I just read the "Two Stories" section of this page<http://www.openspaceworld.com/intro%20to%20pop.htm>(toward the bottom). It seems to me the two examples have these two features in common.
1. The people involved have a real interest in solving the problem. For most of them, if the problem at issue is not resolved, their lives will be a lot worse. So most of them have a commitment to succeed. 2. The even takes place over a number of days. That means that people are essentially forced to stay in contact with each other for that period. -- Russ On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 9:22 AM, Russ Abbott <[email protected]> wrote: > I could no longer resist and went to the web > page<http://www.openspaceworld.com/brief_history.htm>. > The idea is that a group (of perhaps as many as 1000) people who have some > common area of interest get together, set their own agenda (including > perhaps subgroup meetings), and resolve their differences. And it all > happens automatically if no one pushes it. (Is that an unfair > characterization?) > > I wish it were that simple. I find it very hard to believe. If it were > that simple, what is it that prevents all conflicts from being resolved in > this way? Why, for example, is our Congress so dysfunctional? It's true > that they are far more structured than an Open Space meeting, but if they > threw away all their rules, I doubt that things would be better. > > Here is what appears to be a key paragraph. > > The essential preconditions [to a successful Open Space event] are: 1) *A > relatively safe nutrient environment*. 2) *High levels of diversity and > complexity* in terms of the elements to be self-organized. 3) *Living at > the edge of chaos*, in a word nothing will happen if everything is sitting > like a lump.4) *An inner drive towards improvement*, hence if you are an > atom it would be useful to get together with another atom to become a > molecule. 5) *Sparsity of connections *This one is a little hard to > visualize and was a real surprise to me. Kaufmann is suggesting that > self-organization will only occur if there are few prior connections between > the elements, indeed he says no more than two. In retrospect, it seems to > make sense. If everything is hardwired in advance how could it self > organize? > Many times when groups of people get together to work things out these > conditions don't hold. (Imagine a meeting in a workplace, either corporate, > academic, etc. in which there are some real disagreements about how to > proceed and some real possibilities of gain or loss of power, resources, > etc.) > > 1. There may not be a relatively safe nutrient environment. Requiring > that as a prerequisite is asking a lot. > 2. There may be high levels of diversity and complexity--although > alliances may form along lines that make things much simpler. > 3. The event may be at the edge of chaos. In many cases the reason for > more formal structures is to avoid falling off that edge into real chaos. > 4. Different people may have different ideas about what improvement > means. That may be the source of the problem. > 5. In some cases pre-existing alliances may exist in which there are > many connections within each camp. > > Then what? > > -- Russ > > On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 6:10 AM, Merle Lefkoff <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Hi Nick, >> >> Open Space Technology is a facilitation methodology even older than you >> and me. (Just kidding--no method is that old.) I've been using it for years >> and participated just last week in a whole conference in Istanbul using the >> technique. At the Madrona Institute we massage it and combine it with >> additional processes to see what it takes to break folks loose from old >> paradigms. One of those old paradigms is the insistence on moving toward >> consensus as a best outcome. In true complexity fashion, we abandon the need >> for agreement. Since Steve is a part of our recent Madrona group, he is >> experiencing a version of OST. >> >> Merle >> >> >> >> >> Nicholas Thompson wrote: >> >>> Everybody, (anybody?), >>> I stumbled on this, yesterday. Note that it cites Kaufmann for it's >>> inspiration. >>> http://www.openspaceworld.com/brief_history.htm >>> It's a system, called for some reason "Open Space Technologies", for >>> organizing meetings and moving toward consensus. >>> My Calvinist curmudgeon nature tends to automatically deplore this sort >>> of thing, (Any time I see chairs arranged in a circle, my first impulse is >>> to run screaming from the room.) But I have to admit, it interested me. The >>> trick is that if there is more than one circle, the group can reorganize >>> spontaneously. I guess people are dragging their chairs around the room. >>> The hedonist in me particularly liked: >>> /The Law is the so called Law of Two Feet, which states simply, if at any >>> time you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor >>> contributing – use your two feet and move to some place more to your liking. >>> Such a place might be another group, or even outside into the sunshine. No >>> matter what, don't sit there feeling miserable. The law, as stated, may >>> sound like rank hedonism, but even hedonism has its place, reminding us that >>> unhappy people are unlikely to be productive people./ >>> // >>> Ah, the years I spent in Department Meetings when I could have been >>> "/outside in the sunshine!"/! >>> I bet Steve Guerin will like: >>> /The lesson from Open Space is a simple one. The only way to bring an >>> Open Space gathering to its knees is to attempt to control it. It may, >>> therefore, turn out that the one thing we always wanted (control) is not >>> only unavailable, but unnecessary. After all, if order is for free we could >>> afford being out of control and love it. Emergent order appears in Open >>> Space when the conditions for self organization are met. Perhaps we can now >>> relax, and stop working so hard./ >>> Anybody out there have any experience with it? >>> Nick >>> Nicholas S. Thompson >>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, >>> Clark University ([email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>) >>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>< >>> http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/> >>> http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe] >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >>> >> >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >> > >
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