Personal presentation Bernd Weber

[WB-TrainConsult]

Dear OSLIST

I am back again at the list. Since I was not here for more than a
year, I would like to present myself again to this community before
describing the first OS related activities in Sofala/Mosambique in my
next posting to the oslist.

I am austrian. My academic background is physics. Since the early
70ies I worked as a science teacher for several years at different
levels of experimental schools, in secondary education and at the
university of Vienna. During these years I also worked "for fun" as a
trainer for group dynamics and then as a sistemic consultant for
organization development (representing a chaotic element of the then
emerging Austrian network of systemic practicioneers). All that time
I walked around between the educational system, the trainings- &
consultancy market and several political events (e.g. the Viennese
Arena movement) and tried to  find new solutions by cross-fertilizing
the different grounds in that triangle with concepts, methods and
instruments. In fact I produced quite a lot of irritation because
these segments of austrian society where quite isolated from each
others at that time. So I never spoke exactly the right language and
my 'barn-smell' was never really the right one.

The leftist political movement was not very interested in
professionalizing the question of self-organization by application of
systemic thinking. The established educational system was not really
prepared for action learning, the consultants did not go to the
places where self-organization took place and with exeption of one
mentor (Herbert Pietschmann), my collegues at the institutes of
physics did not understand at all, what I was up to. The situation
improved in the 80ies when systemic thinking and systemic styles of
intervention became a little more part of the mainstream.

In the early 90ies my wife Patrizia Bitter (she is specialized in
comparative educational sciences) and I decided to leave Europe and
continue to live and work in Africa. A two years training in OD by
the Beratergruppe Neuwaldegg/iff Univ. Klagenfurt (Austria) gave us
both the professional background to do the big jump.

In 1994 I left the Institute for Solid State Physics. Patrizia left
the Academy of Social Work and we both went to Cape Verde Islands
where we then worked mainly in the context of the Austrian
Development Cooperation. I started working mainly as a project
manager and trainer, 1995-98 I implemented a systemic training to
create a  pool of national consultants for small enterprises of the
10 inhabited islands of the arquipelago, and continued then after
establishing my own enterprise my activities in the area of systemic
training & OD consultancy. During these years in Cape Verde I started
working with OST and FSC on basis of bare literature knowledge and
common sense without having received a proper training in these
areas. As far as I can see, these approaches worked even so. I
applied them in several small and big group events, trying to combine
different methods according to the clients needs.

The biggest event was a national consensus conference for the reform
of the reform of the education and vocational training system of Cape
Verde with several hundred people in 2000 where we merged the
TeamUP-PCM method with FS.

We then moved on to the other side of the continent and continued in
Mozambique. Half a year later I got big health troubles and underwent
quite a life crisis. That is perhaps no story for the group but: just
at that moment (Nov 2000) I got the chance to participate at the
Open Space Learning Workshop with Harrison Owen in Großenzersdorf
near Vienna . Being still full of pain and personal grief at that
moment somehow everything I saw heard and felt there was a message
right to my heart and not to my head. I had come to the right people
at the right place at the right time, (although my doctor did not
like at all my going there instead of staying horizontal).

Instead of then going to OSonOS in Berlin as I had planned long
before 'my system had a shutdown' I reduced all my social contacts
drastically because I needed all my energy for my own transformation
and then my re-insertion into the market.

That's the reason, why I disappeared from all discussion lists (even
my own one), but now I am back again and  proud to announce that the
space was opened in the province of Sofala in Mosambique (see my next
posting)

Bernhard

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Bernd Weber wb-trainconsult at gmx.net, on 08.01.2002 at 21:13:03
Organization Development Consultant

"DEVELOP YOUR CAPACITIES - MATERIALIZE YOUR VISION"


C.P. 1462, Beira, Sofala, MOZAMBIQUE
fone: +258-3-32 98 59, cellfone:+258-82-43 79 77


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WB-TrainConsult
management- & human resources
training, consulting & development
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Gumpendorfer Straße 88b/18, AT-1060 Wien, AUSTRIA
fone & fax: +431 596 86 57
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