New Partners in Economic Development

There's a revolution underway in economic development across the USA. Inching its way out is the traditional real estate-focused approach to economic development and some of the $80 billion in tax breaks (NY Times, December 1, 2012) and other incentives state and local governments offer to attract new businesses and jobs.

Enter stage left are new partners in economic development, a grass-roots assortment that includes libraries,  community organizers, special interest foundations, teenage app developers, Big Picture schools, churches or sustainable energy entrepreneurs.

We explored how communities might partner with such organizations/people at the recent Build North East conference in Worcester (September 7-9, 2014). Robert Leaver of New Commons Rhode Island and John Findlay, Maverick & Boutique conducted rapid-fire 5 X 5 workshop to:

• Identify opportunities for partnering with strategically positioned community organizations such as libraries, leading edge schools and colleges
• Explore how to expand social and business entrepreneurial activities at a grass-roots level, especially in urban and rural settings
• Plan the start-up of public access making/manufacturing, design publishing, app development in the center of a village or town  

Six teams began by identifying a village or town in New England that was experiencing an intractable economic/community development problem.

• Good New England Bones
• OK for 6 months of year
• Struggles economically during Winter
• Youth unemployment, drug epidemic
• Can’t get critical skills
• Good in parts – has sprawl, some blight, brownfields (costly to remediate)
• “Poverty in paradise”

Each team chose one of six PARTNERS to work with, for which a profile had been developed. Here are the profiles:

Libraries: are adopting new “wise application of knowledge” roles in a rapidly changing and more complex world. They provide a local high touch experience for the high tech world we live in. Their new roles in economic development include:

• Maker spaces – 3D printers, electronic and electrical, publishing equipment
• Public access to the Internet, computers
• Lend books, CDs, software, equipment, 
• Meeting rooms and meeting facilitation
• Incubator spaces
• Courses for completing K-12
• Support for college study and research
• Research for new businesses
• New skills – software, webpage, databases

Public access manufacturing/makerspaces: Cooperatives and companies such as TechShop are establishing manufacturing and production facilities for the public to rent/use by the day, week or month. Their new roles in economic development include:

• Time share equipment use
• Basic training, On-site instruction and college courses
• Metalworking – mills, lathes, routers, plasma cutters, 3D printers
• Culinary – shared commercial kitchens, Many kinds – metal working,g rooms Agricultural – equipment for bottling/canning, fermented products - wine, beer, cheese and yoghurt production
• Arts and Artisan – woodworking, framing, showrooms etc.

Big Picture Schools: Personalized learning one student at a time. Big Pictures Schools prepare students for the real world, with applied as well as soft skills – leadership, project management, mentoring and planning – rarely found in “curriculum driven” schools. Their roles in economic development include:

• Students complete an authentic project connected to their interest
• Students learn how to be adults by being with adults
• Mentors are expert in the field of student's interest and in their field
• Assessed by growth and change, not tests; family involved
• Project based - portfolios, exhibitions, reflective journalling
• Small group learning, maximum of 150 people per school
• Learning by serving the community via projects

Churches: As community and economic development are increasingly inseparable. Faith-based organizations, which have a long history of education, health care and support service delivery have a critical role to play, including personalisation - reversing the trend to corporatisation and large scale service delivery. Their roles in economic development include:

• Education and health care service delivery
• Support for those who have fallen on hard times
• Aged, children’s, and rehabilitation services
• Fostering a sense of community
• Drug dependence and recovery services

A gaggle of 14 year old app developers: Who knew? Many of the next generation of Tech Millionaires are starting their businesses on-line before they are old enough to drink or drive.  They are developing phone and tablet apps that operate at between current paradigms and disciplines. Their new roles in economic development include:

• Capable of building new applications in a few weeks.
• Low-cost business models
• Solve customized local business and community problems
• Connected to the world and other developers
• Entrepreneurial – regard work as projects rather than careers
• Low barrier to market entry

Sustainable energy entrepreneurs: Plug-and-play sustainable energy solutions which deal with the business case, permits, marketing, installation, connections to the grid or shared use are the hallmarks of the sustainable energy entrepreneur. Their new roles in economic development include:

• Local energy production from solar, wind, biomass, pellets
• Local solar networks, linking neighbors with great and not so good aspects
• Architecturally appropriate moldings to integrate solar into New England-style houses
• Transportation fuels from landfill gas, biomass gas; biodiesel
• Plug-and-play solutions which solve the complexities of permits, connections

Participants used a worksheet to collect ideas from both the perspective of the TOWN and the new new PARTNER, and how each could serve each other's interests in a syngeristic, win-win-win way, so not only did the participants get a successful result, but so did the broader community system.

Here's the workshop outline:

1. TRENDS: What are the big trends for your TOWN? What are the big trends for your PARTNER?
2. CAPACITIES RESOURCES: What resources, capacities and other stakeholders do others in the TOWN have that could be really useful to your partner? What skills, capacities, access to resources, customers and other stakeholders does your PARTNER have the town needs?
3. BAKING A BIGGER CAKE: How could the TOWN help your partner become very successful and the town/region to be successful as well? How could your PARTNER help the town/region? How could you put the TOWN and PARTNERS’s resources and interests together to bake a bigger cake?
4. FUNDING AND FIRST STEPS: To get started, what are the first steps? Who will you get involved? How will it be funded? Actions: Who, by, for?
5. REPORT BACK: Prepare for the report back in any way you choose but at MINIMUM, give the project a SNAZZY 4-5 WORD TITLE AND A 25-WORD DESCRIPTION. (Consider Song, Dance, Skit, Slides/Talk, Demonstration, All of the above, etc) 

The library is dead. Long live the library.

