On Thursday, October 21, 1993, The Rockport Company closed down
for two days to explore new directions. They held an open
space meeting -- a form of conferencing in which attendees
self-organize into workshops and task groups with little direction.
The bean counters objected to the costs of suspending operations,
but company president John Thorbeck was adamant. Almost the entire
workforce attended.
The conference was held in a cavernous warehouse. People from
all levels of the corporate hierarchy mixed together in dozens
of groups discussing company issues and possibilities. Managers,
line workers, supervisors, clerical staff and dock workers had
unprecedented access to each other.
As the warehouse hummed with excited energy, a security guard
(who was not a Rockport employee) wandered among the shelves,
crates and circles of people. He lingered over a discussion of
new products, finally pulling up a chair. "He mentioned that
he spent a lot of time on his feet and would love to wear the
kind of comfortable shoes that Rockport made," writes Srikumar
S. Rao in Training magazine. "But his company
would never buy them because they didn't 'look right' as part
of a guard's uniform. Why couldn't the company redesign the uppers
so that they met the security company's uniform specifications?"
Suddenly the guard found himself barraged with questions. Someone
pulled some shoes off the shelves and started cutting them up
and fitting parts together. Within a few hours they'd sketched
out the new product idea. "Rockport is proceeding to develop
such a line of shoes," writes Rao. "If it is an average
performer in the market, [CFO Anthony] Tiberii expects sales of
about $20 million per year."
Compiled from a talk by Harrison Owen, founder of Open Space Technology
and from Srikumar S. Rao, "Welcome to Open Space,"
Training, April 1994, pp. 52-56
COMMENTARY: Inclusiveness and collaboration are two trademarks
of co-intelligence. Many other ideas emerged from this particular
Open Space gathering, but I find it significant that the most
profitable idea came from someone who wasn't an employee. The
willingness of the group to embrace an outsider made the company
millions of dollars. That willingness was no accident. The spirit
and structure of the Open Space approach treats everyone as a
creative, responsible peer and helps them welcome unexpected developments.
The processes, structures and cultures we operate with can make
all the difference in how co-intelligent we are.