OST at WohnGeist - a personal story and a case study (long)

Thu Dec 3 15:44:43 PST 2009

Dear All

We have been using OST in our woodworking company WohnGeist since 2007. In
our first OS event in June 2007 named "Vision 2020", which lasted one day
and invited 45 persons of our whole system (all our woodworkers, office and
sale staff, clients, suppliers, the graphics person, the press, friends,
consultant friends and family), it became clear that we need to find a
larger building to bring our 3 woodworkshops together in one place
(www.wohngeist.ch <http://www.wohngeist.ch/> ) and that we really had a
future to work towards. Up to then, my husband Stefan and I had often felt
overwhelmed by the responsibility for our growing company, feeling like it
was only the two of us who carried it forward. The feedback we got in the OS
event was very motivating. Peter and Pia Glanzmann were our facilitators -
thank you again!

Then in October 2007, my daughters died in a flooding cave in Thailand. The
OST principles greatly helped us in accepting what is, as I have written to
you earlier. Paradoxically, this somehow gave us the last necessary impulse
to be courageous enough for that next big step with WohnGeist - the "worst
thing" had already happened, and if something were to go wrong with our
plans for the expansion of WohnGeist, it couldn't possibly be as devastating
as their death. 

So we eventually really found a suitable larger place with as much
inspiration as our old place in the historic center of Basel, and in April
2008 wrote a letter to our 1500 clients and friends, offering sustainable
investment possibilities (becoming a shareholder or giving us a loan with
nice conditions). We got 1 million Swiss francs! What an incredible sign of
appreciation for what we do. With this money and some help from the bank, we
were able to buy a great windows factory from 1963 nearby, which we are now
renovating and setting up to suit our needs. 

In summer 2008, I needed to take a time-out of half a year to grieve and
start integrating my new situation. I came back to work a day a week this
January, and am becoming stronger again as time goes by.

Stefan and I appointed two members of our staff to become part of the
management team, thus finally being able to let go of some of our
responsibilities. 

In May 2009, we were allowed to hold another OS event of half a day in the
new place, which didn't belong to us quite yet, this time with 30
participants - our staff, some clients and some members of our strategic
council (see below). I facilitated it myself. The topic was "Our design
house - designing it the way it will be fun to work in". Our staff started
to love the place and took initiative for some of the upcoming projects.
Some of the other participants also took initiative - one of the results was
a strategic planning group, which is still working with great commitment to
develop the strategy of the next years for WohnGeist. And our staff
commented that it was a pity to be together only for half a day - so many
interesting topics all at the same time. they had much preferred the longer
event from June 2007.

Our project is well under way since then. Two members of our woodworking
staff postponed their civil service resp. their further studies to help with
the setting up of the new place. There is a renovating team in the new
place, using the agenda wall for announcing and selecting jobs of the day to
be done, and an everyday woodworking team in the old place. All of our staff
are taking full responsibility for their new jobs, and we are deeply amazed
at how well this really works, even if we have been familiar with and living
in OST since 1989 (myself) resp. 1996 (Stefan)... The move has started and
will be completed by February 2010. Even if there will be more commuting (13
min. by train from Basel main station to Frenkendorf) and less bicycling, we
are all looking forward to the new era of WohnGeist - being more efficient
and working with much more ease in the bigger spaces available there. We
will also have a big showroom there - a space which in Basel city would be
unaffordable!

In that letter of April 2008, we had also asked that people interested to
become members of the board announce themselves. 11 wonderful people
emerged, and we decided it would be a pity to select a few only. So we asked
them if they would agree to become members of the strategic council for a
year, in order for us to get acquainted with how they work, before electing
our board. The first two meetings of the strategic council were
mini-OS-events of 3 hours, us identifying 4 or 5 topics (our most urgent
questions around buying and setting up the place), them completing to 6 or
changing our topics as they found necessary. We worked by the principles of
OST, but declared that this wasn't really OST and named the differences. 

Now the strategic council just had its 3rd meeting, this time in our new
place. It wasn't a mini-OST, even if we had a great ongoing buffet again
:-), but a more structured event to prioritize and detail the strategies
which the strategic planning group had identified this summer. We wanted to
have the input of our strategic council for the next steps. Their feedback
in the closing circle was that they much preferred to work in OST. and quite
a few of them agreed to continue the work in the strategic council, for
almost no pay, but because they find it fascinating to be part of this
project.

So, as you can tell, OST really gets people hooked. It really works if
management (i.e. my husband and myself) is open for whatever happens, too.
So be prepared to be surprised. 

Oh - as I write, it just dawns on me that in summer 2007, a friend has
brought a shiny blue sticker from Findhorn which we had posted on top of our
office door. It reads "Angels at work. Prepare for random miracles." I guess
this is true indeed. The support of our angels is always there, and OST is
helping us to stay open to it.

Thank you all! With love, Catherine

Catherine Pfaehler

lic.oec.HSG

Open Space Begleitung

St. Alban-Vorstadt 15

CH - 4052 Basel

+41-(0)61 - 272 64 32

c.pfaehler at open-space-begleitung.ch

www.open-space-begleitung.ch <http://www.open-space-begleitung.ch/> 

www.wohngeist.ch <http://www.wohngeist.ch/> 

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