Welcome to Org School
A project by the Institute for Organizational Wellbeing
Org School is a School
Org School is a learning space for organizations who suspect there is another way: Another way of working. Another way of being together. Another way of changing the world.
Org School “courses” help organizations unlearn inherited, often painful, habits of relating that no longer serve them and rediscover their innate capacity for wellbeing. When an organization is in a state of wellbeing, it feels kinder, wiser, more awake. Our daily work nourishes us. Our connections seem suffused with care and authenticity. And we experience the organization's purpose not just as something we are giving to others but as something that is being given to us. We are never free from suffering, of course, but as we confront life’s struggles, they serve to deepen our courage, our imagination, and our care.
Org School “students” are not individual leaders or managers but whole organizations. Learning takes place via the organization’s existing relationships and routines. So no one has to leave their desk to come to Org School. Org School happens in and through the work that you are already doing together, wherever you are.
Org School is a Method
Org School is a learning method built from decades of research on collective wellbeing and positive organizing.
It is very different from the two approaches that traditionally dominate organizational learning: leadership development and change management.
Org School offers a third approach, centered on relational practice carried out in the ordinary and ongoing moments of work. It cuts across the traditional power and identity boundaries that so fragment organizational life. It brings people together from all levels and functions to learn how to practice three forms of shared awareness:
appreciative awareness of each other’s gifts
compassionate awareness of each other’s suffering
intuitive awareness of their collective wisdom
As these forms of awareness strengthen, we discover that our organization never really needed to change at all. It merely needed to wake up more fully to its own highest potential.
Org School is a Movement
Most organizations working to make the world a better place are themselves in enormous pain. They suffer from exclusion, burnout, power battles, financial instability, and time poverty. They often feel deenergizing and dehumanizing. How can they change the world when inside their walls they seem to be reproducing the very patterns they are trying to change?
An increasing number of organizations are simply saying, “No.” They are committing themselves to searching for a new path. And many are finding it. The Org School movement begins with the recognition that every organization is already a school. And it asks us to reconsider what exactly we are teaching each other every day. Do we teach fear or curiosity? Disdain or gratitude? Control or invitation? Will we continue to rely on an increasingly parched organizational curriculum that was first designed 500 years ago, or shall we invent our own? Org School is a reminder that we have a choice.
A Few Words from Our Partners
The Org School team has been deeply thoughtful, patient, and engaging throughout our partnership. They've worked at the "speed of trust" as they have built a relationship with our team to design and implement an approach for discovering organizational wellbeing within multiple social justice organizations. Their commitment to embodying the values and practices they share is evident in every interaction. At any time, and especially in this time of intense chaos, this type of accompaniment is invaluable for supporting the vital work of our partner organizations.
The people at Org School represent the best of us. Individually, they are wise, deeply-attuned, and creative in their approaches to organisational life. Together, they are formidable. Org School will accompany your organisation in ways that foster profound growth, change, and wellbeing.
Org School has been a gift to our organization. Through careful and empathic listening, they have helped us surface and express the light and truth we already possess and have held a space that allows us to explore and grapple with important questions about our values, vision, and ways of working. Org School helps cultivate our gifts and nurture a way of working that is consistent with our goals and values and that supports our individual and collective wellbeing.
We have been working with Org School and their Discovering Organizational Wellbeing program. Especially in this current political climate, organizations need to focus on wellbeing. It's truly revolutionary to consider the possibility that your workplace could not only be a source of income but also a source of support in challenging times.