We believe that the organizations that win are those that take a relationship strategy as a starting point and know how to implement it best. Of all an organization’s relationships, the one with the community in which it occupies a place, and with society as a whole, is becoming increasingly important. Companies are increasingly judged on their social involvement. Here, too, an important customer benefit can be gained.

Important parts of the relationship strategy include activating the community (workforce management) and, for example, contributing to the community as an organization. The Oasis Game is one method that can be used to give shape to this. The goal of an Oasis Game is to realize the most common dream shared by a community (which might be a neighbourhood, district, organization, department, business unit, etc.) in an interactive, accessible and playful way (Game). During an Oasis Game, a group or team of professionals – ideally between 20 and 30 people – plays ‘the game’. The participants create a movement (‘tipping point’) within the community by mobilizing and involving even more people (residents, colleagues, customers, parents, etc.) with assignments and ultimately creating the space for them to actively dream along, participate in decision-making, and work towards a jointly supported result. Over time, the players reach more and more people and involve them in the process of the Oasis Game. The Oasis Game is completed when people truly feel that they can achieve something together, and the dream has taken on a spectacular physical form in a desired output.

CSR, participation and impact

An Oasis Game always has a social result: the core revolves around activation, participation and working together with others to do something for the neighbourhood. Together participants experience that joining forces is a way to realize your dreams, and they learn that you then want to continue with that energy. The social effect of an Oasis Game is expressed by strengthening residents’ belief in their own strength. More and more residents find each other to work together, and residents and authorities find it easier to connect.

The origin of Oasis Games

The Brazilian organization Elos, a collective of architects and planners, has developed a method of achieving empowerment in neighbourhoods by playing a Oasis Game. Elos’s members aim to spread their methodology worldwide and create an international community. We transfer the philosophy and Oasis Game methodology to employees, residents and professionals.

Oasis Game & Personal Leadership

With the Oasis change personal leadership program we work to build a community, a guiding coalition of conscious people, who are able to bring about sustainable change in your organization, your chain or your networks. As part of an effective learning process, the participants take joint responsibility – outside their own working environment – for developing a complex project with social relevance. The group works with the Oasis Game as part of the program, with the game being a context that functions as a learning environment for the participants. The real-world experiences can function as a mirror (for awareness) and a window (to identify alternative possibilities for this situation).

Guiding coalitions: the team as a bundle of collective intelligence

The complexity and dynamics of our society are only increasing, as we more and more often find ourselves in situations with a diversity of interests at stake. We believe that only a team that collaborates effectively is able to pioneer sustainable change in organisations, chains and networks. We place high demands on the participants in such teams when it comes to personal leadership and collaboration skills. We challenge the participants to address the collective intelligence of their own group in a lifelike simulation, learning by doing, learning with and from each other.

The program: as in the game, so in life

In this training, a project with social relevance serves as the context for a process of personal and team development. During the process and following a short, intensive training, we challenge the participants to work on a neighbourhood development project in a deprived neighbourhood. They do this outside their normal business relationships and privileges as well as outside the internal political structures. This project is the context for about sustainable leadership. The extraordinary experiences enrich everyone’s lives and provide them with tools that prepare them for the dynamics of the change landscape back in their own environment.