Overview: Economic roller coasters, mind-bending changes in technology, and sweeping waves of global awareness are awakening people all over the world to a sense of shared future and shared concerns. All over the world, people have been noticing "what works" for a long time. New ways to work continually come to life-together with words like social capital, bridging gaps, organizational learning, partnering, mutual gain, transforming conflict, team building, and multicultural. Business curriculums increasingly focus on the usefulness of everyone--experts and participants alike--continually working to strengthen organizations.
How Group Activation Works: Groups tend to align productively if:
- leaders fully support and are committed to act on the group's work,
- they share awareness of history, the future, and how concerns relate to individuals, the group, and community,
- they are aware that a group is influenced by a "larger world," and they have a
- "mind map"-a way to place the group's work in the context of past and future.
Group activation can be most effective when people seek to experience a sense of involvement, "order in the midst of chaos," and shared human interests.
The Payoff: Group work tends to produce the most useful results when the "whole system"-or a fully representative cross section-is in the room. Outcomes produced tend to reflect everyone's concerns and inspire commitment.
How to Make It Happen: Group activation is a process that is self-managed by the group involved, with support of facilitators who can build skills and facilitate dialog. A facilitator who is not part of the group tends to be most effective. It can be experienced in almost any group and setting.
Lipnack, J., & Stamps, J. (1997), Virtual Teams: Reaching Across Space, Time, and Organizations with Technology, NY, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Senge, P.M. et al (1994), The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization, New York, NY: Doubleday.
Weisbord M.R., (1992), Discovering Common Ground: How Future Search Conferences Bring People Together to Achieve…, San Francisco, CA: Berrett Koehler Publishers.
|
Group Activation
