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I tweeted a joke about making an adult colouring book with reflective questions on each page for evaluators and it found a VERY receptive audience, so….. I made a prototype! You can download the PDF here. I hope you all colour your way to some satisfying insights! Comment or tweet and tell me what you think, or show off your masterpieces for us all to enjoy. 😀

Shout-out to André Luiz (@andreluizgollo) for putting up some great repeating pattern icons on The Noun Project that I was able to turn into the artwork for this colouring book.

I can’t recall for certain, but I think the first person I “had coffee” with in a professional capacity was my friend Brian Hoessler, a fellow evaluation consultant and now my co-host on our evaluation-themed podcast, Eval Cafe. And of course the podcast is all about, as we say in our intro, “informal chats on evaluation-related topics. The kind you might overhear a your favourite coffee shop, if your favourite coffee shop was frequented by evaluators.” I guess we really set the tone with that first conversation!

When I moved to Vancouver, I didn’t know anyone here. I hadn’t done much networking outside of Saskatchewan and was mostly a quiet observer at the CES and AEA conferences I’d attended. Fortunately Brian had been more social and pointed me at Sarah Farina, so I sent her an email, stiffly titled, “looking for professional evaluation contacts in Vancouver”. We were sitting down for coffee the next week. I remember being struck by how easy it was, reaching out to a total stranger and within a week having a conversation about the local evaluation landscape and where a newcomer might look to get involved.

After that coffee, Sarah put me in touch with Diana Tindall who was looking for volunteers to help out with planning the 2015 CESBC one-day conference. Michelle Naimi was also on the planning committee and she and I went on to co-found the Student & Emerging Evaluator Network (SEEN), organizing events and opportunities for new evaluators in Vancouver, including a monthly meet-up at, you guessed it, a coffee shop. I’ve now worked with Diana and Michelle many times in various capacities and spent a lot of time in coffee shops with both of them.

Sensing a trend?

Somewhere along the line, the coffee shop connections have become a cornerstone of my professional practice. This year in particular, it’s gone from meeting up with someone once or twice a month to once or twice a week (or more!), according to the rich historical data source that is my Google calendar. Even my vacations become an opportunity to grab coffee with someone new (when I was down in San Francisco this April I got to spend a couple of hours talking about evaluation and coaching with Betsy Baum Block at a coffee shop in Berkeley—perfect vacation activity! Also pleasingly alliterative). Last week, I had four separate coffee engagements, including spending my whole Saturday in eight consecutive hours of conversation, starting in a coffee shop on Commercial Drive and ending up in another one in Hastings-Sunrise (with a three hour yarn-store-adventure-and-chat with my sister in between).

I meet with people I know well and see regularly, I meet with people I’ve just met or only talked to online. I have a few “standing” coffee dates and a lot that come up spontaneously. Sometimes I ask and sometimes I’m the person getting the email with a subject line like, “looking for professional evaluation contacts in Vancouver” (except less awkward than that). Sometimes the “coffee shop” is a zoom room, occasionally it’s a pub or a bar or someone’s front porch. Sometimes I’m close to home, other times I’m venturing out to New West or North Van or hopping on a ferry, island-bound. Rarely is coffee actually consumed, at least by me (too much caffeine), but the coffee is largely metaphorical anyway. It’s about the connections, and, increasingly, the conversations.

Conversation is at the heart of it for me. There’s definitely a conventional networking component to it as well and I’m always aware of how work opportunities can emerge unexpectedly through these connections (almost all of the work I do right now has come from a “somebody introduced me to somebody who introduced me to somebody” type of situation). But the conversations themselves are key.

One of the things I’ve learned about myself this year is that I think in conversation, in dialogue. I was surprised, because “reflective practice” always signified to me something quiet and peaceful—walking alone in nature, sitting quietly in meditation, or writing bent over a journal. But when someone asked me to describe my reflective practice I realized that it looks like pacing around my office or my apartment and talking to myself. Occasionally I will write things on post-it notes, stick them to the wall, and then carry on a conversation with the post-it notes. (This is a lifelong habit. Once I was talking to myself while out walking and gesticulated so much I accidentally hailed a cab.)

