Hi folks
We had a great gathering of Wave Riders here in Perth, Western
Australia, yesterday - about thirty people showed up to continue the
momentum generated by the anticipation of Harrison's tour down-under
(Harrison Owen Perth Experience - HOPE09), which as you know, has
needed to be postponed until the right time.
I'm sorry to report that everyone had a great time - even without the
man in the hat :-)
Harrison - we did miss you and honoured the presence of your spirit among us!
First up, three people presented their stories around our theme of
Leadership For High Performance in a Self Organising World - went like this:
1 For the first 90mins, Michael Wood gave his version of how
organisational/systems thinking has changed over the past couple of
decades - based on Wave Rider - a presentation with Ppt slides,
inviting dialogue with the group - and generating a shared language
around leadership, high performance and self-organisation.
2 After morning tea, we had two presenters, taking about 40 mins
each: first (Dr) Neil Preston gave us solid, scientific stories about
measuring the impact of OST meetings in organisations he's been
working with and ways to help leverage the impact of the energy
that's generated and captured through the Book of
Proceedings...planting this deep within the organisational structure.
Neil is an experienced Organisational Psychologist and has designed
and recorded some great quantitative and qualitative evidence around
self-organisation and health/well-being of people at work.
3 Then Kwame Selormey from a local community NGO, told the story:
From Tolley Pond to Billabong, about an OST meeting he helped
sponsor in a town that was seeking to create a climate of inclusivity
and participation in an area that was diverse and somewhat fractured.
One indigenous woman who attended the meeting 'championed' an Action
Plan for cleaning up the local pond that was being used for a dumping
ground for rubbish and shopping trolleys from the local mall. The
Local Council said it was the responsibility of the Shopping Mall -
the Shopping Mall said it was the responsibility of the Local
Council. The local action-initiating group decided to get on with the
clean-up! (When the Local Council heard this was going ahead, they
came in, without notice, and cleaned the pond up the day before the
community had planned to do it - a face-saving exercise). No matter,
the pond has now become a place of focus for local people to gather
and generate a deeper sense of community - and to take responsibility
for maintaining the beautification of what was an ugly eye-sore. And
the initiatives keep on coming....a local, multicultural community
market is starting up, young people are having a voice....
4 Then we had three hours of Open Space to consider the 'issues and
opportunities' emerging out of our listening to these three
stories...very rich conversations indeed.
We, the sponsoring group (now known as HOPEless09), have decided to
keep this space open and will host a further two or three of these
gatherings this year, providing opportunities to tell our own
stories, to grow our own practice and to expand our understanding of
'leadership for high performance in self-organising world' - and to
support each other in our work of the 'practice of peace'....
As HO has often said, OST is a free gift to humanity, but it comes
with a cost - we share what we learn.
And that's an easy and mutually enjoyable cost to pay....
Cheers
Brendan
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