June 26-29, Birgitt Williams of Dalar International Consultancy and Chris Weaver of Springbranch are co-leading this four-day workshop, which has two distinct purposes. The first purpose is to support participants to integrate the knowledge and skills to plan and facilitate highly successful Open Space Technology meetings in any organization or setting, maximizing the opportunity for successful outcomes long over time after the OST meeting takes place. This aspect of the workshop is Session One of the Genuine Contact Program.

The second purpose is to explore the application of OST for societal transformation toward sustainability. The guiding question for this aspect of the workshop is: How can we create an ongoing container, using OST meetings and interactive web- based environments, in service to societal transformation toward sustainability in any community? How do we initiate such a container? What is required for an SOS (Sustainability Open Space) Community to support complex transformation at a high level over time amid tremendous societal change?

The four-day workshop will include, on the afternoon of day one and the morning of day two, an OST meeting on the theme of Growing Capacity for Transformation toward Sustainability, which will be open to participants from the greater Asheville community. This larger complete OST meeting will provide the participants in the 4-day workshop with a powerful community experience to support both of the purposes of the 4-day workshop.

By Birgitt Williams

This is a brief and possibly controversial article, intended to stimulate thoughts, conversation, and hopefully reader response. It focuses on the topic of supervision and challenges whether supervision in organizations of all types is now an outdated task. In conversations with CEOs, leaders and managers, the topic of ‘lack of trust’ comes up as one of the key problems in organizational effectiveness. Thus, I have explored whether the embedded concepts associated with the role of supervision imply a lack of trust in the workers. In my research, in 100% of situations of high trust of the employer by the workers, the trust creation depended on the employer demonstrating trust in the workers first.

By Helen Patterson. Helen is a certified Genuine Contact Program trainer and consultant in New Zealand.

In the following poems I have woven together elements of “working from the inside out” in a life nurturing climate to attain individual health and balance...which potentially enables individuals, organizations and humanity to flourish.

A four day workshop
...so much fun
and so much learning, laughter and wrestling
and then “Zing”
the aha’s and oh no’s
spill out like a tide of wisdom filling our room
then recede
and send us searching for the next enlightening waves
all the time the invisible, but palpable swirls of love and connection
are deepening our understanding of ourselves and humanity

14^th Annual Open Space on Open Space (OSonOS)
August 4-6, 2006 in Moscow, Russia. Contact Raffi Aftandelian for details and registration information.

German Speaking Genuine Contact Mentoring Circle
August 24-25, 2006 in Germany. Contact Myriam Mathys for details.

German Speaking Genuine Contact Trainers Meeting
August 26-27, 2006 in Germany. Contact Myriam Mathys for details.

Genuine Contact International Trainers Meeting
September 26-27, 2006 in Raleigh, North Carolina. A 2-day conference for all certified trainers in the Genuine Contact Program. Visit our website for details.

Genuine Contact International Mentoring Circle
September 28-29, 2006 in Raleigh, North Carolina. A 2-day conference for anyone who has participated in the Genuine Contact Program, has learned about Open Space Technology, or is interested in learning more about our holistic approach. Visit our website for details.

Annual Scandinavian Genuine Contact Trainers Mentoring Circle
October 27-28, 2006 in Stockholm, Sweden. Contact Ann Bowman for details.

Genuine Contact Mentoring Circle
November 15^th 2006 in Switzerland. Contact Marianne Gerber, SONETZ for details.

Would you like to see your event or conference listed here? If so, contact Rachel Assuncao at rassuncao@musango.ca with the details.

This book came to our attention from our friend and colleague Debbie Morris and the recommendation is written by Birgitt Williams.

The field of Positive Psychology is less than a decade old. Positive psychology focuses on exploring optimal individual psychological states rather than pathological ones. Psychology itself is a relatively new science and yet until recent years, it has focused almost totally on pathology. Even today, the very new field of Positive Psychology is not well known or embraced. Positive Organizational Scholarship encourages organizational scholars to focus on optimal organizational states. This includes looking at the dynamics in an organization that lead to development of human strength, that strengthen resiliency in employees, that create the conditions for healing and reconciliation, and that cultivate extraordinary individual and organizational performance.

I recommend this book to those of you who are interested in the developing rationale for healthy and balanced organizations. This book doesn’t quite make the business case for organizational health and balance, but it points in that direction, as well as making an appeal for the research that is currently needed to justify healthier organizations. For those working with the Genuine Contact™ program, this is a good read to better understand some of the psychological foundation of why this program works and delivers so many miracles.

If you would like to recommend a book for this section of the ezine, please contact Rachel Assuncao.

Maureen McCarthy and Zelle Nelson are pleased to offer their State of Grace Document workshop September 30 and October 1, 2006.

The workshop will be held at their home in the mountains in Flat Rock, North Carolina and is immediately following the Genuine Contact International Mentoring Circle in Raleigh, North Carolina.

For further information and registration details visit the State of Grace Document Website.

In every issue, we feature one drawing from our Genuine Contact™ program workshops by Reinhard Kuchenmueller, Visuelle Protokolle, Munich Germany. Reinhard did these drawings when he attended our workshops, drawing quickly and reflecting the learnings with an accuracy and an eye that delighted other participants. Reinhard is available to groups as a visual facilitator trained in the Genuine Contact™ Program. For more info about him and his work go to www.visuelle-protokolle.de. Click on the image for an enlarged version of the artwork.