better is possible. collabyrinth cultivates the conditions for change-makers to dream, develop, problem-solve, and practice the better they want to see in the world.

our work is wholly about the good you are seeking to accomplish. we bring to bear the skills of DESIGN, FACILITATION, STRATEGY, and ADVISORY to catalyze your change-making. we are particularly drawn to projects that strengthen equity, community, social justice, spirituality, and the interactions between these societal goods. our unique form of alchemy turns ideas into reality, feelings into commitments, and words into actions.

get to the better you seek faster and with the assurance that when you arrive you’ll be ready to handle whatever you encounter. gain the strategy to turn your well-meaning into a well-doing that makes room for more and more stakeholders.  receive the advisory support (coaching, insight and resilience) you need to consistently show up as the courageous leader you want to be. our design services and tools will help you build the “muscle memory” for seeking equity, community, or whatever your desired outcomes may be in any interaction.  our collaborative design processes, forums, and projects will help your community risk across differences to try on new stories and scripts (better ways of thinking and doing), solve problems, and create new possibilities.

not only is better possible, it can begin right now.

 

people

melvin bray and leslie w. bray are the principal consultants for collabyrinth. they are both incredibly skilled at helping cohorts get where they are trying to go. they bring to bear a unique designer, advisor, facilitator, and strategist skill-set that is indispensable in almost any innovative endeavor—particularly those that involve learning and problem-solving, community and equity.

learn more about leslie or melvin.

additional team members are assembled as needed, depending upon the nature, size, and complexity of a client’s project, from a community of learning and problem-solving designers/facilitators who practice the same applied philosophy.

 

methodologies

at its founding, collabyrinth specialized in design-based collaborative problem-solving, using a justice-focused variation on a methodology known in corporate circles since the 1980s as DesignShop^®. over the last decade, we have adopted, adapted, created additional useful methodologies—including Transformative Community Conferencing, Relational Culture Practice & Somatics, and our own Narrative Change, Truth & Transformation Journeys and Accountability Circles—all of which inform our expanded suite of services.

the DesignShop^® methodology with which we started is a collaborative use of indivisible processes, tools, environment and time that produces breakthrough problem-solving for participants on a consistent basis. based on the time-tested work of matt taylor, gail taylor, rob evans, and their many protegés, full design forums take place over 3-4 whole days and require facilitation teams of three or more working working with stakeholders to create solutions to problems. we call our design forums Collabyratories.

the Transformative Community Conferencing methodology is a narrative and systems approach to conflict transformation. it differs from what is commonly described as conflict mediation or conflict resolution in that it acknowledges and corrects for the power imbalances that promote conflict in the first place. the facilitative process is similar to our standard Collabyratory, except it is narrative-based, inviting participants to imagine together “a vision of a shared future.”

Relational Culture Practice & Somatics is an capacity-building prevention and promotion strategy that proactively embeds relational values and practices into organizational culture. the practice of relational values actively transforms the dominant culture of disconnection, desensitization, isolation, and exclusion with connection, resilience, interdependence, and inclusive collaboration. in so doing, practitioners become aligned with the life-protective principles of human social ecology.

we approach any engagement with the same appreciative inquiry and collaborative focus.