Last week from the 4.-6. February, a couple of us from ALH joined the Open Leadership Network Symposium in Tampa, Florida where the theme was “Dare to Invite“.s we headed home we concluded that this probably was the biggest takeaway from the three days.
We were reminded that, if we want the value of the engaged individual in our organizations, we have to let people choose (that means decide); for that to happen, we have to invite them (treat them as volouteers). We cannot force knowledge in or out of people’s heads, we cannot conscript them to knowledge work, only to blind task execution.
One of the speakers and trainers was Doug Kirkpatrick, who started his talk with the words: “Current management is broken!”. He then went on to set out the facts of his case and to declare that there is a better way. His account of the self-forming organizations at Morning Star was truly impressive and we found many parallel ideas with those defined in Agile Lean Leadership, although Doug clearly is more radical in his approach.
We participated in a one-day training in Open Space Agility with Darren Terrell and give him great kudos for being very inspiring, totally focused and just oozing integrity. We will no doubt find good use of the deep understanding we acquired.
There were so many important conversations with people with passion for changing the workplace for the better. Their passion has led to principles and action, not just fluffy-bunny sentiments; we thank everybody we met for that.
All in all a worthwhile investment, not even mentioning the chance to get away from the atrocious Danish winter weather.
