Open Space with an National Sporting Team (long)
Brendan McKeague
mckeague at iprimus.com.au
Wed May 14 21:14:33 PDT 2008
Hi folks
A friend of mine here in Western Australia, Sandy
Gordon, a sports psychologist at one of the local
universities, has been experimenting with the use
of Open Space since he first encountered the
process (and me!) a few years ago. He's recently
written an interesting article in the Feb 2008
edition of InsPsych, the bulletin of the
Australian Psychological Society about his
combination of Appreciative Inquiry and Open
Space with a national Cricket team.....a
fascinating story.....thanks Sandy....and I
wonder if there are any other stories about the
use of OS with professional, or other, sporting teams...???
Cheers
Brendan
(Howzat! = cricket slang for 'How is that, umpire'?)
Enhancing the team work of the Sri Lankan cricket team
A case study of applying Appreciative Inquiry
By Dr Sandy Gordon FAPS
School of Sport Science, Exercise and Health, The
University of Western Australia
This case study describes a strengths-based
approach to enhancing the teamwork of the Sri
Lankan cricket team prior to their April-July
2006 tour of England. As the team’s sport
psychologist I was asked to facilitate the first
team meeting upon our arrival in London. I chose
the theme ‘What gives life to Sri Lankan Cricket
when it is at its best?’ and used a combination
of ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ (AI), including ‘Naming
Elephants’ and ‘AI 4-D Cycle’, and ‘Open Space Technology’.
The Appreciative Inquiry process
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) was first
conceptualised in 1980 by doctoral student David
Cooperrider and his thesis supervisor Sruresh
Srivasta, who had both been engaged in an
organisation change project. Instead of detailing
root causes of failure, they learned to focus on
the root causes of success, and called their
approach ‘Appreciative Inquiry’. AI is
underpinned by core principles and core processes
that are understood to have emerged from
theoretical and research foundations grounded in
social constructionism, the ‘new’ sciences (e.g.,
positive psychology, chaos theory and
self-organising systems), and research on the
power of imagery (Cooperrider, Whitney, &
Stavros, 2005). For the purposes of this article,
AI is regarded as a positive, strengths-based
operational approach to change, learning and
development that seemed suitable to enhancing teamwork in professional cricket.
Various models and approaches for applying AI
have emerged including the ‘4-D Cycle’, which is
widely used and can be as rapid and informal as a
conversation with a colleague, or as formal as a
four-day organisation-wide process. In order of
presentation, the four key processes in the AI 4-D cycle are:
1. Discovery: Identifying the ‘best of what
has been or what is’ and supporting the clients’ belief in a positive future
2. Dream: Creating a clear results-oriented
vision in relation to discovered potential and
encouraging clients to conceive images of possibilities
3. Design: Creating possibility propositions
of the newly expressed dream and assisting
clients in bringing the dream into focus
4. Destiny: Strengthening the affirmative
capability of clients and helping them recognise the dream in the present.
At the centre of the cycle is the ‘affirmative
topic choice’ or theme, which is the starting
point and most strategic aspect of any AI process.
Appreciative Inquiry Coaching (AIC) is the
practical application of the core AI principles
and is highly effective for various coaching
purposes, e.g., leadership, development, and
working relationships. Table 1 lists the
assumptions of both AI and AIC about life, people
and the change process itself, which form the
basis of Orem, Binkert, and Clancy’s (2007, p.
26) model of Appreciative Coaching.
Table 1. Assumptions of Appreciative Inquiry
and Appreciative Coaching Inquiry
(Orem, Binkert, & Clancy, 2007)
· In every society, organisation,
group or individual something works
· What people focus on becomes their reality
· Reality is created in the moment,
and there are multiple realities
· The act of asking questions of an
organisation, group, or individual influences the
group or individual in some way
· People are more confident and
comfortable in their journey to the future (the
unknown) when they carry forward parts of the past (the known)
· If people carry parts of the past
forward, those parts should be what is best about the past
· It is important to value differences
· The language people use creates their reality
Sri Lankan teamwork breakdown
Having been appointed to Sri Lankan Cricket in
June 2005 and toured with the team in Sri Lanka
and Australia later that year, I observed that
most players did not speak up when opportunities
arose at meetings, and younger players in
particular didn’t appear to either want to or
know how to say what they felt. This was just one
example of poor teamwork and effectively shut
down possibilities for innovative ideas from
younger players who possessed exciting potential.
I suggested to the coach that, prior to an AI
team meeting, that I engage the players in
‘Naming Elephants’ (Hammond & Mayfield, 2004),
which is a metaphor for making implicit issues
explicit, bringing certain Sri Lankan Cricket
‘undiscussables’ into the open, or having ‘difficult conversations’.
The intent of the workshop was to learn how to
name and recognise unnamed ‘Elephants’, to
understand the primary benefit of naming them
(i.e., innovation and taking action), and to
learn from each other, not to attack or blame.
The rules were simple: expect and respect
different points of view; avoid trying to
identify who wrote what; and avoid naming names –
if the ‘Elephant’ is a person, only describe his
behaviour and its impact on Sri Lankan Cricket.
