intro & question-visioning during opening of OS?

[BrendanMcKeague]

What an interesting conversation - thanks folks.

Last week I worked with a Senior Management Team of a local govt dept -
eighteen good souls in all who had invited me to facilitate a day to review
the way they met together during the past 12 months and seek to agree on
some principals and protocols for meetings  in the next year - there was a
bit of conflict around - especially in the area of 'being versus doing'
during their monthly meetings - nothing too serious that I could detect -
just some normal tensions associated with the usual chaos, conflict and
confusion that denotes the presence and absence of peace....:)

Anyway - I suggested a morning of 'storytelling' using an Appreciative
Inquiry approach - in pairs to begin with - identifying and illustrating in
specific stories, the highlights of their meetings - what worked really
well and made them glad to be part of such a great team (I have worked with
these folks before and knew this to be true) and what they would like to
change about the way they met in order to make their team function even
better...then twos paired up with others to make fours and shared stories,
drew up a 'collective story' (on the usual flipchart) and then created a
short 3 min presentation expressing the essence of their collective story
in drama, poetry, song, whatever...

It was a great morning - lots of 'truth-telling' and honoring each other's
stories rounded off with performances worthy of the theatre...
Then after a good solid 1.5 hour lunch break, we opened space for 3 hours
on "What do we need to do next to create meaningful meetings for 2004?"  -
3x45 min conversation slots, 30 min convergence and action planning and
closing circle...a grand day for all concerned with flowing affirmations to
finish - before joining together for a convivial BBQ

This combination worked really well here - I like the AI/storytelling
approach - it gets the group into the heart of their vision and values
without saying 'now we are going to look at our vision and values' - a wee
bit of a subtle ploy - however, it works and provides a wonderful platform
from which the future can emerge....it fits well with OS as it says to the
group quite clearly 'you already have the wisdom to know what you need to
make this work better for you' - and thus it will be....

One valuable feedback comment I received afterwards from the Director who
thought it would have been useful to focus on 'what do I need to let go of'
somewhere in the middle of the day - to ritualise the letting go what we no
longer needed as a Team - good suggestion for my next attempt

Cheers
Brendan



At 05:16 AM 11-12-2003 -0800, you wrote:
>Jennifer-- When it seems appropriate, I sometimes combine Open Space
>with Appreciative Inquiry (AI). AI has a visioning activity called
>"provocative propositions" that produces creative future statements
>that become topics in the open space. I'd be happy to say more off
>list. Best --BJ

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