More on community

Interested in reading more about community, go to www.genuinecontactway.com/blog/community-is-it-a-person-place-or-thing and read what my colleague Becky Arrington says about community: Is it a person, place or thing?
Whatever it is, there has to be connections between its different parts, just like a spider web. What creates those connections would be interesting to discuss. One of the Nobel laurates of 2005 said that we have looked so much at the different parts, taking apart things as much as we can. Now it is time to look at the relationships between the parts to understand what the parts really are. Applying this on community, it would be interesting to look at the glue that keeps the different parts of a community together. Becky discusses the importance of shared values. Do people in a community always have shared values? Maybe some but they do not necessarily share all values they have. There is another thing that might also be part of the glue and that is purpose. Purpose answers the question why people come together and create a community in the first place. It might be to sustain common values.
What are your thoughts on this topic and your own experiences with different communities? Discuss it here or on the GenuineContactWay blog.

Happy New Year 2012!
I wish all children in the world a great year with joy, happiness and abundance in a supportive community.
Creating community is about action so to create a wonderful year for all children, please visit Unicef and buy an Inspired Gift.

Creating community – a highway to vision

A community is a web of relationships, blending together in unplanned and unknown ways. Since many communities are connected through the internet, the threads of relationship are invisible so sometimes one might think, there are no connections. But if the right question comes up, there is quickly a lot of movement among the members, an allocation of resources, a mobilization of energy to work with that question. In between there could be silence for long times.

So how can this invisible web be a highway to achieve a vision? First, information spreads quickly in ways that are almost impossible to follow or and definitely impossible to control. Second, the mobilization for a topic that is of interest to the community, is almost immediate. Does this happen in every community. No, of course not. Some things have to be in place for this to happen.

The community needs a culture where listening, trusting and allowing each other space to take leadership and do things are invited. Other things that support community creation are common purpose and a shared vision. The agreement for openness where leadership can just emerge and take care of what needs to be done, does not have to be in written but more as a work approach. It might be helpful having some rules about the responsibility and accountability that follows this leadership. You can certainly use the principles and law in Open Space Technology together with some givens decided by the senior leaders or the CEO. Givens are the outer frames of what is allowed and asked for in the organization. They can certainly be discussed from time to time but they are a safety net so people will know when they are outside of the organizational boarders and where their energy would be wasted.

Trust is not complementary, you have to earn it. The best way to earn trust is to start trusting others. If you are interested in this theme, you are highly recommended to read The 8th Habit by Stephen R Covey, a very interesting book about leadership. Trust is really instead of many control systems, especially those that are put in to allow managers to control the behaviours and actions of people. It is interesting that some managers still think they can control people, even now when people living now exist in a very different era than the industrial and thus have different values and norms.

Do you feel that creating community in an organization is difficult? It does not need to be. There are easy tools to use, such as Open Space Technology, Whole Person Process Facilitation, Appreciative Inquiry and World Café. You can also use the Medicine Wheel Tool© to assure the readiness of the organization and to measure your success. You just do as when you are cooking, use the recipe to find out what is the flavor of this special cake and then go forward and make it with the things you have at home. And remember to make the cake together. The others will help you get where you want to be, so much faster. Cooking together is a great way of creating community. Help me with the cooking in the Genuine Contact Way!

Merry Christmas!

Eiwor

Courage to change

Today is my youngest son´s and my grandson´s birthday. At one time there was a risk that none of them would be present in this world today. Luckily we live in a time when science has come forth with cures for many forms of cancer, including those that my son and grandson had. One time someone said to my grandson that it was so sad that he was ill. My grandson answered: I am not ill, it is only my blood that has something bad in it.


I think there are some similarities with many organizations. Most organizations were born with a great purpose and lots of energy but at one point they got something bad in their veins, some kind of blockages or illnesses, that impacted the health of the whole organization. This does not mean that the organization is ill but that there is something in it that needs to be cleansed.

