OS in Asia

[Elizabeth Bell]

Jim, I recently had a similar experience of people wanting to combine
everything for follow up action groups.  I suggested that they take on the top
5 issues and that they could always come back to their list and take on other
topics for follow up. That is what happened and in fact two of the groups have
finished their project and have moved on to the next top priority on their
list of 20 topics.  Elizabeth

Jim Clark wrote:

> Greetings from Formosa,
>
> I've been using OS for a number of meetings in the company I work for
> (operations in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan) and thought I would share a
> story with you all.
>
> Last week we had a two and a half day meeting with half a day of follow up
> presentations from previous meetings and about 2 days of OS.  The
> presentation day went pretty well.  We had had a meeting with our top sales
> managers and the people who deliver the services they sell to come up with
> some ways of improving the service we deliver to our customers (we are in
> the English language learning business).  They came up with about 24 ideas,
> and we used the "hot dot" convergence to boil those down to about 9 key
> arenas.  The service people then had about 2 months to follow up on those
> ideas, checking for feasibility, etc. and they gave their reports on the
> afternoon of the first day.
>
> Very well done and well received.  Many things were agreed to by the end of
> the first day, and some hot topics were pushed to the next day "to talk
> about in Open Space."
>
> That night after dinner we sang Karoke songs till the wee hours.  Energy
> was going well.
>
> Saturday morning, we were getting the room ready for the opening circle
> when I got a call from the President of our company, who suggested that we
> take an hour break from 11:00 to 12:00 to listen to Taiwan's new president
> Chen Shui Bien's, inaugural address.  We weren't going to start the opening
> session until 10:00 and I thought it better not break up the flow, so we
> did some discussions about all the infomation that had been presented the
> day before, watched the speech, and had an early lunch.
>
> I surprised myself with how calmly I made the switch in the flow.
>
> We ended up with evening news about 7:15 that night.  This group was very
> diverse, with about 35 people from all three areas (HK, Japan, and Taiwan)
> and some customers.  The customers were only invited for the first day of
> OS, but were not invited for the convergence.  I tried to encourage our
> company to let them stay, but they were concerned about them being there
> when we were talking abou how to spend money....
>
> We spent the early evening getting the Book together and I went to bed at
> 10:00 p.m. (which in Taiwan is like going to bed at 7:30 for people in N.
> America as we all stay up pretty late here).
>
> The next morning we did morning news, and it sounded like there might be a
> few more topics that people either hadn't thought of, or were uncomfortable
> of bringing up with the customers around.  I gave a minute or so for people
> to post any new topics, and nobody did.  We passed out the books, and
> started doing the convergence when two topics did get added, which was
> cool.
>
> Something interesting happened, and if you've read this far,
> congratulations.  The group started putting topics together so that those
> that weren't top vote getters would be connected to a TVGer.  I let it go
> for a while until it hit me that they were trying to make sure that "nobody
> lost."  I reemphasized that those that weren't TVGers would still be in the
> document, and people could still follow their passion to make those things
> come true, but we were looking for those areas where the group has passion
> and energy and urgency to get things planned this afternoon.  They were
> reassured, and the combining fury slowed down.
>
> The groups did fine in the planning and we had a wonderful closing circle,
> in which a number of people shared their feelings of uncertainty leading up
> to the meeting, and how happy they had come anyway.
>
> We have been asked to use OS for three more major meetings in our company
> in the next four months, and I'm quite certain there will be more.  It does
> give me great pleasure that people in the company are asking for OS, rather
> than it being me that suggests it.
>
> So the two questions I have are:
> 1.  Have any of you come accross groups that want to combine all of the
> topics after voting?
>
> 2.  In coming up with topics, I've found that the Chinese participants
> (particularly first timers) will have a number of names on the topic,
> sometimes up to 7 people.  I now ask that if more than one person proposes
> the topic, that one person takes the responsibility to be the point person,
> and that the circle that person's name.  Have others come accross a similar
> situation, and if so, any other responses.
>
> With respect from Afar,
>
> Jimbo