Connecting to Education – CSOL News

Gwen Andrews, MA:

            Gwen Andrews, from Vancouver, BC, is celebrating the Year of the Golden Pig in Weihai, China. While working as Assistant Principal of the Weihai English Language School she was also working to complete her Masters of Arts in the Leadership Program at Royal Roads University in Victoria, BC. She used the Process Enneagram© as the lens to look at the cultural challenges in the school among the English speaking and Chinese Speaking instructors.

            To her surprise, she found that the biggest challenges were around the organizational issues and found the Process Enneagram to be very useful as a cross-cultural tool to develop a deeper understanding of the issues and to co-create a path forward with the instructors. They all found this experience exciting as the conversations opened up and ideas poured out. Dick Knowles was one of her mentors in this journey.

            Gwen is now working with Okanagan College in BC to develop a vocational school in Weihai to train Chinese students for work in BC.

            You can reach Gwen by e-mail at aaall@hotmail.com.

Steven Zuieback:

            Steven Zueiback worked with Tim Dalmau and Dick Knowles for several years in Australia and New Zealand. During that time Steve developed a deep understanding of and value for the Process Enneagram© as a tool to help people to open up their conversations and to co-create their future together.

            In 1999 Steve began working with the State of California Public Schools, the biggest public school system in the world, to develop improved ways to integrate special ed students into the school programs. This work has been so successful that there have been 17 regional institutes and the approach has spread to looking at other ways to improve the education of the California students.

            You can reach Steve at 1-707-463-2088 or by e-mail at synectics@mindspring.com.

Professor Manoj Patankar, Ph.D.

            Dr. Patankar is Department Chair of the Department of Aviation and Dean at Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology at St. Louis University in St. Louis MO.  He has developed a deep understanding of and value for the Process Enneagram© as he used it as a tool to open up the conversations among the faculty and staff to explore and co-create better, more cost-effective ways to run their School. He has also used the Process Enneagram as a way to integrate, more effectively, the work of Parks College into the culture of St. Louis University, a Jesuit University.

            In visiting the School while attending the Third Conference for Safety Across High-Consequence Industries (medicine, aviation and chemistry) Dick Knowles saw the wide-spread way the people are using the Process Enneagram to more effectively do their work. Dr. Patanka keeps the map they developed posted over his desk to help provide constant guidance for them; he’s using it as a living, strategic plan.

American Humanics Institute:

            On January 5^th Claire and Dick Knowles presented a talk about Self-Organizing Leadership© to a group of college students at the American Humanics Annual Conference in Washington, DC.  The group was really engaged and interested as we shared information about this way of leading.

            Feedback from the participants was that this was about the best information they’d learned at the 3-day conference.

            We intend to explore this with the American Humanics program leaders to see if we can do a more extensive workshop in 2008.

Professional Organizations:

            In several recent workshops with professional women Claire used the Process Enneagram© as a tool to help the people open up the conversations and to co-create their paths forward. Both groups were astonished at how quickly they worked, the completeness of their work and over how much they accomplished in these sessions.

            Both groups are excitedly moving ahead with their co-created strategic plans to address their challenges in the coming year.

Trudging towards the Future:

            Claire Knowles recently presented a session about Self-Organizing Leadership© at the Trudging Towards the Future Conference in Salem, MA on March 22-24, 2007. This conference was hosted by Wellspring House from Gloucester, MA with the intention of bringing local human services organizations together to share their experiences and to learn new things from each other.  This 2 1/2-day conference was an exciting experience for everyone as they shared and learned about their various activities.

            The deeper processes revealed by these people as they shared their stories revealed the threads of Self-Organizing Leadership. Claire helped to bring these out so they could see them and build on them as they move forward in their work.

Why the Process Enneagram© works:

            The Process Enneagram© is an effective way to purposefully engage the natural tendency of people to self-organize. Important questions are quickly addressed as the conversation opens up and are guided by the disciplined sequence of steps in this cyclical, ever-evolving, living process. A safe space for these important conversations is created. When people are listened to and see their thoughts recorded onto the Process Enneagram map energy and creativity bubble out. A shared, coherent, value-based picture develops in the dialogue. This map reveals both the whole and the parts in the living, strategic plan they co-create together. A higher intelligence seems to emerge.

            The Process Enneagram is a pattern of meaning. It comes out of the work of G. I. Gurdjieff, P. D. Ouspensky, J. G. Bennett and A. G. E. Blake and seems to be an archetype in the Platonic sense. The ancient Greek archetypes were regarded as the eseential principles of reality itself and were rooted in the very nature of the cosmos. (A. G. E. Blake, The Systematics Code. Charles Town, WV, 2006, p. 30-35.)

            In Claire and Dick Knowles’ work with people and groups from all walks of life from all around the world, we find a deep connection that feels very much like the ideas of the Platonic archetype.

Tim Dalmau’s Work:

            Tim Dalmau was introduced to the Process Enneagram© by Dick Knowles in September, 1996 at a workshop in Dallas, TX. Tim immediately saw the value in it as a way to engage people in serious conversations about their critical issues. Over the next 5 years as Tim and Dick worked together with people in Australia and New Zealand our work continued to develop and develop. Tim used the Process Enneagram© in his work in Australia, New Zealand, China, Singapore, South Africa, Namibia, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Germany and Indonesia with groups ranging from coal miners and steel makers to accountants, lawyers and educators. In every case he’s been able to achieve astonishing results with those with whom he’s worked.

            He has developed an “Enclave of Enneagrams” and these are published on his web site, www.Dalmau.com. In the Resources Section there are 30 examples of Process Enneagrams with questions developed for:

·         Simple Process Enneagram

·         Early Stage Assessment

·         For Diagnosis, 1 & 2

·         For After Action Reviews

·         For Company Interviews

·         For Planning (simple)

·         For Strategic Planning

·         For Business Planning

·         For Strategic HR Planning

·         For Drilling Down on Strategies, 1 & 2

·         For Reviewing Change

·         For Fishbowl Inquiry (recording content)

·         Fishbowl Process Enneagram Guiding Questions

·         For Relationships

·         For Self as Leader

·         For Project Development, 1 & 2

·         For Project Update

·         For Project Review

·         For Reviewing a Process or Initiative

·         For Community Development

·         A Systemic Model for Coaching

·         For Planning a Performance Coaching Session

·         For Structuring a Performance Coaching Session Conversation

·         For Team Development

·         For Inter-Group Conflict

·         For Picking Up the Pieces and Recreating a Future

·         What are the Issues?

This work of Tim’s is a great step forward in helping to see and develop the

 scope of the usefulness of this tool.