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<P><FONT size=2><FONT face=Georgia color=#800000>Hi Raffi,<BR><BR>As you know I
enjoy your posts. I write to thank you for your story, in particular these
two items below, both of which caused me to laugh loud enough to awaken my
sleeping children:<BR><BR><EM>Did anyone promise that it would be simple to live
according to "Whoever comes..."? Nope, didn't read that
anywhere.</EM><BR><BR><EM>Indifference, carelessness, freebe-ism, dependency-
impeccable irresponsibility as the unique path of Russian companies to
responsibility: issues and opportunities</EM></FONT></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Georgia color=#800000 size=2>Where would we be without a sense of
humor? I'll never look to you for the answer.<BR>~Chris</FONT></P>
<P><FONT face=Georgia color=#800000 size=2></FONT><BR><FONT size=2>Chris
Weaver<BR>Springbranch, Inc.<BR>Asheville, North Carolina
USA<BR>chris@springbranch.us <</FONT><A
href="mailto:chris@springbranch.us"><FONT
size=2>mailto:chris@springbranch.us</FONT></A><FONT size=2>><BR></FONT><A
href="http://springbranch.us" target=_blank><FONT
size=2>http://springbranch.us</FONT></A><FONT size=2> <</FONT><A
href="http://springbranch.us" target=_blank><FONT
size=2>http://springbranch.us</FONT></A><FONT
size=2>><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>-----Original Message-----<BR>From:
OSLIST [</FONT><A href="mailto:OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU"><FONT
size=2>mailto:OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU</FONT></A><FONT size=2>]On Behalf
Of Raffi<BR>Aftandelian<BR>Sent: Saturday, May 27, 2006 10:52 AM<BR>To:
OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU<BR>Subject: OZZON reflections
(long)<BR><BR><BR>Dear fellow space-holders,<BR><BR>Today's story goes back a
few years. I recall Chris Corrigan (hi<BR>Chris!)'s words from a thread from the
Genuine Contact listserv (and<BR>maybe here) called "the Tao of Marketing" where
he elaborated about<BR>how if you want to "sell" OS the best and most logical
way of doing<BR>that is by offering an experience of that.<BR><BR>So, it is
curious for me, Chris, when you wrote recently about your<BR>doubts of making it
to the Holy Grail of working with companies. Yes,<BR>there are many reasons why
companies may not be ready for the real<BR>control that OST offers, but I have
been holding your wisdom for a few<BR>years now. And I admit, I have still
rather FIV+ (flatland<BR>immunodeficiency virus positive) thinking to want to
sell OST...<BR><BR>The other pre-piece to this story is that in the course of
informing<BR>people around Moscow about the upcoming OSonOS, I have visited
many<BR>professional clubs for corporate trainers, HR-managers,
and<BR>consultants. And it has been almost painful to sit through
these<BR>meetings where experience non-sharing is called experience
sharing.<BR>Not much os.<BR><BR>Hence the idea of OZZON, which had its first
meeting today.<BR><BR>OZZON, a quirky abbreviation for "Zona orgzdovorya" (Zone
for<BR>organizational health) in Russian, is my<BR>project aimed at bringing
organizational health into the mainstream in<BR>Moscow. Like most ideas that I
imagine will work it is very obvious:<BR>if we want to talk about organizational
health, people need to have an<BR>experience of it. And to have a holistic
experience of it, you need to<BR>bring together all those who are part of the
system/organism. OZZON, then, is a<BR>regular monthly space inviting corporate
trainers, consultants, coaches, HR-managers,<BR>and anyone else with the passion
for this topic to exchange experience<BR>of organizational health.<BR><BR>Today
was a planning meeting, to see what should OZZON be. It was<BR>advertised
widely, many people said they wanted to come. And at the<BR>time the bells rang,
we had a grand total of 4 (four)! Did anyone<BR>promise that it would be simple
to live according to "Whoever<BR>comes..."? Nope, didn't read that
anywhere.<BR><BR>I had put a lot of love and energy in organizing it. Too much
perhaps?<BR>And along the way unexpected and pleasant pieces of support.
