convergence query
Peggy Holman
peggy at opencirclecompany.com
Fri Apr 10 16:08:10 PDT 2009
Since others have spoken to the question of control/engagement, I won't.
Over the last year or two, I've been playing with approaches to
convergence. I've noticed three situations with different centers of
gravity:
* The focus is on individual action
People come from all over and/or the main need is to follow the energy
of individual passion.
Re-opening the space with a "what's next?" question always works well.
An alternative: In our Journalism that Matters sessions, Stephen
Silha introduced the idea of coaching circles. Clusters of 4-6 form
in some self-organizing way. Each person who wants to, shares an idea
and gets feedback. Someone takes notes for them. Everyone gets a
chance to vet their ideas and learn from others.
* The focus is on collective action
People come primarily from one organization or there is an intuition
that people from all over have something of substance to do together.
Re-opening the space with a "what's our work together?" sort of
question surfaces both projects with great support and the outliers
that are principally individuals with the energy to pursue what they
desire. Everyone gets to work following their passion. And they
discover where there is substantial shared energy for next steps.
* Collective meaning making and action
Both working with complex ideas (like the "story field") and working
the system of journalism over the last several years (see www.journalismthatmatters.org
) has led me to a desire to find simple ways to surface useful
collective understandings, to see what is ripe to name among a diverse
group. So I've been experimenting with low-key ways of doing that.
My bias is that to do so begins with individual passion and
responsibility and seeks resonance at increasing scale. Here are two
approaches I've played with that do that:
One is a bit of a game, but it's quick (about 20 minutes) and does
seem to produce useful results. It is something of a face to face
version of some of the algorithms used for ranking online. I was
introduced to it by a Playback Theatre person. We used it at the end
of a one-day conference I keynoted last year and I've used it with
journalists. The ideas that surface really do seem to have legs. It
is called Thirty-five. It starts with each person writing something
in response to a question seeking coherence (e.g., What do we now know
about working in the new news ecology?). People then walk around
swapping cards and periodically stopping with another person to read
each other the cards they're holding and splitting 7 points between
the cards. At the end of 5 rounds, the points are totaled (7x5 = 35
max points). Reading the 2-9 top scoring cards seems to surface what
has meaning to many in the room. See http://www.thiagi.com/pfp/IE4H/march2008.html#Framegame
for details.
Another approach I've used before opening the space for convergence
also begins with individual reflections. For example, with
journalists, I've asked them to write a story in which they see
themselves working in the "new news ecology". They take about 15
minutes of time by themselves. Then they share stories in groups of
3-5. Each group then generates one statement, with room for "wild
cards" ensuring room for what individuals feel passionate about.
Statements are read out loud and posted around the room. People
literally take a stand for what has most resonance. It gives quite a
visual hit of where the energy is. At the most recent Journalism that
Matters, these are the statements that emerged:
http://www.mediagiraffe.org/wiki/index.php/Newsecology-statements
I am aware that these activities may seem quite directed. I find them
a lighter touch than the World Cafe, which does a brilliant job of
surfacing collective meaning. The more I work with complex systems
and ideas, the more I believe it is useful to surface collective
meaning. So I continue to seek simple ways to do that. If you have
other means, I'm all ears.
appreciatively,
Peggy
______________________________
Peggy Holman
The Open Circle Company
15347 SE 49th Place
Bellevue, WA 98006
425-746-6274
www.opencirclecompany.com
For the new edition of The Change Handbook, go to:
www.bkconnection.com/ChangeHandbook
"An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get
burnt, is to become
the fire".
-- Drew Dellinger
On Apr 10, 2009, at 8:09 AM, Chris Corrigan wrote:
> Michael...
>
> One way to look at it is that there is a smell of control about the
> process, but when I read your note I immediately thought that the
> sponsor was actually opening him/herself up for more group ownership
> of the meaning of the event. IN other words, instead of the sponsor
> coming up with emergent themes, you are letting the group do that.
> IN my opinion,l this second level of conversation will probably
> create MORE ownership of the work, not less.
>
> So I don't see a downside unless you have a time limitation. You
> could have the groups talk for 30 mins and come up collectively with
> a scheme of the major emerging themes, and then have the group sort
> the proceedings into these themes and have the group break up again
> into action planning clusters around each theme, taking an hour or
> so to come up with higher level learning and next steps on the
> themes and the topics within them.
>
> That night be one way to go.
>
> Chris
>
> On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 6:46 AM, Michael M Pannwitz <mmpanne at boscop.org
> > wrote:
> Dear Michael Wood,
> why do I sense and smell control?
> Is it because it does not feel like an Open Space (real business
> issue, decision time of yesterday, providing time and space for
> passion and responsibility to unfold in an environment of
> selforganisation, etc.)?
> Is it that I as participant would want to have more of a say in what
> will happen rather than just passing on my ideas and then being put
> in a feedback-loop to see how my input was used to shape policy?
> Is it that I wonder why I am invíted to make an input and not to
> actually be involved in shaping policy?
> Is it that from my experience I know that convergence "old
> style" (voting, dots, Delphi, families of issues)is a low energy
> drag since it focuses on "themes" rather than "issues" or "projects"
> and does not allow the rich potential for action to unfold?
> Is it that I feel that neither themes nor actions need converging
> but that there simply needs to be action planning on stuff people
> feel passionate about?
> Sorry for not having an answer or thoughts on alternatives.
> Greetings from Berlin
> mmp
>
>
>
>
> Michael Wood wrote:
> I am doing an Open Space in a couple of weeks for about a hundred
> people in Health Care around the issues of workforce flexibility and
> structuring.
>
> The output will not so much be action plans as the raising of key
> themes and issues which need to be taken into account by policy
> makers within the Health Department. This has been communicated in
> the invitation and will be highlighted again in the Sponsor's
> introduction/welcome. We have also discussed feedback-loop
> communications after the event so that people can see how their input
> was used to shape policy.
>
> The sponsor believes (as do I) that it could be useful to invite the
> group into some preliminary `first cut' analysis of emerging themes
> as a 'convergence' activity. I am wondering how to do this is way
> which is somewhat more conversational than the "red dot" system.
>
> I quite like the World Cafe convergence question "what do you see as
> being patterns, themes and emerging questions?", and was thinking of
> a convergence process which would involve some individual reading
> time of group reports, then asking people to self organise into
> groups/circles of 4 people to discuss that question for half an hour
> or so, then pass the indian talking stick/microphone around to invite
> reflections from each group.
>
> Could this `mixing' of processes (OST and World Cafe) have any
> downsides I am not seeing? Any thoughts on this idea or alternative
> ways of converging where it's themes rather than action that need
> converging?
>
> Michael Wood
>
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> --
> Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg
> Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
> ++49-30-772 8000
> mmpanne at boscop.org
> www.boscop.org
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