The conversing foundation of a report entitled ‘Vision, Values and Vibes’
This post is mainly to do with a report on the introduction of conversing (meaning metaphorically ‘to turn o to dance together’) process to the organisational culture of a large aged care facility. See below. *
It is one such on my work as an external facilitator of conversing processes in organisations of diverse kinds, for profit and not for profit. Using my well developed skills as a facilitator of conversational processes. Among which are Open Space Technology (OST) and the World Cafe.
Shortly after engaging in the particular enterprise reported below I went to live in Hong Kong for six years. Which turned out to be a wonderful adventure, particularly in meeting many ‘remarkably’ lively and interesting people. And in travelling widely, given that Hong Kong is in ‘the middle of the world’.
It was during this time that I was gifted to create the new and wholesome way of conversing among strangers which I named Conversare. For what this is see here
Please note: As indicated in a recent post I had been considering having Conversare online. Along with many other enterprises which have done this in our global pandemically altered ways.
But have decided not to do this in view of the observation and experience that – while well and good for many purposes – it precludes the essence of being in the personal company of others. Which is well established as a critical element in the ever increasing reports of loneliness. Particularly among men.
One key element of Conversare gatherings in public places such as community centres, cafes and hotels is that it is geared to address loneliness effectively.
To add:
I was recently encouraged to submit one of my personal papers presented as a keynote speech at a major international conference, entitled ‘The Conversing Company – its culture, power and potential’.
This was to the editor of a large community oriented journal. Imagine my surprise and delight to receive a prompt response to say:
“Thanks dear Alan – a lot! It will get into the last issue of the year. I trust you’re well and conversing!”
I will provide details of access to this publication once they are to hand.
* Vision, Values and Vibes
Richard Hancock
CEO James Brown Memorial Trust
(operators of a large aged care complex in Adelaide, Australia)
Presented at seminar on ‘Organisational transformation and the role of the external facilitator’ Adelaide 12 August 2004
I think Alan Stewart would mentally kick me in the backside if I said that what I am about to relate to you is really nothing profound. I have been saying that to Alan over the last two to three years when he and I have had dialogue about cultural changes in my organisation based on introducing a communications process that was stimulated by him. Each time I described some new happening, Alan suggested that what I had just said to him was indeed profound. I must admit that he’s pretty close to convincing me that this is so.
So what am I talking about? Let me explain by taking a step back to two to three years ago when I had a chance meeting with Alan in our organisation’s lunch shop where we were independently eating strawberries and ice-cream. Whilst enjoying my serve, I was reflecting on the then 110 year history of my organisation, a not for profit residential aged care service provider that was once a hospital which evolved into residential aged care. More particularly I was reflecting on the previous four years in my role as CEO of the organisation.
Over 110 years, James Brown Memorial Trust had developed an excellent reputation of caring for its patients and residents, particularly through its activities at Kalyra, Belair, and it had developed a financially sound operation through the dedication and commitment of its conservative Board of Trustees.
I came into the role of CEO back in 1997 with a personal tried and true leadership formula of firstly, developing a vision for the Trust so that everyone would be facing in the same direction to progress the organisation, and secondly, developing a set of values, through staff and volunteer involvement, that would clearly set the standards of behaviour and desired attitudes within the organisation that would make everyone say that they were proud to be working for James Brown Memorial Trust.
After my first four years in the role as the Trust’s CEO, with constant attention to the values in many different ways to ensure that they remained real and not just a list sitting in a frame on the reception wall, and with constant attention to our vision and associated strategic and business planning, I felt satisfied that James Brown Memorial Trust was continuing to grow from strength to strength. In accordance with our vision, it was being regarded as the place to be whether one was a staff member, volunteer or, indeed, a resident.
But something was lacking, which troubled my mind as I ate my strawberries and ice-cream in our lunch shop. I couldn’t put my finger on it exactly, but thoughts like ‘we seem to be resting too much on our laurels of what has been achieved over the Trust’s 110 years of existence’ and another thought like ‘ we are still too hierarchical in our management style, particularly at the clinical and resident care levels – how can this be broken down?’
The hierarchical management style was understandable. After all the Trust had grown up as a medical model that developed into aged care, with matrons and medical superintendents in years gone by to Directors of Care with their platoons of Registered Nurses in today’s environment. These models have traditionally been hierarchical, where everyone knows their place. But I wasn’t comfortable with this – it was stifling staff involvement in decision-making and people, at any level within the organisation, did not feel secure in having a go at something new and feeling that they were being supported along the way. It was one thing for me to lead with a more participative style of management with my own senior managers, however, getting it past that level was another matter. Medical models die hard.