When you do the diagnosis as in Organizational Health and Balance, one of the foundational workshops in the Genuine Contact program, you learn to use the words cleanse, balance and nourish. Cleanse what is no longer useful. Balance what is out of balance, what you have to live with and can do nothing about. Nourish the good things that are already done in the organization. Don´t throw the baby out with the water.

This is good start on the road to get back to health and balance. As with all paths to health and balance, there is always a possibility, or you might want to call it risk, that you as the leader of an organization will be put on your own change journey. We who work within the Genuine Contact program, work from invitation. We invite people to come together and use their wisdom for the benefit of their organization or community. There is also another invitation, which sometimes is not explicit. This is the invitation for you to start on your own learning and change journey. I think that sometimes this unspoken invitation might be what prevents people from saying yes to the journey.

It is not always easy to be in a phase of transformation. You release or cleanse those patterns, habits and thoughts that is stopping you from living your full potential. Sometimes this creates a change in your environment with old friends walking away and new coming in. It could also mean that you have to look at yourself in a new light. Quite often we also forget to take care of the valuable sides we have and nourish them. We only look on the dark sides and think they are all the way through us. It is interesting how often other people don´t acknowledge those sides but see the light within us, that we tend to forget. So again with the words of my grandson: We are not ill, it is only something that is blocking us from showing our light right now.

Time to unclutter ourselves. With the words of Birgitt Williams: Courageous living is what we are asked to embrace. So let us be courageous, just like those young people who fight their cancer and other illnesses.

While you are thinking, support the Swedish Cancer Society and Rosa Bandet for finding cures for breast cancer. Cancerfondens rosa band 2011, design Per Holknekt och Lena Philipsson. Foto Melker Dahlstrand.

The space in the middle of the forest

“There is a space in the middle of the forest that can only be found by those who get lost".

"Two truths approach each other, one comes from the inside, one from the outside and where they meet you get a chance to see yourself."
With gratitude to the Nobel Prize Laurate Tomas Tranströmer, the author of these wise quotes.

Changing the body language of an organization requires just that – finding that special space, the meeting place for inside and outside, where there is enough freedom to find spirit and creativity. To reach this space there has to be a possibility to get lost so different perspectives can meet - looking from the inside out and from the outside in and allowing the blending of those different views. In nature where the forest meets the meadow is the place where you find the biggest variety of plants. Two perspectives meet and results in wonderful creativity.

Do you want to find this space in your organization to have access to all the wonderful solutions and ideas that could mark a new era for the organization? So how can you create the possibility to get lost and allow perspectives to meet? How can you find that special space where there is room for the mind to soar to new hights and many sparks can ignite new ideas?

There is one blockage to creating this kind of space and that is when the environment is too restricted, when there is so much to do and not enough resources, when there are so many control functions to adjust to and where there is no one asking you to share your wisdom.

With that said, I would like to share a really simple recipe with you, that can be used as a gateway to the forest. It is called Open Space Technology and it creates the possibility to get lost so you can find the wonderful space in the middle of the forest. It also allows for many different perspectives to approach each other and meet and the result can be a diversity of beautiful plants that could assure the successful future of the organization.

To do an Open Space Technology meeting you only need an urgent issue, a warm heart and some guidelines to follow. The only things that could mess up the meeting are those mentioned above, control and restrictions. If you don´t want to do it yourself the first time, call a facilitator. A facilitator is a person who comes with another perspective that meets yours so you have the possibility to get lost and find your space of creativity and inspiration.

Creativity comes with spirit as in in-spired. When the roads is so narrow and surrounded by walls, there is no room for spirit so it might well hide in a drawer in your desk. Artwork from the Genuine Contact program, created by Birgitt and Ward Williams, Dalar International Consultancy.