I wasn’t sure if this counted as “reflective practice” until someone shared a quote with me from the feminist economic geographers who co-published under the name, “J.K. Gibson-Graham”. The quote was:

“… our seldom-inspected common sense posits a separation—or even an opposition—between thought, understood as cerebral reflection, and action, understood as embodied engagement with the world. This makes it hard to see thinking itself as a kind of action—that we are doing thinking, in other words, touching the world and being touched by it and in the process things (and we) are changing.” (A Postcapitalist Politics)

It was a wonderful observation and broke open my assumptions about what did and did not count as reflection (or as action), and gave me a new way to appreciate why my particular reflective practice works for me—because it helps me break down the artificial distinction between my mental processes and my embodied experiences. For me things live differently when I speak them out loud. Who hasn’t had the experience of, “Wow, that sounded better in my head”? Putting it out there lets me engage with it, interact with it, disagree and argue with it, be inspired by it. To paraphrase the above, “to touch the world and be touched by it and, in the process, change”.

I think this is the core of any reflective practice, really. Whether it’s journalling or nature walks or quiet contemplation. All of these practices are meant to create opportunities for another kind of interaction, through a change of scenery, seeing words on a page, or finding the space inside to hear things in a different way.

Where do coffee shop conversations come into it again?

Complex adaptive systems thrive on a diversity of inputs, a source of the variations that allow for adaptive resilience and flexibility. Talking to myself (or my post-its, or my whiteboard, or the book I’m reading) is part of how I inject a little variety into my own system. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to say until I say it, or quite how it’s going to land with me until I hear it. Letting my harvest of post-its accumulate on the wall for months becomes a source of unexpected inspiration when I am reminded of something or see it in a new light on a different day.

But it only goes so far. I may contain multitudes but those multitudes have a lot in common with each other. And while I’m pretty good at taking myself by surprise (I used to play whole games of cribbage against myself when I was a kid and learned to “forget” what I knew and operate as if I didn’t hold all the cards), there’s nothing like the true mystery of interacting with another person. Even if we have a topic picked out in advance, I rarely go into these conversations with any particular goal beyond discovery and relationship-building, and I’m always surprised and delighted and stimulated by what happens and what comes up. And it’s usually, as far as I know, reciprocal. Good conversations are collaborative and co-creative. It matters who I’m talking with—different people mean different conversations.

It’s also resource of integration and embodiment for me. I’ve learned that it’s not just enough to write my thoughts down. The written word is a temporary holding space, an extension of my working memory. The true archive is me, my person and my personality. I don’t truly know something until I don’t have to hold it deliberately in my head and my hands anymore, but have it available to me in the moment that I need it. Conversations become a rehearsal space for my being—what do I say? What do I think about? What do I hear? What do I notice? What do I discover? What do I remember? Anyone who’s had a conversation with me lately probably heard me utter something like, “Oh, I was just talking with someone the other day about this, and…” at least ten times. Every conversation reinforces the associative network of embodied knowledge that I am weaving into myself. (And that’s not even counting the more traditional, “Oh, I just read this the other day…”, which has always been a constant.)

And on that metaphor, on the relationship-building side of it, it’s more than just fixing myself as a well-connected node in a network, it also feels like I’m weaving together and reinforcing the fabric of my community. I always want all the cool people I know to know each other and to share their brilliance with the world and a lot of these conversations result in contact referrals and introductions (both ways). If I had one frustration with the coffee shop conversations it’s that I’m always thinking at some point or another, “Oh, so-and-so should be here for this!”, and truly there isn’t a coffee shop big enough for what is effectively a friend-convention that I want to throw. I am trying to level up to dinner parties at least. (Also even as I’m writing this, I’m realizing, “Oh, this is so obviously the trajectory of the four-fold practice that is the basis of the Art of Hosting. Of course.” Also, this is why folks should check out The Art of Hosting. Tell them Carolyn sent you!!)

It wasn’t always this way for me. I’m not joking when I describe myself as “a shy, socially anxious introvert who drastically overcompensated”. Once when I was a teenager I managed to eek out five minutes of small talk with someone waiting at the same bus stop and it was such a remarkable and unprecedented accomplishment for me that I positively glowed all the way home. I truly believe that talking about the weather is humanity’s greatest invention (even greater than post-it notes). I don’t know what changed exactly. I think I just finally became more curious than I was shy. And it was easier than I thought it was going to be when I stopped trying to be so very smart about it and got humble.