Then I heard a voice – not some divine intervention. It was Alan Stewart’s. While munching on his strawberries and ice-cream he broke my reflective gaze by commenting on how impressed some Chinese visitors were when he took them through our Kalyra site at Belair. Alan lives nearby and he would pop into our lunch shop from time to time to buy some home made carrot cake and what have you, hence would occasionally bring visitors to the site.
This set us chatting, which led to Alan sharing with me his involvement as a professional conversationalist and the use of Open Space Technology and the World Café to engender free-wheeling conversations within groups of people. He used words like ‘encouraging creativity’ and ‘developing informality’ within the workplace, which, in the context of my organisational cultural dilemma that had been exercising my mind at the time, were music to my ears.
Alan and I arranged to meet again to discuss this further, which then led to an invitation for Alan to meet with the organisation’s Department Heads, about 14 in total, to explore this Open Space Technology thing further. It is not my intention nor my place to explain what OST is all about – that’s in Alan’s domain – suffice to say is that it captured the imagination of most Department Heads and in fact drew out from one of the managers a topic for further exploration with a broad cross-section of our organisation’s stakeholders that may not have otherwise surfaced.
As an aside, amongst the many interesting comments Alan made during this meeting, two stood out in my mind. The first was “Treat people well and amazing things can happen”.
The other was in response to a wrap up thank you speech that I made at the end of the meeting during which I thanked those Department Heads who had contributed to the discussion. Alan respectfully interrupted me and said that everyone had contributed – implying that even those who had not said a thing – because they were there. In itself this might not sound a profound comment, but it underpinned the whole OST philosophy of everyone being valued and being made to feel equally important in the communications’ process, whatever part they played and whatever they said or didn’t say.
From this meeting arose our first OST day, attended by staff, volunteers, residents and family members to address the topic suggested previously by one of our managers. At last we were having conversations in our organisation that enabled people to speak their minds and felt safe in doing so; they didn’t feel intimidated by other so-called higher levels of management because whatever they said they knew, from the ground-rules Alan had set, was going to be valued. This was a first of many conversational opportunities in our organisation, including family members of residents who may have had difficulties in the past conveying their concerns on relevant service matters pertaining to their loved ones in our care.
From this event other activities began to unfold throughout the last two to three years in the organisation – it was as if a valve had been released with creative energy beginning to flow. A regular café-style gathering started up on a weekly basis amongst staff, which three years’ later still continues.
Also, regular staff meetings began to take on a different atmosphere, moving away from the staid agenda which was primarily a one-way communication exercise run by the department manager, to far greater involvement of all staff in attendance and solutions being offered to problems from those who otherwise would contribute little or nothing in past meetings. I can distinctly recall one staff meeting which resulted in such a buzz when brainstorming a solution to a particular problem that everyone dissipated on a high without the traditional formal closure of the meeting. Again, something that probably doesn’t sound too profound but believe me it was like chalk and cheese to what had been happening in years gone by.
Other OST meetings facilitated by Alan were held involving different sites operated by the Trust. In early 2003 our McLaren Vale site wanted to explore where it should be heading over the ensuing five years and so invited a broad cross-section of stakeholders to come and have their say. Not only did staff, volunteers, residents and their families attend, but so did people from the general community and from other service agencies in the region. Even the local parish priest turned up.
I can readily claim that, as a result of this experience, our McLaren Vale facility has embarked on a whole new world of aged care service delivery that I believe would not have otherwise happened. The new strategy, the details of which are not important here, has provided and is continuing to provide excitement for our staff and a sense of satisfaction in helping those in need. The region is also experiencing a much needed service it probably would not otherwise have had. Our McLaren Vale facility also picked up 12 new volunteers as a result of their OST day, from the members of the community who had participated in the day and liked what they saw and heard, plus some of their friends also became volunteers.
Early in the new communications’ era that was unfolding in the Trust we undertook a course with interested staff, facilitated by Alan, entitled ‘The Art of Conversing’. Boy was that something different. Alan had us singing and dancing together and sharing our feelings with other staff members that we would not have dreamed of doing before. I was delighted throughout all this to hear other staff say to me, “You’re really no different to us!” and “You are human too!” Again, it may be said that this was not so profound, but it sent messages like ‘We are in this together’ and ‘We can freely communicate with each other – to hell with the hierarchical chains that were previously weighing the organisation down’.