Just as pundits are predicting the demise of libraries and politicians are cutting their funding, a new kind of library is rising from the ashes of the old. And books are not being burned ether. Far from it.

The rise of Google, Wikipedia and Amazon has not dealt the death blow to libraries that everyone imagined, simply because the ultra-high-tech needs of 21st Century citizens is driving an ultra-high-touch or interpersonal response. And just as the Internet is everywhere, so too are libraries.

Some libraries are taking on a new role as a community anchor. Cafes and Wi-Fi to meet and communicate. Computers for learners with no computer or Internet access of their own. A place to get help with a resume. An honest broker to help communities find the data they need to make better decisions. Meeting rooms and facilitators to deal with complex issues or conflicts. Fun stuff for kids to do. Incubator spaces for start-ups. Market research support. A reputable source of health information. A place to design and print your new whatsit or replacement part on a 3D printer, make jam, create works of art, process cheese, make furniture with artisan qualities, and support you while you discover how to grow better organic vegetables. Or a reliable place to charge your phone after the hurricane.

Our love affair with libraries blossomed in 2013 when we helped the libraries of New Jersey create a "living" strategic plan. The New Jersey State Library, which supports libraries of all kinds, and Library Link NJ, the association of 2000 libraries across the state, developed and began implementing some 33 initiatives - to collaborate with stakeholders, develop the leadership capacity to adapt to change, create safe nurturing spaces for people to meet work and learn, reinvent their methods and processes and diversify their sources of funding and delight their customers.

You can access a copy of the strategic plan at the LLNJ website ), or track the strategic planning process on Mindmeister. The process shows all the steps in the process and you can download the workshop inputs/outputs. Here are the kinds of questions we asked during our workshop with the New Jersey libraries:

1. Our role: What are the roles of libraries and librarians in a world that is ever more complex, and where many more people are involved in the creation, dissemination, remixing, categorization and publishing of works (film, books, research, learning resources, etc.)? What is it important to keep that we have done in the past? What is our new work/activity?
2. Our brand/identity: What are we known for? How will our citizens regard libraries and librarians in the mid-21st Century? For what will we be recognized/valued? How will we help people, where are they located? How do we interact with our community?
3. The context: What are the major trends in the world of libraries and librarians? What might we borrow from other industries/sectors, e.g. hospitality, publishing, communications? Where are libraries—or the new functions of libraries—needed where they do not exist already?
4. Our customers and other stakeholders: Who uses libraries now? What are our customers’ needs and do we serve them well? Who might use libraries in the future? How might we engage more people/new groups of people in becoming part of the library community? What other stakeholders are important to our future and why?
5. The value of libraries: How is the value of libraries perceived and by whom? How are libraries perceived as entities that embrace the future? If not, how might we change that? What value/perceived value might we add so that libraries become known as a great thing to fund?
6. Competition: Who are the competitors to libraries? Where do we compete where we can’t be successful? How and where might we compete where we have a strategic advantage? How might we collaborate with competitors to offer higher overall value?
7. Knowledge leadership: How can we play a leadership role in the fields of knowledge management, knowledge creation and the wise application of knowledge? What are the gaps in society/business where we can make a difference or be influential? 
8. Structures and processes: How might we structure/organize and co-ordinate our activities across our network so that we integrate the interests of our member organizations and their communities/customers/stakeholders? How might we apply economies of scale to take advantage of resources? What activities require local/custom/just-in-time services and how might we best deliver these?
9. Professional development and support: What new skills/capacities will librarians and their staff need and what old skills do we want to maintain or further develop in order to perform our new role(s)? How might we support each other, individually and collectively, in reducing stress and developing proactive ways to deal with life and work in these challenging times?
10. Resources, technologies and methods: What kinds of buildings, equipment, processes and methods will we expect in the library of the mid-21st century? Describe a day in the “life of the library," virtual, physical or otherwise?
11. Sources of funding: How will our work be funded? Who will want to pay for our services/support our work, and why will they want/need to do this? What will be free and why? What new sources of funding might we tap? How might we expand on or manage existing sources of funding more effectively?
12. Situation analysis: What are we doing well that we want to KEEP? What is an obstacle or barrier to our success that we might ABANDON? What new activities or revised activities are we drawn to INVENT/REINVENT?
13. Envisioning the future: Craft a definition of “library” for Wikipedia in 2050. Be sure to describe librarians/other library people, the people who use libraries and how they use them, as well as their structure: physical and/or virtual. 
14. Vision to action: What is a project we might to start today to create or further develop our new vision, including enhanced services, systems, roles, methods, processes, governance models, funding mechanisms, etc.? 
15. Measure of success: How will we know when we are successful? What will we have achieved and how will we be able to measure it, e.g. number of new library users and positive experience satisfaction reports, number of people trained, number of documents published?

Collectively "Creating the future" in uncertain times

"The best way to predict your future is to create it". So said Abraham Lincoln.

If you ever wonder why so many of are constantly participating in some kind of community engagement process to develop one kind of strategic plan or another, there's some very cogent reasons.

The 20-year strategic planning cycles along with the 10-year, 5-year and 2-year cycles are all dead, buried by the tsunami of accelerating change.

Take a quick look at this graph. Its the time taken for one quarter of the US population to adopt a new technology. If change was merely accelerating the graph, a logarithmic curve, would be a pretty much a straight line. 

