Spring is finally here. After many cold, snowy months, the tulips are bursting with red and yellow and the lilacs are fragrantly attracting the bees and butterflies. The Emerald City is back. Looking at all the lush growth and flagrant blossoming, we can’t help but think about Gracious Space. 

It may not be an immediate connection to everyone, but when we start making a list of what’s blossoming in the Pacific Northwest, we think of the many groups who have taken Gracious Space, planted it within their hearts and minds, and nurtured it to health within their organizations.  

Gracious Space has taken root, not only in communities of the Greater Puget Sound region, but nationally as well. Gracious Space has touched people in the City of Burien, WA, as well as in the City of Billings, MT.   It grows on a cattle ranch in Roscoe, MT, and in the lives of residents of a Seattle retirement center.   Gracious Space blossoms in the offices of the Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, MI, and is as equally lovely in churches, schools, board rooms and even prisons across the country.

Six months ago, the Center began an initiative to deepen and spread Gracious Space around the country in service to the common good.  We made an invitation to organizations and communities to use Gracious Space to train leaders, serve as a container for their change process, or deal with conflict or change their culture. A diverse representation of groups is taking us up on the offer.

Gracious Space practitioner Larry Pennings recently introduced Gracious Space while training moderators for a pilot project designed to improve the ballot initiative process in Oregon.  In this new process, a panel of ordinary citizens spends a week studying and deliberating a controversial initiative, and then reports its conclusions.  Moderators are charged with maintaining an unbiased process and encouraging people to remain in a learning mode.  At the close of the training, participants expressed their appreciation for the value of hearing diverse viewpoints and learning from one another.  The moderators, mindful of Gracious Space throughout the sometimes intense process, successfully created a context where a diverse group of people could safely “learn in public.”

Last November, the Mayor of Burien, Joan McGilton, and then Deputy Mayor, Rose Clark, attended the Gracious Space training, hoping to find ways to bring Gracious Space to their city. Since then, they have used the televised City Council meetings to roll out some concepts and practices of Gracious Space.

Joan said Gracious Space is giving her a new way of looking at leadership, especially the hierarchical format of council meetings when making “weighty decisions.” 

“Gracious Space is a national model that helps organizations make change that matters,” Joan told her fellow council members last December. “Many human-service oriented groups have frequent, thoughtful dialogues with their communities, but we are so formal here. We sit in front of people with a boundary between us. In order to transform our work place and our city, we must transform individual behaviors. I’d like to find positive ways to interact with the community in a more involved way, and reframe how we approach some of the weighty issues, so our community can see we can be thoughtfully positive as well as thoughtfully negative.”

Joan suggested the council switch chairmanship for three meetings so community members could get to know each council member better. They also agreed to begin each meeting with a question designed to elicit positive comments such as, “What’s working well in Burien?”   “What’s remarkable about Burien?” “What do we do well as a council?”

In many other ways, Gracious Space is digging deep into families, organizations and communities:

·         A family-owned ranch in Montana is using Gracious Space to deepen family ties while dealing with the challenges of running a fourth-generation business;

·         The City of Billings, Montana is using Gracious Space as the foundation for community conversations and to develop a strategic vision for its future;

·         Plymouth Church in Seattle is using Gracious Space to deepen its culture around “radical hospitality” and welcoming the stranger;

·         Horizon House in Seattle uses Gracious Space to create a welcoming and innovative environment for staff and residents.

With Gracious Space taking root across the country, we are eager to roll out the other aspects of the Gracious Space initiative. In addition to working directly with organizations, the Center’s Gracious Space initiative involves the following:

·         Writing a second Gracious Space book to show how to use the model as a container for transformational change;

·         Hosting two annual trainings for leaders who want to deepen their capacity to apply Gracious Space in their contexts;

·         Convening a quarterly learning community for Gracious Space practitioners who are pushing the applications forward and helping each other be successful;

·         Updating the website to offer on-line resources, connections and inspiration;