Jennifer Frahm Collaborations

UPDATE 6 DECEMBER: SCROLL DOWN FOR FEBRUARY RETREAT DETAILS

This past weekend,  I piloted the “Conversations of Change Retreat“. It’s a new extension of existing Jennifer Frahm Collaborations offerings that had been festering for a while. Take a group of likeminded entrepreneurial cohort away to a weekend retreat in the country and provide a structured opportunity for conversations of change.  No whiteboards, no power points, no fluorescence lighting, no internet.  Llamas, donkeys, and marauding magpies and butcher birds, maybe a spider or two.

The venue was the Whispering Valley Retreat (the Farmhouse sleeps 8), in Maleny, on the North Coast Hinterland and I used a local caterer to supply all the meals.  The participants arrived on the Friday evening. Introductions were made, backgrounds shared, war stories told, a bottle of wine (or two) and a third of whiskey consumed over a gorgeous pasta dinner.

My intention was to create a safe space to discuss a business or career challenge with a group of people who had a breadth of experience to share and the ability to assist in a constructive manner.

On Saturday morning the group met for a discussion on “Social Media and 2010″ and what they saw as the emerging trends and challenges, and way it will impact their individual businesses. Ideas and perspectives were varied and many were furiously scribbling away, while others were excited to hear of new applications they were yet to try.

The format of the day then moved to individual 90 minute sessions. Each participant had prepared a session on a business or career challenge they were facing. Structure varied but the participants generally spoke to what the background was, the core issues, proposed resolutions if they had them, or left it open for ideas.  In a safe space the group:

• constructively challenged assumptions,
• provided reframes of the issues that allowed for alternative solutions
• offered feedback and ideas
• gave out contacts who could help
• related to similar experience and how they had dealt with them

One of the common observations was that the participants in the group got as much as the ‘presenter’ in hearing what others were saying to them. The group had a collective 56 tangible takeaway action steps at the end of the weekend.

Typical of the challenges presented were:

• How to manage client expectations better and build a better sales process with service level agreements
• How to manage the transition from manager to CEO
• How to move into the mindset of ‘maintenance’ when you are motivated by ‘crisis’
• How to be more proactive about marketing consulting services
• A critical review of a new business plan
• How to move from tactical communications to strategic communications
• How to move from delivery to management
• How to reposition a service company’s product lines
• How do I simplify my planning
• How to improve on communications and social media plans

A few hours were allocated in the afternoon for challenging walks, gentle meditation, nanna naps, or the furious tapping away on laptops to update notes and flesh out ideas generated in the previous sessions.

Again the group met for a shared dinner and prepared for the following day. Sunday saw a similar format with a group session on the “Vision for 2010″, and then followed by the individual sessions. The participants had the option to have another night in the country, or head back at the end of the day.

The feedback from the initial pilot participants suggests a really successful weekend.

“The Conversations of Change Retreat was exactly what I needed at exactly the right time. I’m so busy trying to ‘build my empire’ that I never make the time to reflect in a meaningful fashion. COCR sorted out the challenges I was facing and provided many more insights beyond that. How lucky am I to have someone like Jennifer guide me through a change process that was insightful, visionary and pertinent?”

Jillian Kingsford Smith - Director, FutureBuzz.

I wasn’t exactly in the right frame of mind for another ‘development retreat’ when I was invited to join the Conversations of Change retreat last month.  It’s been a challenging year and I’ve used every tool in the box to keep myself afloat!  I’ve evolved, the landscape has flipped and I’ve got a great company but no direction for 2010.  I attended due to Jennifer’s reputation; the content and the selection process and my must-have outcome was ‘clarity and vision’ for 2010.  What I’ve got is a new company!  Literally! And more importantly one page plans by function to implement immediately.  I was poked, prodded and guided to explore a mix of personal and business questions with an amazing group of high level, pragmatic, gorgeous people.  I’m left exhilarated and in love with my business and gagging for next year.

Kelly Quinn, Superfox Brand & Marketing Management

Jennifer’s sensitive selection of like-minded participants, and her skilful facilitation of our group discussions, allowed us to explore the challenges and opportunities open to us in our businesses. As a group, we assisted each other to draw our concrete insights specific to each individual participants, and yet common to many of us, which we can immediately implement in our own businesses.

Amanda Boland-Curran, Australasian CRC for Interaction Design.

“My Conversations of Change experience provided the opportunity to collaborate in a non-threatening environment with generous, self- aware professionals who gave me honest and constructive feedback on my personal and professional development and helped me to flesh out a realistic path forward for success in my current role.

I was moved by having the opportunity to contribute in a meaningful way to others’ journey forward. My personal take-aways  comprised not only  a practical action plan but reassurance and validation of how I felt I have been tracking in my role and career.”

