ODNE-SE Gathering

We will be holding our 2^nd ODNE-SE gathering of 2019 in a few weeks time – on Monday 17^th June from 1-5pm.

Venue: Westminster City Council, City Hall, 64 Victoria Street, SW1E 6QP (in Victoria) – thank you Nadine.  Report to ground floor reception, possibly arriving a few minutes before 1pm, and they will direct you where to go.

Nearest stations: Victoria, St James Park.

Your availability and security arrangements:  We need you to reconfirm if you will be attending – by no later than midday on Fri 14^th June please, so that Nadine can arrange security passes.

If you wish to come along, please email me direct with your name and organisation.  This is needed even if you previously completed the Doodle poll.  If you subsequently learn that you cannot come along, please also let me know by email (or text if it’s on the 17^th itself),

Meeting design for 17^th June:  We have an abundance for our forthcoming meeting, covering the ‘what and the how’, with plenty of opportunity for dialogue!

• Welcome and check-in
• Session 1: OD work example – Nadine Anderson
• Session 2: Exploring ‘Use of Self’ in developing our OD practice – Karen Walsh and Julian Burton
• Time permitting, we may have an opportunity to explore any additional issues that are arising for you in your work
• Closure and check out

Additional information:

The Work Example is broadly inspired by action research approaches, focusing on the curiosity a situation evokes.  This can be successful/less successful or anywhere in between, in any format.  Typically this will include a short presentation of c.10-15 mins on a piece of OD work, covering a quick outline of the piece of work, how it was done, and what reflections/questions/dilemmas were raised for the presenter in doing it.  We’ll then ask about your response to the reflections, and what the description of the work evokes in you and parallels in your own practice.  The aim of this session is to:

• Talk about ways of carrying out OD in practice
• Raise our collective awareness of the questions/dilemmas that are posed to OD practitioners as they do OD in the real world, and how these might be responded to
• A chance to reflect on our own practice, triggered by questions posed by someone else’s

Specifically, at our June meeting, Nadine will be covering “The experience of developing a learning strategy to inculcate a learning culture at Westminster City Council.  This might range across: What is learning?  How do mindsets about how we learn, change?  How does social collaboration happen?… and more!”

Exploring ‘Use of Self’ in developing our OD practice.  Karen and Julian are going to build on a question that was raised at our last session – how do we use ourselves when organisations (and society) are constantly in flux (endless restructures /relentless drive to cut costs /do change faster /high turnover…)?  Karen and Julian have indicated that the objectives will be to:

• Share a brief overview of Use of Self model based on recent research by Mee-Yan Cheung-Judge and David W.  Jamieson, and their experiences developing their own OD practices using this model
• Explore in small group/ pair discussions “What might UoS mean to me and my own OD practice development?”

For anyone who likes to read prior to a session perhaps take a look at “Proving Deeper Understanding of the Concept of Use of Self in OD Practice”.  This is NOT required reading!!  It is available free on https://www.quality-equality.com/free and scroll down, or download direct here

Future meetings:  Currently we have no venues for September or December 2019.  Sadly, many participants who have kindly offered previously are located outside of central London, or no longer have access to internal facilities.  If you can offer a venue in September or December please do get in contact with us.  No venue, no meeting!

ODN Europe members, this is your community, though we welcome others interested in getting to know us better.  Please do feel free to contribute your ideas regarding what would make this community really hum for you personally.  Additional information on ODNE is on https://www.odneurope.org/

You are most welcome – whether you are new to OD or a more experienced practitioner.  Our ethos is about creating space to support each other in exploratory learning and developing relationships in service of our own practice development and the organisations we work with or for.  The afternoon will offer a blend of conversation, provocation, theory and practice.  Once the meeting concludes, you may wish to continue conversations in a local cafe or bar.

If you would like us to edit or delete your data at any time, please email Rhian and me.

Best wishes and in the meantime we look forward to seeing many of you on 17^th June.