Ideas wanted for book on happiness at work; report from the field

Gerard Muller gm at openspace.dk
Tue Sep 30 04:00:56 PDT 2003


Dear Alexander, dear all,

This weekend I facilitated an event in Austria for an international group
of managers of a multionational that has had a couple of mergers and
acquisitions

One of the groups came up with the following. I don’t know if it’s a quote
or they did it, but here it is, and it seems to me it has relevanmce for
happiness at work.

Never spread mistrus around you

- where there is trust, there is transparancy, honesty, happiness, laughter
and energy
- where there is no trust, there is mistrust, politicking, ulterior
motives, suspicion
  and deceit
- trust is the foundation of all human relations
- trust cannot be forced. It must be born and grow in strength as a result
of transparency and honesty




Gerard Muller
Open Space Institute Denmark





Alexander Kjerulf wrote:

> Hi
>
> I need your help: I'm currently writing a book about happiness at work.
> The book is directed at both managers and employees, and should give the
> reader a better understanding of what makes people happy at work, as
> well as a lot of practical tools to use.
>
> If you were reading such a book, what would you like to see in it? Drop
> me a comment if you have any ideas - good or bad :o)
>
> The reason I ask this question on this list, is that I believe there is
> a huge overlap between opening space and being happy at work, and the
> book will explore that, as well as many other themes.
>
> Oh, and here's a bonus challenge: Can you give me a better phrase than
> "happiness at work"? In danish we have the word arbejdsglaede meaning
> workhappiness. I find it interesting that this word exists in danish
> (and swedish) and not in, say, english, french or german.
>
> The book is part of my "happiness at work" project, a non-profit, open
> source, open space organization that promotes happiness at work (more
> info here: http://www.kjerulf.com/projectshappinessatwork.htm).
>
> Cheers
>
> Alexander
>
> --
> Alexander Kjerulf
> www.kjerulf.com
> alexander at kjerulf.com
> Tagensvej 126, lejl. 102
> 2200 København N.
> +45 2688 2373
>
> Trænger du til noget arbejdsglæde? Kender du nogen som gør?
> www.projektarbejdsglaede.dk
>
> *
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>From  Tue Sep 30 09:29:47 2003
Message-Id: <TUE.30.SEP.2003.092947.0700.>
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 09:29:47 -0700
Reply-To: chris at chriscorrigan.com
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: Chris Corrigan <chris at chriscorrigan.com>
Subject: Re: pre-spacing
In-Reply-To: <a05100301bb9f0ae2cf95@[158.152.160.156]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

In a round about way I have done one OST that had pre-posted sessions,
but it was more the result of last minute changes than anything.  Here's
what happened.

I was once asked to come in a late date and help "save" a conference
that was not being planned very well.  The person in charge of the
agenda had booked 2.5 days full of half hour presentations: eight each
morning and eight each afternoon.  The planning committee was in a jam.
There was no way to schedule discussion and the presenters had all been
booked and confirmed and no one relished the thoughts of sitting through
2.5 days of 24 power point presentations in a dark room with no breaks
or conversation.

They contacted me to see what we could do with open space, and after a
few discussions we decided to turn the conference inside out.  We kept
all the presenters on the agenda, but we made the presentation centre
only one of the places people could go during the conference.  We sent
out the invitation again saying that we were combining presentations
with conversation and that p[people should come prepared to post topics
with questions or best practices.

We set up the conference site with one corner of the ballroom laid out
with a few rows of chairs, a screen and a projector.  All the sessions
that were scheduled for presentations would happen there.  A schedule
was posted at the presentations centre and another posted on the agenda
wall.  To give time for the opening, we moved the whole schedule up an
hour and had people present straight through lunch, which worked pretty
well.  Day one, we opened the usual way and people convened hour long
sessions during which two presentations ran.

There were two interesting things that happened.  First, the
presentations ran predictably over time, meaning that there were still
presentations happening at the end of the day during which people were
wandering off.  This made for a difficult situation with respect to
evening news, so we just did it with the few people that were left.

The other thing that happened was that the Law of Two Feet had some
interesting consequences.  One woman who was on the planning committee,
and who had agreed to the new format, was planning a comprehensive
presentation on something that a lot of people secretly found boring.
She had, some felt, unfairly put herself on the agenda, stating that
everyone at the conference SHOULD want to hear about her stuff.

Of course when it came time for her presentation she was alone.  She
came to me and asked me to do something about it.  I suggested she use
the mic to announce that her presentation was starting.  She declined
the opportunity.  She was angry until we talked together about the Law
of Two Feet and what it means when no one comes to your session.  She
reflected on this and together we talked about why people might have
chosen to go elsewhere.  She finally decided that the work she was doing
was just not what people were ready for.  She continued to work on that
material for many more years, and I know it had important implications
for policy making in Canada, but the general public was turned off by
it.

There are people in the world who do things that none of us would rather
know about.  Income security policy may well be one of those things.
But when it comes time to rely on income security programs, we are glad
someone thought to do it in the first place.  Just don't expect it to be
a big draw in Open Space.

---
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Bowen Island, BC, Canada
http://www.chriscorrigan.com
chris at chriscorrigan.com

(604) 947-9236






> -----Original Message-----
> From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of
kerry
> napuk
> Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 3:43 AM
> To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> Subject: Re: pre-spacing
>
> Tim
>
> I wouldn't muck about with the process for two reasons:
>
> 1. If you mix pre-posting with positing on the day, it will diminish
> the tension and excitement of self organising.
>
> 2. It will interfere with people sparking off one another, raising
> new burning issues in real time.
>
> Maybe you can tell the sponsor that it would undermine the process's
> effectiveness and interfere with the desired outcomes.
>
> You might want a co-facilitator to lower the pressure on you and help
> things move smoothly.  Otherwise, you will need more of everything
> and additional time for people to move from one place to another.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Cheers
>
> Kerry
> Open Futures
> Edinburgh
> --
>
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> OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
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> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
> view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu,
> Visit:
>
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