Opening Space Empowers Staff to Talk about How We Work

At our annual management retreat, Open Space gave our managers the opportunity to raise concerns and make suggestions about how DDD can improve how we do business and better achieve our social mission. The chance to speak up to propose topics, to talk with peers about the issues that concern them most, and to report back to the full group was enormously empowering, and inspired all of us to action.

•    “DDD’s data entry operators do not have enough opportunities to practice their spoken English and do public speaking.”
•    “Managers forget what it’s like to be operators, and most volunteers never work on the operations floor. “
•     “There are not enough opportunities for DDD graduates to stay in touch with DDD and each other after they leave for other jobs.”

These were some of the observations heard during our annual management retreat as part an activity called “Open Space.”  The activity (also called an “unconference”) gave DDD managers the opportunity to raise the issues they felt were most important to tackle as we began to develop our annual business plan.

Managers from Phnom Penh, Battambang, Vientiane and New York pitched topics to their peers to create 15 different discussion sessions.  The discussions were rich and lively.  The topics ranged from “Improving the Experience of Entry Level Operators” to “Quality Monitoring and Automation”.  Managers demonstrated a keen understanding of DDD’s mission, and a passionate commitment to improving what we do. Many of the groups attracted a diverse set of participants representing several different teams across DDD—though some of these managers don’t normally have reason to collaborate, the discussion topics illuminated shared interests and unexpected synergies. Facilitators took detailed notes of the conversations for follow up and volunteers from each session stood up in front of the room to report the takeaways of their conversation back to the full group.

Open Space gave our managers the opportunity to raise concerns and make suggestions about how DDD can improve how we do business and better achieve our social mission. The chance to speak up to propose topics, to talk with peers about the issues that concern them most, and to report back to the full group was enormously empowering, and inspired all of us to action.  For many of our staff, it was the first time they spoke up about their own ideas in front of a large group of colleagues. It’s now up to DDD’s senior management team to decide how to integrate these ideas as they set priorities for the coming year.

What was the outcome?  Open Space teams made recommendations such as:

•    Include more interactive activities in DDD’s English courses: skits, conversation, practice with native English speakers, extracurricular study tours, etc
•    All DDD staff should spend time working in entry level operator jobs.
•    Increase the number of Alumni activities and events that allow graduates to share their experiences.

About Open Space
Open Space is a way to enable all kinds of people, in any kind of organization, to create inspired and productive meetings. Over the last 20+ years, it has also become clear that opening space, as an intentional leadership practice, can create inspired organizations, where ordinary people work together to create extraordinary results with regularity.  In Open Space meetings, participants create and manage their own agenda of parallel working sessions around a central theme of strategic importance, such as: What is the strategy, group, organization or community that all stakeholders can support and work together to create?