What is the Art of Hosting

Conversations that Matter ?

The Art of Hosting and Harvesting Conversations that Matter (often shortened as Art of Hosting) is an approach to leadership that scales up from the personal to the systemic using personal practice, dialogue, facilitation and the co-creation of innovation to address complex challenges that we face in the world today.

It’s an emerging set of practices for facilitating group conversations of all sizes, supported by principles that: maximize collective intelligence; welcome and listen to diverse viewpoints; maximize participation and civility; and transform conflict into creative cooperation.

The Art of Hosting is known as a highly effective way of harnessing the collective intelligence and self-organizing capacity of groups of any size.

 

For more information, see: http://www.artofhosting.org/

Methodologies and Practices

Read some examples of the Art of Hosting in practice in Central and Eastern Europe and around the world.

The Art of Hosting conversations that matter blends some of the most participatory, powerful methods to create open and meaningful conversations that lead to engagement and good results. The methods used in Art of Hosting include:  World Café, Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space Technology, Pro-Action CaféCollective Story Harvesting, Graphic Facilitation and more…

But this is more than a suite of methods – it is also a practice.  We call it the Art of Hosting because it is an art to become skillful at helping ourselves and others work well together, especially in these times of increasing complexity.  We talk about hosting, because what is offered here is not a typical facilitation or moderated session.  It gives attention and care to all aspects of people’s work together, intending to host them just as any host would welcome the guests and make sure they have everything they need to make their visit fruitful.