Susan Lambe, Senior Communications Advisor, Aker Solutions

As a participant and facilitator, I went into the weekend, hoping that each of us would create at least one tangible solution to a business / career problem. I ended the weekend humbled by the contributions of the group, and thrilled by the multitude of ideas and solutions generated.

So, I’m very excited to announce I’m taking expressions of interest for participants at the next “Conversations of Change” Retreat in 2010. It will be within a 90 minute drive of Melbourne, Victoria and towards the end of February.  It will be an intimate gathering of 10 people who are:

• Entrepreneurial in nature (intrapreneurs welcome too!)
• Possess a spirit of generosity
• Have a track record of accomplishments, and probably a failure or two as well
• Open minded
• Reflective
• Moderate to High levels of EQ (emotional intelligence)
• Well networked
• Constructive in feedback
• Industrious
• Solution focussed
• Pragmatic

Care will be taken to ensure that the participants are not in directly competing markets, and all participants will need to complete a Non Disclosure Agreement.  I’m currently sourcing a suitable venue at the moment so if you might be interested drop me a line at jf@jenniferfrahm.com  and I’ll tell you about the application process, the structure of the weekend, and likely costs.

UPDATE: 6th DECEMBER

DATES 19 - 22nd February at Kattemingga, a tranquil retreat in Newbury, just out of Daylesford.  See below for the details and and the application form.

Conversations of Change Retreat Application form

Conversations of Change Retreat details

A huge thank you to the inaugural cohort of the Conversations of Change retreat!!

Well as the month of November travels along, and the men in my life grow hairier and hairer, I can’t help but observe how good men are at, well, *asking* for stuff.

To explain, November in Australia is “Movember“. A whole month where menfolk grow moustaches for charity (namely Beyond Blue for depression and the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia). Story goes, a bunch of Melbourne lads were sitting around at a bar discussing how men really struggle to actively engage in their own health, and the idea was born. It’s now an international fundraising activity, and last year in Australia Movember raised $8M, and involved close to 1/20th of Australia’s population in it. It certainly seems like every man I know is involved.

From a health communications perspective it is a brilliant gambit. Walk into a meeting and a previously clean shaven fella now looks like a dodgy character from a 70’s sit com, and you can’t help but notice.  If you didn’t know about it, it gives the guy the opportunity to explain why. But it seems that the struggle that men felt in actively engaging in their health is no more, because man (pardon the pun), can those guys ask for donations!

The minute Nov 1 hits, my email inbox fills with requests to sponsor the boys with their budding mo’s.  And you know, I don’t mind at all, but it gives me pause to think where were all the requests from women to sponsor them with the Pink Ribbon activities? Nada zip.

And so it takes me back to my theory books on ‘genderlect’, a term made popular by Georgetown academic Deborah Tannen. Building on the work by the 70’s linguist Robin Tannen, Tannen’s book “You just don’t understand: Women and Men in Conversation” proposed that the difference between men and women when they speak is cross cultural. So for instance, men speak in ‘report‘ style, women speak in ‘rapport‘ style.   Men are more concerned with ‘status‘, whereas women are concerned with ‘connection‘. Women prefer conversations in ‘private‘, men prefer conversations in ‘public‘.

I don’t recall there being anything about the propensity of men to ask for what they want  more than women do, but I’m thinking it could be a theory-in-use. I know that Lakoff noted women’s use of indirect requests in “Language and Women’s Place” (1975). So for example, while a man who has just met you will ask you outright if you will sponsor him in Movember (more donations = more status), women will wait until they have a connection with you to mention they are doing a Pink Ribbon morning tea, and you ‘might like to come along’.

It’s not just with  asking for donations. I see it with a number of the female clients I have coached in leadership programs.  An example that comes to mind was with a very confident and seemingly powerful executive. She mentioned that she felt she deserved a promotion. Great I said, let’s look at the case for it.

“No, I don’t think the time is right, I think I should wait for another 6 months”

At that point, my brain is ticking over doing compound interest calculations on what would be lost in that 6 months. So I explored the thought process behind it with the client, what assumptions she had made to come to this conclusion, what was her chain of evidence to support the holding off asking for the promotion. We agreed that there was nothing really to lose by asking for it immediately. And what do you know. She did. Promotion approved.

So, all I’m saying is that there is a lot that we (womenfolk) can learn from the boys with Movember. There’s no harm in asking right? What are you missing in your worklife because you won’t bloody well ask for it?

PS In the spirit of men’s health initiatives and requests, please check out Mark Pollard and Gavin Heaton’s book “The Perfect Gift for a Man”  . It would make a tremendous gift idea for Christmas.