10 Tweets Seminar on The Change Journey

On Wednesday, June 3, at 1 pm EST / 17.00 GMT, I will hold a 10 Tweets seminar on contemporary concepts of change facilitation. The seminar will be delivered through Twitter, i.e. I will post 10 tweets in a short time. The tweets will contain main messages and links to further resources.

Content:
* Why change has changed
* Why we can't manage change
* New leadership skills
* Transformation of organizations

To follow the seminar, just follow me on Twitter, or follow the hashtag #cj01.

The seminar will take about one hour and involves some reading from your side, and a short video. You can follow the seminar in real-time or asynchronously.

Jascha Rohr: Unfolding Individual & Collective Potential in Corporations

I attended a presentation of Jascha Rohr (@jaschrohr) at the Berlin Hub on Unfolding Individual & Collective Potential in Corporations. During the presentation, I twittered the main statements and ideas of Jascha's German keynote, which I document, comment and annotate here (my original tweets in bold). You can read the entire tweetstream here.

Photo: www.partizipativ-gestalten.de

@jascharohr starts with a question: are bees or ants happy?

That is a real good question to reflect about. I mean, we all know that bees' and ants' brains are probably not made to feel emotions. But if we just assume for a moment that bees and ants would have the ability to feel, what would they feel, in particular, what would the worker ants and bees feel? Would they be proud and happy to be part of a greater good?

Reading an impressive article of National Geographic on swarm theory, I am not sure whether Jascha's underlying hypothesis hold: that there are power structures in bees or ants colonies. The author of this article says:

One key to an ant colony, for example, is that no one's in charge. No generals command ant warriors. No managers boss ant workers. The queen plays no role except to lay eggs. Even with half a million ants, a colony functions just fine with no management at all—at least none that we would recognize. It relies instead upon countless interactions between individual ants, each of which is following simple rules of thumb. Scientists describe such a system as self-organizing.

When you are 1 in a million in China, there 1300 of you. @jascharohr refers to Shift Happens.

"Shift Happens" has become one of the most quoted videos on change of society and culture. It has changed the way we look at our closest future. I just learned there is an updated version:

This year there will be 4 extrabyte of new information, more than was generated in last 5000 years.

Another quote from Shift Happens which shows us how quickly what our knowledge will be outdated.

However, I wanted to know more. A Google search on "Growth of Human Knowledge" did not reveal anything satisfying. So, this was the decisive moment of testing www.wolframalpha.com, the new "intelligent" search engine which has had a lot of (rather bad than good) PR during the last days. It reveals the following interesting information:

Input interpretation:

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Value:

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Comparisons:

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A counter scenario to continuous exponential growth: Peak Oil Theory.

Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. The concept is based on the observed production rates of individual oil wells, and the combined production rate of a field of related oil wells. The aggregate production rate from an oil field over time usually grows exponentially until the rate peaks and then declines—sometimes rapidly—until the field is depleted. This concept is derived from the Hubbert curve, and has been shown to be applicable to the sum of a nation’s domestic production rate, and is similarly applied to the global rate of petroleum production. Peak oil is often confused with oil depletion; peak oil is the point of maximum production while depletion refers to a period of falling reserves and supply. (Text and image from Wikipedia.org)

Whatever growth theory is right: We will have to deal with accelerating change - what does that mean for organizations?

At this point, Jascha went to the core of his presentation - what organizational forms do we need in the 21st century, in times of great uncertainty and growing complexity.

Consciousness is the skill of reflexive mindfulness. Is the consciousness of an organization only the sum of individuals or more?

3 levels of organizational consciousness based on the concept of David Deida and #spiraldynamics

David Deida is acknowledged as one of the most insightful and provocative spiritual teachers of our time, best-selling author David Deida continues to revolutionize the way that men and women grow spiritually and sexually. His teachings and writings on a radically practical spirituality for our time have been hailed as among the most original and authentic contributions to personal and spiritual growth currently available. (from Deida's own short biography)

Spiral Dynamics is an evolutionary model of human development which can be applied to individuals, societies and organizations. Originally conceived by Clare Graves in the sixties, it was taken up and further developed by Chris Cowan and Don Beck (the two guys, after having collaborated and published a seminal book on the topic, parted in conflict). We have published a case study on the Lebanese history based on Spiral Dynamics.

Level 1: The level of clearly prescribed roles, clear hierarchies, clear job descriptions. These organizations are efficient.

In Spiral Dynamics, we call those entities "blue organizations". They are organizations where trust is developed by rules and hierarchies. If you stick to rules you know that you are on the right track. Level 1 organizations work well in predictable markets.

But Level 1 organizations are not able to quickly adapt to change.

We have seen the fall of typical blue organizations recently, such as GM which had failed for many years to adapt to quickly changing markets.