For Step 1 of the workshop, I asked them: “What
are the ‘things’ we aren’t openly talking about
as a team that you think we should be talking
about?”. Players wrote one ‘undiscussable’ per
sheet of paper in pencil and could write as many
as they liked in 5-10 minutes before returning
all sheets to me. In Step 2, I read out each
sheet and together we grouped those items that
seemed related and came up with a name for each
category. In 10-15 minutes I also asked the
players to clarify what the ‘Elephant’ category
looked like in behavioural terms and its impact
or cost to Sri Lankan Cricket. Finally in Step 3,
I spent 10-15 minutes enquiring about solutions
and asking: “What do we propose to do about it?”.
In less than 60 minutes, 15 players produced 18
sheets of paper, 13 of which identified the same
‘Elephant’, namely “intimidation, negative and
pessimistic communication to junior players by
senior players generally”. The impact of this
behaviour was “lower morale among junior players
who emotionally switched off and suppressed ideas
and thoughts of voicing contributions”. In
addition to meeting all workshop intentions, this
session created a much safer environment at
subsequent team meetings for younger players to
offer innovative suggestions and ideas about both
individual and team work. It was clear to me that
‘Naming Elephants’ was an essential precursor to the meeting that followed.
Adding ‘Open Space Technology’ to the AI team meeting
Later, during the same AI team meeting and after
the Discovery phase, I introduced the four
Principles and one Law of ‘Open Space Technology’
(OST), which Harrison Owen (1997) first developed
in 1984. OST has since been used around the world
with all types of organisations including
corporations, community groups, government
agencies, schools and churches, and with groups
of 5-2500 people (Bunker & Alban, 2006). I had
trained as an OST facilitator in Perth and had
previously used it with the Western Australian
Cricket Association, however, this was my first
opportunity to combine AI with OST. While the
former provides clear and powerful direction
using questions that connect participants with
each other as they discover universal stories
about ‘What gives them life?’, the latter allows
freedom to learn from and listen to others who
share the same heart, passion and responsibility for their collective future.
I used the following OST Principles during the
Dream and Design phases within the AI 4-D Cycle.
OST begins with an invitation to participants to
attend. Players were also invited to form a
circle so, without a word spoken, no hierarchy
was evident in the team room. OST is guided by
four Principles and one Law and each in their own
way advanced the appreciative team environment.
The first Principle of OST, ‘Whoever comes is the
right people’, reminded players that they cared
enough to come to discuss the session theme (What
gives life to Sri Lankan cricket when it is at
its best?). The second Principle, ‘Whatever
happens is the only thing that could have’,
focused their attention on the present moment.
The third Principle, ‘Whenever it starts is the
right time’, and the flip-side fourth Principle,
‘When it’s over it’s over’, provided a beginning,
middle and end structure to all discussions. The
one ‘Law of Two Feet’, meant that at any time
players who felt that they were neither learning
or contributing could use their two feet to go
somewhere else and do something more useful, such
as visit another group discussion or simply have
time out. Both the Principles and Law gave the
players permission to self-organise and say and
do what they wanted in the time available. The
invitation was to be fully and completely
themselves as they discussed ‘what gives life to
their batting, bowling, fielding, training, and
off-field social activities, when it is at its best?’.
The meeting ran for five hours (three hours over
schedule), nobody left the room, and both senior
management and senior players rated it as the
“best team meeting ever”. Sri Lanka subsequently
drew the three Test series 1-1 and white washed
England 5-0 in One Day Internationals, their best
overseas tour performance in 25 years.
Applications of AI in other settings
Both Kelm (2005) and Stavros and Torres (2005)
appear to have made transferable applications of
AI to enhancing daily living convincingly
possible, and examples of ‘success stories’ in
business and workplace settings are available at
<http://www.aiconsulting.org/>www.aiconsulting.org/.
I believe strengths-based strategies like
Appreciative Inquiry are ideally suited for
helping teams enhance their teamwork and, in
addition to the references listed below, I
encourage those charged with the responsibility
of coordinating coaching and leadership
development programs to browse the resources on
the AI Commons website
(<http://www.appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/>www.appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/).
References
Bunker, B. B., & Alban, B. T. (2006). The
handbook of large group methods: Creating
systemic changein organizations and
communities. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Cooperrider, D. L., Whitney, D., & Stavros, J. M.
(2005). Appreciative inquiry handbook: The first
in a series of AI workbooks for leaders of
change. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.
Hammond, S. A., & Mayfield, A. B. (2004). The
thin book of naming elephants: How to
surface undiscussables for greater
organizational success. Bend, OR: Thin Book
Publishing.
Kelm, J. B. (2005). Appreciative living: The
principles of Appreciative Inquiry in personal life. Wake Forest, NC: Venet.
Orem, S. L., Binkert, J., & Clancy, A. L. (2007).
Appreciative coaching: A positive process for
change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Owen, H. (1997). Expanding our now: The story of
Open Space Technology. San Francisco,
CA: Berrett-Koehler.
Stavros, J. M. & Torres, C. B. (2005). Dynamic
relationships: Unleashing the power of
appreciative inquiry in daily living. Chagrin Falls, OH: Taos Institute.
*
*
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