Staff-Board Training in the Improvement Teams Technique - Session II, 24th March 2008:

On Monday, March 24th 2008, the board and staff of the Interfaith Encounter Association met for the second session of training in the "Improvement Teams" technique and a General Assembly.

In a previous gathering we invited Mr. Yehuda Arad - Vice President of "Teva Pharmaceutical Industries" and Chair of the Israeli Association for Improvement Teams. Mr. Arad presented the approach he developed for Improvement Teams and its impressive results in various contexts. Following the presentation, we asked Mr. Arad to lead with us an actual training where we will work as an improvement team, and he gladly agreed. During the first training session Mr. Arad guided us through a brain-storming session in which we analyzed the elements needed for the improvement and its components and showed us how to organize them into groups of elements who are connected to method, communication, human/environmental elements etc. Finally we mapped all the elements into a "Fishbone Chart".

During the current session we went deeper into the different components. We talked about mapping information about potential encounter locations, about identifying suitable people to lead groups ("engines"), about initiating meetings to explain our work and recruit people and about the need to write down the methodology so that it will be easier for new coordinators to start leading activity.

Then we focused on attributes of the specific version of each of the encounter groups of the methodology, and how to maximize their impact. We took two groups as examples:

The Study and Dialogue group in Jerusalem works to build the relations through intensive deep study of religion.
This approach is very suitable for the religious population and builds tolerance and respect in the inter-communal relations. This could be told as a success story that will encourage others to form similar groups.
The Reut-Sadaqa group focuses on building of friendship among the group's members, with joint and egalitarian work of its coordinators.
When communicating this group to new people we should stress the experience of togetherness and the fact that the main part of both the experience and the building of the group is the process.

We agreed to dedicate future sessions to the definition of the core values that characterize the Interfaith Encounter Association as a whole and for better defining procedures of the work method.

Reported by Yehuda Stolov

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