Consultation event

There were three repeated consultation events this week each lasting about half a day where a fairly wide range of people from across the University were invited (some were three line whipped but not me BTW) into attending. It began with a brief overview from the VC and DVC about the purpose of the event (corporate planning) and followed in a World Cafe style for the rest of the morning. The event was about exploring the values that the University wishes to adopt and/or retain into in the next period and any new ones that came from the groups. A move towards more active rather than passive values was a theme. We spent ten minutes at tables exploring a value and then circulating. The most interesting one for me was creativity - and the fact that two colleagues at the table were much more concerned about how they find the time for creativity rather than how the organisation might support this value - which one might expect of a Univeristy environment de facto?? Mmmmm Then we went into smaller groups and talked about the specific issue of internal communications - what could be done to improve it (individual input), what assumptions we had made in reaching those proposals, picked an assumption as a group and explored that in more detail looking for the opposiste and then the shades in between. Our group selected the assumption from one of our team that internal communications should involve them being sent nothing (this is quite subtle actually - they explained that they don't mind looking for things that they need to konw (Pull) but hate getting told stuff they don't need to know (Push) leading to information overload. We went onto explore the notion of personalised information push and pull and by the end I was begining to think that there might be problem looking for a solution. However, the main conclusion was actually we should all talk more - stop emailing, pick up the phone, provide some spaces where we can relax, meet and talk to one another because actually most of the "real" internal communication is based on the chinese whisper and gossip. Maybe a new coffee shop is in order? or a Roman Forum?