Recipe for Change - a simple one

Some say changing an organization and its culture is a huge effort and is very difficult. Big organizations need the implementation of complex systems at a huge cost. Some say that you need to implement many different protocols so people know what to do and an overall control system so you know they follow the protocols. Some say it is necessary that consultants do the change work so that senior leaders can do their job as usual. Some even talk about change management.

I say that what you need is a recipe, a simple and easy to do-recipe that everyone could learn to use, a recipe that creates a different body language which tells people about a different approach and way of working. What you also need is the big commitment from the senior leaders to do the work and to hang in there when things get uncertain, which they always are when change comes. Which they in fact always are, because change can not be managed.

So you take this recipe and do just as you do with any recipe or manual you use when you want to learn something new. You follow it to the point when you make the cake for the very first time. Then you learn how it originally tastes and what are the features of that special cake. Then you start experimenting to make it your own cake, adapting the recipe to what you have at home or what kind of occasion you make it for. It becomes so easy for you to make the cake that you share the “easy cake” recipe with many others and it becomes a natural piece at your coffee tables.

My thesis about the recipe comes from many years of experience of facilitating meetings with a different body language, showing people that there are other ways of working that promotes a different approach. Those meetings are participatory, inclusive and invites people´s creativity and responsibility. They work from the values that people are valuable, wise and want to make a difference. Adults are fully capable of making well-grounded decisions and taking responsibility for them. Just reflect a second - what are underpinning values of the meetings you attend?

Changing the culture and approach in an organization requires a commitment from the senior leaders and a change of meeting methods so the organizational body language changes. It takes about 20 days to start the process and share the recipe with internal facilitators. After that it is a part of the daily ongoing work, naturally implementing itself while at the same time adapting the recipe so it fits the organization. At the same time the people nourish what is already working fine and cleanse what is no longer useful.

The recipe has a name – it is called the Genuine Contact© program. My dear friends Birgitt and Ward Williams are the originators of this recipe and I was lucky they shared it with me. 

Organizational processes communicate

Organizational processes communicate the organization’s views of its employees and their roles, and employees will respond to trust relations communicated by the organization. Good treatment by the organization creates an obligation in employees that they should treat the organization well in return (Tan & Tan, 2000.)

So what does this all mean? Isn´t it always the employees duty to treat their job organization well in return for their wages? I believe, just as the scientists do, that an organization that wants to get the most out of their people, need to look at their processes. All processes have a design that is based on the values of the people who designed it. When the assembly line was first designed, the spirit of the times was that people could be managed to do their jobs in a mashine-like manner. Actually the whole world was more or less considered a mashine, where parts that were “broken” could be exchanged. Some of the parts could be people who didn´t perform the way they were supposed to. The approach was that those people could be exchanged with other people without any difference for the group. The group should just go on working as if nothing had happened. I don´t say people were not treated good in those days but the processes used in organizations said to people that they were considered less competent and should stay in their place and do what they were told.

Today we have another approach … or do we? Do we still have processes in the organizations that tell people to keep quite, do what they are told and don´t bother to be creative and take responsibility outside of their task? The staff is often what costs most in organizations and still many organizations fail to use processes that support people to work at their full potential. It is often not even costly to change the processes. Changing meeting processes in all meetings in the organization is fairly easy, costs nothing more than knowledge and creates a whole new attitude. Instead of meetings where people are only voting for solutions already decided on, the meetings could be a creative cocktail where all participants could use their whole knowledge to come up with totally new solutions, anchored in the future and ready to implement the moment they leave the meeting. How about that? I would say it is utilizing the recourses of the organization really wisely.

The people who build this house high up in the mountains of Norway in late 1700s were not working at an assembly line but had to create what they needed to make their own living. The house was used to make cheese and bread, utilizing the resources from the farm and the knowledge of the people in the best possible way.