But the graph curves upwards, which means that the rate of acceleration is accelerating. This means we are all in for a very wild ride.

To deal with this kind of change, Maverick & Boutique have developed a new approach to strategic planning that helps us all deal successfully  with accelerating change. It is part of our Complex Adaptive Operative Systems approach to managing learning organizations and complex projects.

We create the future of our own choosing through frequent and iterative cycles of conversations with others, to work out what we can do together that will make a difference, not only to our own  lives, but to our customers, suppliers and our communities as well.

Its the new normal of strategic planning.

The old linear ways of thinking about the world, while still good for machine-like functions such as manufacturing and process plants, are not much help for working with humans, who refuse to operate along straight lines.

Instead we have found that laws of complexity and the features of complex adaptive system help us better understand this changing world, to find new kinds of patterns in the complexity and the chaos, in addition to the linear and algorithmic patterns on which we have relied in the past.

Here's how we approach strategic planning:

We use complexity to deal with complexity: Because the world has become far more complex, with many intersecting and interdependent systems requiring many disciplines to work together, no single person has the knowledge to solve any or perform any task on their own. 

A robust model of the system: We involve as many people in our stakeholder community as possible to help create a rich picture of the system. Once we have a robust model, we can quickly work out how we can influence the development of the system. 

Leveraging the system: We use the laws of complexity, the features of complex adaptive systems, and the most powerful approaches to leverage the system, in order to test and improve every project plan, product concept, leadership approach, co-ordination method, production technique or marketing strategy. Among these tools is our complexity model of change, which is broadly predictive of the features of emerging paradigms. The technologies, skills, rules of interaction and methods. The model is a period doubling cascade, a feature of complex adaptive systems.

Surfing the waves of change: We develop project, product and policy concepts that achieve the highest possible leverage. According to leading systems thinker, Donella Meadows, of the 12 ways to intervene in a system, transcending paradigms is the most potent.

A living plan: From the very moment we start planning, we start to implement. What we learn from doing, we feedback into the plan, devoting more resources to what is working, and abandoning or redesigning what does not.

Start many projects: Nature starts millions of new experiments to ensure a handful of organisms survive. We do much the same. Instead of trying to predict the future, we try out a variety of ways to create it, and then pursue those projects that attract the most political support, customers and interest.

Our stakeholders create the plan: Our staff, customers, neighbors, suppliers, C-suite, community leaders and often our competitors, all play a major role in creating our plan. The plan is not just our plan, it is their plan as well.

Advisory group: We usually establish an advisory group for the planning process, representative of the organization and the stakeholder community. The output from a planning workshop with the group becomes a first-cut strategic plan, including a detailed stakeholder analysis, which informs who else should be invited into the process. The advisory group has a key role at the end of each planning cycle to review the work of other stakeholders and task forces, and raise the strategic thinking to a new and higher level of synthesis, integration and alignment with the trends.

Background information: We feed vital information about the organization as well as local, national and global trends into the planning process to ensure that everyone is well informed.

Ecologies of products and services:  We reinvent our products, services, policies, leadership and co-ordination methods, production and distribution processes, even our governance, decision making and learning methods, in order to create an ecology, in which each of the parts support or benefit each other.

Synthesis and integration: We use the creative differences between disciplines and cultures to create the new possibilities on which our strategic plans depend. We set out to not only synergistically serve each other's interests, but also achieve a greater good for all...the community, the state, the nation or the planet. Win-win-win.

Dynamic SWOT and other questioning processes: Our processes are informed by sequences of rich, open-ended questions that promote robust conversations, generate novel solutions and guide challenging analysis. Most planning processes are guided by a sequence of questions, for example: 

1. The context: What are the major trends in the world that are impacting on our community/city/state/organization? Think about an describe the impact of global market, economic, social and economic trends? What are some of the local demographic, job, business, education and other trends?
2. Stakeholder Interests and Bigger benefit statements: Who are our main stakeholders and what are their interests? How could we serve their interests so they/we are more resilient? Respond like this If (name of stakeholder) was to (their interest/description of benefit/outcome) then we would (Greater good benefit, community benefit)
3. Dynamic SWOT: What are we doing well in our community/city/state/organization that contributes to our resilience that we want to KEEP? What is an obstacle or barrier to our success that we might ABANDON? What new activities or revised activities are we drawn to INVENT/REINVENT?
4. Projects: What is a project we need to start today so our businesses, government and community are resilient in the face of change (climate, social, economic etc)? 3-5 word snazzy title, 25 word rich description. Think about our new or enhanced services, systems, roles, methods, processes, governance models, funding mechanisms etc.?
5. What does success look like? What will our community/city/state/organization be known for?  Describe a day in the life of our community, business, government, services, etc that describes our success. (25-50 word description).

Systems maps: We collectively draw system maps to better understand the connectedness of all the parts of the system, and learn where there are barriers to implementation, and feedback loops that reinforce what we want to happen.

Multiple perspectives: We look at our organizations and our stakeholder system in many different ways. We think about functions such as production, marketing, finance, distribution, sales, R&D or talent and people management. Sometimes we focus on systemic issues: leadership, governance, ethics, coordination, teamwork, stakeholder relations, contracting and legal. We think about ways of dealing with issues such as process redesign, design thinking, continuous improvement or process redesign.

Complex adaptive meeting environment: We use a new kind of collaborative tool that allows us all to rapidly share our ideas, develop a robust model of the system, and rapidly reach consensus about what to do. 

