Another Bit OST in Nashville

[Barry Owen]

Below is a recap of yesterday's work . . . This group is the 2nd office in a series of several Open Space events for our real estate firm - The participants are Leadership, office staff, and agents (who are independent contractors). The particular challenges are that the agents don't necessarily inherently realize apparent derived benefit from them plugging into the development of the office . . . With this particular firm, there IS, in fact, benefit to any/all agents for max number of folks plugging in. . . Here goes . . . 

Today was a very full day. It was the day of a full day in Open Space with an organization which was in need of a "boost." The leadership was tired. The members were a bit confused because the flavor (energy) of the place had deteriorated significantly in the past 12 months and no-one really knew why. We had @ 35 of the 140 members show up for the event. The opening was as smooth as they come. Knowing the potential for a "charged atmosphere" I had spent the past couple of days preparing myself for as flawless an opening as I could muster. I co-mingled my "standard" opening with some ideas from Michael Herman's website and interspersed with a small dose of Chris Corrigan's stuff along with Harrison Owen's User Guide Script . . . It all mish-mashed together quite nicely.

I realized that the critical component of this particular Open Space would be the strong emphasis on the need for changing the current course. This group was looking for instant gratification, and there were several members of the group who were less than enthusiastic about having the event at all. The group was faced with the grim task of working for 8 hours and emerging with true ACTION PLANS. My assessment is that they did it. Open Space DOES always work.

I heard one random comment: "WOW, this issue has been an issue for YEARS, and it took 1 hour of Open Spaces to resolve it." Another person had the profound AHA that the right people were in the room (There had been some discussion that many of the "leaders" had chosen not to show up). I take great pride in seeing a group of people coming into their own right there before my very eyes. It was nothing short of magical. 14 Issues were posted, and I estimate that over 50 folks participated throughout the day. The closing was nothing short of POWERFUL. This group has realized what needs to be done and left that space with a new-found resolve to sustain the energy and implement ALL of the action items they identified. Our next step will be prioritization followed immediately by the generation of an organizational 411.

At the end of the day, I am completely sacked. That was hard work. I invested every ounce of my available energy into the holding of that space and limped home afterwards . . . It was well worth the experience because I believe this organization will soon find its original luster and will soar. When I left, the wine was flowing and the group was doing what it needed most - having a PARTY! VOILA! CULTURE!


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Barry Owen 
Principal Broker 
The Owen Group 
Keller Williams Realty 
30 Burton Hills Blvd STE 175 
Nashville, TN 37215 
615.568.2123 
Skype: barryo06 
www.theowengroup.net 
Visit my BLOG @ http://creatingspaces.blogspot.com/ 

Keller Williams Realty is a learning-based training & Consulting company supporting our REALTOR partners by offering business models, systems, tools, & support to Build Careers WORTH having, Businesses WORTH Owning, and Lives Worth Living!

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