Prosperos 21st Century Vision

Prepared by William Fennie, H.W., M.

Recognizing that the world collectively and The Prosperos in particular are in the midst of significant transformation, we asked students attending the 54th Annual Assembly to participate in an exercise to help uncover the most essential elements of our school's operations.

The exercise took place in two sessions: the first session took place on Saturday evening and focused on idea generation; the second session took place on Sunday afternoon and focused on idea evaluation and grouping. During the first session, the group was subdivided into two groups of about five persons each, to encourage more effective idea sharing. During the second session the whole group participated together.

Warm up

To begin, each group was asked to outline the issues facing The Prosperos using a standard business management tool called a SWOT analysis - i.e., Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats. The findings were not evaluated in depth, but the exercise helped to focus the group's attention on the organization's issues and to open up the conversation.

Idea generation

The questions in this segment were based on Chapter 5 of Jim Collins' influential book Good to Great *. In this chapter the author lays out three domains which capture the essence of an organization and how attention to these areas can help an organization succeed. The group was not given any information about Collins' work at this time, but was asked to respond to the following three questions :

1. What is The Prosperos passionate about ?
2. What can The Prosperos be the best in the world at ?
3. What drives The Prosperos cash flow / ability to deliver services ?

Three circles were drawn on a whiteboard to represent the domain of each of the questions. As each idea was offered, it was written onto a post-it note and attached within the appropriate circle.

The conversation generated by these questions took us to the end of our first working session. A listing of the responses to each question is given in Appendix A.

At the end of the session a copy of Chapter 5 from Collins' book was given to each of the participants with the suggestion that they read it over before the next working session.

Idea evaluation / grouping

During the second session we took each idea from each of the circles and discussed together whether that idea could apply to any of the other circles. Some ideas clearly belonged only to the circle in which they originally were placed; others fell squarely into one other domain as well. Some, we found, related to a neighboring domain somewhat, but not convincingly. Finally, some of the ideas clearly fit into all of the three domains. All of the ideas were seen to have some merit.

A listing of the ideas by category is given in Appendix B.

An important part of this evaluation was defining and understanding each of the questions.

What is The Prosperos passionate about ?

This question seemed pretty straightforward to everyone. These are the areas which students identified as highly motivating.

What can The Prosperos be best in the world at ?

Referring to Collins, we reminded ourselves that this question pertains to a realistic view of areas where The Prosperos can outshine any other organization. This is not necessarily what we would *like* to be best in the world at, but what we can genuinely do better than anyone else.

What drives The Prosperos' cash flow / delivery of services ?

We needed to clarify that for a social sector organization like The Prosperos, generation of income might not be the most relevant measuring rod. The motivation of volunteers and encouragement of participation, for example, are important for any organization as volunteer driven as ours is.

Findings

The following 10 ideas were seen to belong to all of the domains, i.e., each represents something about which The Prosperos is passionate, an area where The Prosperos can be the best in the world, and a factor deemed essential for driving cashflow / delivery of The Prosperos' services. We did not rank these findings - they are given in alphabetical order.

• a quicker, more direct and efficient way to transcendence
• community of truth actualizers
• High Watch Translation Service contribution
• piercing contemplation of absolute nature of anything
• Prosperos unique techniques, teaching, sharing the teaching
• recognition of the value of the Teaching
• release old, erroneous patterns, becoming authentic, closure
• sharing the teaching
• speak to the truth of a situation or person
• straight thinking in the abstract

Discussion

The value of what The Prosperos offers is reiterated several times in this list, i.e., a unique set of tools for actualizing transcendence which shows up as vivid insight or a release from old patterns and a return to the authentic. In addition, the community element appears a number of times, including sharing and the service to communities rendered by the High Watch Translation Service. It would be interesting to derive some essential words from this list and test them as keywords linked to The Prosperos' marketing effort.

Equally interesting are the ideas that didn't make the final cut, including :

• book and CD sales
• classes and meetings
• sense of belonging and involvement
• member contributions
• remembering Thane

The first four represent areas where The Prosperos will probably never be the best in the world, even if we strive to be effective there. The final area doesn't drive service delivery or cash flow, although we are passionate about it and can easily be the best in the world at it. If there were a way to make this drive cash flow / service delivery, it could easily carry the lion's share of the burden.

Although the unique tools offered by The Prosperos can only be learned in classes and meetings, the findings suggest that these should not be the main focus of development; rather, the development of community and the interaction of "truth actualizers" should take precedence. Class fees, according to this model, would be sufficient to meet expenses but would not be expected to be the essential cash generator.

Caveats

The method for arriving at these findings was somewhat ad hoc. We used a consensus group dynamics model, which is the model used in our study groups. More effective ways of evaluating the ideas might be found, for example, by having each student categorize the ideas (using Collins' categories) on their own and then sift the results for commonality.

In addition, the method presented by Collins is not expected to produce immediate results. These findings should be considered as part of a larger effort, undertaken by a dedicated team, to identify the essential elements of the three areas for the organization. The process could require months of attentive work.

We should remember, too, that The Prosperos includes several constituencies : students, Mentors, interns, administration, and volunteers - maybe others - and that these constituencies have unique interests which need to be taken into consideration.

* Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great, HarperCollins, pp. 90-119