State of Grace Document

The State of Grace Document is truly an inspired idea.

I have recently gotten to know Maureen McCarthy, who developed this idea originally with her partner Zelle Nelson. Their joint website www.maureenandzelle.com is also a pleasure to study, as there they bring together lots of themes from their work in management consulting and personal development, including their practice of Byron Katie's "The Work," which is a powerful tool to help people to learn that the only thing they can change about a situation is themselves, so that progress is possible only if we are willing to entrust ourselves to the possibility of change.

The consent practice based on Gerard Endenburg's Sociocracy, which I've always preferred to call Consent Management, provides an organizational platform for enabling dynamic change, which has been proven over the years to release a very powerful force in creating true self-learning and self-organizing organizations. The system seems to be slowly catching on in the US, but it has proven its value in many organizations in Holland, as well as internationally in many countries.

Soon, on October 9th & 10th, they will be hosting a seminar on this methodology by John Buck, who wrote the book about it - Beyond Democracy - Of course John Buck calls it something else again, Dynamic Governance, or Dynamic Self-Governance. So, if you're in the Asheville, NC area around that time, it may be worth your while signing up for that workshop.

Back to the State of Grace document, I can only say that I took to the idea immediately and I'm now looking to bring it into all my major business relationships. I am simply tired of the whole notion of all the normal misunderstandings which wreck perfectly good relationships over time, when there is a way to invest more in the quality of the relationship up front, and provide a mechanism to overcome all the bumps in the road, which you will encounter. And, what's more I'm beginning to think that if you encounter resistance on this point, it might be better not to entertain the relationship at all. Life is too short for lousy relationships!



Copyright (c) 2009, Rogier F. van Vlissingen