Frau Müller muss weg - oder die ungewollte Demaskierung der eigenen Realität

Dies wird meine erste Filmkritik sein. Standen zumeist Opern und Ballette im Fokus meiner bisherigen Reviews, so inspirierte der von Sönke Wortmann ("Deutschland. Ein Sommermärchen") kürzlich ins Kino gekommene Film "Frau Müller muss weg" meinen Schreibimpuls.

Eigentlich war es mehr ein Zufall, doch die Laufzeit am Samstagabend ermöglichte einen entspannten Besuch mit Freunden in einem republikweit mehr als bekannten Programmkino, dem PK Ost (Programmkino Ost), wie es hier in Dresden kurz heißt. "Frau Müller muss weg" lief am Samstag um 19 Uhr im GLORIA Saal, der mit reichlich 200 Zuschauern gut gefüllt war.

Dass das, was zunächst als Kommödie vermutet worden war von, sich letztlich als psychologische Studie Dresden in einem Mikrokosmos, nämlich der Schule (und bei ein wenig mehr Abstand sogar einem umfänglicheren Kontext) entpuppte, ließ sich bei den ersten auf der Leinwand vorbeiflimmernden Momentaufnahmen der Dresdner Stadtsilhouette nicht erahnen.

Der Plot ist schnell erzählt: eine Handvoll besorgter Eltern haben Angst, um die für eine Versetzungsempfehlung erforderlichen Noten ihrer Sprösslinge und haben sich in Vertretung für die komplette Klasse (eine Unterschriftenliste als Beweis) an einem schulfreien Samstag mit der Klassenlehrerin zu einer Aussprache verabredet. Man will ihr nahelegen, dass sie die Klasse noch vor den Halbjahreszeugnissen abgeben soll, da sie aus Elternsicht nicht ihren pädagogischen Auftrag erfüllt. Die Klassenlehrerin, wider Erwarten resoluter und leidenschaftliche Pädagogin ist zunächst geschockt, benötigt einen Moment, hinterfragt einige als unverrückbare Realität dargestellte Ereignisse und verlässt erbost das Klassenzimmer. Doch sie vergisst ihre Tasche (nebst Terminplaner und Notenübersicht).

... und hier beginnt sich die Geschichte richtig zu entwickeln, anders als zunächst zu erwarten.

Sicher auf den ersten Blick mag es um die "Helikopter-Eltern" gegangen sein, die sich in das Leben ihrer Sprösslinge derart einmischen, dass sie selbst wieder die Hausaufgaben machen, nur um sicherzustellen, dass die Noten stimmen. Dabei vergessen sie jedoch, dass es neben den schriftlichen auch mündliche Prüfungen gibt. Hier fällt spätestens den Lehrern in der Regel auf, dass etwas nicht stimmt.

Aus einem größeren Abstand betrachtet spielte sich an dem Tag in der Schule mehr ab als nur der beabsichtigte "Rausschmiss" der Lehrerin aus ihrer Klasse. Es war ein Spiegelbild des ganz "normalen" Wahnsinns, der sich auch 25 Jahre nach der Wende beobachten lässt, wenn in Westdeutschland sozialisierte Zugereiste (die lediglich wegen ihres Jobs z.B. in Dresden sind) und sich wundern, dass die Integrationskultur eine gänzlich andere als z.B. in Köln ist. War noch zu Beginn des (Film-)Tages die selbsternannte Wortführerin Jessica (gespielt von Anke Engelke) der Kristallisationspunkt der "Elternattacke" zerbrach dieses Muster sobald die Gruppe auf einmal ohne ihr "Bekämpfungsobjekt" (Lehrerin Frau Müller, gespielt von Gabriele Maria Schmiede) im Raum stand. Die Energie, die sich bisher auf Frau Müller konzentriert hatte, lag nun sozusagen im Leerlauf.

