OZZON reflections (long)

Sat May 27 10:45:04 PDT 2006

Hi Raffi,

Two things from my experience come to mind in reading your latest post.

1) I invited others to an os event and had between 5 and 8 people  
over the course of a day. While I did the inviting, because that was  
my passion, I did not open or hold the space. Whenever a client asks  
me if they should sit back and let the "people" work while they help  
to support the process, I tell them that they need to be a  
participant of the OS as much as anyone else that has passion around  
the invitation and that I will hold the space and provide the support  
during the OS. Once the group is moving back into the existing  
structure is when they need the support from you (the client) in  
action going forward. Why would you not take the same advise for  
yourself? Even if the person holding the space is doing it for the   
first time, spirit will provide. And if for some reason the  
participants feel "lost" there is at least one experienced OS person  
to lead by example.

2) Maureen and I have yet to "market" OS, and we never plan to do so.  
The stories of OS seem to do the marketing for us. Since we love OS  
and have experienced it's power, we talk about it. Others hear about  
it and they want to know more. So we talk more. When we get closer to  
being employed to hold an OS we sometimes provide a pdf slide show to  
help the client tell the story to others in the organization. And  
usually a good invitation will get people to come to an event, not  
the fact that we're using OS to hold it.

And a third thought has just entered my mind - what great learning  
you had in holding your first planning meeting - discover what you've  
learned and go out and tell stories and give out invitations...

Have fun talking about and doing what you love and others will notice...

Thanks for all your postings!

with grace and love,

Zelle

Zelle Nelson
Engaging the Soul at Work/State of Grace Document/Know Place Like Home

www.stateofgracedocument.com

zelle at knowplacelikehome.com

work/home: 828.693.0802
mobile: 847.951.7030

Isle of Skye
2021 Greenville Hwy
Flat Rock, NC 28731
USA

On May 27, 2006, at 10:52 AM, Raffi Aftandelian wrote:

