Intervention video 7 - Continuing?

Continuing

Process

The day after the workvisit, we organised a reflection moment with our client Sander, Diane Nijs (BUas), Jessie Wagemakers (RVS) and Monique Cooijman (regional manager). The idea of this meeting was that we would reflect on the workvisit and afterward discuss the following steps. At this point the idea was that there would be a creative session mid-May. During this session a new idea should be created on how to present the idea of Imagineering to other carefacilities in the region.

Continuing

We started the meeting asking about the experiences of the others during the workvisit that took place the day before. Our intent was to see the different experiences and compare these with each other as we felt that would be valuable to the process. At first we felt that all were satisfied with the way the visit went and the outcome of it. Jessie enthusiastically shared that Mireille (one of the boardmembers at RVS) was excited and she believed this was a great accomplishment since Mireille had been hard to convince in previous meetings about Imagineering. Diane, Monique agreed to this. We also do.

This moment was very interesting. We immediately focused on the faces and responses from the others. We focused on body language while actively listening to the words Sander used. We could see the expression on Jessie's face change. Her smile and enthusiasm faded and her posture changed as well. First she was sitting upright, being very expressive with her arms and body language, but as Sander rambled on you could clearly see her bending her shoulders, not saying as much and adjusting her positive outlook on the possible collaboration. Diane and Monique showed confused faces and they also expressed vocally that they did not understand Sanders feelings at the moment.

When looking at the atmosphere during this meeting; it was interesting to notice that it changed from a fun and relaxed vibe with jokes and personal conversations to a tense and defensive atmosphere. Diane and Monique named examples of the work visit trying to explain their positive outlook and almost trying to debunk Sander's point of view.

Sander continually spoke about the goal of the workvisit (RVS and SurPlus working together) and that it failed. At some point, we intervened by helping Sander to zoom out by expressing that it was a beautiful thing that RVS was this interested, that they would like to implement it into their own facilities, since the overall goal is to implement imagineering into other carefacilities in the region. Meaning; the fact that this workvisit had this impact on RVS, means that this overall goal is already planting seeds and expanding into the region.

While Jessie was saying something along the lines of "we want to implement this and feel like we are already making steps towards this", Sander suddenly entered the conversation saying that he was very dissatisfied with the compliment ("good job organising this and very informing via an online meeting") of Mireille yesterday and that he felt as if she was not taking it serious. He explained that at this point he did not see the point of collaborating with RVS and that he would rather do without them in this process, since it was taking too long. All participants were surprised by this because we had the opposite feeling. We received Mireille's comment as a positive and a genuine compliment.

Let's talk about feelings :)

Sander explained that he felt alone in the entire process. From the beginning he felt like he has been a front-line fighter on his own. He has been working together with BUas for a long time already and really believes in the ideas of Imagineering in care facilities. Involving RVS was something he wanted to do because he wanted to create more 'body' when it would be brought to the region. He apologized for his emotional response and explained that he realised that this was a primal response.

At this point we stepped in and asked where these feelings were coming from and why they came out now. We also shared to Sander that we thought it was a good thing that he shared his emotions since this created an opportunity for the entire group to understand each other better.

Feelings

Because Sander shared his opinion in a rather emotional way, we asked him why he felt this way and hereby opened a discussion on the different interests of participants.

After Sander shared his feelings, we asked other participants how this made them feel. The first reaction of Jessie was that maybe it would be better to stop the collaboration at this point and each go their individual way. She stated that she would like to have a conversation with Diane to see how they can implement Imagineering within RVS.

We were surprised by that both Sander and Jessie were willing to let go after this trigger. We asked Jessie why this was the way she felt. She responded saying that she really believes in the added value of Imagineering and wants to implement it. She also said that she really wants to do this together with Surplus but if Sander doesn't want that, she still wants to do so. Here we decided to step in and share our view of the situation.

Role division

We decided to share our view on the situation from a completely different perspective. We felt that all participants have a common goal: Implementing Imagineering into care-facilities in order to provide better care. Improving the way care is carried out is the shared vision.

The conversation was very valuable since it gave them all the feeling that there are still many opportunities and it would be a shame to let things go at this point. It also opened up a moment where everyone shared their point of view and their interest and why they are involved. Repeating this to each other was very valuable. Concluding; Jessie will still be involved as a representative of RVS, but the board members of RVS are not (yet).

So let's get back to it. We drifted of for a bit, following the process of the conversation because emotions stroke up and we felt that we could not let that slide.

Role division

We said that we see and feel that everybody is very passionate about the subject and wants to see it work out. This does not necessarily mean this needs to be done together, but at this point we felt as if there is a still an opportunity to work together. After sharing this, the overall vibe of the conversation was much better because afterward they came to an agreement that Mireille (board member RVS) needs to be on board for RVS to be fully a partner of BUas and SurPlus. Since she is not in, Jessie will still be involved as a representative of RVS and some employees of RVS will think along with the content of the goal. However, it would remain BUas and SurPlus their responsibility and ownership. We felt relieved and have the feeling everybody was on the same page again. We thought this was a hard moment for us as facilitators, since the interests and the topic is very political for these companies, which makes it a sensitive process to design..

Now, what will we do and who will do what? The idea of having a creative session in order to think about how Imagineering will be communicated into the region was still a 'go', so the conversation continued in that direction. We felt that this might be a hard challenge for them to place this as their next step. We shared this with them. However, from the atmosphere and words of the participants we felt that this creative session was important to them and therefore we decided to follow this.

A nice contribution to the conversation that took place was the fact Monique shared her view as well, being; "Perhaps triggering the 'interest' was the highest possible result for this online work-visit". At this point others agreed to this new point of view, making it a very valuable remark.

June 8th

The effect of the interventions we did:

By following this flow of conversation and asking the others how they felt about this, it opened up the conversation and helped all of us to re frame why we do this and what the shared goal is.

By helping Sander to look at the outcome of the workvisit from a different point of view, he softened his negative feelings and could see the bigger picture. This outcome (getting people's interest) is planting seeds for the future of imagineering within health care facilities.

The creative session that would take place mid-May would be about bringing Imagineering into the region together. The first thing that was discussed was the date. At this point it was clear that in June it would probably be possible to organise physical meetings with more than 3 people. For this reason the question was that we could move the date to June so that the meeting might possibly take place in a physical environment. We explained that this definitely had our preference over an online meeting since ideas are easier to share and add on to in an offline environment.

June 8th

We also felt as if we were left with new questions: What are the biggest interests of SurPlus? Why does Sander want to collaborate and invest if Surplus is already using Imagineering themselves? Is it about the belief of health care? Is it because there is a financial interest? Is it about the name of SurPlus? A combination of all the above? And, what does a collaboration actually look like?

Robin challenged us by asking why we prefer to meet physically over meeting online. This helped us to realise that our feelings and assumptions limit us as process designers. Instead of taking on the challenge, we emphasized to the client that we (out of our own need) want to meet physically. All the participants also prefer meeting physically, but us emphasizing this was out of our own need. We feel more confident handling this big subject in a creative session environment we are used to.

Concluding; All agreed with this and the date was set for June 8th. Since we spent almost 1,5 hour discussing the continuance of the collaboration and everyone's roles.

This was an interesting realisation moment for us as process designers. We already feel challenged by the topic itself, thus we unconsciously want to create a safe environment for ourselves to facilitate a creative session. Interesting.