This was a re-inaugural
meeting of the UK OD Network as an ‘inter-network’ – a loosely-connected set of networks and
communities of practice including: New Intermediaries, the London and
South-East Deming Network, the Centre for Tomorrow’s Company Individual
Members’ Network and the Ministry of Change. It was generously hosted by the
Human Potential Research Group at the
Our topic for the evening was ‘Trust Matters: The
Crucial Link between Authentic Trust and Business Risk,’ presented by
Aidan Ward of Antelope Projects – www.antelopes.com . Aidan is the author of Trust and Risk: The Use and Abuse of Power in Business (forthcoming,
John Wiley, 2003).
The meeting explored
the link between stereotyping and trust: how we often deal with the new, the
uncertain and the risky by pushing it into patterns we already know and games
we can already play. When we do this, we get caught up in stereotypes and the
underlying business risk becomes unmanageable.
As a
warm-up we looked at whether schools are trusting places, and then at whether
schools trust their pupils. We made the point that trust is relative to
strategic intent and that an education system that does not trust pupils to
learn is going to be seriously hamstrung.
We
took a business scenario of a project where things were evidently not going
well and then worked through a simple two-stage process based on the classic
drama triangle model.
First
we acted out the scenario having assigned each of its three main roles as a
stereotypical poor maiden in distress, a dragon or a prince who springs to the
rescue. We did this in three groups, with a different permutation of
scenario-based role and stereotype in each group. Owing to some extraordinary
able improvisation – assisted by various props (I remember a wooden sword and a
splendid dragon mask) - each permutation of role and stereotype was entirely
convincing.
Secondly,
we fast-forwarded to the crunch-point at the end of the scenario when
everything finally came unstuck. We worked in our three groups to reinterpret
the scenario - this time concentrating on the humanity of the responses and on
building trust between the different characters. There were some imaginative
interventions and we seemed to take responsibility for a much wider range of
concerns than previously. The learning here was that while we may have roles
assigned to us in organisations, it is up to us as to
how we inhabit those roles.
In
the wrap-up we looked at how typically we make business risk an external
‘dragon’ – thus making ‘poor maidens’ of ourselves. We become virtuous, but
helpless. The fairy story, we concluded, was as real as real could be.
.
Thanks
to everyone who came for some wonderfully laconic performances and some
terrific insights. If you’d like to add your own reflections here, please feel
free to do so.
This boundary-crossing between different networks and meeting
together as an ‘inter-network’ seemed like a good idea, we decided, and worth
doing again.
Our
next meeting will therefore be in late September/early October, hosted by Royal
Mail at
Watch
this space for details nearer the time!
----------------------------------------------------
The
Human Potential Research Group - www.surrey.ac.uk/Education/hprg/index.htm - has been a recognised centre of excellence in experiential learning,
facilitation skills and holistic personal development for over thirty years.
Located in the
New
Intermediaries
- www.newintermediaries.co.uk - is a community of practice
of internal and external change agents.
The Centre for Tomorrow’s Company - www.tomorrowscompany.com - is a think-tank and
catalyst, researching and stimulating the development of a new agenda for
business. It works to create a future for business that makes equal sense to
staff, shareholders and society.
/s/ CS