From Divided to Undivided Making Our “Community/City” Whole Again

The Challenge We Face as Americans

In December of 1776, a time of national crisis, Thomas Paine said, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” There have been few times since then when we as Americans have been more divided and more in need of unity than now. In many cases our divisions run so deep that we can’t even talk to each other.  Carlos Lozada recently said in a piece that appeared in the Washington Post, “The battle… is about determining whether Americans, torn by politics, class and culture can still make common cause about anything”

More and more we hear about communities that have difficult issues to address and their inability to find common ground from which to address them.  Common ground, of course, begins with community leaders.  Often they recognize the issues and aren’t sure how to bring people together to have useful dialogue and take actions needed to find solutions.

A History of Aligning People and Creating Futures

Kathleen Dannemiller and Chuck Tyson founded our firm, Dannemiller Tyson Associates (DTA), in 1984 to “ help communities and organizations become one brain and one heart.”  “One brain” means that everyone has the same information and “one heart” means we are all passionately committed to a shared vision of a better future.  We have worked with thousands of organizations, communities, and government agencies at all levels around the globe…not telling them how or what to do, rather helping them have the right conversations to uncover their own wisdom.

Our Offer To You

We at DTA feel called to offer our expertise to your community to assist you in moving from one that is divided to one that is united in its vision of the future.  We do this work because we believe in it and have the expertise to engage diverse groups, so that people can really listen to each other for what they have in common rather that what divides them. We see an urgent need for listening and coming together and are willing to do the work at a reduced fee to be negotiated at the time of our proposal with a specific client system.

Next Steps

If you would like to explore the possibilities of engaging and mobilizing the people of your community regardless of the issue or issues you face, please give us a call so we can explore the possibilities together.

Contact: Senior Partner Mary Eggers, 703-426-1734, eggersm@ix.netcom.com

Gift #5 – Giving

I believe that what goes around comes around in life and although I experience this in my own life, Kathie was my best example of this principle in action. I learned more from her about giving than I did anything else and it changed my life. Kathie’s generosity was well known from giving credit where it was due, to sharing the wealth of work she had with others, to giving of her time and money (and sometimes her home) to bring along the next generation, she gave without thought of a return. Roger Breisch in his 2003 Tributes to Kathie, describes her generosity this way.

“I knew Kathie Dannemiller only by reputation when I ventured to Milwaukee in 1997 for a conference where she was speaking. Because my return trip took me past the Milwaukee airport, the conference organizers asked if I would drop her off on my way. Kathie and I were so deep in conversation that I missed the exit and got lost trying to find my way to the terminal. I nearly drove off the road. We laughed so hard that afternoon—few people enjoyed laughter as much as Kathie.

That same day I found the courage to ask her to consider an interview for a new newsletter I called Entre Nous.

I arrived at her house one December evening. Kathie’s generosity was legendary—her home was a virtual free bed-and-breakfast for hundreds who came to learn with her.

The next morning, for two hours after breakfast we sat in her kitchen and I laughed and I cried. To this day, her interview is one of the closest to my heart. She told me of her joys…her fears…her loves…her sadness. She told me about the most intimate moments in her life—including how she almost lost her daughter Kaysie. Those hours in her presence changed me. She taught me something about myself and my work in this world. But that’s what Kathie was about—helping us appreciate all of who we are. She once told me the following story. “Many years ago, a young women said to me, ‘I’m so disappointed. I try so hard to be like you, and I always fail.’ I asked her what I’m like.’ She said, ‘Warm, caring, wise, smart.’ I said, ‘You’ll never measure up to that. That’s only the me I’m showing you. I’m also snotty, petty, punitive and judgmental.’ At that moment, I set out to show the whole thing. Lord have mercy, if I’m going to have any impact in the world I have to be whole.”

Kathie’s interview in Entre Nous ended this way: “I am called to make sure it matters I’m here. That nothing in my life is a throw away line. Everything I say to you…everything I say to a client…to a partner, has meaning. I want it to matter that you were here. I don’t care what you write about me. I want it to matter to you, Roger, that you were here. Period. End of paragraph.”

