Encouraging Corporate Cultural Shift
Using the World Café
by Kim Porto

We are encouraging a cultural shift in our international membership association. It involves listening deeply to our members and helping them become responsible for co-creating their own futures. As each of us give voice to our dreams, ideas, issues and challenges, we all share the responsibility for the story and birthing the change. As the web of relationships we are forming deepens and gathers strength, we are evolving into a vital community, strong and united in vision and purpose. We are shifting from a hierarchical decision-driven leadership model to a community model where all voices can be heard.

Our organization, the Financial Planning Association™(FPA), is the result of a merger in January 2000 between two organizations with different constituencies, but the same goal of promoting the financial planning process. The merger is a significant event in our story because it provided a new opportunity--a relatively clean slate--in which to design the new organization both philosophically and structurally.

One of the first and most significant statements made by our newly formed organization was our primary aim: "To be the community that fosters the value of financial planning and advances the financial planning profession." Later, in our Invitation to Community, written by our Community Strategic Team, we further describe FPA as: "The gathering place where those who champion the financial planning process make meaningful connections, build relationships and participate to create knowledge for the betterment of themselves, their profession and their clients." This set the stage for every voice to be heard in our new organization. We needed a new way to do that.

Three different kinds of Cafes
We had heard stories about the World Café process through various people (and the website) and thought it would be an ideal way to engage our members in conversations resulting in large-scale change. Over the last year, we have worked closely with most of the constituencies within FPA resulting in our having hosted about 15 Cafés. They have been remarkably successful in supporting the cultural shift we're working toward.

One of our most significant learnings has been how important it is to talk with the people requesting a Café and to explore their assumptions and purpose in determining the appropriateness of this format. We would ask them about the history of their group gatherings. What were the ways in which they had met previously? What were the outcomes from those meetings, including the emergence of and reinforcement of group behaviors? How open were they to meeting in a new format based on conversing with each other? What were the particular outcomes that they were hoping to achieve by convening a Café conversation?

As we gathered the answers and convened the Cafés, we began to notice that there were actually three different kinds of Cafés emerging: the Member Café, the Event-Driven Café, and the Purpose-Driven Café.

Member Cafes
Before we engaged the Café format, we held Town Hall meetings around the United States. Our President and the Executive Director appeared on stage and fielded questions and comments from an audience of association members. While members were heard by leadership and questions were answered, there was a vague emptiness about the experience. No actual conversations ever took place.

We began holding Cafés as a way of bringing our members together in a different way then they were used to, encouraging engaged conversation. One of the first signs of success was when a chapter leader approached us in awe after a Café and exclaimed that the event was wonderful--in all their years of meeting, they had never actually talked with one another! Previously, their meetings always consisted of an expert lecturing for the purpose of continuing education credits. We were astounded to hear this simple--and in hindsight--obvious truth. The importance of the Café process, members speaking and listening to each other, became clear to the cultural shift we were working to create.

The Member Cafés are interesting because they have not been "called" by any group, nor do they have any pre-set topics. The invitation is open to anyone who wants to attend. The question is so very broad that it invites participants to express virtually anything that's on their minds about their business and the profession. Our question at all of our 2002 Member Cafes was, "What one questionif addressed would change the future of financial planning?

I think one of the most interesting things to observe is the way the participants respond to the Café format. Newcomers to the Café sometimes arrive with a noticeable level of hesitancy and skepticism. Yet, in every Café gathering we've seen the resistance gradually dissolve as participants realize that there is no "expert" handing down the answers, but instead, they are being invited to share their expertise with each other. Many of the participants have decades of experience in this profession. I think one reason the Café format has been embraced by members is that it honors their knowledge, experience and wisdom. They are listening deeply and being listened to.

In the early Cafés, we learned a lot about ensuring that the existing culture did not derail the process. For example, after several rounds of great conversation, connection and idea generation at individual tables, we would bring the full group back together again for synthesis and someone would invariably say to the association leaders, "So, what are you going to do about this?"

We now we frame the Cafés in such a way that the participants understand that they themselves play a significant role in both raising challenging issues and co-creating a future where such issues can be addressed effectively and resolved. There may be ways in which the association leadership can exert helpful influence, but they are no longer seen as the ones responsible for "fixing" things.

