4 Pages

Creating the futures we desire - getting the whole system into the room: part I Nixon, Bruce . Industrial and Commercial Training ; Guilsborough  Vol. 30, Iss. 1,  (1998): 4-11.

ProQuest document link

ABSTRACT For organisations to flourish, they need to engage the intelligence, creativity and energy of the whole workforce

and involve all stakeholders. One way of doing this is to use whole system approaches to planning and

implementing change and what have come to be known as large-group methods. This article makes a case for

these approaches and describes the major benefits, outlines their history and describes two well-tried methods:

future research and open space technology. FULL TEXT  

Bruce Nixon: Independent Consultant, Bruce Nixon Associates, Berkhamsted, Herts

"

We are going to win and the industrial West is going to lose out; there's not much you can do about it because the

reasons for your failure are within yourselves. Your firms are built on the Taylor model. Even worse, so are your

heads. With your bosses doing the thinking while the workers wield the screwdrivers, you're convinced deep down

that this is the right way to run a business. For you the essence of management is getting the ideas out of the

heads of the bosses and into the hands of labor.

We are beyond your mindset. Business, we know, is now so complex and difficult, the survival of firms so

hazardous in an environment increasingly unpredictable, competitive and fraught with danger, that their continued

existence depends on the day-to-day mobilisation of every ounce of intelligence. (Konosuke Matsushita, founder of

Matsushita Electric Ltd. Reproduced here with the permission of International Creative Management Inc.)"

Introduction

This is a two-part article to be published over two consecutive issues. The first part will explain why I have grown

interested in whole system work and large group interventions as they have come to be known. It will also outline

the case for using these approaches and the benefits they can bring. This part will describe two leading

approaches: future search and open space technology. Thesecond part will describe real time strategic change

and search conferences. My intention is to introduce you to these approaches and tell you where you can find out

more. The two-part article is based on a chapter in my forthcoming book Making a Difference - Strategies and

Tools for Transforming your Organisation being published early 1998 by Gilmour Drummond Publishing in Europe

and AMACON elsewhere in the world.

My journey

I experience a growing unease as I reflect on the work I have done over the years with directors, managers and

their teams.

It is all very well working at the top or in the middle but what about the mass of ordinary people in the organisation

"doing the actual work" of making things, providing services and dealing with customers? How much effect was

our work together actually having on the way things are on the shop floor or on the quality of product or service

received by the customer? I am not sure. Also these programmes were taking a long time to roll out. Where there

was an attempt to involve "ordinary workers", it was in a diluted form in less affluent surroundings. What message

did that convey? Another reflection of our class attitudes perhaps.

I had other concerns, some more fundamental. Systems thinking tells us that in deciding the way forward or

resolving fundamental issues you need data about the whole system. People at the top or in the middle, inevitably,

only have data about part of the system. If good strategic decisions are to be made, data is required from people at

every level including the bottom and from people outside the system such as customers and suppliers. Of course

that data can be obtained, and often is, before decisions are made. But for maximum organisational learning to

take place, different stakeholders or people from different parts of the system need to be in the room together,

hearing and seeing the data being contributed. They all need to be listening to each other and the process needs to

be interactive. There needs to be a common or shared database built together by everyone in the room. People at

the bottom need to see people at the top taking on board what they have said, responding to it in a way that

demonstrates a change in attitude and actually behaving differently; showing that they really mean what they say

about involving people, valuing their contribution and wanting an empowered workforce. Also people at the bottom

need to be given the opportunity to act powerfully, speak their minds honestly without fear of adverse

consequences and take responsibility. Top management need to experience this and see that it works. People

need the experience of hearing diverse views expressed, sometimes with passion, and perhaps being moved by

this. They need to discover how constructive and valuable difference can be and have their fears and stereotypes

dispelled by a constructive experience that worked. In other words a huge amount of organisational learning can

take place only when you get the whole system into the room. Real sustainable change occurs when people

experience the paradigm shift that enables them to see beyond their small part of the system. For the organisation

to learn a different dance all the partners need to be present. Only those who are full-time participants really get

the benefit.

However, it is not only about making sound decisions and learning from each other. It is also about successful

implementation. For people to be committed to changes, they need to be involved in and informed by the process

of making those decisions and take responsibility for their part in implementing them. People can more easily

make appropriate day-to-day decisions when implementing a strategy they have been involved in creating.

I had another concern. Sometimes, in the work which colleagues and I had done with groups of directors and

managers, we had encountered dependency, counter-dependency, resistance to really doing serious work or taking

responsibility for the outcomes. Was this because we facilitated too much? Would this be less likely to happen if

we stood back more and gave everyone a share in facilitating small group work at least? That also fitted well with

my conclusion that people who become facilitators benefit most.

