Dear friends, We are preparing for our annual September Genuine Contact series of workshops here in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA with a lot of excitement. The focus of the Genuine Contact series is to develop the skills and capacity for working with the intentional Conscious Open Space Organization. Participants report back to us that they also learn how to engage in their personal development as conscious open space organizations. I personally think this is the root of doing this work well--to do just as Ghandi said and that is to BE the change you want to see in the world.
Below my signature, please find a description of the intentional Conscious Open Space Organization that is a way of describing this to clients who have never heard of Open Space Technology. It is much much easier to explain it to people who have had at least one experience of an OST meeting. And indeed, when we are working to develop the intentional Conscious Open Space Organization, we always begin with a multi-day OST meeting. For those of you involved in Appreciative Inquiry or World Cafe, please note that both methods are amongst the tools that assist in the development of the Conscious Open Space Organization. If you cannot take the whole workshop series in a row, and if you already have had some form of OST training, consider coming to our Advanced OST training focusing on the Conscious Open Space Organization (Sept 10-13). Blessings to you all, Birgitt What is a major Challenge Today for Organizations? On an ongoing basis organizations today need to find solutions to complex problems in a very short period of time and then to have rapid implementation of the solution throughout the organization. They need to increase their capacity to navigate with change and take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Are you working at peak effectiveness and efficiency as an inspired organization? Your organization has vast resources and strengths, only some of which are being utilized. Your organization already has great potential, possibilities, wisdom from intellectual and intuitive knowledge; self managed work and work/project teams, inspiration, creativity and solutions. If your organization is like most, over time, barriers emerged that minimized your ability to access your vast resources and strengths. Today, you are not achieving maximum benefit from your vast resources. It is difficult to see and experience the organization that lies just beneath these barriers. We assure you that it is there and ready to be tapped into. We refer to this organization that is just beneath these barriers as the Open Space Organization. Beneath the barriers is an inspired organization waiting to operate with full capacity and potential. Do you want to consistently access your vast resources over the long-term for optimal performance? To consistently access your vast resources over time will require the re-creation of a healthy and balanced foundation. You must be willing to work as though Spirit matters and that people are precious. You must be willing to create the space needed for Spirit to do its work and for the people to develop mastery over their work. You must be willing to do what it takes to achieve optimal health. Optimal health includes removing barriers, nurturing strengths and resources, and maintaining balance for it all to keep working successfully over the long term. We call the resulting organization, a Conscious Open Space Organization (COSO). What is the Conscious Open Space Organization? The COSO is an organization that is alive, aware and chooses to nurture and strengthen its life for optimal performance. It allows the creation of the space needed for optimal accessing of its potential, possibilities, creativity, innovations, imagination, inspiration, insights, solutions, resolution, commitment, and focused action. It works from its strengths. It identifies and removes barriers. It sustains health and balance for the benefit of the organization and the people within it. What are the benefits of intentionally developing as a Conscious Open Space Organization? The COSO is highly successful, fulfilling its purpose, achieving its vision, and creating emergent conditions and actions for new visions and their achievement. The COSO gets its business done in an effective and efficient way, achieving maximum benefit from the intellectual and intuitive knowledge of the individuals involved and of the collective. All people within the COSO have the opportunity to achieve mastery of their work, both the regular tasks/work and individual/collective performance challenges. This mastery includes accessing intellectual and intuitive knowledge and the wisdom for applying it. The people have an environment that supports their individual health and balance, resulting in less sick time off and better employee retention. What development work is necessary in intentionally developing as a Conscious Open Space Organization? In developing as a COSO, all participants in the organization become aware of the organization as a COSO that is alive, is organic in nature and is filled with untapped potential and possibilities. All participants become involved with developing the organization to have optimal performance through nurturing life rather than depleting life. Some of the development work that is necessary includes: v How the organization is perceived by those who are involved with it and how it is consciously developed on an ongoing basis as it evolves and grows so that it can thrive in changing times. This includes a focus on health and balance. v Identifying what works and how to strengthen it. v Identifying what doesnt work and how to overcome it. v Principled leadership leading in the chosen direction. v A vision that is clear, focused, and achievable. v How the individuals in the organization are perceived, treated, involved, held accountable, and rewarded. v Changing leadership and management functions, including how authority, accountability and responsibility are carried out throughout the organization. v Changing structure, ensuring that form follows function, so that the structure supports rather than hinders the effective work of the organization. Structure includes work and communications processes. v Regular use of participative meetings. Participative meetings that are recommended include Open Space Technology, Whole Person Process Facilitation, Appreciative Inquiry, and World Café. When people cannot gather in person, use of a highly participative on-line meetings using software such as OpenSpace-Online® Real-Time Conference System What is involved in becoming a Conscious Open Space Organization? Readiness: any time is the right time to evolve from an Open Space Organization to a Conscious Open Space Organization. Your changing activities however, must always start with an