[OSList] OST for big changes in company

[Birgitt Williams via OSList]

Hi Karolina,
An article that Harrison wrote a very long time ago has a title that I
believe is called 'Endings and Beginnings'. I believe this article is from
before OST was birthed, it is that long ago. It is probably archived on the
wiki site. I have found it useful to circulate as a resource to read,
probably for the Board, planners, and maybe for anyone in the company who
cares to read it if you circulate it.

Ideally there should be a pause before announcing the news and heading into
an OST meeting so that the meeting is not all about processing the shock.
If you do not leave some space and time for people, such as a nights sleep,
the extremes of how people handle shock and how quickly they process or
don''t process their grief beyond shock will get in the way. Worst scenario
without sufficient time is the unnecessary conflict is caused as some
people will stay in shock, some will move forward rapidly to 'what is
next', and unnecessary and likely harsh judgments of each other will set in
that might haunt the company in continual conflict for decades. A night's
sleep is really not much space between the 'event' of the news and the OST
meeting, but it is better than no pause and sometimes it is all that is
possible.

In such circumstances, I absolutely avoid having the OST meeting be about
'the future'. People in the early stages of grief cannot have good
discussions about the future. I do have OST meetings when there are
endings, about the present ie: with these changes, what issues and
opportunities do we need to handle in the present'. Doing this is a big
enough stretch for people.

One example that comes to mind is a company that thought it was losing its
major contract, and it did. We facilitated an OST meeting when the owners
assumed the news would be bad, asking for the company personnel to consider
how they would like the potential situation to be handled as it would cause
layoffs etc. They came up with great ideas. When the bad news happened,
management followed through on what had been agreed upon as to how to
handle it.

If I was the consultant with this situation that you have, I would be
putting more emphasis on having a good method for facilitating the news
being given, and giving people with different learning styles the
opportunity to get on the same page with each other about what the news
actually is. I use Whole Person Process Facilitation...then a nights
sleep....then the OST.

Best of luck,
Birgitt

On Thu, Jun 2, 2016 at 11:11 AM Eleder_BuM via OSList <
oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:

> so interesting, karol!
> no such experience up to date.
> eager to read the stories.
> i'll see and share if any idea comes to my mind regarding your 2nd
> question, anyway.
>
> best of lucks,
>
> love,
>
> eleder
>
> 2016-06-02 15:53 GMT+02:00 Karolina Iwa via OSList <
> oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>:
>
>> dear group,
>>
>> i am seeking advice and stories.
>>
>> on monday i have a meeting with the board of a company we've been
>> supporting for the last year in their growth. some time ago they decided to
>> make a major change (cannot get into more details at this point), which
>> most probably a. will make quite some people in the company experience
>> negative emotions and b. is coming quite unexpectedly.
>>
>> the board intends at designing the best change experience they can in the
>> moment of communicating the changes and after.
>>
>> we intend to open the space after the news has been shared + the reasons
>> behind it & consequences for the company & employees have been
>> communicated, so i am wondering - from your experience:
>>
>> - what would be similar stories you took part in / heard of?
>> - what can be helpful / should we pay attention to while preparing the
>> meeting for the board and with the board preparing the whole organisation
>> meeting?
>>
>> thanks in advance for sharing.
>>
>> karolina.
>>
>>
>>
>> ____________________________________
>> *karolina iwa*
>> social innovation
>> senior facilitator
>> blog <http://www.karolinaiwa.com> I twitter
>> <https://twitter.com/karolinaiwa> I l
>> <http://de.linkedin.com/pub/karolina-iwa/58/9b6/403>inkedin
>> <http://de.linkedin.com/pub/karolina-iwa/58/9b6/403>
>> +49 15774 932193
>> ____________________________________
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
>> Past archives can be viewed here:
>> http://www.mail-archive.com/oslist@lists.openspacetech.org
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
> Past archives can be viewed here:
> http://www.mail-archive.com/oslist@lists.openspacetech.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20160602/b6a85e8d/attachment.htm>