Donna Frost

The critical creative collaborative inquiries in action 167 5 Coming to this place in my journey as facilitator was also indicative of a perspective transformation with respect to those aspects of the research that did not go as planned. Instead of being stymied or becoming paralysed by such occasions, I learnt to witness the situation, to observe it and to accept it for what it was. Whereas I initially paid attention to ‘trouble shooting’ and trying to stick to my plan, and subsequently experiencing stress when the plan inevitably changed, I became able to accept the circumstances for what they were. Accept, for example, that ‘this’ was the place we were starting from, to look for the opportunities to engage with people, circumstances and processes in the place we were at, and not in the place where I had thought we might be. My perspective changed, over time, to one of paying attention and noting responses, coming to understand what was actually happening in the circumstances, and valuing the situation for what I, and we, could learn from it. I learnt to accept and tolerate the unknown and feelings of uncertainty, and to work responsively with, rather than reacting to, times of crisis. Becoming critical creative collaborative inquirers As the above examples show, although the steps of the CCCI lemniscate and consistently working rigorously were not embodied at the beginning of the inquiry, they became increasingly evident over time and, when I or we did not work in these ways, we began to notice. This in itself was a sign that aspects of our research praxis were becoming embodied. The principles for creating the conditions for human flourishing, explicated within critical creativity, offered guidance when examining my and our experiences, reflecting on the ways we worked together and searching for more effective strategies. As I developed as a facilitator and as we built up experience researching practice together, we were increasingly able to work in ways consistent with these principles in both the RNI and NPI. This chapter concludes by showing how those principles ‘looked’ in the research practice of the inquiry groups. Table 5 . 7 sets out the eight metaphorical principles for creating the conditions for human flourishing, reproduces the definitions given by Titchen and McCormack ( 2010 ) for each one and, in the third column, gives examples of how the principles were enacted during this research. (Please note, Table 5 . 7 extends over several pages, after which the chapter is closed with concluding remarks.)