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C05 Pre-Conference: Getting the Right People in the Room

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Getting the Right People in the Room: Applying Future Search Principles

Thursday 9:00am - 4:00pm

Price: $100 Members; $175 Non-members

Track: Capacity Building Models and Techniques

Presenter

Sandra Janoff, Future Search Network

Description

In this one-day workshop we will introduce a theory of systems change, a set of design principles and a proven, innovative methodology for transforming large systems and enabling unified action on difficult social, economic and technical issues. It is for community leaders and advocates who understand the potential of collaboration, engagement and discovery of common ground.

Based on future search principles, we redefine the purpose of leadership as the betterment of society. Our goal is to help people take responsibility for the whole systems of which they are a part, starting with the meetings that they are in and the decisions that impact their future.

Future Search is an interactive planning meeting that uniquely enables cooperative action among diverse participants. It applies principles for effective collaboration regardless of culture, class, gender, age and education, making it possible for highly-diverse stakeholders, including those in conflict, to work together on their common aspirations. Future Search's ability to transform a system's capability to act is backed by 60 years of research, theory and practice and has been applied to practically every social, economic and technical issue on 5 continents, in many languages, in numerous cultures.

Issues addressed:

Engaging people who have felt alienated from civic discourse to commit to a shared future.

Effective leaders do not facilitate people. Rather, they seek to create conditions under which people will take care of themselves. They work on structure more than behavior. They seek to control only those aspects that do not require participants to acquire novel skills, knowledge, learning styles or personality traits before they can use what they already have. Our workshop demonstrates how to control what is controllable and leave the rest to the group.

Fostering creative energy and sustaining innovation.

Enabling people to see the bigger picture, say what they know (even in risky situations), listen to ideas and proposals they don't share, make choices in their own and a group's best interest and act responsibility when action is appropriate.

Creating implementable policies and programs.

We will integrate theory and practice through a series of learning exercises.

About the Presenter

Sandra Janoff, Future Search Network

Sandra Janoff, Ph.D. is co-director of Future Search Network and co-author of “Future Search - An Action Guide to Finding Common Ground in Organizations and Communities,” 2nd edition (Berrett-Koehler 2000). Ms. Janoff was on the staff of an experimental high school in Philadelphia that pioneered team-based learning and student / parent / community involvement from 1974- 1985. Her research on relationships among organization structure, decision making and gender led to a doctoral dissertation, "The Influence of Legal Education on Moral Reasoning," published in the Minnesota Law Review and in “Feminist Jurisprudence” (West Publishing, 1994). She has been a psychologist and consultant to large and small businesses, communities and non-profits since 1989.