Debra Fasteson Harris from Duke Research Institute attended our Designing Collaborative Systems Workshop. She has shared her notes with us and we are passing them on to you to give you a feel for our workshop through the eyes of a workshop participant.

Agenda
- Continuing work on Purpose
- Big E principles
- Little e principles
- Applying little e principles
- Planning framework

Dick Axelrod On the Principles of Engagement:
"Big E Principles"

There are two levels on which we discussed Engagement: Big E and Little e.

Big E principles that were discussed are... Think of the Big E principles as things that occur when change or a change effort is successful and constructive. These are highlevel principles. Remember, think of a "Big E" as the entire change strategy/effort for your whole project.

Think of Little e principles as application-level principles. They are a good check-list to think about as you design your little e’s. They help bring democratic principles that are present in the Big E Principles through to your group work. Little e designs are the implementation of democratic principles. They assure that everyone has the opportunity to participate and contribute. When the democratic philosophy is successfully carried through to implementation of a change effort, "people at all levels of the organization" have Voice, Cohesion, and there is Action for change. They are Engaged.

The Principles of Engagement
- Widening the Circle
- Embracing Democratic Principles
- Connecting People to Each Other
- Creating Communities for Action were depicted on flipcharts and posted in the four corners of the room

The participants were asked to go to the corner of the room where the principle was posted that they were most attracted to and have a 5 minute conversation on why they showed up there. Next, the room was asked to go to the principle that they found the most challenging and have a discussion on why. Each was reported out to the room. The report-outs are summarized below:

Widening the Circle

Without widening the circle, none of the other principles will succeed Involving more people takes time Costs more

Embracing Democratic Principles

Although not in this case, even though we are a democratic nation, this is sometimes the Principle with the least number of people choosing it. It can look like abdication Inefficient Takes too long

Connecting People to Each Other

Creates and shows depth and meaning It’s tough to just get people in the same room

Creating Communities for Action

We like to get things done We are the doers Can come across as too results- oriented

Teams were then given the task of designing their change strategy using the Big E Principles. After the teams were worked on their task they participated in Team-to-Team feedback.

Tool: Team-to-Team feedback

Purpose: To gain experience communicating your work and get early feedback from another group.
Directions: Pair up with another team. As a group, explain your work to them, get their feedback, then switch.

Engage The Whole Person Through Sight Sound & Movement: People have different learning styles, auditory, visual, kinesthetic.

Make The Whole System Visible: Mapping at the hospital, have a person be a customer request and get passed around from function to function.

Foster Curiosity: Take people back to child-like state when they had a lot of curiosity and sense of wonder to support creativity, and enhance learning. Practices – exaggerate, encourage playfulness.

Establish & Hold Creative Tension: Importance (current reality & future, working with unease, not forcing resolution). Practices (mind map, panel discussion, support truth telling, dive deeply into tension).

Reflection: Importance (Antidote to the "do and decide" world in which we live, this is where learning takes place, creates better solutions) Practices (Mirroring, After Action Review from US Army, what Happened, Why did it happen, What do we need to do differently, Silence, Journaling, Sleep on it, Soak time, Put things away and pull them out again, Take a walk and talk with someone)

Enable People to Discover What they Already Know Naturally: When people believe they are smart, they act smart. This affirms and builds self esteem and confidence.

Public Commitments Create Momentum: Importance (Witnesses know that others have made a commitment. Strengthens the belief that we can make a difference. Must be voluntary. Simple commitments must be able to be done in a short period of time. For complex commitments, build in support & follow-up)

Exercise: The participants were asked to break up into 5 MaxMix groups. Each group picked one of the areas discussed. The assignment was to plan an engagement for the School Community.

The "Little e's" were:

$25,000 Pyramid where the participants were to guess which little e strategy they were talking about one group asked the participants to guess what their group was thinking about and the team answered only "yes" or "no" to Foster Curiosity.

The next team handed out puzzle pieces and the participants put together a Heart Puzzle. Here’s a picture of the participants as they were in the midst of the "little e".

The fourth team handed out empty bottles and asked each person to write a barrier to change on each bottle. They then asked each MaxMix team to pick a toy from their table with which to knock over the barriers to change. Then they lined up the empty bottles on the floor like bowling pins and the other teams took turns trying to use their toys to knock the "pins" down. For each attempt, a humorous and appropriate creative Change management phrase was applied. For example, when the last team got a strike, the phrase was "We learn from others’ mistakes!"

The last team held a rubber band tug-o-war to illustrate Holding creative tension. It was a regular tug-o-war but the rope was suspended by rubber bands.

Note from the pictures that the participants are interested and involved. The energy in the room is high and there is a large amount of active participation! They are Engaged.

Dick Axelrod: on Design Template

Every time you bring people together, there is a basic structure to the time. There is a transition into the meeting, time to connect, information exchange to understand current reality and seeing the future possibilities. Then there is some action planning and decision making, and an exit.

Dick’s Flip Chart also shows a linear way to look at Little e design.

Teams were then given the task to design a meeting, workshop, or event, for their organization using the little e principles.

End of Day Reflection:

The participants were asked to answer two questions as a table:

What have you Learned or remembered?

What suggestions do you have for tomorrow?