The questions I’ll leave with you is: In what ways are you given?

Mary Eggers
Partner, Dannemiller Tyson Associates

Dannemiller Tyson Associates Work in India: A story of spreading the word about Whole-Scale® Change

Narrative by Roland Loup, 2012

In the 1990’s DTA made a conscious decision to spread the Whole Scale™ approach to organization transformation throughout the world. In the mid 90’s, Kathie Dannemiller was invited by Anil Sanchdev, the founder of Eicher Consulting, to go to India to train a cadre of Eicher Consultancy in the Whole Scale™ approach.  Kathie accepted, enlisted Al Viswanathan  -a colleague who had recently retired from Boeing – and me, Roland Loup, a partner in DTA. to accompany her on the trip.

The three adventurers, only Al had been to India before, in fact he was born there and routinely visited family members, flew to Delhi in mid November, 1995. The trip lasted approximately 6 weeks. While there, we designed and led a 3-day Whole-Scale™ workshop, consulted with an Eicher Motors truck assembly plant in Indore and consulted outside Mumbai with a division of Larsen & Toubro, a Danish contracting firm. Throughout our visit we were accompanied by members of Eicher Consultancy who were our guides and students.

After meeting Anil and others from Eicher Consultancy, the entourage flew to Mumbai (Bombay) and quickly planned a 3-day whole-scale™ workshop. Before the jet lag had subsided, we were leading the workshop with about 100 curious, eager – to- learn Indians.

Included among the participants were the Eicher Motors leadership team, the design team and the logistics team for a whole-scale™ planning meeting of about 300 managers and line employees at the Eicher Motors truck assembly plant in Indore. Immediately after the Mumbai workshop we left for Indore to begin our work with Eicher Motors. When we arrived in Indore, we got a plant tour and then were shown the handiwork of the logistics team. After the Mumbai workshop, the logistics team had returned to Indore and immediately designed and built round tables and easels for the large-group session. We were blown away with their innovative ideas and work.

Our first intervention was working with the leadership team to draft a vision and goals for the operation.  This two-day meeting taught us a great deal about the business and culture of Eicher Motors and the strong commitment of Sandy Sandilya, the organization leader, and his team to a participative approach to developing an organization strategy.

After our work with the leadership, we led a two-day meeting of the design team, a cross-section of management and line employees, to design the 3-day whole-scale™ meeting. This session turned out to be an exciting and poignant event for the participants and us facilitators. The large-scale meeting purpose created by the design team was exciting in English, and melodious and moving in Hindi, the native language of the workers. Because many of the large-scale meeting participants did not speak English, all of the meeting was to be conducted in Hindi – essential for participants and a new challenge for us facilitators because we could not understand a word of what was being said. Luckily, our Eicher consultants would translate for us when we needed it. We also used other information, e. g., the energy in the room, satisfaction by the design team members and leadership team, the impressions of the Eicher consultants, etc., to track what was happening and how the meeting was going.

Another issue that our participants faced was that many of those in the large-group meeting could not read Hindi.  The design team solved this by having a “translation buddy” for each non-reader. So, for example, when an activity included reading from flip charts, the reading buddy and nonreader went around together and “read” the charts together. This arrangement worked seamlessly in the event.

Between the design team meeting and the 3-day event, we had a chance to sight see. Just travelling by car through the India country-side was exciting. Then we would arrive at a destination and see wonderful architecture and hear about the history of the buildings and people who built and lived there.

The three-day event went well, with the leadership team performing its leadership role flawlessly and the participants creating many ideas to move towards the organizations future. Sandy and his team were off and running.

After the Indore work, we returned to Mumbai to work with Larsen & Tubro.  We engaged in another great experience with this group leaving them with a plan, energy and leadership in place to proceed towards their “preferred future.”

Throughout this whole India experience, Kathie Dannemiller was treated like a cross between a rock-star and a guru. We stayed in great hotels, were always driven around and accompanied by either a member of the Eicher Consultancy group or someone from the organization we were working with. The highlight for me of this treatment was attending a company meeting event in Mumbai – an evening of enthusiastic speeches, songs, food and dance. The chairman of the Larsen & Tubro in India was there and was our host throughout the evening.

