New Realities: Rob Paterson Comments

Consultant Robert Paterson left some thoughtful comments here that put the New Realities event into a broader perspective. I don’t want them to reside only in the comments section, where some might not see them:

I left more hopeful. My concern as you so accurately stated was that the work for the people there was to leave childhood and to become adults responsible for themselves and leave behind their old wounds.

In the closing open session I saw evidence of a shift in culture to a more self suffficient, confident and adult way of being

For me, the breakout sessions – all 49 of them – were the warm up. What I was waiting for and experienced in the closing last 90 minutes of the Open Space was the following:

1. That many made a decision to take responsibility for what was to happen

2. That no station alone and not NPR alone could do this unilaterally There was powerful affirmation that Public radio had to strengthen itself by coming together as a real system that had a structure that would help the parts and theewhole become healthier and more effective

3. That many acknowledged that NPR, including NPR itself, did indeed have a role in initiating the birth of such a structure. There was acceptance that the work of setting the principles for such a structure would be the work not intially of all but of a few. That such a design process would be open ansd transparent.

4. That as many who could would start to work to do things that would take us down the paths that have emerged from the NR process

Rob Paterson

Thanks, Rob.