Event-Driven Cafes
In the FPA, we present many live events for the different constituencies that make up our association. These range from our large annual convention which usually attracts more than 4,000 people, to smaller specific events such as the Retreat for about 275 advanced financial planners, and the Broker-Dealer Conference limited specifically to a group of about 500 product and service providers. All of these events have now incorporated the Café into their meeting format. In some cases, a Café has replaced the usual Opening Keynote Speaker as an effective way for the participants to get to know others in the room allowing them to settle into the meeting more easily.

In the Broker-Dealer Conference, the Café is replacing the "hollow-square" boardroom style meeting format and encouraging more people to participate in technically specific conversations. What distinguishes the Event-Driven Cafés from the Member and the Purpose-Driven Cafés, is that the overarching question is specific to the attendees of that event. The goal in these Cafes are personal and business-specific notes that the participants take for themselves. Here is an example of one of our questions for the Operations Group at the recent Broker-Dealer Conference: "Imagine it is one year from now. What one important goal have Operations Directors accomplished, what obstacles were overcome and with what allies did you work in achieving the goal?"

Purpose-Driven Cafes
These Cafes are convened with a very specific purpose in mind and some kind of expected outcome--such as reaching consensus on a major decision, or to plan out specific workgroup activities as part of a larger project.

Again, it is of the utmost importance to work with the key stakeholders and leadership to determine what outcome is needed and to really consider if the Café is the most appropriate process to achieve that outcome. (Sometimes, such as when there is a highly specific outcome in mind, the Café is not the best approach to achieving it.)

Secondly, I can't overemphasize the importance of crafting the overarching question(s) mindfully. As I've worked with groups, I'd say the biggest difficulty they have with a purpose-driven question is encouraging collaborative thinking rather than simply stimulating individual contributions. To make it easier for people to understand the importance of collaboration, we take time to explore the meaning of dialogue before the Café takes place. Using the principles that David Bohm speaks of in his book, On Dialogue, we help folks become more comfortable with recognizing and loosening the attachment to their assumptions, suspending their judgments, and listening with a willingness to be influenced. We mention that these Café conversations are not a forum for debate, or to take positions about right vs. wrong, but to explore collaborative expression.

Within FPA at the staff level, we have used Purpose-Driven Cafés to give all employees an equal voice on issues as diverse as office space design and employee performance evaluations. There can be very little complaining and dissatisfaction when the entire group is involved in the conversations leading to decisions. Plus, we've opened up the channels for everyone to contribute creatively outside the boundaries of their usual job description and/or position within the company. We are each others' best resources.

Governance and Culture
There is a challenge to leadership when you ask your constituencies to engage in deep, meaningful conversation. Are you willing to listen to them? Are you willing to change the way you operate as leaders to include their visions and ideas? How will they know they have been heard when it comes to the decision-making? Are you ready to share leadership? Will your governance model shift? These questions and more will inevitably arise in the process. The answers are not always easy or clear, but the willingness to engage these questions in a conversation among those who are affected by them, will lead to significantly higher functioning among the participants.

Conclusion
In the past year, we've hosted 15 different Cafés involving approximately 1500 people. These folks are now embracing the idea of conversing as a way of being and working together. We have been amazed at how well the World Café process has worked for us. There is an intuitive place in each of us where we grasp how to actively contribute to a larger process that seems chaotic in the moment, but works toward a larger shared vision. At the national leadership conference, 250 people left with both the experience and the instructions on how to hold a Café. There is a cultural shift happening. Our mission continues to be: Every voice will be heard. And, everyone is being invited into the question:

"How can we be together, speak intentionally, listen deeply and co-create our future?"

Kim is the former Community Facilitator for the Financial Planning Association.  Through innovative and thought provoking facilitation, she helped FPA members connect with each other to co-create their professional futures through meaningful conversations. Using both live events and the online environment, Kim encouraged members to question their assumptions, try on new perspectives, and explore possibilities. After 15 years of working with financial planners and developing a deep respect for the profession, Kim decided to become a planner herself.  She is currently the senior paraplanner for Ramsey & Associates in Seattle WA while she prepares for her certification exams.

Note: Click here to download a short article on how the FPA in Australia is using the World Café.