Inviting people to take action
Last night I met Brian Bainbridge (one of the pioneers of Open Space) at our monthly Emergence meeting. Our discussion revolved around the issue of what makes a community and how can we encourage engagement. One of the important points for me came from a story Brian told about how he helped St Vincent de Paul. Brian was asked to run an open space session on the topic of ‘the 5 year strategic plan’. His first response was to suggest to the organisers that this was a boring topic and was unlikely to stir action. The organisers were a little offended but understood that Brian was right so they worked together on a new purpose for the gathering. They came up with the phrase ‘Doing what we do better’. This was a good start, it was about the participants, it was about improvement, people could get behind it. Brian asked the group to sleep on it. The next morning one of the organisers gave him a call. “I have an addition to our invitation title. How about ‘Doing what we do even better’. Everyone loved it and its sparked a ground swell of community action.
I learned that you cannot underestimate the power of an inclusive, action-oriented title for inviting potential members to participate in community activities. The invitation provides an opportunity, the kick off meeting (whether you use open space or not) stirs passion which results in action. And it is only action undertaken among committed, passionate people who care about what they are doing that creates community. That is our challenge in cultivating communities of practice.
Shawn, author of Putting Stories to Work, is one of the world's leading business storytelling consultants. He helps executive teams find and tell the story of their strategy. When he is not working on strategy communication, Shawn is helping leaders find and tell business stories to engage, to influence and to inspire. Shawn works with Global 1000 companies including Shell, IBM, SAP, Bayer, Microsoft & Danone. Connect with Shawn on:
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Cool…Brian’s a friend of mine…small world!
Yes Chris, Brian spoke very highly of you and your work. It *is* a small world. I suspect, however, Brian is one of those people who instantly reduces the average degrees of seperation in any room.