The Great Ride

Creating and Sustaining Intelligent Space©

Or how about a stay at
McIntyre's House?

Student Materials

50 page Creating and Sustaining Intelligent Space Reference Manual

CCS Vision Pack

CCS image stickers

Wall chart to map the journey and significant lessons learned

Cost: AU$449.00 (All inclusive)

A nice stop over in Bangkok on
The Great Ride sets the stage for one of the assignments

The Great Ride is a communication course unlike any other. Its focus is on communication within teams and is geared toward managers and their staff, consultants, team leaders, and executives.

This course brings together the excellently written work of Paul Macklin, director of Amazing People, and Dr. Stephanie Burns' design of behaviourally based on-line learning assignments delivered in the metaphorically rich adventure of a world-wide tour on the back of a virtual motorcycle.

Introduction

Communication is something we all do all of the time and often without much thought. As a result it is a skill that it is easy to take for granted. In the same way that we are unaware of the air we breathe until it is polluted or absent, we can miss the importance of effective communication, simply because we take it to be a natural capability.

In your professional life much of your success will be founded upon your communication skills and your ability to lead and facilitate effective communication with others.

Intelligent Space© is the term assigned to the context in which effective communication takes place and to the process and experience of the communication itself.

What is Intelligent Space?

Intelligent Space refers to the physical, mental, social or emotional environment or space for communicating, thinking and acting in which a group of people can be more effective at solving problems together than they are as individuals.

Intelligent Space is built upon a set of disciplined practices and mindsets that enable issues and opportunities to be explored fully, ideas to be generated freely and options to be skilfully evaluated in order to find the optimal solution to the problem or opportunity at hand.

When it occurs, Intelligent Space is palpable. That is to say, the positive quality of communication, openness, problem solving, trust and interaction rises to a level that is noticeable by those present.

With experience you will be able to identify the signs that a group has moved from conflict and confusion towards Intelligent Space. It is my aim that over time you will become skilled and confident in helping groups make the transition themselves.

The Skills of Intelligent Space

Read the list of skills that are active when you are creating Intelligent Space below. These are the skills that will be explored in this course. Some, or even all, of these skills may be familiar to you from other courses. If so, that is very good, as you will benefit from those experiences enabling you to go further faster in your learning process.

As a collection these skills very specifically contribute to effective communication and dialogue.

• Trust and mutual regard for the perspectives and contributions of all team members evidenced by the acknowledgment and validation of each contributor and contribution.

• Willingness and ability to suspend judgement and sustain paradox long enough to find 'yes and' solutions that help to resolve seemingly opposite points of view.

• Self-reflection enabling an understanding of the impact that our perspectives, reasoning, assumptions, needs and emotional states have on our particular point of view.

• Skilful expression of information, ideas and points of view that includes the use of pre-framing, relative language, metaphor and story telling. Skllfull expression provides the audience with both our content and our perspective. Through skillfull expression we take a relative position and say 'This is what I see from where I sit and here's why I sit here', as opposed to the absolute position that says 'This is what is'.

• Ongoing feedback surrounding the content of the discussion (seeking clarification, summarising and confirming understanding). Ongoing feedback around group process and team behaviours will enables the group to stay on task and stay in Intelligent Space.

• Effective dialogue, (from the original root di - two, logos - meaning) is a two-way exchange of meaning from which a unified point of view can be built.

Participant process

You begin the learning adventure in a new kind of on-line environment preparing and studying the introductory chapter in the Creating and Sustaining Intelligent Space Reference Manual. Once oriented to the course and prepared psychologically the adventure of a virtual life time begins when you and your team mates select your mototcycle and head out on The Great Ride. From there the fun and experiential learning begin.

The course is delivered as you travel together in a small group around the globe on a 2004/3D Custom El Ratoncito motorcycle specially designed with all the on-board features necessary to facilitate a blended learning experience (using written study materials and on-line assignments and student interactions).

While on the road you are directed to study each chapter of rich content found in the Creating Intelligent Space Reference Manual while parked in various locations around the world. You then travel to new and exciting places where on-line assignments are delivered on the El Ratoncito's pop up display.

You MUST have easy access to both email and the Internet during the week. These two mediums are used to deliver the lessons and assignments. Emails can be sent to a home addresses just as easily if it helps.

You may miss lessons due to unexpected situations. You can easily make up those lessons without feeling left behind. However, it is suggested that you do not start the course if they know in advance that you will be missing for large portions of time during a course. The course emails and materials can easily be accessed from anywhere in the world.

All of Stephanie's courses have been well-designed for busy people. There is a gentle push to support the development of the course activities becoming a normal part of each day's routine. For the effort it takes to start that routine it becomes one seriously missed when the program ends.

Having said that though, you must understand that learning, of any significant quality, is not free. It does require some time and effort. For the weeks you are involved in a course it becomes one aspect of your job.

You will be well taken care of at all times.

Time requirements

In addition to the technology participants will need quiet time to focus on the course content.

This course is conducted over 8 weeks following orientation where you learn to drive your virtual on-line motorcycle and study the introductory chapter to Intelligent Space.

You will then study 1 chapter focusing on a unique communication skill each week and complete an assignment related to the lesson.

The course activities include study time for the chapters in the Intelligent Space Reference Manual, logging on-line to retrieve assignments and doing then doing those assignments in real situations back on the job. You will return on-line to report on the results of your assignments.

Assignments are real time work assignments based on observations and experimentation. No course work is required on the weekends except where a participant feels that is easier for them personally.

If you have any questions you need answered before you enrol use this link.

See you on the road!

Stef