In India, it is customary for men to dance with each other to fast-paced, energetic songs. As a result, the Indians, in their usual warm and inclusive way, had me dancing most of the evening. One time I was invited to dance with the chairman, an intense guy, and we were surrounded by circles of the Larsen& Tubro people. It was like being in a movie.

We got a chance to visit the Taj Mahal in Agra, truly as spectacular as it is portrayed. And in our last days in Deli, we were taken on a tour of some of the important places in Delhi, e. g., the red fort, Nehru’s house, the place where Ghandi spent his last night and was shot, etc.

Throughout the time India, Kathie was at her best as an innovator and teacher in whole-scale. Despite her health issues, her feet hurt constantly throughout the time, she stayed poised, energetic, focused on teaching and consulting, giving. She wore easily the cloak of the guru. Being with her there was an inspiration to many around hers.

The 1995 visit launched whole-scale in India, referred to in India as LSIP for Large Scale Interactive Processes – one of the earlier descriptions of the whole-scale™ approach. Since then, Anil Sanchdev and others have continued to foster practice in LSIP through consulting and conducting workshops. In 1997 Paul Tolchinski and I went to India for about 3 weeks to conduct another workshop and to help “reenergize” the change efforts at Eicher Motors and Larsen & Tubro.

This past February, Anil, now Founder & CEO of the SCHOOL of  INSPIRED LEADERSHIP near Delhi, hosted an honorary workshop honoring Kathie Dannemiller for her work in India. Paul Tolchinski co-designed and co-facilitated the event with Anil.

Anil’s leadership in bringing Kathie to India, and developing the use of LSIP over the past 15 years helped DTA achieve its goal or world-wide application of the approach to organization and community transformation.  The nurturance of Kathie’s work in India is a point of pride for Dannemiller Tyson Associates, one of many she inspired.

Dannemiller Tyson Associates Work in India: a story of spreading the word about Whole-Scale^® Change

 Narrative by Roland Loup, 2012

 In the 1990’s DTA made a conscious decision to spread the Whole Scale™ approach to organization transformation throughout the world. In the mid 90’s, Kathie Dannemiller was invited by Anil Sanchdev, the founder of Eicher Consulting, to go to India to train a cadre of Eicher Consultancy in the Whole Scale™ approach.  Kathie accepted, enlisted Al Viswanathan  -a colleague who had recently retired from Boeing – and me, Roland Loup, a partner in DTA. to accompany her on the trip.

The three adventurers, only Al had been to India before, in fact he was born there and routinely visited family members, flew to Delhi in mid November, 1995. The trip lasted approximately 6 weeks. While there, we designed and led a 3-day Whole-Scale™ workshop, consulted with an Eicher Motors truck assembly plant in Indore and consulted outside Mumbai with a division of Larsen & Toubro, a Danish contracting firm. Throughout our visit we were accompanied by members of Eicher Consultancy who were our guides and students.

After meeting Anil and others from Eicher Consultancy, the entourage flew to Mumbai (Bombay) and quickly planned a 3-day whole-scale™ workshop. Before the jet lag had subsided, we were leading the workshop with about 100 curious, eager – to- learn Indians.

Included among the participants were the Eicher Motors leadership team, the design team and the logistics team for a whole-scale™ planning meeting of about 300 managers and line employees at the Eicher Motors truck assembly plant in Indore. Immediately after the Mumbai workshop we left for Indore to begin our work with Eicher Motors. When we arrived in Indore, we got a plant tour and then were shown the handiwork of the logistics team. After the Mumbai workshop, the logistics team had returned to Indore and immediately designed and built round tables and easels for the large-group session. We were blown away with their innovative ideas and work.

Our first intervention was working with the leadership team to draft a vision and goals for the operation.  This two-day meeting taught us a great deal about the business and culture of Eicher Motors and the strong commitment of Sandy Sandilya, the organization leader, and his team to a participative approach to developing an organization strategy.