Es war, als ob sich alle Beteiligten auf einmal ganz anderen Themen widmeten, während sie allesamt versuchten Frau Müller im Schulhaus (durchaus mit einigen überraschenden Wendungen, .... "Ich suche Frau Müller!", "Im Wasser?" Persönliche Angelegenheiten aller Beteiligten, die bislang durch den Fokus auf das Wohl der Sprösslinge mehr als nur überlagert, sondern sogar zugedeckt waren, traten zu Tage.

Überspitzt und skaliert ist die Geschichte im samstäglichen Schulhaus auch in die Republik zu verlagern, in der oft Politik und Politiker die Geschicke der Bevölkerung sprich Bürger zu regeln versuchen. Nicht immer unter voller Wahrnehmung untrüglicher Anzeichen der Veränderung, die dann von heute auf morgen als unlösbar scheinende Probleme gesellschaftlicher Art wahrgenommen werden. Die Gesprächskultur fällt dann teilweise in einen Modus (zwischen allen Beteiligten) zurück, der den hitzigen Eskapaden der Akteure in "Frau Müller muss weg" nicht unähnlich sind (wenn auch nicht ganz so überspitzt).

Alles in allem ein lohnender Film, der einen zum Lachen bringt, Erinnerungen an die eigene Schulzeit aus dem Unterbewusstsein hervorkramt und doch einen manchmal das Lachen im Halse stecken lässt, wenn man die Geschichte in den größeren Kontext bringt und aufmerksam die ähnlichen Muster der Kommunikation wahrnimmt.

Ein kurzer #PresencingStatus soll auch an dieser Stelle nicht fehlen:

Gut - "Zeitgemäße" Kommödie, Dresden als Handlungsort altersmäßig sehr gemischtes Publikum
Tricky - Eindrücke verarbeiten, Verbindung zur Realität (auch in anderem Kontext) nicht einfach
Learned - "Dresden" zieht Dresdner ins Kino, Verhaltensmuster sind in der realen Welt sehr ähnlich
Action - Abschluss des MOOC #ULab & Verbindung zwischen ULab und Dresden weiterentwickeln

Auswahl einiger Kritiken in der deutschen Presse zum Film:

Spiegel-Kritik von Oliver Klever
FAZ-Kritik von Jan Weile
Abendzeitung München-Kritik von Adrian Prechtel
Tagesspiegel-Kritik von Julia Dettke
Handelsblatt-Kritik von Marcel Reich
... die Dresdner Zeitungen DNN bzw. Sächsische Zeitungen haben (bislang meines Wissens) keine im Web öffentlich zugängliche Kritik zum Film veröffentlicht

Sechs einfache Worte

Wenn Du nicht mehr weiter weißt, gehe dorthin wo du nichts für dein ProJect erwartest.

Lasse dich überraschen. Staune, was die Welt durch dich und Sprache oder Schrift möglich macht.

Ergreife die MoegLich'keit (auch die klitzekleine), wenn Du das GeFuehl hast, dass sie der TuerOeffner zu mehr ist.

..... und Du wirst wieder ins Staunen kommen, was alles MachBar wird :-))

Originaltext - Zeitenläufte sind stets komplex, insbesondere wenn nicht sichtbar auf herkömmlichen Weg

Mornings - time of stillness, to think

This morning, with rising sun and snow on roofs, stumbled across a rather old piece of writing of
myself. A  bit more than a year ago I reflected on some questions Otto Scharmer had asked earlier.

One would say, not much has happened since.

Quite a lot has actually happened, sometimes subtle and emerging over time. In September last year the CoOrpheum (the first coworking space in Dresden was not yet an issue. The study on the culture and creative industries in Dresden had not been started yet. Meeting Markus Stegfellner from the Realexperiment Sinnvoll Wirtschaften in September this year, doing a WalkToTalk through the Großer Garten in Dresden. Working on bringing the "dots together" of the past has emerged into the WikiWall. Getting to know more about the Semperoper (due to a "storm in the net").

Today at 1st advent it is time to reflect what has happened over the span of the past year. A lot, sometimes I have the feeling it may be too much and clear to be seen by others, especially the value it has brought into the conversation.