With these thoughts in my mind I started reading Marvin Weisbord's Productive Workplaces (Weisbord, 1987) and I

organised a development programme for myself to learn about "large group interventions" i.e., ways of working

with much larger groups that make it possible to get representatives of the whole system working together in the

same room. I attended workshops which not only described the methods but gave me experience of how they work

either by my being a participant or through simulations. I looked in depth at four approaches.

- (1) future search;

- (2) open-space technology;

- (3) real-time strategic change;

- (4) search conferences.

In this article I shall do no more than introduce you to these four approaches (there are many others) and tell you

how you can find out more about them. As yet I have limited experience of using them and I have no big stories to

tell. I hope that will come later! The principles and methods have influenced all my work however and I suspect

they would influence yours.

The case for getting the whole system into the room

First I will summarise why I think these approaches need to be considered. Most of the work I have done over the

past 20 years has been with directors and managers. The concerns I have expressed above do notinvalidate this

kind of work, at the top and in the middle. Real-time management development (as I call my own version of

management development that combines working on the company's real opportunities and issues with learning)

can have a powerful effect on individual managers who may then lead their organisations very differently (Nixon,

1996, 1998). It gives managers a new vision of how teams and groups can work together. It gives them some of

the tools. It is also a good way of going with the energy, acknowledging where the organisation is and starting

where you can. Like every good methodology it has its strengths and its limitations. It may offer you the best way

forward given where your organisation is. And it may gradually open your managers up to the possibility of "getting

the whole system into the room" - something for which the organisation was not ready when you started out.

This article may help you prepare yourself for when your clients are ready. To be ready to help your clients you too

may need a new mind-set.

I see essentially four possibilities for initiating transformation:

- (1) starting at the bottom and working up;

- (2) starting somewhere in the middle and working upwards, outwards and downwards;

- (3) starting at the top and cascading down;

- (4) getting the whole system into the room.

The first two are "starting where you can" strategies. The last two are possible when your client is the CEO of the

relevant system or sub-system. The last is appropriate when the CEO is really ready to share control which means

giving up some control. Not all CEOs are ready to do this but it is an essential pre-condition for successful work of

this kind.

Top-down approaches to bringing about change have limitations. Strategic decisions made by top management

may prove flawed because they were not informed by data possessed by people elsewhere in the system. Often

top management have difficulty gaining "buy-in" or the full commitment of the workforce because the latter do not

have a full appreciation of the situation and they were not involved in the decision making. Key messages may be

diluted as they pass down the organisation. Similarly there are obstacles to information passing upwards.

Traditional processes for communicating a new strategy are relatively lifeless as they are not sufficiently involving

or interactive. The top-down approach to change does not provide adequately for organisational learning.

Increasingly often today, traditional linear methods of making decisions are simply not up to the job because the

data involved is so complex and the situation is in a constant state of flux. Finally, the process of cascading

strategy downwards can take a very long time. That can be too long and thus, ultimately, too expensive in today's

world.

Here are some of the major benefits of using large-group methods, or getting the whole system into the room.

- Decisions are informed by the whole system.

- A high degree of involvement and engagement and hence commitment is created.

- Collaborative behaviour is encouraged.

- There is a high degree of organisational learning and the organisation increases its capacity to adapt.

- People learn to value diversity and work with conflict.

- A sense of common vision and purpose is created.

- A huge groundswell of energy is generated to bring about change.

- Top management learn to let go of control and respond to feedback; people at the bottom (or in the middle) learn

to act powerfully and contribute more confidently.

- New organisational norms about how to behave are created.

- People learn how to cope with uncertainty, complexity, confusion and the fluctuating emotions involved in

planning strategic change.

- Top management can signal that they really are changing their way of bringing about change and managing the

company.

- A large number of people can be involved.

- A high degree of personal responsibility is encouraged - dependency and counter-dependency are minimised.

- People learn self-management and facilitation skills.

However large-group methods should not be contemplated where top management want to tell or sell, have no

intention of sharing power or implementing whatever has been decided in the event. They are only appropriate

when top management are genuinely committed to involving their workforce or co-creating with them. If they do

not respond honestly to feedback or demonstrate that they are "changing the way they do business", more harm

than good will be done.