After our work with the leadership, we led a two-day meeting of the design team, a cross-section of management and line employees, to design the 3-day whole-scale™ meeting. This session turned out to be an exciting and poignant event for the participants and us facilitators. The large-scale meeting purpose created by the design team was exciting in English, and melodious and moving in Hindi, the native language of the workers. Because many of the large-scale meeting participants did not speak English, all of the meeting was to be conducted in Hindi – essential for participants and a new challenge for us facilitators because we could not understand a word of what was being said. Luckily, our Eicher consultants would translate for us when we needed it. We also used other information, e. g., the energy in the room, satisfaction by the design team members and leadership team, the impressions of the Eicher consultants, etc., to track what was happening and how the meeting was going.

Another issue that our participants faced was that many of those in the large-group meeting could not read Hindi.  The design team solved this by having a “translation buddy” for each non-reader. So, for example, when an activity included reading from flip charts, the reading buddy and nonreader went around together and “read” the charts together. This arrangement worked seamlessly in the event.

Between the design team meeting and the 3-day event, we had a chance to sight see. Just travelling by car through the India country-side was exciting. Then we would arrive at a destination and see wonderful architecture and hear about the history of the buildings and people who built and lived there.

The three-day event went well, with the leadership team performing its leadership role flawlessly and the participants creating many ideas to move towards the organizations future. Sandy and his team were off and running.

After the Indore work, we returned to Mumbai to work with Larsen & Tubro.  We engaged in another great experience with this group leaving them with a plan, energy and leadership in place to proceed towards their “preferred future.”

Throughout this whole India experience, Kathie Dannemiller was treated like a cross between a rock-star and a guru. We stayed in great hotels, were always driven around and accompanied by either a member of the Eicher Consultancy group or someone from the organization we were working with. The highlight for me of this treatment was attending a company meeting event in Mumbai – an evening of enthusiastic speeches, songs, food and dance. The chairman of the Larsen & Tubro in India was there and was our host throughout the evening.

In India, it is customary for men to dance with each other to fast-paced, energetic songs. As a result, the Indians, in their usual warm and inclusive way, had me dancing most of the evening. One time I was invited to dance with the chairman, an intense guy, and we were surrounded by circles of the Larsen& Tubro people. It was like being in a movie.

We got a chance to visit the Taj Mahal in Agra, truly as spectacular as it is portrayed. And in our last days in Deli, we were taken on a tour of some of the important places in Delhi, e. g., the red fort, Nehru’s house, the place where Ghandi spent his last night and was shot, etc.

Throughout the time India, Kathie was at her best as an innovator and teacher in whole-scale. Despite her health issues, her feet hurt constantly throughout the time, she stayed poised, energetic, focused on teaching and consulting, giving. She wore easily the cloak of the guru. Being with her there was an inspiration to many around hers.

The 1995 visit launched whole-scale in India, referred to in India as LSIP for Large Scale Interactive Processes – one of the earlier descriptions of the whole-scale™ approach. Since then, Anil Sanchdev and others have continued to foster practice in LSIP through consulting and conducting workshops. In 1997 Paul Tolchinski and I went to India for about 3 weeks to conduct another workshop and to help “reenergize” the change efforts at Eicher Motors and Larsen & Tubro.

This past February, Anil, now Founder & CEO of the SCHOOL of  INSPIRED LEADERSHIP near Delhi, hosted an honorary workshop honoring Kathie Dannemiller for her work in India. Paul Tolchinski co-designed and co-facilitated the event with Anil.

Anil’s leadership in bringing Kathie to India, and developing the use of LSIP over the past 15 years helped DTA achieve its goal or world-wide application of the approach to organization and community transformation.  The nurturance of Kathie’s work in India is a point of pride for Dannemiller Tyson Associates, one of many she inspired.

Fog

We are all familiar with it – the stuff in the air that prevents one from seeing the road signs ahead.  Does it exist in organizations?  Several weeks ago, while working with a large system, the President/COO commented “it feels to me like they are in the fog!”  He was responding to a presentation of a draft design for a large group meeting that would be engaging a microcosm of all employees.  The “they” that he was referring to were the front line employees who would be participating in the meeting being designed.  The implication in his comment was that because “they” are in the fog, “they” are not helping to bring about the change that needs to happen.

