SE Stakeholder Engagement – Productive Conversations (0.5d)
This training programme could equally be called ‘honest conversations’, ‘difficult conversations’, ‘constructive conversations’, or ‘challenging conversations’.
Fundamental to the success and flavour of organisational life – and systems practice interventions – are the quality of conversations we are able to have. If we can develop an honest and shared attempt to get at shared understanding – shared ‘truth’ if you like – or at least to fully appreciate each others’ understanding – then we can make true progress.
This interactive session will:
Discuss different types of feedback / difficult conversation
Understand how the brain rationalises and protect us
Increase awareness of our own habits and perceptions
Prepare and plan for a difficult conversation
Have effective performance conversations
Learn how to respond / look after yourself in the moment
And help you to have productive conversations even when it seems most unlikely. You will need to bring a record of an ‘unproductive’ conversation you have had, or fear having, and be prepared to work with others around it and other examples. You will end the session with the ability to surface more productive conversations even when it is difficult.
Trainer These courses are delivered by Benjamin P Taylor, an expert in systems, cybernetics, and complexity in service transformation.
In a classic 2005 article, ‘Techniques to Match our Values’, Weisbord set out the ‘learning curve’, with a movement from ‘experts solve problems’ to ‘’everybody’ solves problems’ to ‘experts improve whole systems’ to ‘’everybody’ improves whole systems’. Inherent in the development of systems practice from the start has been recognition of ‘the whole’, which comes in various forms from group dynamics to organisational viability.
This programme will give an overview of intervention approaches which ‘bring whole systems into the room’ rather than have a few experts work on individual issues. We will look at some of the history and the wide range of interventions that have been developed, and provide an overview of some of the most interesting.
We will compare and contrast these approaches and provide ‘ways in’ to consider when, and which, large group intervention might be an appropriate part of a systems practice intervention.
Trainer These courses are delivered by Benjamin P Taylor, an expert in systems, cybernetics, and complexity in service transformation.
This module provides learners with an understanding of the design of workshops and relevant considerations, taking into account the potentially very different contexts and definitions of what a ‘workshop’ is. It introduces a range of tools and approaches for workshop design, building on the facilitation module. It gives tools to consider evaluation and learning about workshop design, and compares various approaches, enabling learners to better select and apply appropriate workshop design approaches to their context.
A workshop can be distinguished from a meeting (though the boundaries may be blurry at times), by some of the following indicators:
intensive discussion and activity, designed to progress thinking and planning
intentionally designed activities (rather than simply an agenda), or flow
an impact focus, usually above and beyond just a discussion or decision – some kind of output taking an intervention or initiative forward
An alternative use of the work, to workshop (something), refers to taking a product or idea into a period of intense focused experimentation and development, often bringing in fresh or different perspectives than the original developers of the product or idea. This is of course closely related, but implies some partly-developed ‘content’ as the workshop focus, as opposed to simply a product or idea. In either case, some input is expected to a workshop, whether process, content, or both.
The learning will cover:
What a workshop is
Where and when we might use a workshop
A range of tools and approaches
How to appropriately select an approach, and design a workshop to fit the requirements in context
The importance of reflection and how to evaluate and build a learning loop
Workshop design tools, core and conceptual
This is a very practical, hands-on course based on you creating an initial workshop design from your context, using sources offered, and sharing and discussing it in the session.
This course complements the course on Facilitation for systems practice interventions, though they can be done independently or in any order.
Trainer These courses are delivered by Benjamin P Taylor, an expert in systems, cybernetics, and complexity in service transformation.
ICS2 Facilitation Skills for Systems Practice Interventions (0.5d)
This course provides learners with an understanding of the facilitation relationship in the context of systems intervention itself, and of the challenges it brings. It introduces a range of tools and practices for facilitation and provides guidance on workshop planning. Finally, it compares various approaches to facilitation, enabling learners to develop a stronger sense of the kind of facilitator they want to be.
Topics covered include:
The facilitraining rainbow – where do you stand?
Divergence, emergence, convergence;
Differentiation and integration method;
Adaptive change;
Facilitation for ‘robust systems’;
Session planning and session flow;
The perceptual positions;
Ground rules for workshops and ways into partnership;
Maintaining your authenticity;
Peter Block’s ‘six conversations that matter’;
Chris Corrigan’s ‘seven little helpers’;
Hosting and guiding and/or customer services;
Context cues;
History and three futures;
Power tools and making concrete – Naming The Thing.
Trainer These courses are delivered by Benjamin P Taylor, an expert in systems, cybernetics, and complexity in service transformation.