Learn Tarot as a tool for your personal growth

I have the pleasure to invite you to a workshop with my dear friend Elisabeth Tepper Kofod, an experienced teacher of Tarot and the Kabbalah. She will visit Sweden in October and we then offer a workshop where you can experiment and experience Tarot as a tool for yourself. If you are interested please take a look at my website http://www.gatewayc.com/ (or if you are not familiar with Swedish), contact me through e-mail eiwor@gatewayc.com. Also please take a look at the wonderful place where we will stay, Ranebo kursgård at http://www.ranebo.com/.
You are most welcome.

 

Nonvisible body language

When we discuss body language in organizations there are some parts that are more obvious or visible such as the space where we work and the written principles and strategies we follow. These are important parts but there is more to the body language than what can be seen with your eyes. Have you ever experienced an Open Space Technology meeting? There are some parts that are visible and easy recognizable such as the circle of chairs, the agenda wall and the facilitator walking the circle when opening the meeting. But what is it that creates the dynamics, that open for the creativity and creates such amazing results. Is it really only that we are sitting in a circle with no tables between us?


For those of you who are not familiar with Open Space Technology (OST) I would like to share my experience after having facilitated many hundreds of OST meetings with between 7 and 1000 participants. OST is a very result-oriented method focused on solving urgent issues. The participants are sitting in a circle of chairs. The agenda is created by those who have topics they feel are important to discuss regarding the theme for the meeting. The smaller discussion groups are self organized through a simple system with a time matrix. They discuss their topics as long as they have passion for them and provides a report for the news wall, where anyone can read what the highlights of the discussion and suggested solutions. If the sponsor expect a plan or strategy as a result of the meeting, there is often time for prioritizing, convergence and creating plans. It is my experience that much of this could be done within a day or so, depending on how detailed the plan should be.

When I facilitate an OST meeting there is a big focus on the planning meeting. That is where the boundaries or givens are expressed such as budget, decision making authority etc. That is also where the sponsor discusses what results they want from the meeting. Now get this right, they can´t decide what the plans should look like, but they can decide that they want plans. They can´t decide that the solution should look a certain way, but they can decide that they want a solution to an urgent issue. The most important part of an OST meeting is that there is space for the wisdom of the partipants. Is that visible? Not with your eyes but there are some things telling you about this open space where you can work together with your whole creativity, intuition and your whole self, if you so wish.

Some of what tells you about this space are the four principles: Whoever comes are the right people, When it starts is the right time, Whatever happen is the only thing that could, When it is over it is over and then the Law of Mobility, inviting you to move and follow your spirit where it wants to take you. And then, this is not all that creates the space either.

What impact has the energy of the facilitator? The facilitator speaks about the wisdom of the participants. As a facilitator, you better believe what you are saying, because if you don´t, the participants will feel it. They are also likely to feel when your self-critique is stronger than your self-love. Once after having opened an OST meeting with politicians, a man said to me that it seems to take a dictator to create the space for democrazy. I am not sure if this space can be said to be democratic, that is a topic to be discussed in other places but I know that the facilitator has to conquer the space in order to hand it over to the participants. Much of that work is made in the planning meeting but the symbolic handing over is made through the opening. The facilitator generates a resonant energy field, which is a field that is easily sustained. This field and the job of the facilitator to be a resonant energy field generator is something that creates much of the open space. It can´t be seen with your eyes. Some will feel it more and some less, but it is still an important part of the body language. Interesting? Read more about energy fields in Stalking the Wild Pendulum by Itzhak Bentov, one of my favourite books and a gift from my dear friend Birgitt Williams.

