Thanks Lisa, Harrison, and Hege!<div><br></div><div>I am totally looking forward to jumping in, but you have sniffed out a tendency in me Harrison - I can be a complication ninja! </div><div><br></div><div>That being said, my impulse and desire is for 2.5 days with one topic and I will propose this with all fingers crossed. </div>
<div><br></div><div>My consideration of a second prompt focused on learning and training sessions is motivated by the fact that the principles seem pretty attached to the idea of the group engaging in specific skill transfer sessions and peer support for active projects.</div>
<div><br></div><div>With two prompts, they could address current needs and perhaps get some members to a place where they can start taking on new types of tasks asap, while also addressing the concept of ongoing collaboration and competency development. </div>
<div><br></div><div>There definitely are bottlenecks based on silos of skill (usually within one or two people), so I can understand the urgency there and agree. </div><div><br></div><div>One of the main questions I still have is: What experiences does the group have with participants actually "getting to work" in sessions, versus engaging in dialogue and planning? And, does it somehow dissolve some of the impact of the self-organizing if a prompt were to specifically encourage, if not require, that sessions could include hands on learning and skill transfer?</div>
<div><br></div><div>I believe it can make sense within an Open Space environment and I can imagine that it could "spontaneously" occur, but I also wonder if it can be as effective if you let people know that they can bring out there work tools and training hats - perhaps I am just a closet control freak :/ But also trying to respond to the leaders' stated intent. </div>
<div><br></div><div>In response to Lisa's question about "distracted leadership": This means that all of the four principles - 2 in US - are overworked and over-traveled on a regular basis. Additionally, it means that they are performing almost all roles within the organization simultaneously, from executing field work, to business development, to all the C-level functions. Also fairly typical for a small business.</div>
<div><br></div><div>As I'm sure you can guess, this dynamic means there is little bandwidth for charting and maintaining strategic direction, or for sustained focus on HR development. </div><div><br></div><div>In response to Lisa's other query, about "meeting the org where they are" - I may not be. I recognize from past efforts that they are not ready or able to execute on many things I think would be "best", but I may still be trying to push...really not sure!</div>
<div><br></div><div>I feel very confident that they would benefit from some new thinking on how to plan and move forward, but you are right, if they are not prepared to follow through..............maybe I just want to reduce my stress at sitting through 3 days of ineffective blabber AND I want to play in OST!!!</div>
<div><br></div><div>:)))))) Thank you sooooo much again for reading through my lengthy epistle! ciao!</div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 8:35 AM, Hege Steinsland <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:steinslandhege@gmail.com" target="_blank">steinslandhege@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div style="margin:0px;font-size:12px"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Hello Tricia.</span></div>
<div style="margin:0px;font-size:12px"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Im also quite new to this approach, and I had some wonderful help from the list, just like you will receive now. Lisa and Harrison is so generous with advice and courage :-)</span></div>
<div style="margin:0px;font-size:12px"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">And many others as well!</span></div><div style="margin:0px;font-size:12px;min-height:14px"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin:0px;font-size:12px">
<span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">My advice will also be, just go for it!</span></div><div style="margin:0px;font-size:12px"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">And then I will say; do some prework! Have a meeting or two with a group that can share purpose, discuss a good theme and be ready along with you to let selforganization happen. Make sure the top management are in to this.</span></div>
<div style="margin:0px;font-size:12px;min-height:14px"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin:0px;font-size:12px"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">And then, just dive in and enjoy!</span></div>
<div style="margin:0px;font-size:12px;min-height:14px"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin:0px;font-size:12px"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">All the best</span></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div style="margin:0px;font-size:12px;min-height:14px">
<span style="letter-spacing:0.0px"></span><br></div><div style="margin:0px;font-size:12px"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Hege</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px"><br></span></div></font></span><div><div>
<br><blockquote type="cite"><div><div class="h5">Hello all!<div><br></div><div>I am an OST newbie who is hoping to facilitate an Open Space for my main client's annual meeting in a few weeks and I would like to get your thoughts on incorporating hands on skill transfer into an Open Space. I did do some book reading on OST and just attended the OST meeting in NYC this weekend, but have never hosted an Open Space. </div>
<div><br></div><div><b>Background on organization and situation:</b></div><div><br></div><div>I do not provide facilitation for this organization. I am one of a number of project managers who work on teams to conduct market research and strategy consulting projects for their clients in the life sciences arena.</div>
<div><br></div><div>They have agreed to my participation in the facilitation of the meetings and I have referenced OST, but we have not yet discussed details on meeting design and I am pretty sure they are not familiar with OST. </div>
<div><br></div><div>This meeting will be a small group of only the US folks - 14 in total. We will be meeting for 2.5 days. On an ongoing basis, we are all remote workers across the US and in Europe and Japan and only see each other when we travel to a client's location.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The general theme identified is "collaboration and learning from one another". The stated intent, so far, was to have us all take turns teaching something to the group where we are the "expert", then to spend time just working in parallel and helping each other on current projects or generating learning moments. </div>
<div><br></div><div>I am encouraging shifting the focus from trying to model collaboration and getting all of our trainings under our belts in 2.5 days, to a focus on developing a system for ongoing collaboration and expertise sharing, to include discussions of where learning and teaching opportunities exist. I think this topic would be great for an Open Space. </div>
<div><br></div><div>I was thinking we could combine opportunities for hands on learning with discussion of an ongoing structure by having two sessions (maybe 1.5 days overall).</div><div><br></div><div>My thoughts for day 1 and day 2 "prompts"</div>
<div><br></div><div>1) <span style="line-height:16px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Sharing expertise and leveraging strengths across the organization</span></div><div><span style><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:11pt;line-height:16px">2) </span><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:11pt;line-height:16px">What do we need right now for high performance individually and organizationally? Training, support, etc.</span></span></div>
<div><b><br></b></div><div><b>My main question is</b>, in the second prompt - "what do we need right now" - could we frame this as an opportunity for hands on learning where the sessions were either suggested by learners who knew of something specific that they wanted to learn, or not specific I guess, as well as by teachers, who felt that they had areas of expertise to share? </div>
<div><br></div><div>We would all then self-organize and convene into sessions where we are not just discussing topics/structures/etc, but we are actually engaging in information and skill transfer. </div><div><br clear="all">
<div><span style="line-height:16px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b>Question 2: </b>Al</span><span style="line-height:16px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">so not sure which prompt should come first.</span></div>
<div><br></div><div>I don't know yet if I will get them to buy into the Open Space process or if I do, if I can get the time for 2 prompts, BUT, I wanted to ask thoughts of the group before crafting my next communication with them. </div>
<div><br></div><div><span style="line-height:110%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Thank you sooooooo much for reading through this long question and for any insights provided! </span></div>
-- <br>Tricia Chirumbole<br>US: <a href="tel:%2B1-571-232-0942" value="+15712320942" target="_blank">+1-571-232-0942</a><br>Skype: tricia.chirumbole<br><br><div style="padding:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-top:0px;overflow:hidden;word-wrap:break-word;font-size:10px;text-align:left;line-height:130%">
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