Open Space Technology meeting to provide you with a window into its vitality and core strengths. This initial Open Space Technology meeting provides the readiness and participant support that is needed so that all of the change activities that emerge are firmly anchored in the shared experience and shared knowledge developed from the initial Open Space Technology meeting. Length of time: Initial development as a COSO, no matter what your starting point, takes about a year. There is no final destination and we do not promise one. A life nurturing rather than life depleting way of operating emerges, but the evolution and growth are worked on an ongoing basis for the duration of the life of the organization, if that is what the organization chooses. The first year requires the greatest investment of time, especially of the senior leaders and management team, as the organization breaks free of old life depleting patterns, behaviors, perceptions, and attitudes. The usual work of the organization continues through this development phase but the way that this gets done will change. Providing Staff time for skill development will need to be allowed for. The amount of time cannot be predetermined because every situation is different. For most of the staff, much of the development work can take place within your current times set aside for meetings. The activities in subsequent years are part of the new life nurturing way of organizational life and do not require additional time or resources. In fact, the new way of working is much more effective and efficient, saving time and resources. Steeply hierarchical or flatter organizational structure: every organization is alive, is organic and is unique. It does not matter if it is steeply hierarchical or flatter in its organizational structure. Some organizations require a steeply hierarchical structure to get its work done effectively, such as Police Departments. Others get their work done more effectively with flatter structures, such as Advertising Agencies. The amount of space that can be opened in each organization will differ. No matter how steeply hierarchical the organization i.e.: the military, there is always space that can be opened. To the extent that, what can be opened is opened, the organization has developed as a Conscious Open Space Organization. Who leads the change: the change must be led from within, by the CEO and senior leadership team. Senior leadership must be committed to the new way of operating. Depending on how the organization is structured and how responsibility for functions has been established, the Human Resources and/or Organizational Development leaders may, with a mandate from their CEO, be involved first, to assist and teach the senior leadership team as well s the rest of the participants. The external consultant: The senior leadership in the organization can lead the changes necessary for the development as a Conscious Open Space Organization without external consulting assistance. This is possible after the initial Open Space Technology meeting. If the senior leadership team chooses to lead the changes without external consultant assistance, it is advisable to hire the consultant for 2 days following the Open Space Technology meeting to assist in developing the list of key ingredients that must be attended to. It is also advisable for representatives from the senior leadership team or designates (human resource or organizational development specialists) to attend the Organizational Health and Balance series of workshops for skill and capacity development, and to become authorized to lead these workshops within the organization. This series of workshops provides a very positive and effective framework for conversations within the organization as well as the skills and tools to assist in the development of and ongoing work as a Conscious Open Space Organization. The processes, tools, and skills are simple and easy to use and are duplicable within the organization. The Organizational Health and Balance series of workshops that feature the Genuine ContactÔ program are available in different locations in the world and are also available to be brought in-house for your team to do the learning as a team. There are advantages to engaging an external consultant/mentor to assist in the development as a Conscious Open Space Organization. The external consultant has a mentoring job, to assist the internal change leaders in their own mastery of the process. And, as an objective outsider with experience and effective skills, the external consultant can assist the organization to uncover its truth in a way that the internal change leader cannot do. Total consultant/mentor time during year one is about 40 days including mentoring and skill development through workshop leadership. The consultant/mentor involvement is kept to a minimum. The focus of the external consultants work is on building the skills and capacity in-house for internal leadership and for all who are involved in the organization, to navigate with change and to work with the true nature of the organization. Its this true nature that it is alive, organic and unique, filled with great untapped potential and possibilities. The organization and its leadership can have ongoing benefit from maintaining a mentoring relationship with the consultant, involving one to a few days a year, but again, this is optional and as needed. Blessings to you and to all with whom you make Genuine Contact, Birgitt Birgitt Williams of Dalar International Consultancy www.dalarinternational.com View the calendar for upcoming training in the Organizational Health and Balance series of workshops featuring the Genuine ContactÔ program at http://www.openspacetechnology.com/training.html We invite you to join the Genuine Contact list serve at http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/genuinecontact Contact information for Dalar International Consultancy: Po Box 19373, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA 27619 Raleigh, North Carolina USA Phone: 919-522-7750 Fax: 919-870-6599 As mentors to leaders and organizations we assist you in going beyond what has been before. We provide inspirational and practical how to guidance for leaders who want to achieve healthy and balanced organizations to produce exciting, tangible results for the organization and for its people. Our approach is holistic, creating a better future by tapping into ancient wisdom. We believe that Spirit matters and people are precious. We know that organizations incorporating these values have exciting, tangible results including wealth, prosperity, and abundance. These organizations tend to their health and balance on a daily basis. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.502 / Virus Database: 300 - Release Date: 7/18/2003 * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
