Reinventing work South West outcomes

In the autumn of 2016 Exeter based Fellow Nick Parker and Executive Coach Lee Norburn established the Reinventing Work South West network, aimed at engaging the local Fellowship and interested others in exploring a new way of organisational being.

Although echoing the London based Reinventing Work network, their approach has been significantly different. They developed a programme of evening workshops based on the ‘next stage’ organisational concept as articulated Frederic Laloux in his book Reinventing Organisations. The programme consists of four workshops. Workshop 1 is an introduction to the concept of ‘next stage’ organisations. Workshops 2, 3 and 4 examine the key breakthroughs of ‘next stage’ organisations, namely wholeness, evolutionary purpose and self-management. The Fellowship agreed to support the programme by funding venue hire. Fellow Julian Wilson from Poole assisted Nick and Lee as he owns a self-managed organisation. To cover the geographical spread of the South West region the workshops are being delivered in Taunton, Exeter, Plymouth and Truro.

So far the programme  is half complete and has attracted engagement from 163 leaders and change makers representing 80+ organisations across the public, commercial and voluntary/community sectors. 45 of those have joined the Facebook network page and six have formed a peer support group as their organisations transition to ‘next stage’.  The programme will continue this autumn and will extend its reach by running workshops in Barnstaple, North Devon.

The workshops have been particularly effective at attracting non-Fellows and given them an awareness of the RSA and what it does. Some have now joined the Fellowship.

New Fellows who had not attended a Fellowship event previously found the workshops inspiring:

‘This is my first RSA event and I’m really impressed’ said Stephen Horscroft from Truro.

The workshops also drew out less active Fellows.

‘I haven’t been to an RSA event for a while. I’m writing a book and I wasn’t sure what it was about. Now I know. It’s about wholeness, so I’m glad I came’ - Helen Sieroda, Exeter.

Finally the workshops provided the opportunity to promote other current RSA initiatives including the Inclusive Growth Commission and the Taylor review of modern working practices.