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Bob Wahlstedt: Most years of experience integrating spiritual principles into business leadership, coupled with most humility about having that experience award

John Ackerman: Wise, light-hearted discernment guru award

Nettie Smith and Jim Lovestar: Outgoing voice mail message that contributed the most to my learning award (”May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children,” Rainer Rilke)

Monica Manning: The master of institutional formation award

Jay Lindgren: Most contemplative bureaucrat award

Visitation Sisters: Prayerful presence in painful places award

Jenny Larson: All around loving award

Joetta Schlabach: Centeredness under fire award

Neil Okerlund: Modeling and teaching facilitative, servant leadership award

You can watch the full presentation here.

The San Juan Islands

Your organization/island appears peaceful and idyllic, but sometimes only rich people with boats can get there. People in your organization are driven by a sense of shared purpose and peace. You are on an island, though, making it hard for people from the mainland to get to you. Your organization is exceptionally blessed with a bounty of spiritual resources. Are you being faithful to calls to share these resources? Are you also able to acknowledge the shadows that come with these gifts?

Geyser

Your organization is unpredictable and kind of crazy. Sometimes the spirit of the organization thrives in drama. Sometimes the trauma wears everyone out. Is there a purpose and set of values that underlies that many changes in your organization? Are there ways you could cultivate and highlight this foundation?

Badlands

Your organization is dry, hot, and quirky. It might look beautiful from a distance, but when you get closer, you realize that people are starving from a lack of water and community. Maybe the natural beauty of the place will eventually bring its people back to life. Criminals have been known to go hide out in the Badlands. Be careful. Is it best to work for the redemption of the organization, leave it, or help the organization have a good death?

Mt. Rainer

Your organization is a large, sacred symbol. It is sometimes seen as arrogant and out of touch with reality. At other times, it genuinely inspires. Any mountain that large casts a long shadow. Are there times when your organization needs to humble itself and let others shine?

Corn Palace

Your organization is a little tacky, but popular and enjoyable. As a group, you like to play it safe, and continue to market the same features the organization has always had. The corn on the outside may change each year, but the nothing in the structure ever seems to change. Are there creative risks that your organization is called to take, which might take the organization to the next level?

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What other images and descriptions would you add to describe the different spiritual characteristics of organizations? Please post your comments here.

flickr user name - photo title:

aidan jones - Shaking Hands

chippenziedeutch- Finger Painting

carf - Share My Vision

carf - An eye on the community

Anirudh Koul - Economic Crisis Graph - How The Recession Affected Koul

DJMcCrady - The Flaming Star Nebula

Britian Quaker Meeting - Colchester

Full blog post

Samples of previous planning and vision development work:

In the fall of 2008, Michael facilitated strategic planning at the Centre for Asian and Pacific Islanders (CAPI) in Minneapolis. This process included focus groups and interviews with funders, clients, staff, board, partners, and academics. Michael coordinated a team of staff and board members, who helped carry out the planning process, seeking to build the internal capacity for planning. The resulting plan built upon CAPI’s direct services to engage a diverse mix of immigrant and refugee groups in civic engagement and advocacy.

In 2006, Michael led an in-depth strategic planning process at the Council on Crime and Justice, which included focus groups, interviews, and Board sessions. Input in this process from stakeholders outside of the organization shaped a new, guiding goal that framed all of the Council’s work, “Reframe public debate and action about public safety and justice: A fairer society reduces crime.” Tom Johnson, the former President of the Council on Crime and Justice says of Michael’s work, “Michael is intelligent, direct, highly organized and very efficient in how he goes about his work. He gets things done! You are always a step ahead when you have Michael on your side.”

In 2004, Michael co-led an organizational evaluation and strategic planning process with South St. Paul Restorative Justice. Michael trained 10 volunteers for the organization, who then conducted more than 30 interviews with stakeholders, to assess the current strengths, opportunities, and limitations for the organization. This evaluation process led into an inclusive strategic planning process that set the goals and objective for the next 3 years, while also increasing widespread ownership for this plan.