      Butterflies and bumblebees, in Open Space Technology meetings as in Nature

Harrison Owen on assymetrical patterns

Today one of my friends invited me to read an article of Harrison Owen on Facebook. A lot to think about. He speaks about assymetrical patterns in the world and we can easily see it but what does it mean in the organizations? We know that doing more of the same is seldom the answer to solving problems we face today. So when I later read about the culture in Gothenburg where it seems that it is okey to use public money (taxes) for private affairs and where bribes are part of the normal, I started to think about what the assymetrical pattern means here. Some people want more control. Will it help? Is that only more of the same symmetrical thinking that has not helped before and will not help now. Here are some of Harrison Owen´s own writing to consider:

Supposing everything is asymmetrical? Or what would be perhaps more distressing – everything is so complex, interconnected and fast moving that even though patterns of symmetry may exist, our capacity to comprehend, and certainly control, is so limited as to be non-existent. Not only would the world be out of joint, as we perceive it, we could do little, if anything, to rectify the situation. And certainly our previous tools of the trade (planning, system design, to say nothing of the Diplomatic Code or The Rules of War) are inadequate for the task.

Why don´t go there and read the rest of it. I am still thinking.

Leadership as organizational body language

21/8 2011


What impact does leadership have on the culture of an organization? I would say – a lot! Leadership is really about body language. When we raise our children we often say that they will not learn to do as we tell them but instead they will do as we do. My experience is that it is the same with organizations. When I once worked with a political party, the chairman and I invited the local leaders to meetings. They wanted to participate because they were interested in discussing political subjects with the board. After some time the chairmen told me to convene the meetings without him because he had more important business to take care of. I did as I was told but found that many of the local leaders stopped coming. It was obvious that when the chairman was not there, it was a clear signal to the leaders that the meetings were not important, even if he told them they still were.

It is also interesting to reflect on what it means when leaders say that their staff is their greatest asset and when the times get tough they choose to cut the resources for competence development before cutting the recourses for offices or equipment. And what impact does it have that paying staff is considered a cost but buying equipment or buildings is seen as investment?

When a leader wants to create a certain culture, everything needs to be taken into consideration, even such things as the headlines in the budget. It must be possible to put the resources for training and education on the account for investment. To do that would really be to change some of the body language of an organization.

 

Resonant energy fields

Today I read the posting of Birgitt Williams, Dalar International Consultancy, on her blog Genuine Contact Way. She writes about whether the energy fields of facilitators are affecting the meetings they are facilitating. Her discussion is specifically about facilitators of Open Space Technology meetings. I think the discussion could be about any facilitator and/or leader and how their energy field affects their environment and the results in a meeting and workplace.

I imagine that many of you have experienced a time when you entered a room and immediately got a sense of the climate in that room. I remember very well when I was elected to the church board and thought it would be a very nice experience. When I entered the room to participate in my first meeting, it was like walking into a solid wall of antagonism. I later found out that some people in that room disliked each other so much that they could hardly bear to be together in the meeting. Of course this energy field affected the whole meeting and the results of it. There were constant misunderstandings and problems to come to agreements.

We are all energy field generators. When we are in a position as a leader/facilitator we might have more space where the energy field could extend. If the leader/facilitator wants to achieve positive results, the energy field needs to be resonant. A resonant energy field is vibrating at a frequency that is harmonious, which means that it is a natural vibration that takes little effort to sustain. Our energy field is made up of emotions and thoughts among other things. To be able to generate resonant energy fields, we could do our homework with self towards a state of positive loving thoughts and allowing the emotions to guide us without dominating us.

The energy fields of the leaders are often influencing the workplace more than that of the co-workers. So when the leaders want to change the culture of their organization, they also have to attend to their own energy field and then generate the energy they want to have in their organization. Easy said, not so easy done. In every workshop with Birgitt Williams, where I have participated, and they are quite a few, she usually tell the participants that this is homework for tomorrow but the rest is homework for a lifetime.

Do you like the resonant energy field generator below? Beautiful, isn´t it?

Purpose

Every organization has a purpose, an answer to WHY the organization was born. The purpose could be seen as the core or foundation for the organization and a large part of its identity. It doesn´t matter if the organization is a community, a family or a business. There is always a purpose, even if no one talks about it. Do you know why your organization was born?

