[OSList] Open Space and Business

Tue Jan 14 08:02:26 PST 2014

Suzanne,

Just an FYI…Don’t know if they still do, but for a while, Whole Foods ran a Future Search every five years. Marv Weisbord and Sandra Janoff wrote about it in the first edition of The Change Handbook. (Text below.)

Peggy

Historical Account

Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey wanted a shared vision, strategic direction and set of action plans for his company. The year was 1988. Whole Foods consisted of eight natural foods supermarkets, mostly in Texas, 600 employees and $45 million in revenues.  He organized a future search called “Where We Be in ‘93” that included team members, team leaders, vendors, suppliers, board members, management and customers from each store. Participants envisioned growing the business fivefold as central to their mission of providing healthy food to people (24 stores and $223 million in sales.) They committed to using local organic producers, to setting aside a percentage of profits for environmental causes, and engaging the community in healthy lifestyle education.

Five years later, having exceeded their growth, revenue and social goals, (32 stores, $240 million in sales, community action budgets in every store), Whole Foods held another future search called “We Be Great in ‘98.” Present were the same stakeholder groups including people from three newly acquired natural foods chains. The challenge, they said, would be in learning from each other, preserving the local identity of various stores and building a corporate culture that reflected the best of all members and made corporate values of customer and community service, knowledgeable team members, and a commitment to health food and health living cornerstones for the future, not to be compromised by rapid growth.

In October 1998, 140 people from 87 stores around the U.S. gathered in Estes Park, Colorado. The company now had 16,000 employees, $1.5 billion in revenues, and regional offices in most parts of the country.  Many of its top executives had been there from the start. Once again they addressed the issues of growth, high quality and their mission, now framed as “Whole Foods, Whole People and Whole Planet. Their conference  – “What we see for 2003” – addressed the many dilemmas of customer service, team development and succession planning in a giant company growing 25% a year. In particular they focused on how to maintain the core values that had made them successful – including support for organic farming, food safety, nutritional and health education – while responding to the pressures for growth and globalization of the business.

In a recent CEO’s conference, John Mackey was asked how his fast-growing company, that had defined a new niche in the supermarket industry, pulled together strategic planning and gained commitment in such a far-flung, decentralized business.  “We hold a future search conference every five years,” he said.

People in businesses, communities and non-profits all over the world use future search to transform their capability for action. They do it in a few days in a few days by involving a “whole system” in the same room working together on a task chosen in advance by a planning committee. Diverse groups explore their past, present and future, confirm shared values, and commit to action plans. Everybody participates and shares leadership. The most significant changes occur in planning when people agree to a set of unfamiliar meeting conditions. The key to the success of the method is matching the overall purpose with the right people needed to insure action.

__________________________________
Peggy Holman
Journalism that Matters
15347 SE 49th Place
Bellevue, WA  98006
425-746-6274
www.journalismthatmatters.org
www.peggyholman.com
Twitter: @peggyholman
JTM Twitter: @JTMStream

Enjoy the award winning Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity
Check out my series on what's emerging in the news & information ecosystem

On Jan 13, 2014, at 6:51 PM, Suzanne Daigle <sdaigle4 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> 
> Those who know me know that I am hugely passionate about business and work.  I was immediately drawn to Open Space because I knew it offered a robust and simple process that could spark huge "experiential" breakthroughs in thinking in the way we manage and lead.  Not to mention breakthroughs leading to better results, more creativity and more joy at work. 
> 
> I saw and felt the limits of our piecemeal cause/effect approaches viewed from the prism (or prisons) of our silos, sectors, and hierarchies.  I longed for a more inclusive and wholistic way and within the limits of my unconscious mind and without the benefit of something as simple and elegant as Open Space, I did my best to invite diversity and shared leadership.  I did not know much about self-organizing and have much to learn still in the living of it and letting go control. 
> 
> Recently I've re-entered the corporate business world by hanging out with a lot of folks who are as passionate if not more passionate than I about bringing joy to work, re-inventing our structures and systems, etc. etc. I've also jumped into the social media world. It feels a bit like coming home and I'm so darn excited because I see the possibilities of so many of us connecting together. 
> 
> Everywhere I turn I see opportunities for Open Space; I see the context behind the issues and the possibilities to bring people together. I also feel a greater readiness in organizations  "to try" and to "let go" based on different conversations, some of the most popular business writings and of course, the younger generation though what they desire (meaning and purpose at work) is no different than how it's always been. They're just more vocal about stating what they want and what they stand for. 
> 
> I share all of this with you because I will be in New York at International House this weekend and I've invited some of these new friends, many who are  strangers to Open Space. I am super excited because I am imagining they will respond as I did to Open Space seeing the power and magic of what it invites, quickly connecting the dots to what we are trying to achieve to reinvent the workplace which many call are now calling a "workplace revolution".  
> 
> For all of those who share my passion for business and work, I wanted to share this article which was passed on to me by Tom Asacker who wrote a gem of a book (top inspirational Business book by Inc. Magazine) called The Business of Belief which offers great insights around how people make decisions and take action. It certainly aligns with the advice we're often given to not be "selling Open Space" but to connect directly with where people are coming from: their issues and their desires. 
> 
> The article Tom sent is a Forbes interview with the President of Whole Foods.  I think many will find the article quite fascinating. The title is: "The Unique Self of Business". 
> 
> And finally on my bookshelf too is Josh Allan Dykstra's Book "Igniting the Invisible Tribe, Designing an organization that doesn't suck".  He is scheduled to be on a Google Hangout TV show with the HRockstars this coming Wednesday at 6 pm Eastern time. You can sign up by clicking here and then revisiting the website just before 6 for the live link. It will also be made available on YouTube. 
> https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/111166240740728636143.   If you run into any problems, send me a quick email and I will try to help navigate you to the right place. 
> 
> Warm regards to all.  
> Suzanne
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> -- 
> Suzanne Daigle
> Open Space Facilitator
> NuFocus Strategic Group
> 
> FL 941-359-8877  
> Cell: 203-722-2009
> www.nufocusgroup.com
> s.daigle at nufocusgroup.com
> twitter @suzannedaigle
> _______________________________________________
> OSList mailing list
> To post send emails to OSList at lists.openspacetech.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to OSList-leave at lists.openspacetech.org
> To subscribe or manage your subscription click below:
> http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20140114/6660a696/attachment-0008.htm>