Question: Between Groups

John Dicus jdicus at ourfuture.com
Fri Nov 2 09:58:49 PST 2001


Hello everyone,

Periodically, I work with an group that uses one-day OST "events" as a
beginning point for other services that they provide to client organizations.

When the client organization is large, we offer multiple one-day Open Space
gatherings for the entire organization.  Participation is voluntary, and
employees choose which of the two or three one-day events they wish to attend.

We make all outcomes available to all participants, as well as to the
entire organization, via internet/intranet when the last session is completed.

We normally don't influence the second or third day's participants by
letting them see the topics from previous days.  Although the word gets
around on it's own to some degree.  The thinking is that we want each group
to come in with their own hopes and thoughts, beginning with a clean sheet.
 And as you might expect, each day has a life of it's own.

Nothing is "broke," but I'm wondering.  Especially when you see what
happens when one is fortunate enough to have additional days with the same
group.  The organizations in question here, though, have operational
continuity issues and size is often an issue.  So one-day events are what
we're choosing to deal with.

The questions are...

-  Have you experienced sharing the topics/conversations with a
second/third group, and what was the result (pros and cons)?

-  What ways would you consider weaving the groups together, progressively.
 I'm thinking that there's a paradox in that sharing too much will put
unwanted expectations on each successive group.  But I'm also thinking
there's an opportunity being presented to let successive group go
further/deeper into what's possible for their organization.

I'm not reluctant to experiment on my own behalf because there's lots of
opportunities to adjust in the future based on what happens.  But on the
other hand, it may be the client's only opportunity (in the near term) to
get some good things going for them

Thanks,

John

--






John Dicus  |  CornerStone Consulting Associates
- Leadership - Systems Thinking - Teamwork - Open Space - Electric Maze -
2761 Stiegler Road, Valley City, OH 44280
800-773-8017  |  330-725-2728 (2729 fax)
mailto:jdicus at ourfuture.com  |  http://www.ourfuture.com

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