The purpose forms the organization together with the assumptions from those people who were in the organization from start. An example: if the purpose is to make money for its owners and there is an assumption that some people are less worth than others, the business could be to sell slaves or transport refugees from one continent to another in poor ships. If the purpose is to make money for its owners and the assumption is that nature is important, the business could be to work with ecotourism. So even with a similar purpose, the form it takes depends on the assumptions around it. Now, most organizations have other purposes than to make money. Making money and also allocating other recourses is a requirement to be able to achieve the purpose of the organization.

When the purpose is never discussed, the people in the organization sometimes make up their own picture of what the purpose is and why they are there. In that case the organization could end up with many different purposes, that allows people to go in different directions and disagree on how the work should be done. With diverse visions it is natural that there are disagreements on the strategies that will lead to reaching the vision. It could really create a mess.

The purpose is an important component of an organizations identity. Sheila Margolis, Core InSites inc. and Carol D Hansen, Georgia State University, have in a study discovered how the central purpose and distinctive philosophy constitute the organizational identity. Priorities and practices are also attributes of the identity but could be changed without losing the distinctive and enduring essence of the organization. Relating to this, when people are unsure about the purpose of their organization it will have an impact on the organizational identity. According to Mary Jo Hatch, University of Virginia and Majken Schultz, Copenhagen Business School, this also affects the employee´s sense of belonging and level of commitment, their relationship with the organization.

So when the organization looses its focus of the purpose with which it was started, it not only could move in different directions, which is a fast way to disperse its recourses and the energy of its people. It could also mean that the identity of the organization, its image of self, is scattered and thereby its reputation. So let´s start to talk about purpose!

From the Genuine Contact© program,  created by Dalar International Consultancy.

Reason for meetings

What is the reason for having meetings? You might find the question funny or even stupid. Why ask when meetings are a standard component of the everyday work in most organizations. But what are they for? Why do we have these meetings? There could be a large cost connected with the meeting. Often there is paperwork to be done before, there is the cost for the room, for coffee and of course for the payment to the participants. Sometimes there has to be extra staff hired to do work instead of those participating in the meeting. When people are in a meeting they are only an expense and are not generating any revenues - or are they?


I regard meetings to be an important work component, where information is exchanged, creative ideas are developed, plans and strategies are made and learning happens. But it all depends on how the meeting is designed so therefore my question: what is the reason for having the meeting? A few days ago I discussed the effect of inspirational lectures. For some they are great and they learn a lot. For many of us they are a nice break in the ordinary day but are forgotten as soon as we leave the room. This is because the lectures are not designed to attend to the different learning styles people have. It is the same with many meetings where the chairmen or chairwoman says they want people to participate in the creation of plans or strategies. I have been to so many political meetings where the participants are invited to be come up with creative solutions and to make well informed decisions, without having the opportunity to really learn about the content. The meetings were designed only for one-sided information. Sometimes I think about how much better the communities would work if the community board dared to design their meetings differently.

Most board meetings in the communities, at least in Sweden, are still designed for an era when only men were in charge and thus formed by the masculine way of speaking. Now, both women and men have masculine and feminine ways of speaking even if men tend to speak in a more masculine way than women, but it varies depending on the individual. The masculine way of speaking is more of a competition where subject is switched often and abrupt and the acknowledgement of each other´s speech is made through repeating what the previous speaker has said. The female way of speaking is more of a weaving together different subjects. The acknowledgement is made through nodding and humming or speaking together at the end of sentences, while being careful not to push the speaker into a corner. Maybe this is why men sometimes think a woman agrees, when she in fact only wants to encourage him to go on talking.

There are many participative meeting designs out there but if you don´t know what you want from investing in meetings, it is difficult to chose one that will give you the results you wish for. So I think, the question is relevant, what is the reason for having meetings?

This picture was borrowed so long ago that I lost track on who sent it to me first but I still would like to acknowledge the wisdom behind it.