The single biggest message that came out of this course and associated OST and café-style gatherings was that INFORMALITY was the key to unlocking creativity and involvement in decision-making throughout our organisation. Informality was to be encouraged wherever possible – even at the conservative Board level.
For example, on one occasion, instead of having the usual formal strategic planning day between the Board and senior management, Board members were taken on a visit to a cross-section of our organisation’s sites where they could witness our vision being put into action. What a day, branded with INFORMALITY wherever the Board went. They experienced, for the first time, a BBQ with some of our disadvantaged residents in our pensioner flats; they found themselves doing Hawaiin dancing with staff and residents at our McLaren Vale aged care facility; they met with residents from our retirement village over afternoon tea; they had cocktails with staff at our Belair site and could put faces to names that they had only seen on paper before when approving new activities that involved these staff; and so on. Our Board has never forgotten that day and it was the forerunner of other fun events that they became involved in thereafter. They have changed from being faceless people who were perceived to always seem to say no, to a Board that is known to staff, volunteers and residents alike and who now seem to say yes.
This is one time when I would say that such a change in our organisation was profound.
So, having been a CEO who for the last 20 years has believed that organisation culture is Vision and Values driven, I have come to realise, through Alan’s input and facilitation, that there is another vital dimension to developing a productive, stimulating, successful operation and that dimension is INFORMALITY.
Unfortunately ‘informality’ starts with an ‘i’. I was use to referring to the two V’s in Vision and Values and now had to think in terms of the two Vs and an I. This small frustration eventually led me, by chance, to think of a word to describe everything that our organisation had been experiencing through its informal approach and which started with a V. That word is VIBES.
In this context, vibes are the essence of an organisation and comprise feelings, atmosphere, emotions, unwritten ground rules and relationships. The right kind of vibes are readily generated in an informal, relaxed organisation.
So James Brown Memorial Trust now has a Vision, Values and Vibes driven organisational culture. Our staff hand-books, official publications and so on herald these 3 Vs as to what we are all about.
Is it working? I believe it is, especially when you hear staff say things like “I regard it a privilege to be able to work here” and when, in a world that is experiencing a world-wide shortage of registered nurses who generally prefer acute care to aged care, we get a dozen applications for a registered nurse position whilst many of our reputable colleagues in many cases get far less than this, even zero sometimes.
Banter can now be heard in our corridors, which creates an environment that is appreciated by our residents. After all, our facilities are the residents’ home and they want a relaxed, happy atmosphere like we all do in our own homes.
Issues are being tackled with management listening to what residents, staff or volunteers have to say, rather than sometimes setting up a bunker mentality and hiding behind the hierarchical structure. Decisions are being made at the front-lines where appropriate and which should have been made in years gone by without necessarily involving senior management but hierarchical fear had then prevailed. The attitude towards staff in the lower levels of the hierarchical structure use to be, “Who are they? Don’t they just want to make trouble by complaining?” These staff are now invited to meetings to air their concerns and relevant matters are acted upon by management. This has taken anger out of any complaints and solutions are being offered by the staff who voice their concerns.
Plus, our internal newsletters are full of fun and achievements to a far greater extent than before.
Perhaps another measure of whether our VVV culture is working was when the principal accreditor from the Aged Care Accreditation Agency involved in our organisation’s visits, applied for our Quality Coordinator’s position when it became vacant because he said that he liked what he saw during his visits.
Our monthly senior management meetings have gone from being about 30 minutes in duration, driven previously by an attitude of ‘let’s not create work or problems for ourselves’, to meetings that last 1 ½ to 2 hours which are full of creative discussions exploring new ways of doing things and having some fun along the way. Whilst a large contributor to this change was in fact a change in some senior management personnel, the new personnel were attracted to the organisation because of its VVV culture.
In closing I would have to say that we still have a long way to go before we can clearly claim that James Brown Memorial Trust is the place to be whether you are a staff member, a volunteer or a resident. But we are well down that track, not only because of our vision and values but also because of our efforts in creating the right organisational vibes, which essentially started from a chance meeting with Alan Stewart munching on strawberries and ice-cream in our lunch shop. How profound is that?
August 12, 2004
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Looking forward
Al
Al (formerly Alan) Stewart, PhD
Process Artist
Facilitator/host of conversations that matter and participatory fun
Senior Fulbright Scholar
Blog: www.conversare.net
“We are in this together to treat each other well.
Whenever we do this good things happen.”
Al Stewart
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