Activate Collaboration, Community, Leadership, Ownership with Open Conversation Project Circles

Having spent much of our careers collaborating with people to expand what’s possible through their relationships with others, my friend and colleague Ann Van Eron and I have worked with leaders and others to create the conversations that generate transformational outcomes - as well as greater well-being. We’ve become concerned lately about all the important conversations that are not happening in so many organizations and, actually across society.

We see clients needing to mobilize others to creatively address complex issues across stakeholder groups. We see public outcry about political leaders unwilling or unable to address profound challenges that require fundamental rethinking, new approaches, new behaviors. Yet, often the authentic, generative conversations that are needed don’t seem to be happening at the level of addressing the magnitude of the issues with those who have the power to act.

We have been reflecting on this for awhile, and recently did some work with a team of colleagues, and believe we have come up with something that can be used in communities and across organizations as a way to begin, More on this later in this article.

We have introduced Open Conversation Project Circles, an innovative, dynamic program that integrates coaching, training, peer-mentoring, action-learning and community-building. It includes live video group sessions and activities and each participant designs a microproject they develop with input from their Circle cohort and work on between group sessions. We’d love to share it with you.

We developed this program based on many experiences with clients and client organizations and, as a result of participating in an exciting initiative with colleagues. Otto Scharmer, transformation expert and co-founder of MIT’s Presencing Institute, who has studied individual, organizational and societal transformation for decades, has called attention to columnist David Brooks’ view that many problems across the world are less a matter of right versus left polarization and more about being about being open versus closed. As in, people either open to new ways of doing and seeing things, or being closed. Ann and I agree and find this way of looking at challenges to be useful, since most of us are open and closed to various things in our lives, and this actually is some common ground we can work with.

We created the Open Conversation Project to explore these ideas, and became part of The Presencing Institute’s Societal Transformation Lab earlier this year – an initiative that included 350 projects across the world. We and our team of colleagues interviewed over 100 people about what makes them open and what makes them closed, and asked them to provide examples. We also asked what conditions or situations would encourage more open conversations, and what issues they are concerned about.

In this process, we learned many things, including how deeply many people care about these issues and yet feel stymied to address them. We also noticed something that we experience as profoundly useful. When we model openness, it often provokes openness in others. Openness is contagious. We believe that many situations would benefit from simple awareness of this very concept. We can choose openness versus reaction. This awareness can open possibility in our relationships with others, and create a foundation for authentic conversation and community building to address challenges.

Drawing from the work of our team members, our Societal Transformation Lab cohort colleagues from other teams who listened to our prototypes and gave thoughtful feedback, and based on our experiences and past work with leaders and their organizations of all sizes and across industries and sectors, we are excited to offer two new programs.

For an introductory exploration of how the Circles work, what makes us open and closed, and how that impacts us and others, we offer The Introduction to the Open Conversation Project Circles. About 90 minutes, and delivered via Zoom, it offers reflection, discussion listening, emotional content of communication, what supports openness, and experiential exercise.

Contact us if you would like to discuss bringing this introduction, or the larger initiative to your organization or group.

Open Conversation Project Circles has been developed as a powerful tool to support larger strategic initiatives designed to enhance more openness, to achieve greater organizational flourishing, authentic communication and transformational outcomes. As needed or desired, optional related programming may include targeted skill-building sessions, and other related services. This program is ideal for leaders seeking to establish greater openness in their cultures as a part of a journey to greater shared leadership, productivity, engagement, effectiveness, commitment, vibrancy and robust, creative conversations that foster community, well-being and sustainable achievement of desired outcomes.

Jackie Sloane specializes in coaching and consulting with leaders to bring out the best in themselves, their teams and organizations. Her firm offers Transformational Leadership Retreats and Interventions and custom leadership development experiences and programs. She is founder of Sloane Communications and has a cat named Nyx.