Recap of first weekend of SCU SNW 08

[Joe Harder]

Saturday

Building our Learning Community
- Koosh ball name game
- Six questions (dream job, real job, fun at work, first/worst job lesson, hidden talent, book takeaway)
- Dice game sharing of answers in random organic pods
- Headlines task

Establishing Common Purpose
- What's Your Perfect Day? group activity
- Collins and Porras, Building Your Company's Vision

Movement session #1
- Synovial fluid
- Waking up the Chi
- Point of Reanimation

Introduction to the Five Course Conversations

Holistic Human Asset Practices
- Pfeffer and Veiga's seven bundled human asset practices that add value (careful selection, employment security, investment in training, reduction of status differences, broad information sharing, extensive use of self-managed teams, above-average rewards based in part on group results)
- Examples from SAS Institute, Whole Foods Markets, and our own companies

Spirit and Spirituality at Work
- Mitroff and Denton, A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America
- Dialogue with one or two others on Role of Spirituality in One's Life

Introduction to Mindfulness
- Raisin Meditation

Initial group project ideas and peer evalutions

Sunday

Morning meeting
- Name plus adjective check-in
- Debrief of journaling in Showing Up for your Life at Work
- Dream job characteristics discussion in small groups
- What's Your Perfect Day action steps

Leading a Living Organization
- Harder, Robertson, and Woodward, The Spirit of the New Workplace - Breathing Life into Organizations
- DeGeus, The Living Company
- Senge, Leading a Living Organization
- From mechanistic to organic, from hierarchies to networks
- Depicting a living system using Lego and Tinker Toys
- Examples from W.L. Gore and Play cases

Energizing and De-energizing leadership
- De-energizing leadership brainstorming and skits
- Energizing leadership points from Cross, et al, What Creates Energy in Organizations?
- Examples from cases covered so far

Establishing project groups
- Open Space Technology example

Mindfulness and meditation
- Key points about mindfulness (awareness, focus, appreciation, presence, intuition, intention, and choice)

Simple breathing meditation
- Take ten breaths upon awakening
- Only autonomic system we can consciously and easily control if we want
- Take three breaths before meetings
- Take twice as long to exhale as inhale for relaxation

[Danielle Chiaro]

Was I the only one who got really dizzy from the deep breathing exercise? Literally by the 2nd breath I was already feeling very light-headed! Maybe I'm just not used to that much oxygen:)

[Joe Harder]

Wow, I've never had someone experience that before (at least that I'm aware of)! Anyone else? It may well be that you were overdosing on O2, but I wonder what else it might have been...I don't think it would just be hyper-ventilation (which I think has more to do with too much CO2...