Genuine Contact Organization

Session 4 of the Genuine Contact™ Program

(Formerly Conscious Open Space Organization (COSO))

Imagine having an operating system in your organization that allows you to navigate the turbulent waters of change with creativity and excitement. You love to come to work because the spirit, passion and energy of people are fully engaged. You work in a liberating structure with the skills, resources, freedom and responsibility face complex challenges and thrive. We call this a Genuine Contact Organization.

Participants in the workshop will learn:

• To apply the Genuine Contact Way as a leadership practice that supports genuine contact with self, one other, the collective and the community in order to lead with courage, compassion, authenticity and openness
• To support, inspire, sustain, and regenerate growth and exceptional performance and to build capacity to successfully navigate change
• To attend to their interior condition as leaders, to make meaningful connection with the collective and practical and simple “how to” skills, tools and knowledge to work with the whole system.

This workshop is about pushing beyond the immediate benefit of great meetings, toward exploring and creating the conditions we need for effective self-organization, natural learning, health and to enable high performance in organizations and communities.

This workshop will interest you if are a leader, manager, consultant, facilitator, community developer or policy maker in any sector: workshops draw participants from all sectors – from corporate to health care and nonprofit to education and the arts – and this mix adds to the richness of your learning experience.

Benefits

You will leave this experiential, interactive workshop equipped with:

• The knowledge, skills and tools to build and work with a liberating structure and a participatory architecture that inspires excellence and enables leaders to emerge
• Strategies and approaches for developing an organization as a Genuine Contact Organization
• Your own design to start the development of a Genuine Contact Organization using Open Space Technology as a catalyst for system-wide change
• Knowledge of working with the key ingredients of a Genuine Contact Organization to support a solution focused and life nurturing climate
• Key ingredients to support leadership to successfully meet the challenges of change and to to work with change to the advantage of your organization
• A practical means for working with the information, knowledge and wisdom that already exists in your organization and within your broad stakeholder involvement
• Key ingredients for daily and strategic planning and implementation to be simultaneous within an agreed upon purpose and vision for the organization
• Understanding the role of ‘collective intelligence’ about the organization and its development
• A peer to peer mentoring circle for ongoing learning
• An in depth understanding of the dimensions of working with the key ingredients of meeting method Open Space Technology including the dynamics of repeated use of Open Space Technology in an organization.
• An understanding of how to use both Whole Person Process Facilitation and the Medicine Wheel Tool© in the development of and sustainability of the Genuine Contact Organization.

Our Approach

Our teaching model is rooted in experience. The foundational facilitation process for the workshop is Whole Person Process Facilitation, which pays attention the multidimensional human being including learning styles, different intelligences and levels of consciousness. This facilitation methodology creates conditions that maximize the learning of individual participants and also creates the opportunity for the emergence of collective learning. The process invites participants to make genuine contact with themselves, others, the collective and the community – building relationships and new ways of working together during the workshop. This allows participants to mentor each other as they apply the learning.

The learning experience includes applications of the approaches and principles that are key ingredients to becoming a Genuine Contact Organization. The workshop includes a four day learning journey with a follow-up 3 hour online mentoring workshop. Optional pre-reading is provided. Participants are encouraged to leave evenings free for reflection and review.

Working with Open Space Technology or equivalent in OST experience is a pre-requisite.

Residential Workshop

Key activities include:

• Exploring the issues and opportunities for the development of organizations of excellence focusing on the experience gained during Open Space Technology meetings within a Whole Person Process Facilitation container.
• Converging the issues and opportunities uncovered in an Open Space Technology meeting to move them to action.
• Working with the Medicine Wheel Tool© as a framework for holistic organizational transformation
• Discerning how organizations say they work and how they really do work. Organizational style, lifecycle, structure, process.
• Identifying the critical ingredients that we must pay attention to in the Genuine Contact Organization
• De-mything the organization by identifying the "givens" and identifying the space where there is freedom for creativity, innovation, and the full potential of the workforce released for great success.
• Developing a deeper understanding of yourself as a leader and what you need to support you to implement a Genuine Contact Organization.
• Developing a custom design for creating a Genuine Contact Organization that fits your organization.

Mentoring Workshop

A three- hour online mentoring workshop on January 11^th, 2010 will provide the opportunity to address questions, share learning and next steps.

The workshop includes a workbook to support ongoing learning. Audio and video CDs are available for purchase as an additional learning tool. All participants have access to support and mentorship following the training through an international network of Genuine Contact™ professionals. For more information go to www.genuinecontact.net .

Facilitator Team

Courage Group International co-owners make up our facilitation team: Michelle Cooper of Integral Visions Consulting Inc (Ancaster, ON), Donna Clark of Emergent Futures Consulting Inc (Halifax, NS) and Marquis Bureau of MBureau International Inc (Notre Dame de la Salette, QC). They are authorized Genuine Contact™ Trainers and Co-Owners who have been working with the Program for a number of years. This collaboration offers participants the opportunity to learn from Genuine Contact Professionals working across Canada and internationally in a variety of sectors including health, government, private sector and education. It also allows us to offer the Genuine Contact workshops both in English and French, providing participants with a unique and customized learning experience.

Completing Genuine Contact Organizations fulfils one of four course requirements for participating in the Genuine Contact™ Program Train the Trainer workshop. (Working with Open Space Technology, Whole Person Process Facilitation, Cross Cultural Conflict Resolution and Genuine Contact Organization)

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Upcoming Public Offering: TBA
Cost: $1200 regular or $1000 early bird discount at least 4 weeks prior to the workshop start date.
Prerequisites: Session 1: Working with Open Space Technology or other Open Space Technology training and Session 2: Whole Person Process Facilitation.

Another valuable option is to bring this workshop into your organization for your staff, managers, leadership team, and/or Board. These private workshops can take place at a location of your choosing. This option allows total attention on your organization's unique needs, and any necessary problem solving is facilitated within the workshop format. Contact Us to find out more.