Last year I supported the largest Nature Conservation Association of The Netherlands with developing their new positioning. We used Theory U to open ourselves up: 14 ‘types of stakeholders’ were identified and interviewed during the summer. This resulted in more than 100 interviews that were shared with all the co-workers through a specially designed website.
The next step was to build an ‘added value picture’ of the organization through the eyes of the stakeholders. This picture was placed central in a ‘presencing workshop’ with 25 people: a crosscut of the internal stakeholders: volunteers, board members, managers, foresters and co-workers. We were in their most beautiful nature reservation. We did a silence walk at night and I was shocked by all the noise in the distance of the traffic and the lights from the cities and highway. It was clear that they had a role to play in protecting nature. The next day we came up with four directions for the future. It was a beautiful experience.
The four directions were deepened by 100 co-workers a few weeks later and a few months later by the Association. Now they are building prototypes and learning from these.
From a process design perspective this has been one of my most rewarding projects of the past years.
The TV commercial is one of the results of their new strategy.