By Kitty Wooley
What does it take to motivate competent professionals to show up for mission-focused conversation on their own time? What is the result? How can interaction, knowledge exchange, and knowledge transfer be achieved when some participants are meeting for the first time – especially if they’re coming from different kinds of organizations and hierarchical levels?
In this blog post, I describe the experience of Senior Fellows and Friends, a group meeting for conversational events that has kept its momentum for 17 years, over 91 meetings, and become an organic engine of opportunity for new and midcareer leaders. The group started with an informal dinner discussion for recent graduates of the Excellence in Government Fellows Program in Washington, DC, USA.
The sub-headings that follow draw on a systems thinking article by Stephen Haines (1972) that reanimates the 12 Natural Laws of Living Systems framework.