Holding the tension is rather tiring even though this has been my philosophy in life to create the containers or -better said- social fields where others can act in following their own personal strengths, goals, and visions.

A sunny advent to all

Ralf

PS.: Thanks a lot for all your support and serendipity connections.
I got to know people like BetseyMerkel, ValdaWilson, MarkusStegfellner,
RayKurzweil, OttoScharmer, HalaMakarem, PhilippeGreier,
ConstanceWolter, MichaelSmolens, DavidHawthorne, AndreasBeyer,
CharlesVanDerHaegen, VilleKeraenen,  DavidOrban, BobRichards, ...

S... in the City? Or is it U..?

Following OttoScharmer a professor of MIT Sloan School of Management for some two years now. The initial spark to get interested was buying the book Presence during the System Dynamics Conference 2007 in Boston. Form the first page it hit me like a striking bold - it resembled my own life. A year earlier I attended a workshop, sponsored by BMW, to grow my personality (quite a still thinker not as outgoing and furiously fighting for my points - so my boss back then thought), and had come back from the year earlier SD Conference. This caused me to tell my life story (which was done by every participant of the workshop) in causal loops - which I must admit looked messy, or at least not linear!

Isn't it that new things often emerge out of chaos? Where nothing is the same as yesterday and surprises interchange?

2002 the sheer chaos overcame Dresden when the waters of the River Elbe spread across it. New connections, friendships, ways of seeing the things emerged. The physical help back then was the main driver for change, the use of Web 2.0 was not yet really up, only rough databases run over a web interface enabled the helpers and help seekers to communicate.

Eight years have passed now. It was 2008 when I sensed that something profound was boiling under the surface of this area of Germany. Some events, like the closing of the Henkel plant in Genthin, some German car manufactures got in trouble (and with them their suppliers), in a way were the first signs of something bigger emerging.

Again it became quite obvious that everything is coupled with everything and the people, US, are just entrenched in the middle. Because of the pressure and urge to earn a living we often don't have a chance to see the larger picture. The result was that the old and formerly successful strategies for the organizations to get out of trouble re-surfaced in 2009. Cutting personal, close their channels to the public and customers to a minimum, only to work on what their leaders on the C-levels perceived perhaps as the one and only cure.

However in eight years quite a lot has happened and the social net, also embedded in the Web 2.0, plays a more relevant role than ever in the growing interconnectivity. Today it is no problem to chat with somebody from South Africa, and in the meantime get Facebook messages from friends in Italy or Australia.

Whilst the business organizations are still struggling to keep their problem solving knowledge to themselves initiatives like CoWorking, DesignThinking, PresencingInstitute, TeamAcademy, or LockSchuppen, CoOrpheum, NeonWorx (the three latter ones from Dresden), and more are springing up all across the globe. Their aim is to make the ground fertile to enable the large-scale shift of how we will live and work tomorrow.

Something however is different here in the city, which has a rich heritage of culture and industry alike. Bombed and burned to the bone in the last days of the war 1945, they city's collective memory is still focusing on the days that most of us haven't seen and experienced personally. Could it be that this is has a major impact on keeping just in a more or less "closed circle" and seeing inwards?

I guess not, even though the change is small and during my study time of economics you would call this "weak signs".

Looking deeper there happen things that no one would have seen a year ago. The director of the University of Leipzig for example will be for the first time a woman and here in Dresden the first intendant of the Saxonian Opera Semperoper is for the first time, after several hundred years of male dominance on the top, also a woman, Dr. UlrikeHessler.

Not only the outfit on the website has changed for Semperoper but their various ensembles are moving into a space where lots of other organizations don't dare to step in. On Facebook the SemperBallett and the JungeSzene are moving into the sphere that is not common for artists. It is great to see the flourishing conversations, and upcoming dialogue on their fanpages.

Congratulations to the whole team and a courageous leader on top who was willing to step into new areas of doing - Dr. UlrikeHessler !!!

