[OSList] upcoming training to complement your knowledge and skills as a facilitator of OST

[Birgitt Williams]

Thank you Raffi.I appreciate very much your kind words about the training we
offer, and of course about this one coming up tomorrow. It is indeed a
complimentary workshop to what people learn in OST: the User's Guide which
is very much about facilitating a well done OST meeting.

 

I think that my perspective of how to work with OST was so deeply influenced
not only by who I am, but by my position of responsibility at the time in
1992 when I first took OST training with Harrison. I knew it was powerful. I
brought it back to my organization that I was the senior staff person for
(hence responsible and accountable for the performance of the organization)
and we had several OST meetings in a row. If I am correct, we were the first
ones to take OST down to a four hour meeting. My staff, Board, volunteers,
and other stakeholders loved the meeting format, and yet after four
meetings, rebelled against ever using OST again in our organization. I loved
the method, was deeply disappointed, and so my journey began to understand,
in the life of an organization, how to make the best use of OST meetings in
the organization. Together with the staff, we realized we needed to work
with the 'givens' before the meeting so that they could understand what the
space was open for and what it was not, for any given meeting. Then they
could make informed consent of whether they wanted to participate and give
of their passion. We would not have had the same challenge if this was only
about brainstorming, but as you know, OST is about so much more than
brainstorming.true, deep passion gets involved.and expectations thus get
raised that are combined with passion/emotion/heart. We also realized we
needed a meeting method complimentary to OST in values, the use of the 4
principles and 1 law, and that offered a more guided approach to deal with
the planning meetings, the convergence/action planning, the debrief
meetings, and more.  Not everything could be achieved in OST. We also used
what became known as our Whole Person Process Facilitation (the
complimentary meeting method) to hold peer to peer accountability meetings
for follow up on the results of the OST meeting some months after the
meeting.so that the accountability could be in a peer to peer circle, and
not only up through a hierarchy. We figured a lot out. Eventually, the
Genuine Contact program got born out of all of this learning.

 

And so, tomorrow, we offer a one day workshop, on line, for those interested
in how to work with the sponsor ahead of the OST meeting, to have crucial
conversations so that the meeting is set up to go beyond 'having  a good
meeting'. OST, in my experience, always works as a meeting in which the
closing circle is a great big expression of gratitude. However, it doesn't
always work in terms of the follow through with action planning and long
term harvest in the organization. I am deeply passionate about planning for
an OST meeting so that the conditions are created for the best possible
follow up of the results. This one day workshop does not include how to
facilitate OST.we assume participants will have some knowledge of that.and
they can of course read the User's Guide.

 

Warmly,

Birgitt

 

 

tingshaBirgitt Williams

Author Genuine Contact Way

Co-owner of the Genuine Contact program

President and Senior Consultant, 

Dalar International Consultancy, Inc.

www.dalarinternational.com

 

Note: picture of the bells that have journeyed to numerous countries with me
for twenty-two years as an international consultant. During the closing
circle of every meeting, everyone in the meeting has held these bells. They
have now been held by thousands of people, all doing their part to create
life nurturing conditions for humanity. The bells have also been held in
blessing and in prayer by countless people, who bless all who ever hold
them, with the journey of the bells uniting all of their energies to make a
difference for humanity, one person at a time, one organization at a time,
one business at a time, one community at a time.

 

 

 

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Raffi
Aftandelian
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 10:33 PM
To: OSlist
Subject: [OSList] upcoming training to complement your knowledge and skills
as a facilitator of OST

 

birgitt-jan, salam!

 

I just want to say that I'm delighted that this workshop is being offered.
And as a Genuine Contact trainer who has had the good fortune of taking a
number of workshops with you, I think those who take this workshop with you
and the rest of the Dalar team will be exceedingly fortunate. 

 

I've thought of the perspective you offer in working with OST and other
participatory approaches as highly complementary to what is in the User's
Guide. If Harrison is the storyteller, you are- in my mind- the doulah. Both
are needed. 

 

We need the story to inspire and encourage and we need to access the doulah
within to understand perhaps what is the container we are creating at all
stages of the process and how to create that container.

 

I've felt that even if one were- for whatever reason- to disagree with
everything that is presented in the workshop it'll still be well worth the
time. There are so many subtle questions that the User's Guide can only hint
at (to be clear, i personally think the User's Guide is a brilliant book,
much there to be emulated in how one presents a social technology). And what
the GC approach offers, i believe, is a simple framework from which a
facilitator can make wise and compassionate choices (i think without a
workshop like the one you're offering we may not even realize the choices
that we are making!) along the way in the course of planning, etc in service
to the whole.

 

Having "taught" OST the GC way a number of times, I remember what one
participant said of the workbook people received-- "How to do OST? It's all
in there."

 

my two kopecks/rials/drams...

greetings from the southwest coast of obamastan!

 

raffi

 

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