The future is already here …
… it’s just not evenly distributed. That’s roughly how science-fiction author William Gibson put it, and it fits organisations rather well. There are always people who enjoy doing things differently and better. They’re just usually scattered.
Some sit in specialist departments: some work on AI, others on sustainability, others again on communications or R&D. There may even be informal grassroots movements around one topic or another already.
The thing is: very often they don’t know about each other. Even leadership rarely has the full picture of what’s already forming and moving inside the organisation.
That’s a lot of untapped potential. It’s why we work with the Second Circle approach: we make visible how much energy for transformation already exists in an organisation, pull it together and help it have a bigger impact.
A thermal camera for the organisation
A central element is what we call an attractor event: an occasion where these people can come together in the first place. It doesn’t have to be big; ideally, it can be put together within a few weeks. An attractor event works a bit like a thermal imaging camera pointed at the organisation: look, there’s already something happening there!
What we’ve learned about attractor events
The name matters
It’s worth putting real thought into this. What do the different people you want to invite have in common? And what would put them off? For one attractor event at a large German media organisation, the name chosen was “Future Skills Day” rather than “Sustainability Day”. The invitation came from the sustainability department, but the aim was deliberately to reach people across the whole, very large organisation, including those who only partly identify with sustainability.
Make visible what’s already there
The point isn’t to motivate an organisation from scratch. The interesting questions are: Which initiatives already exist? Who’s already working on similar questions? Which ideas are sitting in drawers? Which people draw others in? In practice, that means fewer talks and more formats for exchange and collaboration, such as speed dating, hackathons, barcamps or a World Café.
The real work starts after the event
If nothing happens afterwards, the energy fizzles out. A good attractor event needs a follow-up logic from the start: Who stays in the conversation? Who forms the Second Circle? Which topics get taken further? What’s the next concrete step? And how do you nurture what has emerged so that a movement can grow from it?
From event to movement
That’s exactly what we do: we design, plan and run attractor events, and build on them to develop a Second Circle and a transformation community.