms of circle that are now at the heart of all of my work. In addition to my lineages with Berkana and The Circle Way, I am also a long-time steward and colleague in the Art of Hosting community of practice. My educational background includes a Masters Degree in Organizational Behavior and a Bachelors Degree in Psychology. I live in a small town where urban meets rural, in Lindon, Utah, at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains, and am originally from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. |
R E S O U R C E S
By Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea This booklet provides easy access to the structure of The Circle Way for those who need a quick reference guide or want to provide basic knowledge to a group, and is based on the book The Circle Way. Without embellishment in essay or story, it informs readers how to set intention, call a group together, make agreements, define purpose and set the circle in motion. There is a section for sustaining the circle and responding to the circle in trouble. It is from this booklet that Quanita and Tenneson developed The Circle Way Essence Cards: Simple Notes to Guide Skillful Practice. |
Featuring Christina Baldwin, Ann Linnea and other circle practitioners. These videos describe the Components of the Circle Way, as a helpful introduction and orientation to The Circle Way process:
Other videos at this site include focus on circle use in business, healthcare. |
Inspirations on Courageous Meeting and Being
Dr. Maya Angelous speaks of "I Am Human." Martin Shaw -- "Reconnecting to Myth" Spoken Word Artist Natalie Patterson speaks of "Healing Humanity." Tenneson writes on "Being Wise Together Using Circle." Quanita and Tenneson podcast reflect on Circle, Part 1 (23 minutes) and Part 2 (21 minutes). Tenneson podcast reflects on Improving and Designing Questions (that can be used in circle, 12 minutes). |
O T H E R K I N D W O R D S
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Tenneson is an exceptionally skilled teacher and facilitator of conversational leadership. Not only does he get the specific skills and practices needed, he’s able to do that within a shifting paradigm from control to collaboration. If you want to discover new ways of working with others to create sustainable solutions, Tenneson is your person. His creative and welcoming style transforms complex challenges into intentionally simple constructs that invite sustainable change.
Carla Kelley Executive Director The Human Rights Education Center of Utah As a mentor and coach, Quanita is the representation of her spirit name -- Wind Warrior. the shifting winds of change and transformation come forth when she is in your presence. I have experienced a beautiful transformation and growth since working with Quanita. She values my story and encourages me to keep writing more chapters. I am honored to know her and I am a stronger person because of her support. Regina M. Sewell Founder / CEO / Owner Creative Life Coach for Embraceable Living Quanita is the real deal. As a grounded and completely authentic facilitator of healing ritual. Her capacity to hold space, bear witness, go with you to the depth of your grief and suffering, and bring it to reconciliation and resolution is rare -- even exceptional. I feel so grateful to count her as a friend and fellow traveler on the path. Nilima Bhat Co-Author of Shakti Leadership There are a mere handful of people in the world with whom I would ever host a circle that demanded deep presence, humour, attention to beauty and a fierce holding of the container. Tenneson is one of these few whose gentle and inviting demeanour belies a strong commitment to human beings working together past fear, ego and division. Being hosted by Tenneson makes me grateful to be in this field, as a host, as a colleague, and as a friend. Chris Corrigan Global Art of Hosting Steward Principal, Harvest Moon Consultants, Ltd. Contributing author to Dialogic Organizational Development I met Quanita many years ago, and through her discovered a new way of thinking! I learned about animal spirits, crystal healing, spiral dynamics and medicine wheels. Six years after working with her, I still apply these lessons and share what I learned with my friends. Quanita has made such a positive impact in my life. Thank you Quanita! Muthoni Kori Kastner Cincinnati Waldorf School I have been deeply privileged to know Tenneson for a number of years and to more recently to work with him in his world of mastery — bringing forward the wisdom of the group. His magic is so subtle that it’s hard to name. He is at once deeply and lovingly present, authentic and humble, completely trusting of what unfolds in the moment, with an uncanny capacity to see, weave and illuminate unseen patterns of authentic truth from whatever emerges. Kinde Nebeker Principal, New Moon Rights of Passage |
Circle gives us space to sit down in our not knowing, to hear each other out,
and to hold on to the story while taking the next step forward.
Circle gives us a container for receiving difference without doing violence to one another.
The skills of hosting, of guardianship, of participation and leadership from the rim
are among the most needed skills of the age.
Circle holds us in the great work that we have to do.
Christina Baldwin & Ann Linnea, The Circle Way
and to hold on to the story while taking the next step forward.
Circle gives us a container for receiving difference without doing violence to one another.
The skills of hosting, of guardianship, of participation and leadership from the rim
are among the most needed skills of the age.
Circle holds us in the great work that we have to do.
Christina Baldwin & Ann Linnea, The Circle Way