Level 2 organizations are looking for meaning. It is kind of a community and includes emancipation. Trust is based on equality.

Problem of Level 2 organizations: they are not as efficient as Level 1 organizations and equality blocks individual development.

In Spiral Dynamics, we call those entities "green organizations". Trust is given by the community of equals. There are no hierarchies and no leaders. Issues are discussed and either decided by group consensus or left undecided. Level 2 organizations have worked well in particular in non-profit settings.

In level 3 organizations (just emerging): Instead of roles and equality, authenticity is the base of organizational consciousness.

In Level 3 organizations, leadership is a service, helping others to unfold their authenticity. Here, people unfold their potential.

In Spiral Dynamics, we call those entities either "yellow or turquois organizations", depending on whether they have the ability to create community and serve for a larger good (turquois).

How to organize Level 3 organizations? @jascharohr suggests participatory co-construction.

In @jascharohr's concept of participation, all living/non-living actors are part of the co-construction process and have their role.

Participatory co-construction is based on generative patterns

In a participatory co-construction process, all living/non-living actors are part of a non-linear field and interact with each other.

This concept is based on several sources:

1. The work of Christopher Alexander (http://www.patternlanguage.com, a Vienna born architect. From Wikipedia comes this quote from one of his books:

The Timeless Way of Building described the perfection of use to which buildings could aspire:

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There is one timeless way of building. It is a thousand years old, and the same today as it has ever been. The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who were very close to the center of this way. It is not possible to make great buildings, or great towns, beautiful places, places where you feel yourself, places where you feel alive, except by following this way. And, as you will see, this way will lead anyone who looks for it to buildings which are themselves as ancient in their form, as the trees and hills, and as our faces are.

2) For me, another important source for this is the work of Arnold Mindell, further developed by Max Schupbach in his WorldWork approach.

Worldwork brings is a new way of thinking about and working within the complete spectrum of collective life and its organizational forms. At its core is a theory that links research in consciousness studies to fresh interpretations of findings in modern physics.

More about the WorldWork paradigm can be found here.

In Level 3 organizations, all actors are ready to be deeply involved, aware that they are part of a field which they cannot control.

In Level 3 organizations, everybody can and will lead and everybody can and will follow in different phases.

We don't know whether Level 3 organizations do exist but there have been early prototypes, such as Dee Hock's Visa, who said in an interview:

"We are at that very point in time when a 400-year-old age is dying and another is struggling to be born -- a shifting of culture, science, society, and institutions enormously greater than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, the possibility of the regeneration of individuality, liberty, community, and ethics such as the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with one another, and with the divine intelligence such as the world has never dreamed."

Conclusion of @jascharohr: Let us stop being judgmental on leading and following. So bees and ants must be happy.


This blog post is just a start. There is much more to say about Jascha's theories, and - we have to put them into practice. Please contribute to the discussion.

Follow Jascha and Holger on Twitter.


Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

Everybody believes that this is a quote from Nelson Mandela's inauguration speech. Unfortunately, this is an urban myth, and the text comes from an author called Marianne Williamson (read the full text here). How it got attributed to Nelson Mandela remains a mystery. Marianne Williamson herself said: "Several years ago, this paragraph from A Return to Love began popping up everywhere, attributed to Nelson Mandela's 1994 inaugural address. As honored as I would be had President Mandela quoted my words, indeed he did not. I have no idea where that story came from, but I am gratified that the paragraph has come to mean so much to so many people."

Facilitating Virtual Dialogues

I will host a 2 days training on "Facilitating Virtual Dialogues" in Oxford, UK, Sep. 17-18, 2009, as a preconference workshop to the IAF Europe conference.


Summary

Social media of the WWW are now widely used to facilitate team processes, organizational development and stakeholder dialogues. The choice of an appropriate tool is based on five context markers: place, time, content, relationship and language. Such processes can take place in synchronous, asynchronous or mixed mode.

In the two days workshop, participants will experiment with a multitude of social media and learn how to facilitate virtual processes of different size and duration. It will be learning-on-the job: the learning group will subsequently form an editorial team that covering the IAF conference by different media (blogs, podcasts, videos, photos, community groups, Twitter, Facebook, etc.)