The “fog” was his perception, and the truth is “they” probably don’t feel like they were in a fog – the front line employees are just doing their jobs the best they knew how with the information and resources they have.  The President/COO is W-A-Y ahead of the front line in terms of seeing the big picture and knowing what needed to happen to bring about the change; he’s also had a relatively long period of time to adjust.  “They,” on the other hand, probably know little about the reasons for the change, how it will impact them, and what they can do to support it.  They also probably have heard more rumors than facts and have had little or no opportunity to seek clarity and understanding.  So my point in all this is we, the consultants, need to help leaders lead in a way that engages employees in a timely and appropriate fashion to create understanding of and commitment to support the change.  Always keep in mind that people support what they help to create!

Mary Eggers
Partner, Dannemiller Tyson Associates

Gift #4 Passion

 

Gift #4 – Passion

I was still new to DTA in 1995 when Kathie and Roland Loup went off to do work in India.  Of the many stories she told when she returned, I remember only one and, based on what I know now, I believe the story was about passion.  The DTA and Indian consulting teams were working together on the design for a large group meeting, and when discussing the three to five questions participants would use to connect with each other and the work they were about to engage in, Kathie was passionate about including this question “What do you yearn for in your work?” in the getting connected assignment.  She was particularly passionate about using the word “yearn.”   Although I knew what it meant to “yearn” for something, I didn’t quite get the depth of how the word tapes something in us that goes deep to our core until I heard Kathie’s story.   Kathie’s experience in India with this question was no different from the experience she’d had when using this question in hundreds of organizations around the world. 

Now fast forward five years and I’m in a very small village in Uganda with a friend/colleague and we are leading a session with about 100 women that do not speak English and we use, through a translator, the same question and as Kathie would say – “IT WORKED IT BLOODY WORKED!”  What I learned in all of this was how important the words we use are to the work we are trying to enable.  

Mary Eggers
Partner, Dannemiller Tyson Associates

Update on the program in India honoring Kathy Dannemiller

Last month I shared with you that The School of Inspired Leadership (SOIL) in India is sponsoring The Kathleen Dannemiller Memorial Train the Trainer Workshop the week of February 23rd in New Delhi.  Here is the web link that describes the program and how to register. 

http://www.soilindia.net/content/kathleen-dannemiller-memorial-train-trainer-workshop-lsip

Whole-Scale Workshop in New Delhi, India

The Executive Education and Consulting – School of Inspired Leadership (SOIL) a new program – The Kathleen Dannemiller Memorial, Train the Trainer Workshop with the first one held February 23-25, 2012 in New Delhi, India.

Kathleen Dannemiller was the inventor of the large scale interactive process now widely known as Whole-Scale® Change – a unique methodology which simultaneously involves hundreds to thousands of people in an organization or community.  The February workshop will be jointly facilitated by Anil Sandev the founder of Eicher Consultancy when he and Kathie did work in India, Anil is now founder and CEO of SOIL and Paul D. Tolchinsky a former partner in Dannemiller Tyson Associates and a co-author of the book Whole-Scale Change: Unleashing the Magic in Organizations.  Paul is now living and working in Vienna, Austria.

All proceeds of the workshop after expenses will be donated to Chinmaya Organization for Rural Development (CORD), which has been doing inspiring work in empowering women and the community in the villages of Himachal and are replicating the success of its work in Orissa, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

Mary Eggers,
Senior Partner
Dannemiller Tyson Associates

Gift #3 – Trust the Process

 By now many of you know that the east coast of the US had a 5.8 earthquake on August 23^rd; it was centered 87 miles from my home where I was at the time, and it was my first and hopefully last earthquake!  Somehow that experience caused me to think about the phrase “trust the process.”  Although it is one of “Kathie’s gifts,” I came to know it 15 years before meeting Kathie when I went to my first of many retreats at what is now my spiritual community.  There’s a banner on the wall of the main room that reads “trust the process.”

