- Build the social fabric and transform theisolation within our communities intoconnectedness and caring for the whole

- Shift our conversations from the problems ofcommunity to the possibility of community.

- Commit to create a future distinct from the past

- Social fabric is created one room at a time,the one we are in at the moment.

- It is formed out of the questions "Whom do wewant in the room?" and "What is theconversation that we want to occur"

- The key to a new future is to focus on gifts, onassociational life, and on the insight that alltransformation occurs through language.

- Each step has to embody a quality of aliveness,and strategy evolves in an organic way.

- The essence of creating an alternative future comesfrom citizen-to-citizen engagement that constantlyfocuses on the well-being of the whole.

- We have all the capacity, expertise, and financialresources that an alternative future requires.

- The small group is the unit of transformation andthe container for the experience of belonging.

- Each gathering needs to become anexample of the future we want to create.

- The small group is the unit of transformation

- Large-scale transformation occurs when enough small groups shift in harmony toward the larger change.

- Small groups have the most leverage whenthey meet as part of a larger gathering.

- The small group produces power when diversity of thinking and dissent are given space, commitments are made without barter, and the gifts of each person and our community are acknowledged and valued.

- The existing community context is one that marketsfear, assigns fault, and worships self-interest.

- The new context that restores community isone of possibility, generosity, and gifts, ratherthan one of fear, mistakes, and self-interest.

- The existing context supports the belief thatthe future will be improved with new laws, moreoversight, and stronger leadership.

- Citizens become powerful when they choose toshift the context within which they act in the world.

- Communities are human systems given formby conversations that build relatedness.

- The conversations that build relatedness most often occur through associational life, where citizens are unpaid and show up by choice, rather than in large systems where professionals are paid and show up by contractual agreement.

- The future hinges on accountability that citizenschoose and their willingness to connect with eachother around promises they make to each other.

- Citizens have the capacity to own and exercise powerrather than defer or delegate it to others.

- The skill is getting the questions right

- The traditional conversations that seek to explain,study, analyze, define tools, and express the desire tochange others are interesting but not powerful.

- Questions open the door to the future and are more powerful than answers in that they demand engagement. Engagement in the right questions is what creates accountability.

- How we frame the questions is decisive. Theyneed to be ambiguous, personal, and stressful.

- Introduce the questions by defining thedistinction the question addresses, namely whatis different and unique about this conversation.

- We need to innoculate people against adviceand help. Advice is replaced by curiousity.

- The five conversations for structuringbelonging are possibility, ownership, dissent,commitment, and gifts.

- Since all the conversations lead to eachother, sequence is not that critical.

- Create conversations in ascending order of difficulty,with the possibility generally an earlier conversationand gifts typically one of the more difficult.

- There are three elements of aquestion:

- Invite people who are not used to being together.

- The elements of the powerful invitation

- We reclaim our citizenship when we invertwhat is cause and what is effect.

- Citizens create leaders, children create parents, andaudience creates the performance. This inversionmay not be the whole truth, but it is useful.

- The inversion creates conditionswhere we can shift from

- The possibility conversation

- The ownership conversation

- The dissent conversation

- The commitment conversation

- The gifts conversation

- Final comment

- Physical space is more decisive in creatingcommunity than we realize.

- Most meeting spaces are designed forcontrol, negotiation, and persuasion.

- We always have a choice about how we rearrange and occupy whatever room we are handed.

- Community is built when we sit in circles, when there are windows and the walls have signs of life, when every voice can be equally heard and amplified, when we all are one level--and the chairs have wheels and swivel.

- When we have the opportunity todesign new space, we need thefollowing:

- The design process itself needs to be anexample of the future we are intending tocreate.

- Authentic citizen and employeeengagement is as important as gooddesign expertise.

- Leadership that engages citizens is a capacitythat exists in all human beings. It is infinitelyand universally available.

- Transformation occurs when leaders focus onthe structure of how we gather and the contextin which the gatherings take place.

- Leadership is convening andheld to three tasks;