{"id":2313,"date":"2017-02-22T14:32:10","date_gmt":"2017-02-22T14:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews\/?p=2313"},"modified":"2018-05-31T10:27:48","modified_gmt":"2018-05-31T10:27:48","slug":"the-empowerment-manual-a-guide-for-collaborative-groups-by-starhawk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/2017\/02\/22\/the-empowerment-manual-a-guide-for-collaborative-groups-by-starhawk\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Empowerment Manual: A guide for collaborative groups ‘ by Starhawk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

New Society Publishers, 2011<\/p>\n

ISBN:<\/strong>\u00a0978-0865716971<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Trevor Sharman
\n________________________________________________________________________
\n<\/em>I have been involved in groups, networks and organisations for much of my life, most of which could be described as \u2018collaborative\u2019, and many as \u2018challenging\u2019 in terms of how well they worked and how comfortable they were to belong to. This interest and experience attracted me to Starhawk\u2019s book, along with my awareness of her extraordinarily rich and long involvement in spiritual activism as a writer, teacher and organiser.<\/p>\n

The Manual<\/em> seeks to identify the key elements that enable collaborative groups to thrive, how these elements can be identified, often by their absence, and how their healthy development can be facilitated with many practical exercises and rituals drawn from and credited to a wide range of sources.<\/p>\n

Starhawk illustrates what might otherwise be a rather bloodless book by applying these elements and processes to a dramatically created fictional co-housing cooperative working its way through difficulties and challenges. This enlivens the book, although I\u2019m not sure many of us will be involved in such an intense collaborative group!<\/p>\n

Key issues which particularly resonated with me included, \u2018clarifying intention\u2019 \u2013 absolutely essential in ensuring everyone is on the same journey; the importance of \u2018learning\u2019 as opposed to \u2018winning\u2019 in group processes; leadership styles and self-awareness of these; ensuring appreciation and acknowledgement \u2013 vital in nourishing commitment; accountability and openness in the use of power and the last section, titled \u2018Dealing with difficult people\u2019- i.e. pretty much any and all of us on any given day! This latter section seems to have been informed by a great deal of personal experience.<\/p>\n

The final chapter on \u2018Groups that work\u2019, with the fictional \u2018Rootbound Cooperative\u2019 as a model, re-emphasises the importance of group process to group health, not just what you do, but how you do it and the need for skilful facilitation of these processes. I was impressed that a social enterprise she cites has an \u2018Effective Meetings Committee\u2019. Now that would be a cost-effective addition to many organisations.<\/p>\n

Although my sense from the book is that it is drawing on experiences from the 1970s onwards, in a West Coast USA context, from my experience it remains relevant in its messages and applications \u2013 maybe with some translation into a local context. This book is about the principles of healthy collaboration \u2013 not a rigid template.<\/p>\n

Starhawk ends by referring to the amazing levels of global collaboration offered by digital technology and how all organisations must adapt and evolve to the changing contexts of our times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Manual seeks to identify the key elements that enable collaborative groups to thrive, how their healthy development can be facilitated with many practical exercises and rituals drawn from and credited to a wide range of sources. Starhawk illustrates her concepts by applying these elements and processes to a dramatically created fictional co-housing cooperative working its way through difficulties and challenges. And she ends by referring to the amazing levels of global collaboration offered by digital technology and how all organisations must adapt and evolve to the changing contexts of our times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,13,14,15,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-health-and-wellbeing","category-politics","category-practical","category-psychology","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2528,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2313\/revisions\/2528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenspirit.org.uk\/bookreviews2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}