Actionable projects: We establish task forces, with participants drawn from the broad internal and external stakeholder community. The task forces create and cost and begin to implement comprehensive project plans and identify the measures of success.

1. Project Title: Give the project snazzy title in 3-5 words
2. Project Description: Describe the project is 25 -100 words
3. Governance: What roles will people play, who will be responsible for or own the project?
4. Objectives: What will the project achieve?
5. Stakeholders: Which stakeholders and their interests will be served by the project? Who will make use of the product/service and how? Who will be the suppliers?
6. What is the time frame(s) for development, implementation etc?
7. What is the estimated cost range and sources of funding required?
8. What actions/activities will be required to implement this plan (in detail)?
9. How will we measure success? (benefits, measurable, clear, simple, actionable)
10. What professional development is needed?
11. What resources, technological or facilities are required?
12. How might we integrate this project with other projects/programs?

* Black Swans: Events we can imagine, but have never seen before. Until Europeans "discovered" Australia, they had only ever seen white swans. But Australian swans are black.

** Unknown Unknowns: Thank you Donald Rumsfeld for this idea. Unk Unks are events that you cant imagine that come to cause considerable grief because you have no understanding of what they are, how they work, or how to deal with them when they show up. Imagine taking a Mercedes Benz Motor car back in time and showing it to a Roman Charioteer.

The Choice Trilogy

Like the QWERTY keyboard which refuses to go away, SWOT analysis as a way of analyzing your readiness for engaging with the future, has also become very persistent and pervasive.

For some of us who work in the world of personal and organizational change, we know that a focus on the negative merely reinforces past patterns of activity, and so we try to analyze situations in a more positive or dynamic way that generates forward movement, generates enthusiasm and taps into passions.

In the world of Appreciative Inquiry,  SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) has been recast with a positive spin with SOAR - stories of success, opportunities available to us, aspirations for the future and resources available and needed to attain our aspirations.

In our world of the complex adaptive systems, we have developed the Choice Trilogy, to take into account the fact that every so often, our socio-technological system undergoes huge upheavals, and some aspects of our lives need to be shed before we can move forward. At these turning points, which we as major societal shifts, such as the current transition from the Knowledge Economy to the Wisdom Economy, we reinvent not only our products and services, but the way we make them, the skills we need, and our more complex roles.

The Choice Trilogy has a dynamic forward motion, that includes a step of reinvention. It helps us think about what's working well that we want to KEEP as a firm foundation, what's getting in the way we need to ABANDON, and what we could do differently that we should REINVENT.

We use the question as part of a series of questions. We begin by developing a shared model of the major changes that are taking places in the world, and within this context, explore what we have to now do to be successful. 

So why not give the process a try::

1. Trends: Describe the major trends that are impacting on your world. Social, economic, political, environmental, cultural etc.

2. Choice Trilogy: Thinking about your most recent projects or programs, what aspects of the project worked well that you want to KEEP? What do you want to ABANDON that was a barrier to your success? What do you feel drawn to REINVENT that shows potential? Respond like this KEEP: (25 word descriptions of what worked well).

3. Project: Describe a project you would like to start to day that will make a big difference to the future. Respond like this. Name of project (5 word title), 25-word description, and the results we want to achieve: (time, savings, and deliverables  Say why it will be a success?

Everything is a major project

Once upon a time, we thought of major projects as space exploration, new warships, armored vehicles or fighter planes, and infrastructure investments in roads, electricity and telecommunications.

Now we must add to that list just about everything we do. Any project or program that involves multiple suppliers and distributors of products and services that work like an integrated web has become a complex major project. Think of how we get the thousands of fresh foodstuffs that are available to us into stores, set up the systems to sell books, hotel and airline seats over the internet, treat the huge variety of diseases we can now diagnose and deal with, provide a seamless integrated public transport ticketing system for a large city or launch a new product or service everywhere around the world.

Many major projects fail to live up to expectations, and they do so for a variety of reasons: underestimating the cost in order to win support, requirements creep or the use of unproven technology or technological change during the course of the project. A tremendous amount of effort goes  into dealing with technical risk, specifying the requirements and tightly defining contract terms, as if these entirely logical measures will solve all the problems.

But now, projects  increasingly fail due to human factors: the absence of leadership, stakeholder battles, cross-disciplines communication gaps, abrupt changes in the political environment and seemingly unpredictable social shifts in parallel with technological shifts, which we do not see coming.

We live in a world of rich professional and cultural diversity, all of which is required to maintain the infrastructures on which we have come to rely. Also required is consistent, ever-developing creativity, so we can continue to invent better ways of doing things. The educators, the technicians, the builders, the designers, the financiers, the shippers, the carers, the repairers, and the nurturers are all necessary to get it done.

Until now, we have focused, and placed high value, on technological skills at the expense of the so-called soft skills, many of which are critical to successful management of major projects in today’s complex and rapidly changing world.  Most project managers have the traditional technical skills; but only one in 20 has the high level leadership, facilitation and knowledge integration skills needed to navigate the rapidly evolving terrain.

To develop and run these systems we need people who have both the technical competence for efficiency and certainty at both the micro and the macro level AND the flexible leadership and communication skills to work well with many people in multiple locations as if each were a close personal relationship.

Project managers must support their people in playing to their strengths, being creative and delivering high level results while facilitating the integration of  different opinions, cultures, capabilities and viewpoints so that the new systems or programs are developed and operate in ways that serve everyone's interests.

