---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Peggy Holman via OSList <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Apr 17, 2023 at 1:42 AM Subject: [OSList] Re: Selling Open Space To: Open Space Listserv <[email protected]>
Oh Thomas, so beautifully, thoughtfully offered. I find many parallels to my own journey. Now that I think about it, I know a number of people who left stable employment to start their own business when they ran into Open Space. It is part of my story too. Having a partner with another source of income made the ups and downs of finding work easier to navigate. The core of my practice is Open Space, not just the process but as a philosophy and life practice. At its heart is the invitation to take responsibility for what you love as an act of service. I fell in love with Open Space because in my first experience with it, I saw something I didn’t know was possible: the needs of individuals and the system can both be met. I used to think one or the other had to be sacrificed. Now I know that when both are met it is because the spaciousness has enabled something novel to emerge. Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and Circle process/dialogue are important companions that inform the way I work. AI, because I found that when people share their stories, they discover what is most deeply personal is also universal and they connect. AI influenced me in learning to craft questions, notably calling questions for Open Space gatherings, that focus on imagining possibilities. And Circle because it shifts our form of discourse from debate to dialogue - from advocacy to inquiry. When we are in inquiry with each other, our differences are instrumental in discovering breakthroughs. In Open Space, dialogue naturally shows up. Circles remind me that we all make contributions to the whole. Like Thomas, I partner with others as co-creators when the task is complex. In fact, I prefer working with others, particularly when they come from a different world view. I find it better equips us to be of service to clients. Actually, diversity is one other element that is core to how I work. Given our purpose, what is the diversity of a system? How can we grow partnerships that reflect that diversity to do the work? (I love a rubric from Marv Weisbord and Sandra Janoff: invite the people who ARE IN. With Authority, Resources, Expertise, Information, and Need. And then I consider what demographics are relevant to a situation through a lens from the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. They call them fault lines: gender, geography, generation, race, class, and sexual orientation. They also have two “fissures" that I think are currently full blown fault lines: religion and political orientation. Recently, I’ve also added able-ness to the demographic lenses to consider.) Finally, I have let what calls to me — what resonates with my sense of purpose — lead. Calling led me to journalism following a shooting at a Jewish Community Center in 1999. (I thought to myself: The stories that we tell ourselves shape the way we see the world. And that shapes our actions. Journalists are cultural storytellers. How might what I know be of service? It makes me so sad that the epidemic of gun violence has only gotten worse since then.) Back to my consulting journey...In the beginning, I took work to pay the bills so that I could volunteer my time for the work I do with journalism. Over time, working with journalism became my central focus. That, and writing about what I was learning about change and disruption in social systems, like organizations and communities. Perhaps that is what I can add to Thomas’ wonderful reflection on the path of walking in Open Space: what it has been like to have both a group process focus and a content focus - journalism. I have wondered sometimes if having that dual focus and generally keeping them separate has made me less effective with them both. Would I have been more effective choosing one or the other? I would describe my split callings as 1) a focus on practices that liberate human spirit so that people discover they belong by being their unique selves and 2) reimagining journalism for strong, inclusive communities and democracies. For the first, it has often led me to writing — The Change Handbook, Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity. In fact, I don’t think I’ve mentioned on the list a recent article: Emergent Design for Generative Change <https://peggyholman.medium.com/emergent-design-for-generative-change-78571485daaa>, published in the Organization Development Review. The writing has been my way to figure out what I have learned and share it. My journalism work has involved bringing an Open Space philosophy to a culture that puts high value on facts, too often without sufficient context to give them meaning. The Open Space-centered gatherings Journalism That Matters <https://journalismthatmatters.org/events/> has done over the years has helped foster a branch of journalism that gets called “engaged journalism.” It hasn’t made it to how national news is done but it has attracted a number of practitioners working locally, mostly, but not entirely in the U.S. An interesting finding on that: when journalists start engaging with community, their storytelling becomes more constructive. And for journalists who start from doing more constructive journalism, largely influenced by an organization called Solutions Journalism Network, they become better at listening and engaging with community. It is a virtuous cycle that is becoming more explicitly understood of late. In fact, Journalism That Matters is co-hosting a gathering in August, Open Space at its center, that is bringing the networks of engaged journalists and solutions-oriented journalists and others together to discover the deeper patterns in their work and share them with an intent of accelerating the adoption of inclusive, constructive, collaborative, and engaged ways of doing journalism. Anyway, at the heart of what I have learned is, for me, the essence of Open Space: taking responsibility for what I love. If nothing else, it makes for a good, fulfilling life. Peggy
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