One<BR>trainer helped me conceive this graphical invitation<BR><BR></FONT><A
href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6164/1604/1600/proekt%20ozzon.jpg"
target=_blank><FONT
size=2>http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6164/1604/1600/proekt%20ozzon.jpg</FONT></A><BR><BR><FONT
size=2>We had one HR-manager, two corporate trainers, and a
representative<BR>from an online HR-resource (a subsidiary of a local equivalent
of<BR>Berrett-Koehler books). The online resource was very keen
on<BR>advertising the event and intend on putting up a
mini-report<BR>post-event.<BR><BR>I experimented for the first time in
participating while facilitating.<BR>It was great to experiment in a low risk
setting and see that mixing<BR>those roles does warp the space.<BR><BR>Before
formally opening the space, I gave a little introduction about<BR>myself and
qualified my opening by explaining that the language I<BR>intend to use will not
only be adult language, but also childlike and<BR>adolescent language:
organizational health and balance, I explained,<BR>is too serious a matter to
leave only to adults. I forgot to say,<BR>however, that organizational health is
so simple that really it's<BR>child play.<BR><BR>Then, I explained that the
serious part of my presentation would begin<BR>now: To give a definition of
organizational health we need to first<BR>answer the question, "Why am I on
planet Earth?"- a question we all<BR>answer, I imagine, whether or not we are
philosophical. My best guess<BR>at age 36 is: "To have a ball (lots of fun),
learn hard, and be of<BR>use." If we take that as a given, then, my the job of
organizations be<BR>to serve that purpose? If so, might the definition of
organizational<BR>health and balance be- the ongoing experience of high play and
high<BR>learning in organizations?. We did a fill-in-the-blank hangman game to
guess "high play<BR>and high learning". The winner got a plastic
crab.<BR><BR>Then I said the nonserious part of the presentation would
begin:<BR>Went through Marv Weisbord and Sandra Janoff's learning curve-
how<BR>society solves problems. (and explained, that while I think Marv
and<BR>Sandra are great fun people, Future Search is kind of like creating
a<BR>Harley Davidson and Bentley hybrid, creating a bicycle out of
the<BR>hybrid, adding solar-cells, make it run on gas. And then
exclaiming<BR>that it works it works in wonder.) Then went on to Ken's 4
Quadrants<BR>and how we confuse the Internet with progress. And that
lower-left<BR>quadrant is having a very hard time playing catch-up with
lower-right.<BR>And that we probably can't talk of rapid progress right now, but
rather that<BR>we are falling behind, going backward at a frightening pace. And
that<BR>the job of orghealth is to reinhabit the lower-left.<BR><BR>I also
talked about how with the rise of lgit's in the late 80's a<BR>first tombstone
was placed to the still lucrative forms of non-work<BR>(work=fun; so, as a Jo
Toepfer says, "if it ain't fun, it ain't<BR>work.") called training and
consulting.<BR><BR>After which I opened the space-<BR>And the group of four
generated some 10 topics which they sat and<BR>discussed leisurely without
taking a break for 4 hours-<BR><BR>They discussed-<BR>- the application of
western HR technologies in Russian and their<BR>successful adaptation<BR><BR>-
developing a culture of responsibility<BR><BR>- which trainings work<BR>- staff
evaluation<BR>- and many other things.<BR><BR>I think some of the discussion
highlights for me were:]<BR><BR>1. A discussion on responsibility. I have been
wondering what<BR>responsibility is recently. And here we found ourselves
talking about<BR>the apparent culture of irresponsibility in Russian companies.
I offerred that we<BR>break this down. We got: "indifference, what if-ness,
carelessness,<BR>dependency," and a number of other juicy qualities.<BR><BR>This
got me thinking that the first OZZON meeting should have
the<BR>topic:<BR><BR>Indifference, carelessness, freebe-ism, dependency-
impeccable irresponsibility as<BR>the unique path of Russian companies to
responsibility: issues and<BR>opportunities"<BR><BR>It also got me thinking
about how much of our discussion focused on<BR>what's wrong with Russian
business. It was pleasant to see eyes light<BR>up when I suggested maybe we'd
get a lot more information if we asked<BR>ourselves, "What's right with Russian
business?", growing that<BR>appreciative core (I'm looking forward to the Moscow
AI learning<BR>workshop here in June).<BR><BR>2. Service- i have been wondering
what service is recently. And<BR>OZZON's first meeting gave an answer= it's the
ability to say thank<BR>you to Spirit and creation for the opportunity to share
my original<BR>medicine with a much smaller group than I
expected.<BR><BR><BR><BR>We all learned today, we all enjoyed ourselves. And we
were all<BR>stretched beyond our comfort zone.<BR><BR>Here are some flickr
highlights.<BR><BR></FONT><A
href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154163370/" target=_blank><FONT
size=2>http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154163370/</FONT></A><BR><BR><A
href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154163394/" target=_blank><FONT
size=2>http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154163394/</FONT></A><BR><BR><FONT
size=2>reflection of four org'l archetypes in closing<BR></FONT><A
href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154163157/" target=_blank><FONT
size=2>http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154163157/</FONT></A><BR><BR><FONT
size=2>participants<BR></FONT><A
href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154163086/" target=_blank><FONT
size=2>http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154163086/</FONT></A><BR><A
href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154162833/" target=_blank><FONT
size=2>http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154162833/</FONT></A><BR><A
href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154162770/" target=_blank><FONT
size=2>http://www.flickr.com/photos/81882819@N00/154162770/</FONT></A><BR><BR><FONT
size=2>Hats off to Spirit!<BR><BR>In iodized
granularity,<BR>raffi<BR><BR>*<BR>*<BR>==========================================================<BR>OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU<BR>------------------------------<BR>To
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