So here is a workshop you might like to consider :

1. Thinking about the activities of your organization, what activities could you consider to be a major complex project e.g. IT system roll-out?
2. What are some of the major issues you encounter in trying to design, develop, commission and operate complex projects or programs?
3. How does your organization go about resolving differences or integrating the interests of the suppliers and professionals who develop or maintain the systems and the stakeholders who have an interest in a project or program?
4. What skills are now needed to be able to successfully develop a complex project or program, especially to deal with stakeholder interests integration, conflict resolution and relationship management.

The bigBang of Social Innovation

What does it take to be a leader or entrepreneur in the social innovation field? To find  the secret to such success, 200+ people came together at the bigBang! event in Cleveland, Ohio on October 28.

The event was hosted by Cleveland Social Venture Partners, and headlined by leadership and systems thinking guru, Peter Senge, with support from Mobile Innovation Lab, a Cleveland-based Design Thinking consultancy.

The event was live-streamed over the Internet into schools and businesses by the Uncomn.tv network.

You can see the founders of Mobile Innovation Lab Ken Chapin and Abby Straus (also a partner in M&B) facilitate the 90 minute brainstorming session that led into Peter Senge's world cafe activity. Click here to watch the video.

You can also download a copy of what everyone had to say. Click here.

For those who are interested in undertaking a similar activity, here's a workshop you might like to try with your own social entrepreneurship community:

1. What are the big societal and technological changes/trends that we’re responding to in Social Innovation?

2. What’s working really well in the world of Social Innovation? What do we want to KEEP? ABANDON? RE-INVENT?

3. What leadership qualities are essential for success in Social Innovation? Think about great leaders you admire and your own strengths and successes as a leader?

4. You have been asked to design a leadership development program. Thinking about the qualities/skills required (from question 3), what are some activities that might help develop/practice those skills.

5. Describe a social innovation project you might like to lead today. 5 word title, 25 word description and how will it benefit society/the world?

Managing complex projects in uncertain times

The task is to harness the collective brainpower of the military and their suppliers on three continents to work out how to better manage complex projects in a more uncertain, ambigious and rapidly changing world and to publish the recommendations as a White Paper.

It's a complex project in its own right. The project taps into the expertise of defence procurement agencies in Australia, the US, Canada and the UK, as well as  defence and aerospace suppliers such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, NASA, Raytheon, Rolls Royce and Thales.

The Zing/Maverick and Boutique network has been facilitating a series of conversations for the International Centre for Complex Project Management. The team comprises Nick Obolensky (in the UK), Abby Straus (in the US) and John Findlay (roving).

A small army of consultants is helping to write the 10 chapters. The chapters deal with the difference between complicated and complex, the leadership styles and competencies required, the tools and methods that are proving most useful, better ways to deal with risk, new approaches to knowledge management and education as well as issues that require further research.

For each chapter, participants were asked to consider how to deal more successfully with the kinds of problems/difficulties that might be encountered in the future. Each question was accompanied by a set of prompts to probe all the different aspects of the issue.

After talking in pairs about each question for about 5-10 minutes to have as much air-time as possible, the task force members captured and shared their ideas using the Zing complex adaptive learning system, which helps shape emergent knowledge. Participants then read aloud and looked for the patterns or stand-out ideas. Examples of past project successes and failures were also recorded.

Here are the kinds of questions we have been asking:

1. BASELINE TRENDS.  What for you is complex and how do you deal with it? Compared with what? What are the big trends/discontinuities emerging?
2. What kinds of EXECUTIVE BEHAVIOURS, LEADERSHIP QUALITIES or CULTURE are essential for great projects or lead to project failures? What qualities do you need to develop?
3. Describe in 25-50 words a real example of a project failure, cost-over-run, cancellation, etc. where issues of EXECUTIVE BEHAVIOURS/LEADERSHIP QUALITIES/CULTURE was a factor.
4. What is RISK for the private sector? What is risk for the public sector?
5. Give examples of projects where RISK was poorly or well managed and the factors that led to these outcomes.
6. COMMERCIAL MANAGEMENT. What do you see as the main contracting challenges in the future?
7. Describe a project where COMMERCIAL MANAGEMENT was either poor or brilliant and the factors that led to these outcomes.

Good morning StarShine

It's a brand new day at the three StarShine Academies in Phoenix, Arizona and CEO Trish McCarty and Principal Jan Shoop are a long way from home. Back in Arizona, the children are all learning, the teachers are teaching and the sun is shining brightly.

Here we were in England, training the first group of StarShine facilitators, at Broughton Castle, where Shakespeare in Love starring Joseph Fiennes was filmed, and whose near relatives are the current Lords of the Manor.

There was a roaring fire. Everyone sat around in armchairs and lounges. And the interactive computer system was displayed on a portable screen, mounted on a table. More like morning tea than a training room.

The StarShine teacher enhancement program is now offered on the Zing platform to make it easy for new facilitators to learn to apply the 16 StarShine Principles, to use brain science to get students in the mood for learning.

