Hi Rob, Michael, Viv, Joelle, Robert and Joan hi listening/reading listmembers
I am catching up slowly with some of the "old" postings on the list "Old" meaning about three months ;-) Thanks especially Rob for your sharing the two methods "wonder wall" and "The wave" Your first description of the Community Story Method on the Wall of Wonders reminds me of what I have learned from Marve Weisbord & Sandra Janoff's book on Future Search Conference. Both of your stories brought me to remeber how I opened the work at the first Micro-Universe/stakeholder meeting for District Development two years ago. I have no name for it, its working-title ist "Our personal envolvement & contribution to our common/community story". It would like to share this now. We did it before opening the space for the first one day OST event in Mozambique. I will not describe it in an abstract way, but re-tell this part of the story of my consultancy for "District Development in the province of Sofala, Mozambique" (with stakeholder of the two Districts X and Y) Here we go! Imagine! Lets jump to the opening circle!... Where each&every body sits together after the presentation of all the external and internal context conditions (the givens). People are basically orientated and I feel the tension of expectations in the room Facilitator: "So here we are. Everybody here in this room is part of the ongoing story of DD in X or Y. I am evidently the last one to become part of this story. Let us look back how it came that we are here now. Let us have a look how things started and then start to tell the whole story from its beginning. To beginn with, please find out, who of all the present people was the first one to be involved in the DD story of X or Y. ...." (it was the oldest one of the chiefs/regulos) "Would you please take your chair to the center of the circle and tell us, how DD started and how you were involved into its story?" (To the circle) "And I ask you to pay attention to the whole story from the beginning and whenever one of you notizes that the story has developed to the point where you started to be involved, please take YOUR seat, go to the center of the circle and continue to tell us the story from your point of view. And so on. This story telling will be finished when we have traveled from the beginning of the story to our HERE & NOW, where each and every body is an acting-part of the story and where we will not have any longer the separation of story tellers and the circle of pure observers." (Back to the chief in the center) "So please go ahead now Mr. Tambarare!" .......(The chief starts with the comment that his District has Developed since old time, when nobody knew the word District Development, but that he started to be involved as the son of the old regulo of Tambarare...then one after the other guys from the outer circle took their chairs and met in the center to continue the story together) There was only one moment, when I did some facilitation. That was, when the first difference in the perception, story of what had happened surfaces. (Even that was not necessary, I suppose, but anyway: The facilitator:) " We have all the necessary time to hear all the different sides and personal perceptions of this complex story" The story was finished after I had got my seat, changed my position and explaned how it came, that I was contracted to do the work I was doing. I learned this technique at the start-up meeting of my advanced OD-training by the "Beratergruppe Neuwaldegg and I loved it from the beginning and have used it very often since then. It can be very strong: the people may discover that there had been a hidden part of the history, or never discussed different interpretations of what had happened; they "automatically" re-construct the line of historic seniority which has usually some quite healing effects on the group/organization, usually informal the old boys network surfaces, newcomers are "automatically" integrated etc. etc. Coming back to the story of the two districts: two inner circles of DD agents had been created. The most important result for my job-relevant learning there was that we had a great ongoing and complex story in midst of which there was a time of NO DistrictDevelopment STORY. Years of pure destruction after which they had more or less to start from the beginning. That was the time of civil war in Mozambique, which only ended in '92 and was related with the (end of the) apartheit-regimes of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia->Zimbabwe. And it was most important for me to learn, that these times have created deep fears of conflict escalation which are active until today. Which is relevantissimo for each seriously participative development approach. Some further remarks about the method: In general the stories are so rich, that it is worth to fully document them (acustically or by video) if this does not disturb the process too much. From re-analysing such documents, they can again learn a lot about their story. The strategical point of indicated use: at new-beginning/after transformation when the new meets the old (e.g. team&org fusions/mergers). If you support it technologically you can do it with quite big groups (I never did it with more than 40). Do do it calmly including a reflective circle afterwards (realizing a nice gestalt-schluss), you need half a day for small groups and short stories and up to one day for big groups and long stories. The stories are always complex ones. I never did it without getting feedback of the type: Wow We have had no idea of A, B, C,....! Very healing, grievework-producing and peace-making and freeing for next steps of collaboration and conflict. Very much showing the richness of differences and resources I thank you for hearing this story* Bernd --- P.S. *and your/my sheer (s)h(e)ar(e)ing On Mon, 30 Dec 2002 10:10:51 +1100, [email protected] wrote: 2. The WAVE. This process uses the wave to explore (in small groups and then as a large group) the things, processes, activities etc that can be described as: DIEING practices, ESTABLISHED Norms, EMERGING trends and BOUNDARY Issues. The idea is to get the group to talk, discuss and tell stories about their life and their organisation. The picture that the participants are asked to keep in their mind is that of a wave they are riding, the dieing part of the wave is of no use to sustain the rider(s), the established norms are carrying them now but will soon die, the emerging trends will be where the individual or group need to position themselves to sustain their "ride" and the boundary issues are where we will find new waves to get a new "ride". This again is posted on the wall with the headings or summaries of each groups contribution posted on half A4 sheets. Both these processes need to be followed by a time where the participants can reflect - this sort of work can be done on the first evening before dinner time, then the next day start the rest of the meeting. The community stories form a great background for contexting issues and opportunities. The processes encourage dialogue and get people talking to each other. regards Rob * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