The coffee is a metaphor and the coffee shop is too. The conversations have percolated* into nearly every facet of my work. The podcast has been both an invitation for conversation and a platform to share that conversation with a wider audience and have new conversations because of it. (And, let me tell you, there’s no better ice-breaker at a conference than, “Do you want to be on my podcast?”) Twitter has become an important space of conversation for me. Though conversing in tweets can be a little fragmented and chaotic, one of these 280-character flurries led to the forming of a co-operative inquiry group of evaluators (we’ve been meeting monthly to have generative conversations around the topic of “boundaries in evaluation”). This blog is also an attempt to be in conversation in another way, though I find it trickier and am trying to bring in more conversational elements to make it easier. The ability to be in good conversation is a core evaluative practice for me as well, from the big boardroom meetings to the casual hallway chats. In fact, especially the casual chats—that’s where the magic is.

It will be interesting to see how my coffee shop conversational practices shift (or don’t) as time goes on. Right now they feel absolutely integral, as much as any other professional development practice I’m engaged in. It was an absolutely giddying realization that “hanging out with cool people in coffee shops” is a totally valid and awesome part of my job description. Now, to remember to save the receipts.

(Also, if you think I use a lot of parenthetical asides while I’m writing, you should experience firsthand some of the exciting “thought journey” detours I go on in person, which a good 70-80% of the time will reconnect back with the original point, or at least end up in verdant pastures of inspiration in their own right, hopefully. Conversational off-roading.)

(It is possible that mostly talking to myself and therefore needing to hold up two sides of a conversation at once has instilled some terrible habits, I mean, interesting quirks!)

(I’m done now.)

*Yes, I forced the pun a little and, no, I don’t regret it.

This blog post has been jointly written by Carolyn Camman and Art Assoiants. We connected through the Canadian Evaluation Society’s Mentoring Initiative in 2018 and this post is our way of sharing some of the learnings from our journey together as mentor (Carolyn) and mentee (Art) over the last year.

To write this post, we did a sort of self/mutual interview. We chose some questions for ourselves, wrote up our responses separately, and then shared them back with each other. You can read the questions and our respective reflections below.

Why did you get involved in mentorship and what were your best hopes for it?

ART: I got involved in mentorship for numerous reasons. First, I believe that some of the most effective learning happens through relationship. Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development comes to mind. In other words, to be with and around people who do something you want to do, but who are more skilled at it and are willing to help your developmental process, is what I sought in the context of evaluation. Second, I wished to be supported in my journey, recognizing that there was a lot I didn’t know and a whole lot more in which I was unconsciously incompetent. I wished to connect with Carolyn to bear witness to my process, help me think through and pull insights from what I was doing, and aid me in becoming aware of and improving my skills and tools. Altogether, I wished to learn quicker and be supported in this learning.

CAROLYN: I got involved in mentoring by accident. I created an account on the CES MI platform because I wanted to be able to describe to folks who asked me about it what the platform was like and how it worked. When I created my account, I checked out some possible mentors, but I didn’t feel a burning need for mentorship at the time, so mostly I forgot about it. I didn’t expect anyone to contact me as a potential mentor. Art wasn’t the first person who got in touch, but he was the first where there seemed to be a genuine alignment of what he was looking for and what I could offer, our expectations of the process, and our schedules. I was candid from the start that I’d never mentored anyone before and didn’t have a lot of experience being mentored myself. I also saw myself as closer to a peer mentor rather than someone who was going to be drawing on decades of practice experience. I remember that Art seemed up for that, that he liked what he’d read in my bio and felt there was an affinity in our interests and approaches to evaluation that stood out from the other potential mentors he’d looked at. I was reassured by the commitment to figure this process out together and looked forward to learning more about how to be a mentor. My best hope for the process was that we would both take something valuable from it, though I wasn’t sure exactly what that was going to be.

What did you find helpful or hindering in the mentorship process?

ART: I found several things helpful in the mentorship process. First, I liked that Carolyn and I discussed our best wishes and preferred approaches during our first conversation together. We also made it explicit that things could change and that we would honour potential shifts in each other’s professional journeys. I liked that Carolyn and I booked our next conversation at the end of the talk we were already having. This ensured we ongoingly kept in touch. I enjoyed being asked reflective and process questions, such as: “What made you want to make that decision? What was the result of that decision?” I appreciated being offered evaluation tools that were appropriate for the situation I was facing. To add, I sought Carolyn out not only for professional fit, but also for proximity. Carolyn lived far away enough from my professional world that few relationships would overlap. In order to be honest about my process, and recognizing that many of the communities to which I was connected professionally were quite intermingled, I wished for someone both close professionally and far enough in distance. I appreciated that they fit perfectly with this wish! On a different note, I found it helpful that Carolyn connected me with other leading practitioners in the fields we were discussing: social innovation, social entrepreneurship, evaluation, design thinking, and the like. I also took notes during our conversations, which, if nothing else, made writing this reflection a much simpler ride. But most of all, I appreciated having space held for my own thoughts. Carolyn allowed me to make sense of my professional journey in terms of skill sets, relationships, and further development.