May it be the starting point for something bigger that is piling up in the beautiful city of Dresden? I am quite positive especially as I get some surprising events concerning my own vision about the place where I now live again :-)

So long and just think next time when you get a tweet or Facebook invite from somebody you may have not even seen or talked to, take the present of surprise for granted and be happy :-)

Cheers, and so thankful for my "Australian Sparks" (Marigo, whom I know already through meeting twice by syncronicity in Boston, and Valda whose tweet on the OpenDay at Semperoper after enjoying the ballet team in the training room for quite some while has initiated my own action)

Ralf

PS.: It all started with a furious discussion about the new website design of the Semperoper - and as always this kind of action and energy driven into it made me curious to understand the underlying currents and mental models.

Cracks in present time leading into the future

While thinking about the past days and what -again- has happened, too many things going on and connected with each other, I stepped across an earlier posting written on PI Community. Even after eight months not much has changed yet and still the same applies to what I am seeing around me. I sometimes wonder whether why I see it and seem to be the only one (who articulates the thoughts):

"Good morning Otto (Scharmer),

Seems to be that this group has taken full grip of my energy:-)

Just came back from a Gottesdienst (mess) at the Frauenkirche (awesome:-)) and totally inspired to write down my first thoughts on your questions (as the topic is racing my mind actually for the last 19 years, after the wall came down between East and West Germany). The crisis of today we see all around is not so new to this part of the country and actually people over here cope quite good with that (they been through the same stage right after '89 when most factories in the so-called "Neuen Bundesländern" ("new states") had to close down).

What do you see going on in your environment?

A deep reluctance to change. Everybody is waiting for the "big guys" that can make the change happen. As I was looking for a job for a few months I got some personal experience on how people are treated by the unemployment agencies. They definitely don't care whether you are working at a place to your strengths:-( The only goal is to put you out of the list. They could be a real value creating institution, if .... Yes if a few essentials would be changed and the pure numbers goals would be eliminated. I have intervened already and proposed a cooperation with a newly set up Team Academy institution in Dresden to eliminate unemployment in Saxony and provide sustainable value to the region and its people.

It is really difficult to grasp the right people and the right time (like here in this group, from the blog I wouldn't have thought of that vivid action already taking off:-)) and I wonder whether who else has made similar experiences and stepped perhaps inside that kind of institutions to make the change start?

How does the global crisis of our time manifest in your context of work and life?

At least not negative. For me every problem bears great opportunities in it and the current crisis really offers lots of chances (oil crisis, climate change, urban planning, new social media use, etc.). The old organizations won't cope too long with the crisis and there is the possibility to make the change real ("Orbiting the Giant Hairball", by Gordon MacKenzie shows quite excellent how it can be done:-))

What is beginning and where?

Here in Dresden and the eastern parts of the country people get back their pride as they have been through this downturn right after the wall came down. They can cope with shortages (done that for 40 years during the GDR times).
To be honest they would be the "real" Toyota people - if one would let them go!

And: what are the things that we could do that would help us and others to move from here (the collapsing old system) to there (the emerging field of the future)? what should we do?

From a very personal perspective and inspired by the visit up to Team Academy, a visit to Genthin (where they close down the chemical plant of Henkel, which is some sort of regional identification) and the idea that has grown out of visits to the small suburb Hellerau, where similar ideas as here in the group emerged some 90 years ago and presently are brought up by Genius-Hellerau (guess I have do the English translation for them, in order that other people outside the German speaking compartment (as one would say in Agent-Based-Modeling coming from System Dynamics;-)) can also participate).

Coming back from Oman in April I told my former logistics professor at my former university in Dresden about the World Café in which the Forum was organized. He gave me the hint and the invitation to the folks in Hellerau. Ever since I have met very interesting people who are striving for the sustainable change in the region. Yet it is really difficult for them to see the change (under grassroot level won't be seen in the beginning and only the really visionaries will "see" that).

The process is ongoing, even though they have doubts that something to change would be possible in the established institutions in government, business and education.

