ODNE SE region gathering report - HSBC Canary Wharf 13th June 2016

We had a great discussion a few weeks ago at HSBC, in Canary Wharf [thanks to Tanya for hosting].

We began by sharing what was on our minds, what we brought to the space. The forthcoming EU vote came up, and how we each had different uncertainties about it. Which now have probably morphed into new ones given all that is happening!

We decided not to have one person hold the space and facilitate, which was really fruitful as by the end we had such informal, creative and stimulating conversations, it seemed to me we'd created an unstructured container that had some of the conditions for emergence, given how relaxed and engaged we seemed to feel. We then acknowledged that we were experiencing, in this meeting, having some breathing space, some time to think, share and connect. This felt to me like the wellspring of energy, creativity and connection so central to keeping our OD practice fresh, alive and moving forward. Someone mentioned that often conversations at work can be flat and lifeless and what we can do to bring energy back into a work meeting.

We shared stories of recent OD practice and experiences at work, and explored a few personal experiences and possible resolutions. We reflected on what was still resonating from the recent ONDE conference. We briefly explored what we each thought “generative image” meant, and how we could find a way to bring this idea to life and actually create ones that could catalyse community forming conversations. This subject could certainly do with a whole day for exploration!

We wondered upon the root causes of OD challenges and successes; is it quality of relationships? 

We thought it often seems to come down to the simple stuff; being together, listening and respecting, practising being present etc. Someone remarked that experiences we have in interactions emerge in the space between us, and neither party can control a two-way conversation.  Gervase Bushe’s concept of Interpersonal Mush [http://tinyurl.com/hq6nzcd] was mentioned as a useful tool to help us untangle how people make up stories about each other which can get in the way of team performance.

This led to a brief conversation about a central paradox in O.D. On the one had we are individuals with free will, making our own choices acting autonomously from sense of personal identity. And yet on the other hand, if we are co-constructing our experiences together, and if we are socially constructing our realities together, we can seem not to be independent discrete individuals, more like selves-in-relationship. If conversations and human relationships are at the heart of OD work, then how we show up will influence client outcomes. Yet there are  many levels to conversations, and trying to work out cause and effect is nearly impossible. This ended with the idea that depending on how we experience ourselves and each other, we can affect how we treat each other. This would be great to explore further.

Community building was explored: we discussed how we experienced our gathering, and how was it an example of community. We reflected that we were sharing experiences and learning informally. The work of Marshall Ganz was mentioned [he successfully organized the grassroots community campaigns that Obama elected in 2008- a good example of his thinking here [http://tinyurl.com/j4cg56l]. Peter Block's work on community organizing called the Structure of Belonging was also mentioned. And there were some thoughts about how we could bring these ideas to life and grow our own ODNE community.

The next SE gathering will be on 26th September in central London, drop me a note or give me a call if you would like to join us.

Warm regards

Julian Burton - julian@delta7.com 077 9000 7560

another way...

This is a metaphor that came up recently in one of our projects during an employee input session.  The conversation highlighted their frustration at not having time to stop and consider whether the way they were doing things was necessarily the best.

“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn't.”-A.A. Milne

With the pressures of a working environment it can be hard to find time to take stock of how we do things, something that can appear to be counter intuitive. However this ends up trapping us in a vicious cycle where nothing changes despite our full knowledge of the situation.  It can take a deliberate intervention to recognise the value of stopping and reflecting on what's going on.

Are we collaborating?

“Collaboration is the process of two or more people or organisations working together to realise shared goals.”

 But what does it take to truly collaborate?

We believe that it takes trust, empathy and balance for a whole team to be effective.  Collaboration needs self-awareness and an understanding of everyone's strengths and weaknesses, so that the achievement is that of the team, not just the individual.

The power of metaphor

Creating new metaphors

The metaphors we use at work help us to connect the words we use to the meanings we make of our experience. Metaphor in greek means “to transfer, or connect”. A good metaphor is a bridge of meaning, helping us to understanding one thing, or experience, in terms of another.  Metaphors can  influence, and sometimes limit, how we see and understand the world. Once created they can drop below our radar and become unconscious and habitual, implicit assumptions that influence our thinking and behaviour. When organisations are in crisis mode and under pressure to change, we often hear a cry of "we need to change mindsets!" Generating new metaphors can be one way of opening up new possibilities and give us new ways of seeing things.