Here are the principles:

• Every person born is unique and perfect and on their own road to discovering their dreams and highest calling.
• We are on the planet to help one another toward achieving individual goals for the Greater Good of All.
• We each do the best that we can on each day, depending on what we know and understand, according to Maslow’s Hierarchy.
• Music is the first language.
• Beautiful, safe environments that are clean and include art, music and nature inspire creativity and help to secure man’s sustainability.
• Teaching and learning gardening is a necessary part of becoming one with nature and the environment and is a means for personal health and community building.
• Celebrating local culture and global diversity allows for a rich life.
• Practice Connect versus Convince; Exercise Compassion versus Judgment, Love versus Fear.
• Individuals practice being ambassadors for their own country as well as a country other than their own.
• Co-learning demonstrates that every person is a teacher and every teacher is a student.
• Financial literacy fosters hope, belief and abundance as it facilitates a wise use of assets.
• Partnering and mentoring fosters interdependence toward building common ground, as in “the world agrees on time so everyone can communicate.”
• Holistic explains that each event reinforces all. The pursuit of success and happiness, both individually and collectively, must include body, mind, spirit, health and wealth.
• Leveraging technology facilitates connecting people; personal contact is vital.
• World peace is a result of individual peace.

StarShine kids are very special. Many left their previous schools under a cloud. Most come from poor or dysfunctional families who live in what used to be some of the most problematic neighbourhoods of Phoenix.

Every day, StarShine celebrates new possibilities and achievements as a community. Each morning, everyone attends an Opening Ceremony. Every afternoon there is a Closing Ceremony before going home.

StarShine focuses on hope. Teachers and students work together in Mastermind groups to help each other build on our strengths and achieve our goals. Everyone creates a personal Visionboard and leafs through a dozen or so glossy magazines, to find pictures or headlines that resonate with what they would love to happen differently in our lives. Teachers work alongside their students, to update their Vision Board and share their dreams.

In this way young people develop a sense of purpose in their lives and confidence in meeting people. When  you go to a StarShine school don't be surprised to be greeted by a student who offers to shake your hand and introduce him or herself. "Good morning. I'm Paul Smith and I am going to be a scientist. How can I help you?"

Everyone on the course at Broughton Castle was encouraged to use one or more StarShine principles as part of a learning activity they would facilitate for the group. One participant chose Music is the First Language, and asked us to describe how music has made an amazing contribution to our lives. As the contributions were read aloud and acknowledged, tears welled up in many eyes. Here's what some had to say:

* Music has often been my friend when all other things seemed to go.  It is what I dance to, clean to, relax to, cry to, motivate myself often to, and even work with.  To me music is my emotional companion and friend.
* Classical music slows my thoughts down and expands my mind. popular music can be uplifting. anthems make me cry.
* Music is definitely my first language, I love to listen to uplifting powerful music and also calming meditative music, I love singing and dancing to music, music that is full of life.
* I love to dance and I feel the rhythm through me
* I use certain rock songs for energy and inspiration...lyrics matter to me as much as the 'sound'.  Some are profound and really connect me back to myself.  Also use chanting music regularly  for relaxing and meditating, boosting energy and refocusing.
* Music is a mental and historical anchor. At different moments past, certain songs have an emotional significance as you feel certain feelings.

Here's a sample of some of the activities from the StarShine Teacher Enhancement program that speaks to the 13 StarShine principles and is available on the Zing platform.

1. Thumbprints - ask another person "What five things about you are really unique? Report what you have discovered/learned.
2. Help one another - Turn to the person next to you and ask what they currently most need. Discuss how you might be able to achieve their goals in some way. Report back - their goal and how you could help them.
3. Thinking about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, what for could/should we focus on today that might better meet your needs?
4. Thinking about each of the points of the star - body, mind, spirit, health and wealth - describe an activity where we could practise all or most of the aspects at the same time.
5. The garden is at the centre of StarShine. In what ways could gardening and nurturing connect us to nature and our community?
6. What kinds of activities/events/ceremonies could we engage in to celebrate local culture and global diversity e.g. 11 days of peace and sustainability, 9/11 to 9/21, taking care of animals?
7. How could you convert shame, blame and victim stories into proactive life stories, where you decide where your life is going instead of reliving the past?

Goodbye "Cowboy Culture"

In the backwater we call local government, in what we used to call the 3Rs - "roads, rates and rubbish", change is happening, but not the kind of change we like.

All across America, for example, local governments are struggling to pay the bills, dependent as they are on taxes on business activity and property. Both are in the doldrums as a result of the collapse of property prices from their bubble highs, and the tight credit that struck at local business activity.

Some parts of the US heartland are in a sorrier state. Closed factories and plants are leaving behind shellshocked families who thought their jobs were secure well into the future. These are the communities where the big employers who have ignored the winds of change, are facing intense competition from communuties halfway around the world in India, China and other parts of Asia and South America.

The quality of life in some of these communities has plummeted, although overall the U.S. continues to do well compared with the rest of the world.

In my own country, our perceptions of Lifestyle Quality continues to rise. Australia is now second after Norway on the United Nations Human Development Index, a combined measure of standard of living, education and life expectancy. The United States is in 13th place after countries such as Ireland, Japan, Finland, France and Switzerland.

Australia has survived the global economic downturn with less pain than many others. One of the reasons Australia is doing relatively well, is we took our medicine over the past 20 years. We thought about the future, and the changes that were flowing through society. And we started to do things differently, to regard the role of Local Government as also embracing economic, environmental, cultural and spiritual worlds. We began to invent new services and programs that embraced a wider spectrum of life, and smarter ways to deliver them.

Futurist, Dr. Peter Ellyard, author of Designing 2050, is one of Australia's "thought leaders". He has helped cities and towns re-invent themselves and create a better future for their citizens using a holistic approach. His ideas about the transition from a cowboy to a planetary culture have influenced many to change their ways. To think and act differently.