ICS1b Consulting for Systems Practice Interventions – (b) Core (0.5d)
This course provides learners with a deeper understanding of:
Discovery and research into the client system;
Power questions, layers of analysis, and objectifying ‘the system’;
Research and action-based approaches;
Third-party and whole systems approaches;
Maintaining the balance of responsibility for deep engagement;
Structuring analysis and feedback, developing commitment;
Choosing dirty or clean consulting.
To maximise your chances of being effective in achieving positive change, you should combine a sound understanding of systems approaches with well-developed intervention skills.
This in turn requires a clear conception of the role of the systems practitioner as ‘consultant’, of their relationships with stakeholders, especially the ‘client’, and the nature of the practitioner’s influence on the organisations they seek to transform.
Drawing on Flawless Consulting, Barry Oshry’s Organic Systems Framework, and more, Consulting for Systems Practice Interventions emphasises a collaborative approach and equal responsibility between the intervention practitioner and the client, navigating a path between the twin traps of ‘consultant as boss’ and ‘consultant as servant’.
These courses are relevant to anyone – consultant or not! – who is engaging in organisational change.
Trainer These courses are delivered by Benjamin P Taylor, an expert in systems, cybernetics, and complexity in service transformation.
ICS1a Consulting for Systems Practice Interventions – (a) Foundation (0.5d)
This course will provide learners with key principles and a structure for interventions. Topics covered include:
The five phases of the consultative process;
‘Techniques are not enough’: relationships in consulting;
Dealing with ‘the space of service’;
Setting up a clear ‘contract’ for interventions – including triangular and rectangular contracting;
Authenticity and setting your assumptions;
The client behind the client and the problem behind the problem;
To maximise your chances of being effective in achieving positive change, you should combine a sound understanding of systems approaches with well-developed intervention skills.
This in turn requires a clear conception of the role of the systems practitioner as ‘consultant’, of their relationships with stakeholders, especially the ‘client’, and the nature of the practitioner’s influence on the organisations they seek to transform.
Drawing on Flawless Consulting, Barry Oshry’s Organic Systems Framework, and more, Consulting for Systems Practice Interventions emphasises a collaborative approach and equal responsibility between the intervention practitioner and the client, navigating a path between the twin traps of ‘consultant as boss’ and ‘consultant as servant’.
These courses are relevant to anyone – consultant or not! – who is engaging in organisational change.
Trainer These courses are delivered by Benjamin P Taylor, an expert in systems, cybernetics, and complexity in service transformation.
I utilise the featured image to prompt reflection on the depth of metaphor and the intricate nature of organisational transformation. It urges individuals to consider their approach—whether they are merely dredging a stream, fortifying a bridge, or perhaps even seeding trout. Drawing parallels, Santosh Desai’s insight on creased trousers underscores the human inclination for straight lines as symbols of civilization, asserting control over circumstances. However, the dichotomy emerges as the more rigidly we delineate our realm, the more challenges arise. Demarcation necessitates constant energy to fend off encroaching elements, mirroring organizational struggles. The piece contemplates alternatives like wild-cropping, permaculture, and rewilding, questioning the desired resemblance of businesses to meticulously controlled machines or embracing a more organic, harmonious existence. It ultimately prompts reflection on what type of business evokes a genuine connection—be it a controlled expanse of greenhouses, a modest family-run garden, or nomadic herders tending to their sheep on the hills.
What are humans? The question almost never asked (and never answered) by anyone
Anthropologists and sociologists (at least) might be expected to have attempted an answer to the question ‘What are humans?’. But they have not. It is a vaunting, daunting question, but it is worth exploring, even if the exploration is frustrating. This lecture looks at the question through a number of lenses, suggests the least unsatisfactory answer, and goes on to ask what this answer means for the way that we should live as individuals and the way we should structure our societies.
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http://www.rap4skills.org/ We are a passionate team, dedicated to transforming how young generations acquire vital skills for the digital age, e.g., time management, critical thinking, design thinking, empathy, digital citizenship, budgeting, etc. We believe in the power of music, particularly rap, as an educational tool. The lyrics of these skills are in the book “Rap4Skills” published on Amazon in 2023 (http://www.amazon.com/Rap4Skills-Prof-H…Bui/dp/B0BYR5F9MT). We have also produced a demo on YouTube and received well-warm feedback from our students and friends (Prof Hong Bui -YouTube channel).