Change

I am sure you have heard Mahatma Ghandi´s well known words: “You have to be the change you want to see in the world”. I relate those to the sentence “Walk your talk”. Sustainable changes in an organization requires that the leaders are part of the changes. As Birgitt Williams says in the Genuine Contact Way e-book, http://www.genuinecontactway.com/ : “A shift in consciousness of an organization is dependent on a shift in consciousness of the individuals who make up the organization.”

So if you as a leader are serious about shifting the organizational culture, you have to start with yourself. Angeles Arrien in her The Four-Fold Way, tells us about the principles of leadership. The first principle is to show up and be present. It means to be who you are without being disguised or playing a role. It means being a role model, leading the way. It is about being courageous. Again using the words from Birgitt Williams: “Courageous living is what we are asked to embrace.”

Actually we are all part of a change process – all the time. Change is the only thing we can be sure of. It is very interesting when people say it would have been better if Sweden never became part of the European Union, because we knew what we had but were not sure what we would get. I believe we can never be sure of what we will get, union or not. The clue is to be able to handle change, to know how to stay in balance in the middle of it and also to learn how to make the most of the opportunities it brings. Because it does!

The opportunities that come with change, can go by quickly so one challenge is to have an organizational culture that allows for self-organizing, for people to make their own decisions and grasp the opportunities without having to go back to the leaders every time. And this requires trust – a valuable asset that comes from the leaders trusting their people. Which might or might not require a shift in consciousness.

Organizational Body Language

Have you ever thought about body language of an organization? We often say that body language can tell more than thousand words. When someone talks to you, you might feel something is not matching the words. Their body language is saying something else than what comes out from their mouth. Our human body language consists of how we move our physical body when communicating with other people. In a discussion it shows the other person if we understand, if we are interested and if we are really present. Clothes, jewelries, haircut and makeup could also be part of the body language since they say something about how we understand ourselves.

The body language of an organization also consists of physical things that tell us something about how they see themselves and the values they work from. It contains houses, offices, furniture, pictures etc. A large jacaranda table breaths prosperity and power. An open landscape could say that “we have no secrets here”. It could also say “we want to see that you are really working all the time”.

That the organizational body language consists of principles, protocols, control systems and unwritten rules might be quite obvious, but it also consists of the way they arrange their furniture, the way they hold their meetings and how they handle their budget. When an organization say “our staff is our greatest asset” and then put in a new control system and cut the budget for training, do you believe them? It is a little bit like when you tell your teenager that he is doing fine, with your arms crossed over your chest, a raised eyebrow and tapping your foot. He knows for sure that he has done something you don´t like.

Walk your talk is as important for organizations as it is for us human beings. Our body language will show when we do as we say. We will be calm, grounded and successful in achieving our goals. Most of all, our honesty will allow people around us to use all their wisdom and be the person they truly are.

              What does this placement of the chairs tell you about what the sponsors want with their meeting?

Culture in organisations

Many articles in the newspapers lately talk about people´s behaviour at work. Some days ago a professor in psychology said that people behave as they are taught by the culture in their workplace. So true!

One example: In one of the Swedish communities, Mark, just east of Gothenburg, there has been issues about their way to handle fosterchildren. They have been accused for doing inferior research and not take the perspective of the children into consideration. It created headlines some year ago and now they have done it again. The first time both the politicians and the officer resigned. It seemed people thought this was the end of the problem, but they did not do anything to the real problem - the culture in their organization. So it happened again.

The same thing happens when people get outburnt. Most of the time this is caused by the organizational culture or climate, sometimes in combination with personal patterns. The culture affects everyone in it and creates certain patterns. The person on sickleave gets rehabilitated and sent back to their old job, only to get sick again. Who rehabilitates the organization?

It would be interesting to learn how many organizations that consciously works with their culture in order to create healthy and positive patterns among their people. If you are working in such an organization or leading one, please share what you are doing. If you would like to work in a consciously learning organization, let´s discuss what it takes to get there.

Water of life, 

tiny drops and an ocean,

irresistable force when flowing in the same direction