CAROLYN: One of the most helpful things was the clear setting of expectations early on. Because we’d had that frank conversation, I didn’t feel pressured to deliver some great inspiring wisdom every time. I think that helped me be more genuinely helpful, because I just spoke from my own experience and trusted Art to figure out what was useful to him and what wasn’t. In retrospect, I realize this is a good approach to mentorship regardless of one’s level of experience, and humility and mutual respect are things I look for more intentionally now in the relationships I develop with the people who teach and mentor me.

The most challenging part was probably coordinating long distance and dealing with time zones and schedules and technical difficulties. We tried using a video chat platform to start with, but wifi quality was variable and made focusing on and hearing the conversation difficult. After a while we switched to just an audio connection for the technical stability. I ended up preferring it because I could focus on just listening. I also made things easier for myself by not trying to prepare or do anything fancy, just get on the call and be fully present and trust that I would have something valuable to offer, even if it was just a listening ear and a question or two.

What are your takeaways from the mentorship process?

ART: I have a few thoughts come to mind regarding takeaways. First, mentorship can be a process powerful enough to make or break a person’s professional experience. With Carolyn’s help, I was able to thrive and quickly glean actionable insights from situations that at the moment may have felt ambiguous, beyond control, and overwhelming. Second, I felt it was important to have a conversation about mentorship preferences and style at the get-go. That way, both parties have a sense of what to expect from one another moving forward. It helps to take a moment as a mentee or mentor to think through or write out what these expectations may be for you. Third, it may prove helpful to take notes about the insights you glean from your mentor (and mentee!). This helps consolidate memory to quicker internalize and act on learnings.

CAROLYN: I started to get mentorship-envy! Stepping into a mentoring role for someone else and getting to see the positive benefits of it up close had me thinking about the amount of mentorship in my own life. My training and other experiences I’ve had did not really emphasize the value of supportive and engaged mentorship on this level. Though in reflection I can recognize how several lovely colleagues have, of their own initiative, leaned into mentoring roles for me over the years (for which I’m deeply grateful, even more now), I didn’t entirely grasp the significance of these experiences at the time. So I’ve been inspired to take a closer look at the opportunities for deep mentorship in my life and let those experiences into my life more fully. I also developed a greater respect and appreciation for my own capacity and experience as both an evaluator and mentor. When we started out, I was pretty self-effacing about my experience and what I had to offer as a mentor. While that served me well in some ways, I learned I can balance it with a healthy respect for and confidence in what I do offer.

I also learned how to really let go and listen. Although I’ve worked for a long time to develop my interviewing skills, this took me to another level by letting me commit to just listening to someone and being absolutely present with zero agenda, like writing notes or thinking about analysis or planning the next question. It was relaxing to be in a place where all I needed to do was be in that moment and put all my attention on the person I was listening to, and it highlighted how much self-consciousness I’d been bringing into my listening in other situations and how much of a hindrance that really is. It was also a delight to be present to someone else’s journey of discovery and learning, to notice how Art would respond to the questions I offered, take them in, and go places with them that I’d never imagined, sometimes still thinking of them weeks later on our next call. It was not unlike those moments where a client or stakeholder connects with the data in a deep and totally unexpected way and takes off with it, and you get to sit back and think, “This is so cool. I’m glad I get to be part of this.”

Finally, I took from all of this a deepened commitment to the value of mentoring as a mutual learning and growing experience. It’s not a commitment to be taken lightly and even with a relatively low-intensity approach that we took there’s still a considerable investment of time and energy, but overall it was a joyous experience and something that I intend to carry on with in my practice.

Want to know more about Art?

Art Assoiants is at the tail-end of an MSc in Counselling Psychology. He’s the founder and host of the Let’s Develop Podcast, where he and others explore stories and tools for social change.