Saturday 30 May 2009

The Circle

The circle represents wholeness. The best way to regenerate wholeness with its accompanying experiences and benefit synergy, collective wisdom, and genuine sharing, is to make frequent use of whole system meetings such as Open Space Technology, Whole Person Process Facilitation, World Café, and Appreciative Inquiry.

Source: Achieving and Regenerating Organizational Health and Balance, Genuine Contact Program

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Wednesday 27 May 2009

Open Space Meeting with Orchestras Canada

I have the pleasure of co-facilitating an Open Space meeting in Quebec City with Roch Landry. Open Space Technology is being used by Orchestras Canada to conduct its annual general meeting.

Open Space Technology enables self-organizing groups of all sizes to deal with hugely complex issues in a very short period of time.

Tuesday 26 May 2009

The Facilitator

The job of the facilitator is to create the time and space in which the group can realize its potential, whether that potential be a new product, a strategic plan, or a redesigned organization. It is a curious role indeed, for to the extent that the facilitator becomes prescriptive, imposing time, space, and solutions, he or she will fail. The more done, the less accomplished. It is necessary to be physically on hand, be fully present, be the truth, and then get out of the way. As the world would see it, the ultimate facilitator will do nothing and remain invisible.

Source: Open Space Technology
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Friday 15 May 2009

Webinar : Creating Healthy Organizations through Genuine Contact

We are pleased to invite you to join our colleague, Michelle Cooper of Integral Visions Consulting, on Friday, June 26 at 12:00pm EST for the webinar:

Creating Healthy Organizations through Genuine Contact

This unique 1-hour webinar is presented by Best Practice Institute and offers you the opportunity to learn more about how to create a healthy and productive environment in your organization.

As our gift to you, we would like to invite you to join us for this call for free (regular value $59) by logging and entering the promo code MCBPI1.

Program Description

Imagine if you, as a leader, could create a work environment that’s consistently healthy and productive and allows all members of your team to excel!

Now you can.

Leaders today know that being a healthy organization is not optional. A healthy and dynamic working environment is the precondition for generating skills and knowledge, collaborative working relationships, change readiness, resilience, innovation and a healthy bottom line. Much has been written about what needs to be done, but there is very little guidance as to how to get there. This presentation will introduce participants to a holistic approach to how that integrates ancient wisdom and leading edge practices. The Genuine Contact™ program and approach uses simple and practical tools and approaches that that has a proven track record of success around the world.

Create the kind of organization that you want to work in!

What You Will Learn

Participants in this interactive session will:
· Understand why attending to health and balance is important to success 
· Recognize the factors that lead to a healthy organization
· Learn key questions that will help you start on the path to health and balance
· Have an introduction to the Medicine Wheel Tool© as holistic framework for understanding your organization’s current state of health and for creating strategies for achieving and maintaining a healthy work environment
· Identify resources and approaches that can help you build an operating system that promote health and balance for organizations and the individuals within them.
Who Should Participate

This presentation is for you if you are a leader, manager, consultant or anyone who needs to work with others to achieve results.

Tuesday 12 May 2009

What is leadership?

Leaders are responsible for future leadership. They need to identify, develop, and nurture future leaders. Leaders are responsible for such things as a sense of quality in the institution, for whether or not the institution is open to change. Effective leaders encourage contrary opinions, an important source of vitality. I am talking about how leaders can nurture the roots of an institution, about a sense of continuity, about institution culture.

Leaders owe a covenant to the corporation or institution, which is , after all, a group of people. Leaders owe the organization a new reference point for what caring, purposeful, committed people can be in institutional setting. Notice, I did not say what people can do - what we can do is merely a consequence of what we can be.

Source: Max Depree
http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1182552

Monday 11 May 2009

Val-David 2009 - Organizational Health and Balance Workshops

Thank you to all participants who took part in the Genuine Contact Program Organizational Health and Balance Workshops from May 5 to 7. Thank you for choosing to nourish life!

Sunday 10 May 2009

Happy Mothers' Day

A Mother's Blessing

Of all the special joys in life,
The big ones and the small,
A mother's love and tenderness
Is the greatest of them all.

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Monday 4 May 2009

Workshops in Val-David

This week, we are offering two workshops in Val-David, QC, Canada : Path to Organizational Health and Balance and Achieving Organizational Health and Balance Diagnosis and Regeneration, Foundations 1 and 2 of the Genuine Contact Program. There are two groups, one Anglophone and one Francophone for a total of 10 participants. The workshops facilitators are Marquis Bureau, Donna Clark and Michelle Cooper.

Special thanks to all participants!

Sunday 3 May 2009

Operating Principles of Team-Client Relationship Management

1. Teams must always add value.

2. Teams must always add value before reducing prices or fees.

3. Teams are the face of and fully represent their organization.

4. Clients do not care about their suppliers' internal system.

5. Teams must never waste the client's time.

6. Teams must spend time nurturing internal relationships.

7. Teams must make a team commitment to skill development and learning.

Source: 6 Habits of Highly Effective Teams, Stephen E. Kohn and Vincent D. O'Connell

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