Wave Riders Gather in Western Australia

[Heidi Nobantu Saul]

G'Day Brendan and Michael,

Thanks so much for this sharing - enjoyed your story.

Say - any chance that Dr. Neil Preston has published/case studies any of his
research findings - that he is open to sharing?
I'm in conversation with a potential client in New Mexico (who meets all
requisite conditions for an Open Space) and I can imagine that pointing them
to something like this could inform their decision process - in a positive
way :-) 

Also loved the "From Tolley Pond to Billabong"  story

Cheers - from a sunny Sunday afternoon on Russian Hill in San Francisco.
Heidi

PS - Will head up to walk the Labyrinth at Grace later today.


Heidi Nobantu Saul
heidi at nobantu.com
Santa Fe & San Francisco

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Brendan
McKeague
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 8:57 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Wave Riders Gather in Western Australia

Hi folks

We had a great gathering of Wave Riders here in Perth, Western 
Australia, yesterday - about thirty people showed up to continue the 
momentum generated by the anticipation of Harrison's tour down-under 
(Harrison Owen Perth Experience - HOPE09), which as you know, has 
needed to be postponed until the right time.

I'm sorry to report that everyone had a great time - even without the 
man in the hat :-)
Harrison - we did miss you and honoured the presence of your spirit among
us!

First up, three people presented their stories around our theme of 
Leadership For High Performance in a Self Organising World - went like this:

1	For the first 90mins, Michael Wood gave his version of how 
organisational/systems thinking has changed over the past couple of 
decades - based on Wave Rider - a presentation with Ppt slides, 
inviting dialogue with the group - and generating a shared language 
around leadership, high performance and self-organisation.

2	After morning tea, we had two presenters, taking about 40 mins 
each: first (Dr) Neil Preston gave us solid, scientific stories about 
measuring the impact of OST meetings in organisations he's been 
working with and ways to help leverage the impact of the energy 
that's generated and captured through the Book of 
Proceedings...planting this deep within the organisational structure. 
Neil is an experienced Organisational Psychologist and has designed 
and recorded some great quantitative and qualitative evidence around 
self-organisation and health/well-being of people at work.

3	Then Kwame Selormey from a local community NGO, told the story: 
 From Tolley Pond to Billabong, about an OST meeting he helped 
sponsor in a town that was seeking to create a climate of inclusivity 
and participation in an area that was diverse and somewhat fractured. 
One indigenous woman who attended the meeting 'championed' an Action 
Plan for cleaning up the local pond that was being used for a dumping 
ground for rubbish and shopping trolleys from the local mall. The 
Local Council said it was the responsibility of the Shopping Mall - 
the Shopping Mall said it was the responsibility of the Local 
Council. The local action-initiating group decided to get on with the 
clean-up! (When the Local Council heard this was going ahead, they 
came in, without notice, and cleaned the pond up the day before the 
community had planned to do it - a face-saving exercise). No matter, 
the pond has now become a place of focus for local people to gather 
and generate a deeper sense of community - and to take responsibility 
for maintaining the beautification of what was an ugly eye-sore. And 
the initiatives keep on coming....a local, multicultural community 
market is starting up, young people are having a voice....

4	Then we had three hours of Open Space to consider the 'issues and 
opportunities' emerging out of our listening to these three 
stories...very rich conversations indeed.

We, the sponsoring group (now known as HOPEless09), have decided to 
keep this space open and will host a further two or three of these 
gatherings this year, providing opportunities to tell our own 
stories, to grow our own practice and to expand our understanding of 
'leadership for high performance in self-organising world' - and to 
support each other in our work of the 'practice of peace'....

As HO has often said, OST is a free gift to humanity, but it comes 
with a cost - we share what we learn.
And that's an easy and mutually enjoyable cost to pay....

Cheers
Brendan

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist