Page 8 - The World Cafe

Special Report – Hosting Strategic Conversations 7
questions for further study, and plans for immediate action will be documented in one comprehensive report -- finished, printed and in the hands of participants when they leave.
4. When appropriate and time is allowed for it, the total contents of this report document can be focused and prioritized in a matter of a few hours, even with very large groups (100's).
5. After an event, all of these results can be made available to an entire organization or community within days of the event, so the conversation can invite every stakeholder into implementation -- right now.
6. AND... results like these can be planned and implemented faster than any other kind of so-called "large-group intervention." It is literally possible to accomplish in days and weeks what some other approaches take months and years to do.
Open Space goes against most traditional ways of running meetings or organizing, and it works far better. The leader’s role is to step out of the way of the process and allow the people to self-organize themselves and the issue to move to action. By focusing on issues such as framing the central question, creating a safe space for people to work together and hosting the space, the leader engages and builds commitment to solutions (s)he could never otherwise have accomplished. With the proper training and experience, leaders
can use hosting technologies such as Open Space to literally transform the culture of their organizations – if they have the courage to let go.
The World Café
“The principles for hosting strategic conversations [in World Café]... have been the foundation of our Executive MBA program. Why? Because they work!”
Robert Legel, PhD, University of Texas San Antonio EMBA Program
The World Café taps the power of conversation to actively engage multiple stakeholders and every member of groups of 15 or 5,000 to craft strategic plans, new solutions and new ways of working together. All employees, customers, suppliers and other members of your community can be actively involved in the process, own the solutions generated, and thus support them.
The underlying assumption of the World Café is that the expertise that is needed is in the collective wisdom of those gathered, not in some ‘experts’ or in those at the top of the hierarchy. Rather, the role of senior management is to tap the collective expertise of the organization and its community to unlock and uncover the solutions that lie within.
Our work is made up of successive conversations, and the World Café taps that process to focus individuals,
© Chrysalis Strategies Inc.
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