He has helped local government, business, universities and school education sectors rethink their roles, and begin the process of adapting to the new world that is emerging. The focus has been, not so much on eliminating jobs through process innovation, which has been the American focus, but the opposite. The creation of new opportunities to which valued staff can be redeployed. The more intimate engagement of citizens in the processes of designing and creating more human and nature friendly ways of living

He uses a "Preferred Futures" methodology and the Zing team meeting system for many of his large scale local government interventions. In diverse groups of 20 to 60 people at a time, the citizens of a community  contribute their ideas in response to questions that ask them to think about what kind of future they would like and how they can achieve it. They map out an ideal, but largely unattainable Ideal Future, a Probable Future that will result from the continuation of present trends, and settle for a Preferred Future that is both achievable and a big stretch. Then they write a Future History back to present times to detail the steps required to achieve their goals. For each community, he conducts 10 to 30 workshops with the help of a "roadie" who sets up and manages the technical aspects of the system, the wireless keyboards, the giant shared screens and the software. In this way, every voice is heard and valued, and contributes to the outcome.

The program is extremely productive and energizing. Typical of the output of these workshops is the 700 ideas generated in a 90 minute session contained in this report for the City of Townsville in Central Queensland. The city and several consulting firms in the city now have their own portable Zing team meeting systems to continue the economic development and community building process.

Here is a workshop for inventing new to the world products using his Planetary Culture values model:

1. Describe a Spaceship Culture product or service that incorporates one of the new values.
2. Describe a Spaceship Culture product or service that incorporates two of the new values.
3. Describe a Spaceship Culture product or service that incorporates three of the new values.

The dawning of the Wisdom Age

What if the explosion in the economic activity and knowledge work we regard as the Knowledge Age (1980-2010) was almost over and a new economic imperative was suddenly upon us? The Wisdom Age (2010-)?

The weak signals from the future point this way.

How might such a trend affect the way we think about the world and the new kinds of products and services that people want? And the new kinds of jobs people will do?

There have always been wisdom workers. Community and business leaders, ethicists, judges, mediators and spiritual gurus. But the focus on wisdom work has reached a new intensity. There's a whole bunch of new positions being advertised such as Corporate Ethics Officers, Certified Ethical Hacker, Business Continuity Managers as well as "green collar" work such as Environment Compliance Consultants, Energy Efficiency Engineers, Renewable Energy Coordinators and Ecological Footprint Accountants.

Although our scientists, academics and the R&D departments of big corporations are creating new knowledge at an exponential rate, we planetary citizens are increasingly frustrated by the slow speed at which we collectively deal with the world's most wicked problems.

There is now an expectation we must learn to live more lightly on the planet, to reduce our impact on other species, to care more for our fellow citizens, to resolve the issues that divide us.

To do this, more and more jobs will be created to wisely apply our knowledge. Paradoxically, we are also creating the tools that will help to automate/democratize this kind of work, so that ordinary people are able to make use of the same kinds of methods that were previously used only by experts.

A pioneer in this field is Linda Newman, Associate Professor of Education at Newcastle University in Australia (pictured). Linda is the joint creator of a process for resolving ethical dilemmas known as the Ethical Response Cycle.

A version of her method is included in her own electronic meeting title Working Wisely that can be used by anyone with less than a day's facilitator training to explore and resolve complex ethical issues with greater certainty.

Linda uses her method to help early childhood teachers and carers develop professionally.

Participants learn about the ethics by observing and sharing their own reactions to a hypothetical dilemma and making sense of the patterns in the group's responses. The dilemmas are presented as a series of "guided discovery questions" that take participants on a learning journey. Each step of a complex case study is followed by a more impossible dilemma or unexpected scenario that needs to be resolved.

Participants engage in a type of high level discussion which Linda calls Ethical Dialectical discourse, which must not only resolve the conflict's between indvidual opinions, but must also satisfy a personal, professional ethical standard or legal requirement.

Here's an example of a workshop from Working Wisely. It's called the Automatic Teller Machine Fairy dilemma:

1. A friend comes to tell you that they have discovered that the automatic teller machine in your town is somehow making errors in calculation. Every withdrawal is receiving $20 too much without the client's balance showing it. What do you do and why?

2. The "Automatic Teller Fairy" has been helping out many people in your town for a week now. Word has spread. The error has been discovered and rectified. The Daily Bugle reports the names of everyone who used the teller and how often. Your mother (or someone you respect) calls you to talk about it. How do you feel about what you decided to do and why?

3. How do you feel when your employer raises the issue the next day, and why?

4. What does this story have to do with ethics, and why?

5. Some people returned to the teller many times. Write 25 words about how they were thinking.

6. Some people reported the mistake and returned the money. Write 25 words about the type of thinking they used to inform their decision to return the money.

7. Some people who had very little money used the machine only on days where they really needed it. Write 25 words about the type of thinking they used to decide when to, and when not to, access the machine.

8. We have been talking about ethical perspectives which have theories to explain them. Sum up the ethical issues in this story.

We, hologram

Shine laser light on a hologram and you see a sharp image in three dimenions. Cut the hologram into tiny pieces and shine the laser on one piece, and you still have a three dimensional image, just much fuzzier.

We are all like holograms. There's little bits of us in all the people to whom we are connected. And part of them in us. The richer our relationships the brighter our picture.

We are parents to our children. Lovers or companions. Partners. Employers and workers. Leaders. Playmates. Brothers and sisters. Aunts and Uncles. Citizens. Leaders and followers. Opponents. Challengers. Inspirers. Doctors. Plumbers. Lawyers, Teachers and Nurses. Missionaries. Warriors.