Learning Objectives/Outcomes

The participants, upon finishing the session, will be able to

- ...understand the importance of social media for transformative change
- ...apply different social media tools in their own work
- ...create meaningful content on the web
- ...facilitate asynchronous and synchronous virtual events
- ...linking up to different social networks on the Web
- ...initiate change processes by using social media


Session Content Outline & Description

Before the workshop:
- Participants will connect through a social web platform

Day 1
- Web 2.0: How social media change the world (presentation)
- Focus group discussion: What are virtual facilitation skills
- Exercise: Exploring the world of social media (small groups)
- Group presentations
- The how and what of blogging (hands on learning)
- Group presentations
- Creating meaningful content: working with videos, podcasts, slideshows, mindmaps and other interactive Web media (hand on learning)
- Group presentations
- The rising importance of social networks on the Web (presentation)
- Social media as means for transformative change in teams and organizations (group discussion)

Day 2
- Creating social networks (hands on learning)
- Group presentations
- Microblogging: creating a world brain (interactive exercise)
- Virtual facilitation skills (presentation)
- Conference platforms (interactive exercises)
- Real Time Virtual Facilitation: creating multi-media events (hands on learning)
- Reflection. How to broaden virtual facilitation and networking skills for change processes (group discussion)
- Planning: creating editorial teams to cover the IAF conference; defining objectives of coverage


Bookmark the date, more info soon.
Please send me an email at holger@change-facilitation.org if you wanted to be posted on this event.

Guest Blog: Strategic Change Management

This article focuses on a marine engineering company, which is a supplier of stabilisers and steering systems to the world's navies and commercial fleets.

The company had been the subject of a review, but in view of its sound performance and scope for development it became a core business in the technology division of their parent company. To develop the company and maximise results an ambitious 'Way Forward Programme' was launched. A month later the financial director left at short notice.

The role of FD was crucial to the change programme and a replacement was urgently required. The company decided to take their time to recruit and in the meantime employ the services of an interim manager. An acting finance director was placed in the company.

His primary objectives were to develop a new costing structure to provide relevant information for decision making on strategy, bidding for and sourcing new equipment, making recommendations to achieve labour cost-savings and identifying key performance indicators.

He was well suited to the role with his extensive financial management experience in manufacturing industries. He spent a period of five months at the company and comments: "I achieved all the objectives and was able to offer a fresh pair of eyes providing independent advice for the real improvement of the business."

The managing director of the company says that his company gained significant benefits from his services. He believes that hiring an interim manager can provide a unique solution to a business dilemma.

Read the original article about strategic change management

The RTVC Happened! Successful!

We did it! After a two months preparation, our international team hosted the first Real Time Virtual Facilitation workshop, applying Open Space principles and using a lot of different social media tools.

Here is a complete (and outstanding) mindmap covering the event (you better click on the image to see the entire mindmap):



After the agenda wall had been opened 48 hours prior to the event, 50 particpants from around the world met in a big (Skype) chat room for the opening session. From there, they went into "break-out rooms", using chat rooms, Skype voice conferences, Dimdim (conference platform), different Twitter applications, Etherpad (a simplified Wiki in which people can simultanously work on a document, and chat at the side), and other tools.

These were the topics discussed:
* Collective Action
* Communication tools for the Manager 2.0
* Introducing social media to large organisations
* OpenMoney: connecting social entrepreneurs with new currencies
* New Change Management Approach for the 21st Century?
* Interdependencies between sensible and meaningful communication and tools/ technological development
* Global Skills
* Community Owned Communications Infrastructure
* Collaborative Intelligence in the Workplace

After two break out sessions, people reconvened in the big chat room, where we facilitated a reflection session, in which we heard words like: "thrilling", "encouraging", "roller coaster", "what's next?", "bacterial", "fallingoffthecliff", and much more.

We learned a lot as a team about technological barriers, virtual facilitation skills etc.

We will be back with an even improved concept!

The Market Place of the RTVC Has Been Opened!

The Marketplace of the RTVC conference that will take place on Saturday, May 9 from 14.00-17.00 GMT has officially been opened. That means, we encourage you from now on until Saturday to identify topics you want to explore. You don't need to be an expert on that specific topic - we just appeal to your passion and responsibility. If you have such a topic, please go to the marketplace and follow the instructions:

http://www.change-management-toolbook.com/mod/glossary/view.php?id=616

Beside the topic, we ask you to define the virtual (or real life) meeting place: You can use any vehicle for dialogue that suits you well. Beside the few tools that we suggest, feel free to meet where ever you want - in Second Life, in a conference platform that you use regularly, etc. All you need to do is to specify that meeting place in the marketplace, where you post your topic.

Remember the Open Space Technology rule:

Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.

We also remind you that not all of you have yet either provided us with their Skype ID or have not yet confirmed our connection request on Skype. You need to do that to follow the opening and closing session in Skype chat. In case you cannot find the connection request, you can connect to us by using our Skype ID, which is rtvc.wks . If you are unable to install Skype (remember, it is not about the voice option but about chat), you can follow the main lines of the opening and closing ceremony at our Twitter account.

http://twitter.com/rtvc_wks

Looking forward to meeting you soon in cyberspace,

Holger Nauheimer and the Steering Group of RTVC

Stephan, Lucy, Hans, Sofia, Julian, Suresh and Michael