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The Netherlands, March 8, 2004
Annemieke Stoppelenburg & Mario Verweijen
Click here to read the whole Story...
From February 15th till 21st Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff stayed
in the Netherlands. The invitation to come over came from
FS-procesbegeleiding, a new small firm established with the sole
purpose to explore and promote Future Search in the Netherlands and to
perform future searches regarding all kinds of possible issues.
In order to give the Dutch network a swift start, they invited Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff. In this week two major events were scheduled:
Lecture Event
On Tuesday 17th a "lecture" was organized in cooperation with a
top 5 Dutch consultancy firm. Marvin and Sandra spoke of past, present
and future of Future Search, both the methodology and the
(international) network. The meeting was attended by some 40 people:
consultants, managers and policymakers.
The lecture was illustrated with a great number of vivid descriptions
of self-experienced cases. Two really eloquent people showed us the
real power of storytelling. Our favorite one-liners: "I used to
understand organizations without having any understanding of
communities, now I understand communities and don't understand
organizations anymore." And "Sometimes something works, nothing
never works". To us this showed a deep shift in mind-set, and a great talent for proportion.
Learning Workshop
After this 3 hour "lecture" Marvin and Sandra went to Woudschoten, a
beautifully located conference center in Zeist. There the
learning workshop was to be experienced.
The learning workshop was attended by 23 consultants and policy makers.
As quit a few consultants were participating in this workshop, Marvin
and Sandra paid special attention to the theoretical and practical
background of future search.
We learned and experienced that a group is very capable of making the
decisions that are necessary: "the facilitator is working hard doing
nothing" in order to keep the group whole. Feelings, emotions are
there, let them be, as long as they don't overwhelm a participant. That
is one of the main tasks for the facilitators in keeping the group
whole.
A fun part: Cultural Differences
From the beginning Marvin and Sandra told us that Future Search
can be used through different cultures. The experience we had, proved
them right. Nevertheless, we had our bit of fun, because of the
cultural differences between two Americans and an room full of
Dutchies.
Every time someone gave a short presentation, Marvin and Sandra started
clapping. That is not the way we are used to show our appreciation, so
we were amazed and amused. During the workshop, Marvin and Sandra
adapted and stopped clapping themselves, while the Dutch adapted the
other way around and started clapping
Some reactions of the participants
"It was a great workshop and
I was impressed by the tutors. I have already informed the network for
urban innovation about this method. I expect that a Future Search with
all parties involved could make a miracle happen working on the
revitalization of the old neighbourhoods."
"We had a meeting trying to find out
what ways we can use Future Search in our local government, perhaps
developing our policy on education, or setting up a schedule for
city-oriented activities."
"The process of Future Search is
great! By using the common history and searching for the common ground
in stead of looking for the differences as we are used to do an future
search has dynamics other working conferences lack."
 Network Activities
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