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New Meeting Forms: LeadTogether Highlight #3 9-1-2014

Dear Colleagues,

In our latest newsletter we explore ways to plan and prepare for meetings. But are there different ways to meet that facilitate maximum involvement and exchange of ideas? World Café and Open Space are two relatively new ways of meeting that can do this . Here is a description of both of the meeting formats and some tips on how to make them a successful part of your organization meeting life. These and other ideas about successful meetings found in our resource library are from a new booklet, Building Regenerative Communities, compiled by Mary Christenson and Marianne Fieber. This helpful new booklet is available free in our resource section, thanks to the authors and the Mid States Shared Gifting Group. (click here for the article)

Keep in touch.

Michael Soule

LeadTogether

New Meeting Forms: Open Space and World Cafe

Excerpt from Building Regenerative Communities: Open Space and World Café. (download the whole booklet here)

Open Space This is an open form of meeting where passion and responsibility are combined to empower participants by allowing agenda topics to arise from the group. A facilitator is only visible when the meeting needs re-opening. There are a series of laws or principles to consider with an “open space” meeting. Two of these are:  The law of two feet: If you find yourself in a situation where you are neither learning nor contributing, move somewhere where you can. This is a law like the law of gravity. You can choose to notice it or not, but it's safer just to notice it.  The four principles: Whoever comes are the right people; whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened; when it starts is the right time; and when it’s over, it's over. These aren't prescriptive—they are the results of thousands of little experiments. The link below will take you to further explanations about Open Space. http://www.openspaceworld.org/cgi/wiki.cgi?OpenSpaceExplanations ~Marianne Fieber

The World Café Using seven design principles and a simple method, the World Café is a powerful social technology for engaging people in conversations that matter, offering an effective antidote to the fast-paced fragmentation and lack of connection in today's world. This approach to conversation creates several smaller, intimate groups within a larger group to discuss one question, thereby giving more people an opportunity to dialogue. Based on the understanding that conversation is the core process that drives personal, business, and organizational life, the World Café is more than a method, process or technique. It's a way of thinking and being together sourced in a philosophy of conversational leadership. http://www.theworldcafe.com/tools.html

More Resources for Creating Effective Meetings

Other Resources

Creating Effective Agendas is an article offered by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Urban Affairs in Ontario, Canada that is a helpful tool covering all the essentials of good meeting planning.

Tips for Creating Board Agendas is an article specifically focused on some issues that face only boards, including the difference between policy and operations issues.

Working Together as a Group to Improve your Meetings is a chart of insights and helpful tips developed by a group of colleagues years ago when they decided to try to improve their meetings.

The Stanford Facilitation Guide