Background history

Large-group methods can be traced back to the collaboration of Fred Emery, an Australian, and Eric Trist at the

Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, London, in the 1950s. Together they developed the first Search Conference

in 1960. Two British aero-engine companies had recently merged to form Bristol Siddeley. The purpose of this

conference, to be known as the Barford Conference, was to help the newly formed company create unified

strategy, mission, leadership and values. After the Barford Conference, Fred Emery, Merrelyn Emery, Eric Trist and

others facilitated hundreds of Search Conferences in North America, Australia and elsewhere over the years. The

Search Conference also inspired the later development of Future Search (Weisbord, 1987; Weisbord and Janoff,

1995); the work of Dannemiller Tyson Associates in developing interactive strategic planning and real time work

design; and real time strategic change (Jacobs, 1994).

Recent examples of well known US companies using large-group methods are: Marriott Hotels who have used

them to embed quality methods into the company worldwide; the Ford Motor Company using large-group

interventions as part of their successful strategy to turn around their business; Boeing using the methodology to

plan and build the 777 in record time. In the UK the approach has been used very successfully in the Employment

Service.

Each of the four approaches I shall describe offers a generic model. None of these approaches is merely an event.

The event is only a stage in a much longer process for bringing about change preceding and following the event.

Future Search

The Future Search Conference is a method developed by Marvin Weisbord in the 1980s for involving a wide range

of interdependent "stakeholders" in an organisation orcommunity in working together to build a picture of the

desired future they want and plan to bring it about. A typical Future Search Conference gets 30 to 70 (ideally 64)

people into one large room for 16 hours work spread over three days (two overnights). Participants from all levels

are selected to represent eight carefully chosen stakeholder groups. The approach departs from top-down

meetings or consultation. Its purpose is to enable the stakeholders to take responsibility for co-creating their

desired future and planning to bring it about.

At its very simplest the Future Search design is:

- past - where we have been;

- present - where we are;

- future - what we want;

- action - how we get there.

Certain basics underly the design of a Future Search Conference. These are:

- "whole system" in the room;

- global exploration before local action;

- future focus and common ground;

- self-management and responsibility.

Fundamental to the approach are: representation of all those who have a stake in the outcome, have key data to

contribute and who will play a crucial part in implementation; creating together the big picture and an

understanding of it before deciding and planning action; focussing on the desired state and what is agreed rather

than problems and conflicts which are relatively unproductive and sap energy; and finally people managing

themselves and taking individual responsibility. All these enhance the chances of successful outcomes.

The generic design has five main stages:

- (1) Review the past: milestones in global society, self and our organisation or community. Individual work, then

everyone writes on huge wall chart. Stakeholder groups identify trends and patterns.

- (2) Explore the present: stakeholder groups identify trends affecting our future; identify priorities, what we are

doing about them and what we need to do; what we are doing that we are proud of and what we are sorry about.

- (3) Create ideal future scenarios: mixed groups prepare an ideal future for the organisation or community and

dramatise it to the whole conference, presenting the future as if they were there.

- (4) Identify common ground: mixed groups and then the whole conference identify the common ground future (all

agreed), ways to work towards it (projects) and unresolved differences ("not agreed" list).

- (5) Make action plans - cooperating and taking individual responsibility: stakeholder and volunteer groups make

plans to bring about the common ground future, steps they will actually take and report back to the conference.

The basic methodology is as follows.

Before the conference

- The event is carefully planned by a steering committee of eight to ten people representing the stakeholders.

- Great care goes into ensuring participants represent a broad spectrum of viewpoints.

- The purpose of the event is clearly defined.

- Top leaders' backing and their agreement to be there only as full-time participants and support whatever

outcomes emerge are secured.

- Three to six months lead time.

During the conference

- People work in eight groups of eight (hence the ideal number of 64 participants), either stakeholder groups or

mixed groups as appropriate.

- There is a mixture of work done individually, work done in groups or work done in the whole group (not always in

that order).

- Large wall spaces covered in white paper or created by cutting up the charts of groups are used for the work of

the whole group. Self-adhesive coloured dots enable people to vote on priorities.

- There is a high degree of self-managed learning and planning; groups facilitate themselves, everyone taking turns

as discussion leader, time-keeper, recorder and reporter.

- Two facilitators run the event as a whole, managing task and time boundaries, handling large group process

issues, avoiding creating dependency and counter-dependency, not getting involved with small groups or with

content issues.

- Administrators provide the small groups with briefing papers, worksheets and take care of logistics.

- There are no top management or expert lecturers - top managers or experts are included as participants; no

training sessions.

- The focus is on common ground and shared desired future; differences are acknowledged but not worked on.

- The focus is also on discovery, learning and cooperating rather than hierarchy, power, conflict, passivity,

adversarial behaviour and dependency.

- Everyone takes individual responsibility for planning action to bring about the desired future.