Over the years I had learned to observe the process of my own life and to see its predictability.  It never occurred to me though to learn to observe the processes of my work until I met Kathie.  I got to know Kathie because I asked her to mentor me; it was a year into the mentoring that she asked me to join Dannemiller Tyson Associates.  When I first met her I knew nothing about Whole-Scale^®, which was at the time called Real Time Strategic Change.  In one of our early conversations she asked me “what models do you use to guide your work with clients?” I was an internal consultant at the time, and my response was “well there are lots of them, and I’m always experimenting with new ones also.”  Kathie replied “well if you keep experimenting, how do you know if they are predictable?”  I couldn’t answer that because I never stayed with one process long enough – I was fresh out of graduate school and experimenting was the name of my game.

Some years later Kathie was invited into an oil refinery in Texas because they had a rotten safety record.  Apparently everyone knew they were minutes away from death everyday when they came to work, and they were all blaming everyone else for the problem.  The meeting was with a microcosm of 30 people from across the organization.  Right after the leader kicked the meeting off, Kathie used our process for getting connected around the work to be done, which we call Telling Our Stories.  One of the questions that she used was: “What do you yearn to have happen as a result of this work?”  The process was done whole-room rather than small groups and Kathie said it took a lot of time, many were emotional about the situation and at the conclusion everyone was aligned around what need to happen next.  The rest of the day went smoothly with great results, and when everyone left the person that invited Kathie in said: “Yes, but you didn’t see how they really are with each other – always fighting.”  Kathie’s replied “Well you should have told me that you wanted them to fight – I could have gotten them to do that, and I thought you wanted to move them toward safety.”  Kathie knew, from using Telling Our Stories and specifically the question of yearning, that she could get a conflicted group to come together.  She’d used that question around the world from the US to Poland to India, in organizations of all sizes and shapes for ten years.

Back to the earthquake and how it relates to trusting the process.  My world was shaken that day.  The vast majority of us on the east cost of the US had never experience an earthquake and never expected to.  Of course I had no control over what the earth did and I could trust the processes that I’d learned in my life.  Processes like meditation that keep me center, in the present, and therefore away from things I have no control over.  It’s the same with my work, after 16 years of using Telling Our Stories I can trust it and predict the results.

What are the process of your life and work that you can trust?

Mary Eggers, Partner, Dannemiller Tyson Associates

Gift #2 – Disturbing the Universe

I still remember the first time I heard Kathie tell the “Ford Story,” the story of how she and five other senior consultants in the Ann Arbor area came together and inventing large group processes.  What stands out for me at this moment is how she got that call, and she taught us to do the same.                

In the early 80’s, there was no internet or e-mail, and the auto industry was dying – Kathie said the bumper stickers in Detroit read ‘the last person out of the city, turn out the lights.”  Her father was a union organizer, and she started her story with “I wanted to save my beloved auto industry, a little arrogant of me probably, and I felt passionate about it.”  She kept saying that until she got a call from a senior VP at Ford and the rest is history.  “Disturbing the Universe” was Kathie’s code term for her form of marketing.  I don’t believe she ever thought of marketing in the way we now think of it.  The main thing she taught us regarding disturbing the universe is that you put yourself out there, and your job is to say “Yes!” 

My choice of writing about this gift now is that it is what’s happening in my life, both my work life and my artistic life (I’m a fine arts artist when not consulting).  Like Kathie wanting to save the auto industry, all I’m doing right now is following my own passion and putting it out into the universe, watching it unfold, and saying a BIG Yes! to what comes back. My passion to undertake writing this series on Kathie’s gifts was the start of something that is unfolding in my work in ways I couldn’t have ever imagined. 

I know lots of folks, as I’m sure you do, that do the “same old, same old” in terms of marketing and don’t get the results they want.  Disturbing the universe is different than marketing.  Marketing is about making money; disturbing the universe is about following one’s passion – and no one did that better than Kathie Dannemiller! 

There are a handful of quotes that have stayed with me over the long haul; this one speaks, I believe, to passion, and it comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson – “What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”

What are the passions within you, and how are you using them to disturb the universe?  I’d love to hear your thoughts or stories.

Mary Eggers
Partner, Dannemiller Tyson Associates