Our project, Rap4Skills, aims to produce songs that convey vital work and life skills and engage multiple communities to spread its impacts. Your support is paramount. By contributing, you are enabling a creative education for social inclusion and social transformation. The impact of this edutainment project will go globally.
Let’s change education together, one rap at a time!
Systems ThinkingRap4Skills 1 month ago1 month agoHip-hop & RapLikeRepostShareCopy LinkAdd to Next upMore 79 plays79 View all likes4 View all reposts2Rap4Skills 1 track1FollowReportFollow Rap4Skills and others on SoundCloud.Sign inCreate a SoundCloud accountwww.rap4skills.org/We are a passionate team, dedicated to transforming how young generations acquire vital skills for the digital age, e.g., time management, critical thinking, design thinking, empathy, digital citizenship, budgeting, etc. We believe in the power of music, particularly rap, as an educational tool. The lyrics of these skills are in the book “Rap4Skills” published on Amazon in 2023 (www.amazon.com/Rap4Skills-Prof-H…Bui/dp/B0BYR5F9MT). We have also produced a demo on YouTube and received well-warm feedback from our students and friends (Prof Hong Bui -YouTube channel).Our project, Rap4Skills, aims to produce songs that convey vital work and life skills and engage multiple communities to spread its impacts. Your support is paramount. By contributing, you are enabling a creative education for social inclusion and social transformation. The impact of this edutainment project will go globally.Let’s change education together, one rap at a time!
Journeys of Growth and Belonging is a gathering series co-facilitated with storytellers who are affecting a shift to an alternative narrative in their communities and organizations. These stories give us a place to redirect our attention. They can teach us how to become relational activists, which means we are putting our experience with each other first. It invites us all to reclaim control of our collective well-being. As we have been connecting and exchanging ideas around ideas in Peter Block’s books Activating the Common Good and Community, what has become evident is the value in gathering and collectively identifying ways that we can put the Six Conversations and other common good protocols into practice. Our intention is to continue to share, learn together with, and inspire others throughout 2024 by hosting a diverse and multidisciplinary community of those who are actively co-creating communities, organizations, and a world that works for the common good of all. In addition to learning from the story, we will connect in small groups as a model of the very convening style we wish to see more of in the world. Join us to connect and witness the common good.
Date & TimeYou can choose to attend one or more of the following sessions.
We invite you to join us in a new virtual seminar series to collaboratively explore diverse research approaches and methodologies in our study of compassionate systems and systems awareness more broadly. The aim of this series from the MIT Systems Awareness Lab is to inspire communities of practitioners and researchers to work together in considering the role of research in their own systems change work.
From this series of research design seminars, we will iterate on research designs that our community can then build upon, refine, implement, and learn from with our partners.
Tuesday, January 23, 2024, 10:00 – 11:30 am EST “Systems Awareness Methodologies”
An exploration of how we understand and map the nested layers of the education ecosystem with Dr. Mette Miriam Boell along with Dr. Lukas Herrmann, and Dr. Lana Cook of the MIT Systems Awareness Lab.
Wednesday, January 24, 2024, 10:00 – 11:30 am EST
“Simulations and Game-based Learning for Youth Engagement”
A design session with Dr. Eric Klopfer, Dan Roy (MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program, Education Arcade) with Gustav Boell and Youth Ambassadors (Center for Systems Awareness)
Thursday, January 25, 2024, 9:00 – 10:30 am EST
“Systems Intelligence of Children”
A conversation with Dr. Jean Clinton (McMaster University), Dr. Peter Senge (MIT), Jacob Martin (Dulwich College Singapore), and Charlotte Ruddy (Dulwich College Singapore)
Another analogy between the camera/photography and AI
Pattern: New technology is first resisted, then embraced, and ultimately transcended in art
Weak signal: Just as photography gave rise to Impressionism and Pointillism, AI is likely to inspire new art forms and styles that we cannot yet envision
What kind of journalism allows this? “The slides were first reported by the small, left-leaning news organisation, Novara Media, which said it had been told the presentation was given to the company’s executive team, including the managing director.
Avanti West Coast said none of the slides had been presented by its managing director or any member of its senior management.” Claim andthe denial about completely different things – and yet there’s no comment on this!
www.bentaylor.com
* curator at www.syscoi.com
* The Public Service Transformation Academy - Chief Executive - www.publicservicetransformation.org
* RedQuadrant - public service network consultancy - www.redquadrant.com
* SCiO - non-exec director - www.systemspractice.org
* Quadrant Resourcing - excellent interim change people - www.quadrantresourcing.com
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chosen path 