Certain groundrules need to be accepted by the conference. These are:

- all ideas are valid - respecting everyone's truth;

- everything on flip charts;

- listen to each other;

- observe time frames;

- seek common ground and action - not problems and conflicts.

Among essential conditions for success are the full-time attendance of all participants, healthy meeting conditions

and taking public responsibility for follow-up.

My experience of the methodology is that it is excellent in helping people learn that they can cope with a mass of

complex and confusing data, making sense of it by trusting the right-hand, intuitive part of the brain. Particularly

through dramatising the future (in stage 3 of the conference design) they learn to bring to bear all their creative,

not only rational, faculties. And people experience and learn how to cope with the "roller-coaster" of their feelings

at various stages of the process of getting on board, facing the complex mess that seems outside their control,

owning up to what they are doing and want to do, becoming energised and excited by their vision, and finally

realistically planning what they will do. People also learn a great deal about diversity and difference. Working

productively with people who are different breaks down stereotypes and encourages respect. They find that

constructive outcomes and much learning are the result of listening to each other, accepting that everyone's

opinion is valid and focussing on common ground rather than problems and conflicts. I think people are usually

surprised that whilst conflicts and differences are expressed and not avoided, there is a huge amount of common

ground. That is enough to enable people to move forward in constructive action planning. The methodology also

maximises the chance that people will take responsibility and not engage in dependency and counter-dependency

perhaps because everyone is encouraged to actively contribute from the very start and take a turn in facilitating

their group.

Future Search is firmly limited to about 70 people. That is the maximum number that, in the experience of the co-

creators (Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff), works well. So what about the people who were not involved?

Catering to their needs has to be a major issue for the Action Planning stage. Alternatively additional or parallel

Future Search Conferences can be held.

Future Search seems to be an excellent approach to use in a community or an organisation where leaders are

prepared to co-create with other stakeholders. It is particularly suited to creating sustainable development plans

for Local Agenda 21[1]. It has been widely used in the USA, Canada, Australia and Scandinavia (Weisbord, 1987).

Open Space Technology

As I have only experienced this approach at professional and personal development conferences, not yet for a

business purpose except in my own version of it, I asked my friend, Martin Leith to write this section for me. Here is

his account.

Open Space Technology (OST) was developed in 1984 by Harrison Owen, an American organisational consultant. It

is a method for organising a self-managed meeting or conference, the programme of which is created by the

participants themselves. The method enables people to create and manage an agenda of workshops, discussion

groups and other sessions in which they discuss the things that really matter to them, explore issues and

opportunities and find new ways forward. An Open Space conference has no invited speakers, just one facilitator

who explains the procedure and facilitates the plenary sessions. Although OST tends to be regarded as a meeting-

management method, its principles can be applied to create a whole new way for people to work together in

organisations.

Most Open Space conferences take place over one, two or three days. A typical one-day conference would have

four Open Space timeslots, for example 10.00 to 11.30,11.30 to 13.00, 14.00 to 15.30 and 15.30 to 17.00, each with

a number of different sessions taking place in parallel.

The approach is suitable for any size of group. Twelve is probably the minimum number of people, and the

capacity of the venue is the only factor that limits the maximum group size. An Open Space conference with 500

participants would not be unusual.

When to use Open Space Technology

OST is a highly effective method for surfacing people's heartfelt concerns, exploring strategic issues and

opportunities, promoting discussion and decision making, developing action plans with a high degree of

ownership, and transforming a group of disparate people into a vibrant community. The method should be

considered whenever a project involves high levels of complexity, diversity and conflict and decisions need to be

made quickly.

Principles

- Provide the absolute minimum of structure and control.

- Participants are encouraged to display passion and responsibility.

- Participants self-manage everything except the plenary sessions, including the development of the agenda, the

Open Space sessions and the production of the session reports.

- "Whoever comes is the right person": even if only one person shows up at a session, this will be exactly the right

person to do the work that needs to be done.

- "Whenever it starts is the right time": if a session starts earlier or later than the advertised time, that is OK. No one

need get impatient or feel anxious.

- "Whatever happens is the only thing that could happen": in other words, let go of expectations.

- "When it's over, it's over": if everything has been said, move on.

- If a participant is in a session and is not giving or receiving anything useful, they should use "The law of two feet"

to move to wherever a worthwhile contribution can be made.

Methodology

- Potential participants receive an invitation that shows the title of the conference. This should be neither too

general nor too specific, for example: What are the issues and opportunities facing the XYZ Corporation?

- People arrive at the venue and take their seats in the plenary room. The chairs are arranged in a circle to indicate

that everyone is a leader.

- The facilitator welcomes people and explains the Open Space principles and procedure.

