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| Kristin Cobble co-founded [http://groupaya.net/ Groupaya] with me in 2011. My time with her — her intellectual partnership, her coaching, and her friendship, not to mention the company we built together — enabled me to take my skills and practices, which were plateauing, and catapult them to the next level. She continues to be the best person I've ever designed with and my go-to person for handling challenging situations.
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| Kristin's own journey is eclectic and tremendous. [http://groupaya.net/about/#Kristin%20Cobble Professionally], it includes starting her OD career at Peter Senge's Innovation Associates, serving as the Director of Strategic Change at Banana Republic, and working as a consultant at Global Business Network / Monitor. Her consulting company at the time was Courion Group — "courage" + "vision" — which I think nicely summarizes what Kristin is about.
| | In the U.S., paper thickness is measured based on the weight of 500 sheets in its uncut form (17"x22"). "Bond" refers to the kind of paper generally used for writing or printing. Standard paper tends to be 20lb bond. Stationery paper tends to be a little heavier, i.e. 24lb bond. For the individual versions of the [http://fasterthan20.com/diy-strategy-culture/ DIY Strategy / Culture toolkits], we use 32lb bond, which is a heavier card stock. |
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| = How I Met Kristin =
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| I met Kristin through a mutual client, Next Agenda, which was trying to be a participatory do-tank for complex, social problems. (Pete Leyden, its founder, was a speaker at the Planetwork Conference where I first worked with [[MG Taylor]], but I didn't meet him until six years later when he hired me to work with Next Agenda.) Pete wanted to incorporate the best of face-to-face and online collaborative practices, and his unique twist was to incorporate video. Think C-SPAN for collaborative processes. Here are videos of me and Kristin talking about Next Agenda:
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| Pete wanted me to focus on the online collaboration aspects and Kristin to focus on the face-to-face aspects. I was willing to do this with one caveat. All collaborative practices — whether face-to-face or online — has to happen within a common conceptual framework. He was conceptually on board with that, but I was worried about whether or not my "counterpart" would be as well.
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| I knew immediately upon meeting Kristin in the summer of 2009 that I had nothing to worry about. She and I were very much on the same page, we both had similar values and overlapping skill sets, but we also each brought our own unique abilities and experiences that we deeply admired about each other. We quickly found that we were seeing similar challenges with the project, and we decided to spend our own time getting together and understanding each other's conceptual frameworks. We spent a day together mapping out our respective theories of transformational change, diving down deeply into every nuance of our shared beliefs and differences. I thought she was unique among practitioners in that she had a well-developed (and, in my opinion, correct) conceptual framework in the first place, and I found it exciting to explore all the little avenues of synergy and difference. I had not had such rich conversations since starting [[Blue Oxen Associates]] with [[Chris Dent]].
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| As it so happened, I was undergoing a pretty significant shift in both my personal and professional life at the time. On the professional side, in addition to our shared work with Next Agenda, I was leading the [[Wikimedia Movement Strategy]] process, which was hugely challenging for a variety of reasons. I began leaning on Kristin informally, and she became a source of peer support, both intellectually and emotionally. By early 2010, I was totally burned out and running on fumes. I had not taken a vacation of more than a few days since founding Blue Oxen Associates eight years earlier, and I felt massively frustrated, because I did not feel like I was in the position to do my best work.
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| I asked my friend and colleague, [http://www.openingspace.net/ Lisa Heft], if she would coach me, and she helped me enormously. I walked away from that experience with a clear idea of what I needed for better work-life balance and satisfaction. On the professional side, I was uncertain about continuing as an independent consultant, and I seriously explored joining another consultancy. But in the interim, I decided that if I were to continue carving my own path, I would make two "simple" structural changes:
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| # Increase my rates
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| # Come in with a senior partner for large projects
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| I felt comfortable increasing my rates, since I had not raised my rates since entering this line of work, and I felt like I was bringing much more value than some of the larger management consultancies, that were charging significantly more than I was. Only taking on big projects with a senior partner felt risky and scary to me, since that essentially meant that the cost of hiring me would essentially double. I knew other companies were able to do this successfully, and I knew that the quality of my work would improve significantly as a result, but I didn't have confidence that I could sell this.
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| Then Todd Pierce, who was then CIO of [[Genentech]] called. He was looking for help, but he wasn't sure exactly what (a common refrain for my clients), and he had a poor experience with a more traditional management consultancy (yet another common refrain with my clients). A friend of mine had suggested he contact me, and he was also talking to a prominent design firm. I was juiced about the potential project. It was the perfect opportunity to test my new structures. The first person to pop into my head as a potential partner on the project was Kristin.
