SPECIAL EVENT - "Tools for growing Living Organisations"

One day participative workshops launch Tipu Ake internationally:

Thanks to all who made the local arrrangements and who participated (see report on these workshops)

Mon 29 Aug 2005
venue: Saybrook Graduate School and Research Centre
747 Front St. 3rd Floor, San Francisco

John Adams - Saybrook Graduate School
http://www.saybrook.edu/

Richard Payne -Bauhaus Consulting Group http://bcgrp.com

What is this about?

Our well-practiced industrial age organizational structures and processes often no longer seem to be serving us so well. Maybe today’s organisations need to be more like live ecosystems comprising many diverse living individuals and groups that must collaborate and share limited resources to simaltaneously manage threats and grow opportunities for a well future amidst a complex environment of apparent anarchy, chaos, uncertainty, ambiguity and interconnectedness.

So what would happen then if organisations, projects teams and individuals were to look to nature (and in particular its rainforests) for some lessons. Perhaps we would discover other dimensions that would add balance and a new reverence for life in the knowledge economy where interdependence, competition, rapid change, information and environmental overload is a reality. Perhaps a different world view would drive some powerful new self directed and outcome seeking organisational behaviours.

This workshop will introduce you to a very different New Zealand leadership model called the Tipu Ake ki te Ora lifecycle (growing from within ever upward towards wellbeing). On it we will practice some of the behaviours and tools it offers to help grow living organisations. For an overview of Tipu Ake
see http://www.tipuake.org.nz/stories/program_management.pdf

Objectives of Workshop:

In keeping with our organic theme, the program will be fluid and like nature grow its own shape in each location depending on the mix of people involved and the opportunities for learning they contribute, but here is the outline:

We want to attract a very diverse group of 20-40 people of all ages from Education, Government, Community, Business, Education, Health, Sustainability, Academic, Indigenous groups etc, who are willing to courageously explore together outside their comfort zones. In the morning we will use the behavioural side of the Tipu Ake ..... leadership model to try to quickly help them meld themselves into powerful teams that can exploit their diversity to grow and deploy their collective wisdom. We will also introduce a few simple team tools that can help groups gather in and share information, then converge on collaborative solutions. Later in the afternoon we will work on the "... ki te Ora" part of Tipu Ake, splitting into groups and working on real examples that people suggest; forming a collective vision for the future, identifying the outcomes needed, how we would know when we were getting near them, then working back from this to create a roadmap of the multitude of project actions and coalitions needed to help us all grow towards it. From time to time we will stop to allow all to reflect on and share our experience and learnings.

The facilitator:

Peter Goldsbury BE(Elec), DMS, Dip in Teaching, PMP, is an experienced engineer, project and business manager who now works as an organizational development facilitator. In 2000 he returned with a group from the Auckland University of Technology to his primary school deep in the Whirinaki Rainforest in New Zealand to discover that they had made a revolutionary self-transformation. That started an active research program involving a range of volunteers that resulted in the documentation of the Tipu Ake Lifecycle. The School and it’s Maori community (underemployed since rainforest milling was stopped) shares this in the public domain on the web at www.tipuake.org.nz for the benefit of all the world’s future grandchildrens. Acknowledgement is by koha – a Maori form of reciprocal gifting in trust based on the value received.

Interested:

If so, then perhaps your koha may be to help a volunteer group bring this Tipu Ake workshop to life in your location: The arrangements are informal with no budget, so we need enthusiasts with networks to coordinate invitations, record registrations, organise venues etc. To participate please contact the local person listed above.
Peter Goldsbury will be in transit but will be checking emails at pgoldsbury@stratex.co.nz )

The outcome we seek from this workshop is that the experience of working together will inspire you to continue to meet, share your experiences, learn and grow. There is no registration fee, but a koha towards the costs would be appreciated.