From Physical Place to Virtual Space

From Physical Place to Virtual Space describes the insights and conclusions of a highly experienced Dialogic Organization Development practitioner bringing her skills to a new client, all online. From initial contact, designing and sequencing the interventions, to a series of online events for a large multi-divisional corporation, Gwen Stirling-Wilkie takes you through the differences that make a difference in doing Dialogic OD online.

The book is in two parts.

Part 1: Preparing The Virtual Space
The first part covers the changes we must make, and the new strategies and interventions available, to how we design dialogic change processes. Gwen provides new models, tools, and insights for designing transformative online events.  She also explores the technical limitations and opportunities of using platforms like Zoom and MS Teams and provides advice for hosting online in topics like:

• The Virtual Space of Participation to aid you in understanding how participation is different in virtual OD and how to plan for that.
• Organization Maturity Levels for Virtual Working to help you to quickly assess what will and won’t work with any client system.
• Design Options for Virtual OD describes four different virtual spaces, to be used as stand-alone, or mixed and matched, that are the foundations to designing transformative spaces online.
• Building psychological safety online sharing ways to adjust some of the key foundation stones of your practice in a virtual setting.

Part 2: Mastering Virtual Consulting
The second part of the book goes into detail on virtual consulting, covering topics like:

•  Effective group work online – how to track and intervene in group process online.
• Working with group energy – Monitoring and intervening into the group’s energy
• Use of Self – Enhancing your “use of self” in virtual consulting.
• Adapting Dialogic OD methods – how to utilize some common Dialogic OD methods online, including Open Space, World Cafe, and Appreciative Inquiry.

A virtual consulting case study:
The book concludes with a full description of a case of virtual consulting with a new client at the start of the pandemic, one that was not familiar with working through online platforms. The client wanted to embark on a cultural change process and create greater integration between five distinct businesses within the company and decided they could not wait for the pandemic to be over.

Detailing the reasoning behind design decisions and the results of various virtual events, we watch the emergence of new and novel groupings to explore a shared topic in ways they hadn’t before. New narratives traveled through the formal and informal networks within and between businesses. These included stories of people being invited to take part whose voices were not normally heard, opening up to the possibility of a different way of leading. The entire process generated new ways of working, new relationships, and new possibilities for future collaboration across the company, as well as a new image of leadership that was attractive and stimulated new actions. A collective experience of previously unimagined ways of thinking, creating, and acting together stimulated an explosion of innovation.

Chapters
Chapter 1: Introduction

Part One: Preparing The Virtual Space

2. Reframing participation
3. Designing virtual spaces
4. Mastering technology
5. Hosting with presence

Part Two: Mastering Virtual Consulting

5. Group process
6. Virtual interventions
7. Whole system spaces
8. A virtual Dialogic OD assignment

Conclusion: The future of virtual Dialogic OD

Watch a 10 minute video with Gwen discussing the book

Endorsements