I’ve been wondering a lot about the metaphors we use as  O.D. practitioners. For example, the metaphor Self-As-Instrument helps us to conceptualise our agency and impact in service of our clients. It works as an easy anchor point to help encompass what we want to learn to develop our skills and capabilities as O.D. practitioners. Learning to be more present, self-aware, empathic and better at deep listening when we work with clients is central to our effectiveness and the value we bring to organisations.

I'm curious about how this metaphor affects how I experience myself when working with clients. What kind of instrument am I? A spade? And microscope? A calculator? A scalpel?  A dictionary definition of instrument is something like "a mechanical implement for delicate and precise work”. I don’t normally feel like an instrument that does things to other people. My experience of the complexity and richness of face to face interactions gives me a sense that having impact or influence isn’t as simple or controllable as the instrument metaphor seems to imply.

What could a new metaphor be? 

For me this metaphor could be reinforcing a transactional rather than a relational attitude to being with others ; one of “doing-to” rather than “being-with”, which feels much more appropriate when working alongside clients. I get a sense that the underlying assumption of this metaphor defines people as things, and as discrete objects that can be “changed" in some transactional and intentional way, which is another implicit assumption worth shining a light on.

There is also a question for me of this metaphor about what it means to be a "Self". Am I an independent rational self with control over my will and identity? Or am I inextricably bound up with and entangled with others and the relationships that continuously form and reform me? It would be really interesting to explore these questions further and inhabit them as a way to help deepen our O.D. skills and capabilities. To inquire into how we see our selves and our effectiveness in more creative and less rational ways could be really useful.

What new metaphors or generative images could we create together to open up new possibilities and come to see ourselves and each other in new and more productive ways? If, as an O.D. practitioner, I shifted my thinking about my role as a “Self-As-Instrument”, what new ways of relating might I start to experience?

What happens in the workplace when demand suddenly exceeds supply?

Behaviours and processes can change when there's pressure to find a solution quickly - the effects of which may only become apparent later.

And what if that limited resource happens to be you?

Here be wild things

What is it that motivates us to work? A bag of doubloons can get you only so far, while a story, an ambition, a vision will take you around the globe and back again.

The only thing missing from this for me is the space for those engaged to make sense of why and what it may mean for them to undertake such a task.

Change needs shared commitment

We believe that conversations are the fundamental unit of change in an organisation. Only through conversations can leaders & employees get a shared commitment to the change needed & how to deliver it.

Us and them

Silos are present in just about every organisation, sometimes they are physical as well as psychological. If they already exist, we tend to exacerbate silos with phrases like “if only they would do what they are meant to…”

How do you go about removing some of what gets in the way?

Are you listening to your employees?

There's nothing quite so demotivating as sending people the message that their ideas and insights are not welcome.

What stops your employees from speaking up?

How can you find out? 

A leadership dilemma

A situation that seems to be impossible to act upon because it contains two opposing commitments.

Could you drop your armour?

A common theme we have been noticing recently is a want or a need to shift to a different style of leadership. This new way is dialogical, open and all about collaboration. It is a huge shift and with it comes the challenge of what it really means to transition to this new way of being. The implication is that it means taking a risk, and going into the unknown.

In this shift how easy is it to throw off your protective armour and be ok with being truly vulnerable?

What would it take for you to be able to do it?

How can we nurture a safe space to be able to speak?

I am sitting in a meeting and there is silence from everyone but the leader of the session. They have asked a question and no-one is answering, why? When I think of my own experiences, when I don’t feel able to speak it is a very physical response to something that is unconsciously in the room. My voice literally cannot be pulled from me. It builds and swells deep in my stomach, but will go no further. A friend describes his as stopping in his throat. Yet neither of us can really articulate what exactly it is that stops us. There is something about that space that doesn’t make it safe to let my voice out. It is about the people in the room, the positioning of the meeting or session, the contradictions between meaning and what is spoken, the emotional state of the participants before they even enter the room.

In a moment of complete silence I wonder what other people’s reasons are for not speaking and what we could learn if we took a moment and were brave and inquisitive enough to explore them.