- Participants offer as many sessions as they wish. Those offering sessions prepare a handwritten poster, make a

brief announcement to the whole group and tape the poster to one of the walls. This wall becomes the conference

agenda. A meeting space is booked by taking a Post-it Note from a matrix showing times and places and attaching

it to the poster (Figure 1).

- The "marketplace" commences. Everyone signs up for the sessions they wish to attend.

- The Open Space sessions take place. One participant in each session takes notes and produces a written report

using the computers and printers located in the "News Room". One copy of each report is taped to the wall under

the banner "Breaking News" to create a conference newspaper.

- The conference closes with a plenary session during which participants return to the circle, reflect on their

experiences and share them with the others. Sometimes participants get together before this final session to

prioritise actions arising from the different sessions and form self-managing project teams.

- As people leave the conference they are handed a copy of all the session reports.

- In the weeks and months following the conference individuals, project teams and informal groups carry out the

agreed actions and keep everyone informed about progress.

Results delivered

- people's genuine concerns are identified;

- creative and relevant ideas are developed;

- concrete action plans are specified and committed to;

- on-going self-managed teams are established;

- productive working relationships are created;

- new behaviours are practised and become the norm.

Open Space Technology has been used successfully in most parts of the world. European organisations employing

the method include Dutch Railways, Guinness, ICI, Prudential Assurance and Shell. Despite a long and growing list

of success stories, Open Space Technology should never be regarded as an easy option. It should not even be

considered if anyone wants to exercise control, when the answer is already known or when the achievement of a

specific outcome is essential. But for those who are willing to step into the unknown and allow the unexpected to

happen, Open Space has the potential to produce breakthrough results.

This concludes the first part of this article. Part II, appearing in the next issue, will describe Real Time Strategic

Change and Search Conferences and draw some conclusions.

Note

At the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, world leaders signed a global environment and development

action plan called Agenda 21. Over two-thirds of this plan required the commitment and cooperation of local

authorities to implement. Each local authority was encouraged to create its own sustainable development

strategy, through local participation, known as its Local Agenda 21.

References and further reading

1. Bunker, B. and Alban, B. (1992, "Large group interventions", special issue of theJournal of Applied Behavioural

Science, Vol. 28 No. 4, December.

2. Bunker, B. and Alban, B. (1997, Large Group Interventions, Energising the Whole System for Rapid Change,

Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.

3. Jacobs, R. (1994, Real Time Strategic Change, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, CA.

4. Leith, M. (1997, "Guide to large group interventions", Source: Martin Leith, PO Box 4YY, London WlA 4YY. E-mail

mleith@mleith.com.

5. Nixon, B. (1996, "Real time management development", Organisations and People, Vol. 3 No. 4, November.

6. Nixon, B. (1998, Making a Difference: Strategies and Tools for Transforming Your Organisation, Gilmour

Drummond Publishing, Cambridge, and AMACOM, USA.

7. Pascale, R. (1991, Managing on the Edge, Penguin Books..

8. Owen, H. (1997, "Open space technology - a users guide", Berrett-Keohler, USA.

9. Weisbord, M. (1987, Productive Workplaces - Organising and Managing for Dignity, Meaning and Community,

Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.

10. Weisbord, M. and Janoff, S. (1995, Future Search, Berrett-Keohler, San Francisco, CA.

Illustration

Caption: Figure 1; Open space matrix

DETAILS

Subject: Open systems; Methods; Future; History; Advantages; Guidelines; International;

Strategic planning; Employee involvement; Organizational change; Organizational

learning

Business indexing term: Subject: Strategic planning Employee involvement Organizational change

Organizational learning

Classification: 9150: Guidelines; 5240: Software &systems; 2320: Organizational structure; 2200:

Managerial skills; 9180: International

Publication title: Industrial and Commercial Training; Guilsborough

Volume: 30

Issue: 1

Pages: 4-11

Number of pages: 0

Publication year: 1998

LINKS Linking Service

Database copyright  2022 ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. Terms and Conditions Contact ProQuest

Publication date: 1998

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Place of publication: Guilsborough

Country of publication: United Kingdom, Guilsborough

Publication subject: Business And Economics--Management, Business And Economics--Personnel

Management

ISSN: 00197858

e-ISSN: 17585767

CODEN: ILCTAU

Source type: Scholarly Journal

Language of publication: English

Document type: Feature

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00197859810197681

ProQuest document ID: 214108987

Document URL: https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/creating-futures-we-desire-getting-

whole-system/docview/214108987/se-2?accountid=28844

Copyright: Copyright MCB UP Limited (MCB) 1998

Last updated: 2021-09-09

Database: ProQuest One Academic