Advice needed for third day
CLF2 at aol.com
CLF2 at aol.com
Tue May 30 10:37:43 PDT 2000
Hi everybody
I am hoping the OS Listserve can help me with the "third day" process. I
have been asked to propose to a regional human service nonprofit
organization, a process that will give them a vision and issues and actions
for serving the community for the next 10 years. The client wants to involve
200-250 stakeholders'''' within the county it serves, and would like the
participants to offer to the client organization, what they see as the needs
of the community and how should the organization help the community meet the
needs, in a ten year period. The convening issue will be something like: "Wh
at should the XXX Regional Human Service Organization do now and in the
future to serve the needs of families and individuals in Contra Costa County
10 years from now?"
I think this is a perfect opportunity for an OS meeting and will propose
that. However, I am a bit stumped on the third day. While I do see the
value in printing books on the evening of the second day, and giving them to
the participants on the third day to vote on the top ten issues the
organization should be addressing, does it make sense to have the
participants develop a list of actions for each of those top 10, given the
fact that they are not employees of the organization? The reason, by the
way, the president wants input of the community (and not of the
organization's staff) is because the organization is in the business of
serving the committee, thus, he figures it's best to start with the
communities sense of their needs, instead of what the staff thinks the
community needs are.
Any help with this I will surely appreciate, and if you have additional
thoughts on the design besides my day three question, I would be grateful.
If you wish, I will keep you up to date. One final thing, if anyone would
like a copy of my proposal that can be used as a template, let me know and I
will send it along (or post somewhere??)
Craig LaFargue
Antioch Consulting Group
>From Tue May 30 11:24:36 2000
Message-Id: <TUE.30.MAY.2000.112436.0700.>
Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 11:24:36 -0700
Reply-To: ebell at cwia.com
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: Elizabeth Bell <ebell at cwia.com>
Subject: Re: OS in Asia
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854";
x-mac-creator="4D4F5353"
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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
>From Tue May 30 11:32:37 2000
Message-Id: <TUE.30.MAY.2000.113237.0700.>
Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 11:32:37 -0700
Reply-To: ebell at cwia.com
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: Elizabeth Bell <ebell at cwia.com>
Subject: Re: OS in Asia
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Terry, Thanx for asking about the LENS technology. I would also be
interested in knowing more about that.
Elizabeth Bell
Sacramento CA
Terry Gibson wrote:
> Some very interesting wise words have been said in this thread around
> the reductionism of voting. Particularly appreciated Robert's
> contribution but was stumped by his reference to a consensus
> methodology called LENS. Any chance you could spell this out for us,
> Robert? Terry Gibson ----- Original Message -----
>
> From: Robert.Chaffe at NRE.VIC.GOV.AU
> To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> Sent: Monday, May 29, 2000 1:08 AM
> Subject: Re: OS in Asia
>
> (snip)
>
> What I think we are trying to say is," What are the things
> we must
> work on now to move to our agreed "Vision". Voting gets
> you to this quickly
> but at a price. The price is that you are now in a "win -
> loose" situation
> compared with a "win- win" in Open Space. The best way
> around this situation
> that I have used is the LENS method described in the
> "Technology of
> Participation". It take 90 minutes or if you are quick, one
> and a half hours.
> The method works by consensus and building a framework that
> includes all ideas
> in the outputs but clearly identifies the critical outcomes
> if the group is to
> reach its agreed vision.
> (snip)
>
> Regards
> Robert
>
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Terry, Thanx for asking about the LENS technology. I would also be interested
in knowing more about that.
<p>Elizabeth Bell
<br>Sacramento CA
<p>Terry Gibson wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE><style></style>
Some very interesting wise words
have been said in this thread around the reductionism of voting. Particularly
appreciated Robert's contribution but was stumped by his reference to a
consensus methodology called LENS. Any chance you could spell this out
for us, Robert? Terry Gibson ----- Original Message -----
<blockquote
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px">
<div
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><b>From:</b>
<a href="mailto:Robert.Chaffe at NRE.VIC.GOV.AU" title="Robert.Chaffe at NRE.VIC.GOV.AU">Robert.Chaffe at NRE.VIC.GOV.AU</a></div>
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial"><b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU" title="OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU">OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU</a></div>
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial"><b>Sent:</b> Monday, May 29, 2000 1:08 AM</div>
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial"><b>Subject:</b> Re: OS in Asia</div>
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial"> </div>
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial"><font face="Times New Roman"><font size=+0>(snip)</font></font></div>
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial"> </div>
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial">What I think we are trying to say is," What
are the things we must
<br>work on now to move to our agreed "Vision". Voting
gets you to this quickly
<br>but at a price. The price is that you are now in a "win - loose"
situation
<br>compared with a "win- win" in Open Space. The best way
around this situation
<br>that I have used is the LENS method described in the "Technology of
<br>Participation". It take 90 minutes or if you are quick, one and
a half hours.
<br>The method works by consensus and building a framework that includes
all ideas
<br>in the outputs but clearly identifies the critical outcomes if the
group is to
<br>reach its agreed vision.</div>
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial"><font face="Times New Roman"><font size=+0>(snip)</font></font></div>
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial"> </div>
<div style="FONT: 10pt arial">Regards
<br>Robert</div>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>
--------------100FFB32DB2F67B6AF7E94D6--
>From Tue May 30 11:40:43 2000
Message-Id: <TUE.30.MAY.2000.114043.0700.>
Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 11:40:43 -0700
Reply-To: ebell at cwia.com
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: Elizabeth Bell <ebell at cwia.com>
Subject: Re: Advice needed for third day
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854";
x-mac-creator="4D4F5353"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Hi Craig, Great to see your name and the exciting possibility you have here.
Question is the group only community folks or will the staff also be involved?
Seems like it would be useful for everyone to be in the room at the same time --
that might alter your question.
Elizabeth Bell
CLF2 at aol.com wrote:
> Hi everybody
>
> I am hoping the OS Listserve can help me with the "third day" process. I
> have been asked to propose to a regional human service nonprofit
> organization, a process that will give them a vision and issues and actions
> for serving the community for the next 10 years. The client wants to involve
> 200-250 stakeholders'''' within the county it serves, and would like the
> participants to offer to the client organization, what they see as the needs
> of the community and how should the organization help the community meet the
> needs, in a ten year period. The convening issue will be something like: "Wh
> at should the XXX Regional Human Service Organization do now and in the
> future to serve the needs of families and individuals in Contra Costa County
> 10 years from now?"
>
> I think this is a perfect opportunity for an OS meeting and will propose
> that. However, I am a bit stumped on the third day. While I do see the
> value in printing books on the evening of the second day, and giving them to
> the participants on the third day to vote on the top ten issues the
> organization should be addressing, does it make sense to have the
> participants develop a list of actions for each of those top 10, given the
> fact that they are not employees of the organization? The reason, by the
> way, the president wants input of the community (and not of the
> organization's staff) is because the organization is in the business of
> serving the committee, thus, he figures it's best to start with the
> communities sense of their needs, instead of what the staff thinks the
> community needs are.
>
> Any help with this I will surely appreciate, and if you have additional
> thoughts on the design besides my day three question, I would be grateful.
> If you wish, I will keep you up to date. One final thing, if anyone would
> like a copy of my proposal that can be used as a template, let me know and I
> will send it along (or post somewhere??)
>
> Craig LaFargue
> Antioch Consulting Group
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