Welcome to The Grove’s Blog

Author: Rachel Smith

Have you ever been in the Despondent Pit of Techno-Despair?

You know what I’m talking about if you’ve been there. You’ve been trying to get some type of technology to work, usually in front of other people. It probably worked yesterday, or even earlier today when you tested it by yourself, but the controls are now mysteriously incomprehensible and you’d swear they look different from how they did just an hour ago.

Possibly a lot of...

Author: Rachel Smith

Do you know, I mean really know, what your teammates do? Do you know how they produce information they give to you and what they do with information you give to them? Do you understand their roles to the point where you could fill in for them for a day?

The better you and your teammates understand each other’s roles, the more effective the team will be overall. Points of intersection, where people’s work either overlaps or provides inputs to other team...

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is undergoing a substantial expansion that will more than double its exhibition space (1). While closed for construction, its Public Dialogue Department is engaging with the Bay Area arts community as a “Museum-on-the-Go.”

Recently the department convened four day-long Public Dialogue workshops with local thinkers, artists, designers, and others working to nurture community arts and culture. This was an opportunity for...

At the 2015 Geography of Hope: Women and the Land conference, The Grove’s Laurie Durnell and Associate Kathy Evans drew from an unusual mix of visual facilitation methodologies to listen, engage, and reflect participants’ thoughts. A final summary image was the fruit of a rich collaboration among the participants, poets, artists, and visual facilitators.

This conference takes its name from Wallace Stegner’s famous “Wilderness Letter” to Congress in...

At the 2015 Association of Change Management Professionals conference, The Grove’s Gisela Wendling and David Sibbet led more than 800 participants in an hour-long general session exploring how to use metaphors to communicate about change management. David’s reflections on the experience follow.

Metaphors provided the doorway into an exciting community conversation at the recent conference of the Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP). The...

As humans we naturally function better when we are face-to-face and can draw on the full range of our sensory capacities. When we meet with others in virtual settings, we can’t easily access the visual information and body-language cues that inform group communication.

Still, working virtually is with us to stay. So here are some guidelines for facilitating your next meeting with people who are in different locations. These best practices will help you lay the groundwork for a...

The following article is excerpted from “Collaborative Bandwidth: Creating Better Virtual Meetings” by Rachel Smith, part of the Organization Development Journal’s Winter 2014 special issue on “OD in the Digital Age.”

Remote participants often find that virtual meetings are not an enjoyable or effective way to accomplish many of their intended objectives. There is some quality of a face-to-face meeting that is lost during a virtual meeting—it becomes more...

The Grove is experiencing one of our busiest years in a decade, and we are serving more international clients than ever. This, alongside the recent EuViz conference in Berlin and our growing number of global partners, is prompting increased focus on how we can best support this worldwide evolution of visual practice and interest in Grove methods.

Global Visual Practitioners Converge at EuViz

In August The Grove’s David Sibbet, Rachel Smith, and Gisela Wendling...

How do you embed Team Performance within a global company? W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. is showing the way. Human Resources (HR) at Gore is “going big” with The Grove’s Team Performance offerings to support its 10,000 associates worldwide.

Setting the Context

The culture at Gore prioritizes innovation and “the power of small teams.” Although Gore is best known for its Gore-Tex® waterproof outdoor gear, its wide-ranging products are in use...

The Grove’s Rachel Smith and Kaiser Permanente recently created a graphic recording movie about ALL-PHASE, Kaiser’s simple yet effective protocol to prevent heart attacks and strokes in diabetics age 55+. This video is now being used for patient education at 85 participating community clinics nationwide.

Project Background

Diabetics are two to four times more likely to have a heart attack or stroke. Yet many high-risk patients are not receiving preventive treatment...

The Grove’s Laurie Durnell facilitated a multi-stakeholder process with all of the public-land management agencies for Mt. Tamalpais. The resulting collaborative will sustain the well-being of the mountain on which Laurie grew up.

Seeds for a multi-agency collaboration were planted back in 2003 when The Grove facilitated a watershed visioning process for Muir Woods. This culminated in a March 21 signing ceremony that launched the Tamalpais Lands Collaborative. (1)

Located...

The Unity Council was born in challenging times. In the 1960s, a freeway cut through the heart of Oakland and, as in many American cities, the result was an era of urban decline and poverty. During this time, the civil rights movement was gaining strength.

Latino activists from several organizations joined forces in 1964 to form The Unity Council, with the purpose of having a stronger, collective voice for their unrepresented community.

A Mural Project Is Born

With the...