The Change Makers @ PI Community: Toni Stafford
Over last 18 months PI community has grown into a 4100 member strong action research network. It’s owing to the diversity, depth and active engagement of its members that this community has been continuously evolving as a global action research and learning space for change makers across the world. In this and upcoming PICKS, we would like to feature some of our community members and learn more about their life and experiences with PI community. Starting with Toni Stafford (interview by Manish Srivastava):
Toni Stafford is a federal employee operating as an internal consultant within the US Forest Service. She’s an MA in Chaos Theory and Social Change and a licensed provider of HeartMath®. Toni is a Presencing Institute Community member actively involved in action research and networking. She is member of four PI groups and hosts the ‘Women Leading Sustainability’ group. She has hosted some rich online conversation including one on ‘virtual conversations on level 3 & level 4’ .
MS: Toni, please tell us something about your life and the essence of your work?
TONI: I live in the Ozark Mountains, with my husband and our two children. We live in woods, in midst of lot of trees, where we practice organic farming, sustainable building techniques, and harvesting rain water. I really love nature and have been working with US Forest Services for last 10 years. As an internal consultant with Forest Services, I have been involved in facilitating transformation at a national, regional, and forest level.
Currently, Forest Services is going through incredible turbulence. We are in an era of increasing amount of uncertainty confronting major wicked problems of environment, economy and society. It creates immense pressure on the individual and asks for deeply innovative organizational solutions. The people I work with are very passionate and want to do the right thing but the challenge we face is getting increasingly complex. It’s leading to high stress and low morale.
My model, therefore, starts with a ‘healthy individual’ – within myself and in the people of my team. As a licensed provider of HeartMath®, I am training my team members to transform stress by learning to identify and manage their emotional experiences. By taking ownership of our emotions, we create positive emotional experiences that ripple into positive working experiences.
The work that I do continuously circles around the individual and spirals beyond that. When I become the whole person, I can encourage others to become whole.
MS: What brings you to Presencing Institute Community (PIC)?
TONI: At work place, it’s not safe or common to bring our whole self. People express mentally, physically and socially but what gets omitted is the emotional and spiritual expression. We need all 5 dimensions for well being.
I nurture earth based spirituality. However, I do not speak about it at work place. It’s at PI Community that I can experiment with my emotional and spiritual expressions as a part of my self-actualization. I have trust in the people (at PIC) cause of our shared context of Theory U and Presencing. Theory U itself is a process about being authentic and being really present to what’s emerging. Here, we can explore our emerging self with all 5 dimensions of well being.
Theory U is a practice of peeling the layer and being more and more present—a consciousness embodied by this group. We are collectively seeking the source that we are connected to. We may not necessarily agree on the source. It’s about allowing ourselves to understand, experience and embrace a process that’s timeless.
I am interested in bringing this consciousness and practice to the workplace.
MS: What has been your personal experience at PI Community? What excites you most?
TONI: My emotional experience with PI community shifts with the field that I am in. Sometimes, I have fear (the voices of criticism and judgment). Then, I explore my fears and the momentum changes. It’s sort of a dance. I find myself taking the risk and sharing things that I could or would not share with my co-workers.
At PI Community, we are shifting the way research happens and taking it to a new level. Old models were based on getting credibility by isolated work and individual publications. We are creating credibility through dialogue, sharing and resonance. We are creating knowledge based on connected, trust and understanding. Its more relational, alive and vibrant. Through this rapid prototyping of knowledge creation and action research, we are shifting the understanding of scientific method. There is more fluidity because the speed of relational synthesis is much faster. PICKS (Presencing Institute Community Knowledge Synthesis) is an example of living synthesis.
The old (ego-centric) model was based on the assumptions about accumulating knowledge as a capital. We are seeing a shift similar to that of music industry that led to a decline in record industry as a mediator. It’s shifting the way we created capital too. It’s an eco-systemic approach.
I sometimes find myself in an unfortunate place with one foot in the old and another in the emerging. Its like discovering a new voice of fear. From an office in the middle of nowhere, I need the PI Community, to know that—there are people who are comfortable with my novel expressions.
MS: How could this community help you in your emerging journey?
TONI: PIC has right number of people genuinely committed on regular basis that keeps it fresh and alive. I would like to understand—how do we help people organize themselves and how can we create a vibrant community like PIC in workplace? It would help me to understand the PIC story.