> Dear fellow space-holders,
>
> Today's story goes back a few years. I recall Chris Corrigan (hi
> Chris!)'s words from a thread from the Genuine Contact listserv (and
> maybe here) called "the Tao of Marketing" where he elaborated about
> how if you want to "sell" OS the best and most logical way of doing
> that is by offering an experience of that.
>
> So, it is curious for me, Chris, when you wrote recently about your
> doubts of making it to the Holy Grail of working with companies. Yes,
> there are many reasons why companies may not be ready for the real
> control that OST offers, but I have been holding your wisdom for a few
> years now. And I admit, I have still rather FIV+ (flatland
> immunodeficiency virus positive) thinking to want to sell OST...
>
> The other pre-piece to this story is that in the course of informing
> people around Moscow about the upcoming OSonOS, I have visited many
> professional clubs for corporate trainers, HR-managers, and
> consultants. And it has been almost painful to sit through these
> meetings where experience non-sharing is called experience sharing.
> Not much os.
>
> Hence the idea of OZZON, which had its first meeting today.
>
> OZZON, a quirky abbreviation for "Zona orgzdovorya" (Zone for
> organizational health) in Russian, is my
> project aimed at bringing organizational health into the mainstream in
> Moscow. Like most ideas that I imagine will work it is very obvious:
> if we want to talk about organizational health, people need to have an
> experience of it. And to have a holistic experience of it, you need to
> bring together all those who are part of the system/organism.  
> OZZON, then, is a
> regular monthly space inviting corporate trainers, consultants,  
> coaches, HR-managers,
> and anyone else with the passion for this topic to exchange experience
> of organizational health.
>
> Today was a planning meeting, to see what should OZZON be. It was
> advertised widely, many people said they wanted to come. And at the
> time the bells rang, we had a grand total of 4 (four)! Did anyone
> promise that it would be simple to live according to "Whoever
> comes..."? Nope, didn't read that anywhere.
>
> I had put a lot of love and energy in organizing it. Too much perhaps?
> And along the way unexpected and pleasant pieces of support. One
> trainer helped me conceive this graphical invitation
>
> http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6164/1604/1600/proekt%20ozzon.jpg
>
> We had one HR-manager, two corporate trainers, and a representative
> from an online HR-resource (a subsidiary of a local equivalent of
> Berrett-Koehler books). The online resource was very keen on
> advertising the event and intend on putting up a mini-report
> post-event.
>
> I experimented for the first time in participating while facilitating.
> It was great to experiment in a low risk setting and see that mixing
> those roles does warp the space.
>
> Before formally opening the space, I gave a little introduction about
> myself and qualified my opening by explaining that the language I
> intend to use will not only be adult language, but also childlike and
> adolescent language: organizational health and balance, I explained,
> is too serious a matter to leave only to adults. I forgot to say,
> however, that organizational health is so simple that really it's
> child play.
>
> Then, I explained that the serious part of my presentation would begin
> now: To give a definition of organizational health we need to first
> answer the question, "Why am I on planet Earth?"- a question we all
> answer, I imagine, whether or not we are philosophical. My best guess
> at age 36 is: "To have a ball (lots of fun), learn hard, and be of
> use." If we take that as a given, then, my the job of organizations be
> to serve that purpose? If so, might the definition of organizational
> health and balance be- the ongoing experience of high play and high
> learning in organizations?. We did a fill-in-the-blank hangman game  
> to guess "high play
> and high learning". The winner got a plastic crab.
>
> Then I said the nonserious part of the presentation would begin:
> Went through Marv Weisbord and Sandra Janoff's learning curve- how
> society solves problems. (and explained, that while I think Marv and
> Sandra are great fun people, Future Search is kind of like creating a
> Harley Davidson and Bentley hybrid, creating a bicycle out of the
> hybrid, adding solar-cells, make it run on gas. And then exclaiming
> that it works it works in wonder.) Then went on to Ken's 4 Quadrants
> and how we confuse the Internet with progress. And that lower-left
> quadrant is having a very hard time playing catch-up with lower-right.
> And that we probably can't talk of rapid progress right now, but  
> rather that
> we are falling behind, going backward at a frightening pace. And that
> the job of orghealth is to reinhabit the lower-left.
>
> I also talked about how with the rise of lgit's in the late 80's a
> first tombstone was placed to the still lucrative forms of non-work
> (work=fun; so, as a Jo Toepfer says, "if it ain't fun, it ain't
> work.") called training and consulting.
>
> After which I opened the space-
> And the group of four generated some 10 topics which they sat and
> discussed leisurely without taking a break for 4 hours-
>
> They discussed-
> - the application of western HR technologies in Russian and their
> successful adaptation
>
> - developing a culture of responsibility
>
> - which trainings work
> - staff evaluation
> - and many other things.
>
> I think some of the discussion highlights for me were:]
>
> 1. A discussion on responsibility. I have been wondering what
> responsibility is recently. And here we found ourselves talking about
> the apparent culture of irresponsibility in Russian companies. I  
> offerred that we
> break this down. We got: "indifference, what if-ness, carelessness,
> dependency," and a number of other juicy qualities.
>
> This got me thinking that the first OZZON meeting should have the
> topic:
>
> Indifference, carelessness, freebe-ism, dependency- impeccable  
> irresponsibility as
> the unique path of Russian companies to responsibility: issues and
> opportunities"
>
> It also got me thinking about how much of our discussion focused on
> what's wrong with Russian business. It was pleasant to see eyes light
> up when I suggested maybe we'd get a lot more information if we asked
> ourselves, "What's right with Russian business?", growing that
> appreciative core (I'm looking forward to the Moscow AI learning
> workshop here in June).
>
> 2. Service- i have been wondering what service is recently. And
> OZZON's first meeting gave an answer= it's the ability to say thank
> you to Spirit and creation for the opportunity to share my original
> medicine with a much smaller group than I expected.
>
>
>
> We all learned today, we all enjoyed ourselves. And we were all
> stretched beyond our comfort zone.
>
> Here are some flickr highlights.
>
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154163370/
>
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154163394/
>
> reflection of four org'l archetypes in closing
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154163157/
>
> participants
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154163086/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154162833/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154162770/
>
> Hats off to Spirit!
>
> In iodized granularity,
> raffi
>
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