Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Hana, on the rainy, green slopes of Maui. I was there to visit Ray Henderson, executive director of a drug treatment program serving this small community of 800 residents, many of whom are native Hawaiian. Ray participates in our current class of the PONO program, a leadership development program for ED’s in Hawaii.

Hana is remote—about a 3 hour drive on a windy, narrow, coastal road with more than 600 turns and more than 50 one-at-a-time bridges. Tourists complain about the drive, but they have no idea how bad this road used to be. My first trip to Hana was in 1978, and at that time the road was unpaved and strangely free of guardrails, despite cliff drop-offs of nosebleed proportions.

Since it is such a treat to visit, Mary came with me for a short no-kids vacation. The first person we met in Hana was Moni, who greeted us at the Hana Hotel. When I told him I was here to visit Ray, he sparkled, “He’s my cousin.”

Over the next 4 days I mentioned Ray’s name to many local people. “He’s my cousin” rivaled with “He’s my neighbor.” Everyone knew him. In fact, in this close-knit community, everyone knows everyone. The nonprofit community consists of a health clinic and a half-dozen human service organizations. The directors of these groups sit on one another’s boards, and in Ray’s case, his wife is co-director of the senior center.

The major problem in Hana seems to be the cost of living. People live in substandard housing, or crammed into a too-small house. Hawaii is notoriously expensive, and Hana is no exception. Local people may own land, but cannot afford to develop it. Most work for the hotel, the cattle ranch, or as fishermen. Subsistence living is an important part of the local economy.

For Hana to survive long-term, truly affordable housing needs to be developed. It is a special place worth keeping. As the local bumper sticker proclaims with pride: Thank God for Hana.

If you have never attended an OST meeting, you should. It is an approach to meetings that allows participants to self-organize the agenda, and in a short time solve some pretty complex organizational challenges. OST is most appropriate when there is a clear but complex question that needs to be resolved and the organization wants wide input into the decision.

OST was invented about 20 years ago by Harrison Owen, a guy who was tired of attending panels, talking heads, and other deadly meeting formats. He decided that the part he liked best about most meetings was the coffee breaks — where he could network with people he wanted to meet, do business, and really delve into a topic that interested him. So, OST was born as a way to bring the coffee break ethic to the entire meeting.

I always have a hard time selling OST to clients. They are naturally reluctant to embrace a meeting in which 100 or more key people will be brought together for 2-3 days —WITH NO AGENDA! Still, I did just this a week ago with a major national nonprofit, whose leaders trusted me to make it work. And work it did.

We stated the meeting topic, then, in the space of 8 minutes, the participants organized an agenda of about 45 different self-led sessions. For the next 6 hours they worked their way through the agenda, ending up with about 25 good ideas. That night we clumped like-ideas together and the following day fleshed them out further, voted on the most appealing, and established 8 prime ideas that will now be field-tested. Not bad for two days’ work!

By the way, less than a week after the meeting the participants have in-hand an executive summary and 56 pages of meeting proceedings, also self-generated.

More than one participant — board members and managers — approached me after the meeting to tell me it was unlike any meeting they had ever attended, was amazingly productive, and was also fun.

OST: check it out.