Training and approaches that Michael draws from:

• Appreciative Inquiry looks for what is best in an organization, and builds upon those strengths.
• The Technology of Participation provides visual methods for brainstorming and building consensus.
• “Sense of the meeting” consensus decision making, which is drawn from the Quaker tradition as a way of discerning God’s guidance for a group.
• Training for Social Action Trainers uses the strategies of nonviolent action and community organizing to build capacity for social change.
• Michael’s practice of Restorative Justice, mediation, and conflict transformation inform his methods for facilitating dialogue and welcoming differences.
• The Spirit of Institutions is the working title for a book that Michael is currently writing, about what kinds of leadership are necessary to transform the basic nature of institutions.

Praying at the Roots of Violence: How can we proactively address violence and injustice in ways that grow out of our spiritual lives? In what ways do issues of justice and peace connect with our spiritual practices and experiences? By looking at the causes of violence in and around us and the ways we each open up to God, these sessions will explore possibilities for spiritually grounded peacebuilding. Stories, interactive discussions and activities will be used to respond to these questions.

What We Can Do Now to Make Minnesota Safer in 50 Years. The past 50 years of public safety and justice in Minnesota and the next 50 years. An overview of the trends that have influenced levels of crime in Minnesota over the past 50 years. If these trends continue, what will Minnesota look like in 50 years? What could change the course of current trends?

People leaving prison–the assets and risks for community well-being. Each year more than 650,000 people are released from prisons in the U.S. This is having large impacts on employment, safety, and the vitality of all areas of our country. In Minnesota, government, employers, and social services are developing ways to positively engage the many people coming out of prison. For Minnesota to be successful in this engagement, it will take a coordinated effort among all sectors of society.

The History and Strategies of Nonviolent Alternatives to War :
How have nonviolent social movements overthrown dictators, gained independence for their nations, and fought for civil rights? What are the methods and principles of nonviolent action that make them work? When and where have the methods of nonviolence been effective and when have they failed? This course will examine the strategies for nonviolent social change put forward by Gandhi, King, and others – and apply these ideas to contemporary case studies. Special attention will be paid to the current war on terrorism. Is there a nonviolent solution to this struggle?

Nonviolence in the Next 50 Years: Previous nonviolent action campaigns have brought down dictators, gained civil rights, and much more–but compared with military strategy, the development of nonviolent action is still in its infancy.  What have been limits of previous nonviolent campaigns?  What are the growing edges of nonviolence as it is applied to contemporary struggles such as the prevention of terrorism and movements for global economic justice?  This workshop will interactively explore visions and possibilites for nonviolent action in the next decades and look to what steps we could take right now to move toward those visions.

Many additional topics offered. Contact Michael to discuss possibilities.  Previous training titles have included:

Nonviolence and Hitler
Minneapolis Police/Community Conflict Resolution
Justice, Violence, and Prayer
Class, Race, and Protest
Conflict Resolution in the Workplace
Spreading the Technology of Interpersonal Nonviolence
Simple Living
Welcoming Diversity in Friends Meetings
Martin Luther King and Nonviolence
Conflict Resolution Skills Needed for Mediation
Creating Dialogue for Positive Change among Progressive Student Organizations
Transformative Approaches to Justice and Peacemaking
Criminal Justice and Peacemaking
Voices from the Inside [Inside Prison]
Principles of Restorative Justice
Claiming the Power of Nonviolence, Personally and Politically

Michael Bischoff does training, facilitation, and research about social change as an independent consultant. From 2004 to 2008, he directed projects that serve crime victims, offenders, and their families at the Council on Crime and Justice. Prior to that, Michael completed a Masters degree in Conflict Transformation at Eastern Mennonite University. Michael was formerly the Executive Director of Friends for a Non-Violent World, a peace organization in the Twin Cities. He currently lives in Minneapolis, with his wife and two small children.

See examples of previous facilitation and training that Michael has done