How can we take responsibility for our ONE World?
To answer this question, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) initiated a dialogue process that is unique of its kind.
Image by Ralf Rühmeier
Recently I was interviewed about the creative process of starting www.StakeholderDialogues.net for the new edition of our newsletter. Looking back to the beginnings and reflecting on how we went about things I realized how many lessons learned on leading an innovation process I took away from this exciting time – and am happy to share them with you:
The rough idea for a practitioner network around the topic of Stakeholder Dialogues grew a long time ago. The Collective Leadership Institute´s vision is to empower as many people as possible to use Stakeholder Dialogues as a means to bring about positive change and to contribute to a sustainable world. This is why we envisioned an online platform that would make our specific knowledge and methodology accessible to everyone. So we knocked on many doors trying to raise funds for the development of this platform, and, finally, received a seed funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2012. The development phase was a very exciting time. None of us had ever done something like this before. But in April 2013, less than a year after initiating the development, we launched the website officially. I am proud that StakeholderDialogues.net turned out to be a fantastic website.
For me, innovation starts with problem solving. It is important that a project or product is not designed as an end in itself, but it has to Weiterlesen
When managing Stakeholder Dialogues, never forget that the core of every cooperation process is made out of people and the way they interact. Seen like this, a Stakeholder Dialogue can only be as fruitful as are the relationships between the people that participate in them. In my eyes the most powerful and yet quite simple tool for raising the quality of relationships in a cooperation process is: Listening.
Why? Because the way people voice their ideas, concerns or doubts is often dependent on the way people listen. Weiterlesen
At the Collective Leadership we continuously highlight the importance of building good relationships as a basis for successful cooperation projects. But just as important as building this first resonance it is to channel this first energy and engagement into more formalized and implementable structures. But how does one find the right timing and the right approach to carry out this transition? The Dialogic Change Model gives guidance:
Phase 2 of the Dialogic Change Model is geared towards consolidating the system of stakeholder collaboration and formalizing stakeholders’ commitment to change. In this phase initial structures are developed, project teams defined and regular meetings planned. Weiterlesen
In Stakeholder engagement processes collective intelligence and the ability of a group of people to generate ideas together is crucial. Last week we held our training course „Working with Stakeholder Dialogues“ here in Potsdam. The participants brought with them really exciting project cases, so me and my co-facilitator decided to introduce to them a little tool that would leverage their potential for generating wild ideas and positive dynamics in their change processes – the “Yes, and…” exercise.
© Jan Lamprecht – Jupiter Union
Here is how the exercise works:
Inform the group that they get to spend 500.000 € and can go on a holiday trip. The only condition is that everyone that contributes an idea on how to spend the money has to start his or her sentence with the words “Yes, and…”. Weiterlesen