The more cut-off or isolated we are from others, the fuzzier we become. The richer our connections with others, the more brilliant the image.

Abby Straus of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has developed an organization transformation program called Adventures in Brilliance, which helps people see their world this way, intimately interconnected to others, like the way memories are stored in our brains. Her method uses light as a metaphor. Click here to download a trial applet version of her software. Make sure you click on the templates icon to view the meeting methods:

So here is the Identities workshop so you can explore your holographic relations:

1. Each of us has a number of identities or roles that we play in life (i.e. mother, daughter, consumer, employer, etc.) Make a list of your identities/roles.
2. Which are your favorite identities, and why do you like them? For example: "mother: I feel loved and needed, artist: I love to express myself".
3. Role play: Act/speak to your partner from the perspective of one of one of your favorite identities. Describe how this role defines the relationship(s) you have with others when you are in it, and how you feel about it from this perspective. Report like this - Name + identify + relationships + how you feel
4. Thinking about what we have just said about our many identities and the relationships that flow from them what is the essence/quality/structure/features of identity?
5. What do our identifies/role have in common and how are they different?
6. What identities do you hold/roles you play, that you would like to approach from the perspective of another identity and why?
7. Describe the qualities of  one role/identity that you would like to bring to another (e.g. I would like to lead my staff more from the perspective I hold when I am being a father to my son. Wisdom, strength, humor.) and how this would enhance the relationships you have with others who know you in this role?
8. How could you apply what we have learned/discovered about identity/relationships to some project/situation in your group/your life?

A new/old kind of connectedness

So much of what we do as organization leaders is the old command and control model. Decide the strategy and cascade the plan to every level. Some staff, customers and suppliers buy into such plans, but many do not.

But what if it was possible to allow the new strategic directions and the action plans to emerge organically through the interplay of people within the organziation so they own the strategy? Would the plan be any different?

The answer is yes. But different in a surprising way. When you connect the capacities and interests within a group systemically, new-to-the-world possibilities emerge aligned to the needs of the people AND the organization. They become valuable imperatives for both.

Such was the case in Pittsburgh, Pennylvania in late July 2009, when some 30 community leaders came together to explore how they could continue to build upon their work and their newly acquired skills as serving leaders.

It was a coming together of three different cohorts who only knew members of their own group, although they shared a common purpose as serving leaders.


The Serving Leader program was developed by business consultant Ken Jennings and inner-city non-profit champion John Stahl-Wert. It is a unique action-centred "life's journey" approach to leading by serving the interests of others. It has five aspects. Build on strengths. Blaze the trail. Raise the bar. Upend the pyramid. Run to great purpose. It's older than Methusalah!

The session that was to occupy the morning and early afternoon was designed by Abby Straus, leadership coach, facilitator and cultural creative and Amy Skolen, organization development consultant who works as a kind of horse-people whisperer.

We were using a whole bunch of wireless keyboards connected to a computer and a display so we could discuss and then respond to questions presented on the screen. After a few warm-up activities we worked in pairs to explore the warmth and power of the connections of people within the cohorts, then shared our ideas with the entire group. This served as a useful introduction of people to each other and revealed the culture/essence of this fledgling community.

Next each pair interviewed a partner about their strengths and introduced them to the whole group. But before the introductions we foreshadowed the next question so people could pay attention to the strengths that could complement their own.

What happened next obeys the laws of complexity theory. Biologist Stuart Kauffman shows that when you connect about half of the active agents in a system new order emerges through a kind of cross-catalytic effect. People then identified who they would like to join with and why they were complementary. As numerous cross-connections were made, a powerful sense of purpose began to emerge together with an outpouring of simple but doable action plans and commitments to make it happen.

For the grand finale, the group crafted the words of a collective Gregorian Chant, a few words that captured the essence of their new "great purpose". We gathered around the screen to sing the words, first solo, then sotto voce until every voice was heard. The voices rose in volume and exuberance to a celebratory full-throated choral crescendo. Then a beautiful silence.

The words were both a powerful statement of group intent and feedback about our collective co-performance as participants and facilitators.

Here's a sample of what we crafted and chanted:

* Tremendous transforming testaments to timeless truths!
* Opening the onion of opportunity.
* Merging motivations of members in a momentous movement.
* Agents of impact for the renewal of culture.
* Connecting pieces of the puzzle together to reveal the Divine.
* Many minds making marvelous music.

You can use this workshop method to explore how to serve each other's interests:

1. Honoring each other - In what fabulous way has another person in your group, touched, inspired or challenged you. Who and what did they do?
2. Discovering possibilities - Ask your partner to describe 3-5 valuable strengths, capabilities or resources they bring to the world. Write a 25-word description of what you have just learned/discovered.
3. Making connections: Choose one or two strengths that are in the room and explain how your collective strengths could be leveraged to start a really important project, program or activity in the community beyond what you could do alone. Give an example.
4. How would you like to be served by the group. Describe the kind of support you would like to give/offer.
5. Knowing how people would like to be served by the group, how do we make that happen?
6. What is happening in your life/business/community etc. that you would like help with?
7. Thinking about the ideas we have generated for taking our organization/group forward and our individual requests in the group, where do you feel drawn to commit, and what will you commit to doing?
8. Create a 5-6-word snazzy slogan/song of OUR GREAT PURPOSE. e.g. exceptionally exotic expressions of eager earthbound essences. Use allitration, metaphor, rich words etc.