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| To my delight and surprise, Kristin said yes. We talked through different scenarios, met with Todd and his team, and pulled together our own dream team, which included [http://rebeccapetzel.me/ Rebecca Petzel] and [https://duende.us/ Amy Wu]. We got the work, and it was predictably fantastic. Genentech, to this day, was the best client I ever had, and working with Kristin and our team was a joy. It was so joyful that Kristin and I decided to start Groupaya with Rebecca and Amy.
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| Kristin and I spent a year visioning, talking through scenarios, and then experimenting working as a company before we actually incorporated or even had a name. Kristin suggested [https://leaderforlife.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/hello-world/ framing our vision around aliveness], which immediately resonated with me and which I have continued to do since leaving Groupaya. Here's a little video summary (filmed by Kristin's son) captured after we had landed that framing:
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| We officially founded Groupaya in September 2011. It was a glorious, glorious ride on so many levels, I was absolutely in love with my colleagues, and I learned a tremendous amount from that experience (some of which I'll share below). I did the best work of my life in my time at Groupaya, and I've continued to improve since, which is all a testament to my partnership with Kristin and our whole team.
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| Our biggest project together was the [[Delta Dialogues]], which was also an opportunity to work with my mentor, [[Jeff Conklin]]. Jeff captured this snippet at one of our early design meetings, where we were discussing storytelling:
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| As I explained in a [http://groupaya.net/behind-the-scenes-storytelling-and-group-process/ subsequent blog post]:
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| :I love this clip for a variety of reasons. It offers a peek into our design process, including some of Kristin’s on-the-fly brilliance and wisdom. It shows us moving around the computer with Joe via Skype, so that he could participate remotely. Even though Campbell’s not talking in this particular clip, it shows how we make the client partners in the design process. And, it’s interesting to compare what we explored in our design conversations with what we actually ended up doing, which you can see on our [http://delta.groupaya.net/ Delta Dialogues project website].
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| In addition to being such a great intellectual and emotional counterpart, Kristin was a very willing experimenter. We played with many ideas in our time together, many of which often pushed Kristin's comfort level, but not her willingness. Reviewing past notes and videos to pull this page together, I'm reminded of how many of my practices today had its origin in my time with Kristin, and how — in many cases — she was a better partner in those things than anyone I've worked with since. (My experience with [[Chris Dent]] was very similar.)
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| At the end of 2012, I made the tremendously hard decision to leave Groupaya, which I [http://eekim.com/2013/01/balance-impact-and-next-steps/ discussed in more detail] on my blog. Kristin has continued to be a dear friend and a valued colleague. I miss our partnership, but I am grateful for all I learned from her and our ongoing friendship.
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| = Lessons Learned =
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| '''Visioning.''' Robert Fritz. [http://groupaya.net/invoking-the-heros-journey/ "Invoking the Hero's Journey,"] describes her long-held belief that:
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| : "[W]hen a group of people is brave enough to imagine a future that is truly visionary and truly compelling, they create a container in which they can accomplish the seemingly impossible.
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| : ...
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| : "When visions and goals are big and meaningful to those who will do the hard work of making them reality, people often surprise themselves. They are more creative, they are far more productive than usual, and they are much more excited about their work. There can also be the need to access grit and resiliency. And there is often more fear, but it doesn’t matter. The fear is not a driver of their decisions; rather, their vision is the driver."
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| '''Checkins.''' [http://groupaya.net/a-simple-tool-for-better-meetings/ blog post]
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| Big questions.
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| Systems thinking.
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| Depth around organizations, organizational leadership, canonical knowledge. E.g. Power (David Kantor — see [http://groupaya.net/david-kantor-the-secret-life-of-groups/ "The Secret Life of Groups"]). Core Quality Framework (Daniel Ofman). Ladder of Inference (Chris Argyris). Change (William Bridges). Got me to appreciate enneagrams. Reason why I hold her in such high esteem is that she actually practices these frameworks.
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| Incredible depth around coaching, emotional wisdom.
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| Facilitation style.
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| Importance of editing.
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| Discipline. Saying no, drawing boundaries, information hygiene, time for learning / strategy. Groupaya. Structures.
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| Humbling. Making time. True alignment.
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| [[Category:People]] | |