Nevertheless I am working on setting up the Team Academy in Dresden, which I was directly inspired by Marigo (she is also member here) a couple of months ago. Since then I participate in a business plan start-up competition with the project. First round is over already and prizes will given end of January (let's see how the project got the interest of the jury).

I know of other Team Academy like initiatives around Europe and yet there could be stronger inter-group exchange, marketing, and learning.

So I am looking for supporters and if somebody is interested in the ideas behind it have a look at Team Lea(r)ning Experience Dresden

....thoughts must have held back and now they are out;-))

All the best you all and enjoy the coming days and a fresh start in 2009

Ralf"

Where are you coming from? Where are you going?

PS.: Written 24th of December 2008

Tipping point - from nothing to exponential growth

Reflecting on how to initiate large scale change, whether in a large organization spread over continents or a region in a country, I sense that change is happening all the time. Sometimes (especially in the very beginning) you won't think anything is changing at all.

Yet the process itself is getting to grow over time (like everything in nature), as the connections grow, stories evolve (how things are being done here and there), diversity increases as new people get involved with their very own personal experience (and neither of us has the same one!).

"When you have better knowledge about the system and whole region work, and you get to know a lot of people, you end up having a different access to making things work. Before all this, for instance, I used to postpone awkward conversations forever. Now I simply do it. We're in a different situation today because we're seeing the whole more clearly, and the whole net of personal communications and relationships is more in flow."
(quote from Presence, p. 157)

Reaching the tipping point (or you could also call it the threshold) is necessary to let change move into the growth mode.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe has said, "Not because things are difficult we don't dare to do them, but because we don't dare to do them they become difficult" -about 200 years ago- and this is still valid today and even more in ever changing times.

What has been your most surprisingly experience about change in organization or society where you have played a vital role?

....leaving the fishbowl

Marigo, a dear friend from Melbourne, has with her last blog entry intrigued me to take "Presence" and stroll around the pages (as I often do, while reading 2-5 books in parallel).


Two copies (one bought at the System Dynamics Conference in Boston in summer 2007, another one  given at the "Foundations for Leadership" workshop last March) are lying for quite some time. So I picked the older one, where I had already have made some notes. As soon as I have dived right into reading and scanning, it occured to me that this book is worth having around in your bag as "Orbiting the Giant Hairball".

The stories that are told are so true and if your are already in the moving mode (such as searching for the true sense of what is YOUR purpose in life, seeking a new job or relationship) you pretty soon amazed about the truth that lies right in front in you. Somehow the book is like a magnifier, making the obvious just cristal clear.

"There's no question that one of greatest needs is how to make it safe enough for people in positions of authority to move down the U, " said Otto. "It's no wonder that without achieving real depth in sensing, the opening to our higher Self and the movementinto truly innovative action simply doesn't occur. Everyone stays trapped in their mental models and acts - or really reacts - to circumstances based on their programming." (Presence, p. 122)

So "reprogramming" your inner harddisk is most essential to true change!

How have you done that?

Ralf

Reflection Time

"Pool-Hall-Dog

(.... story best read in the original)

If we don't let go, we make prisoners of ourselves.

To be fully free to create, we must first find the courage and willingness to let go;

Let go of the strategies that have worked for us in the past ...
Let go of our biases, the foundations of our illusions ...
Let go of our grievances, the root source of our victimhood ...
Let go of our so-often-denied fear of being found unlovable.

You will find it is not a one-shot deal, this letting go. You must do it again and again and again. It's kind of like breathing. You can't breathe just once. Try it: Breathe just once. You'll pass out.

If you stop letting go, your creative spirit will pass out.

Now when I say let go, I do not mean reject. Because when you let go of something, it will still be there for you when you need it. But because you have stopped clinging, you will have freed yourself up to tap into other possibilities - possibilities that can help you deal with this world of accelerating change."

(Taken from "Orbiting the Giant Hairball" by Gordon MacKenzie, p. 216)