Thanks for this, it feels like this observation gets to the heart of
the matter.
Denise
On Jun 3, 2010, at 1:40 PM, Michael Herman wrote:
i have a teacher who likes to put little reminders on pencils and
pass them around. one of my favorite pencils says: "really easy
is often quite difficult."
i think this is true of open space. i've seen a number of
situations where the facilitator or the process itself was assumed
to be a bit of magic, so nobody needed to do much else to make it
happen. this makes all kinds of large and small "failures"
possible -- all owing to some lapses in the quality of attention,
awareness, relationship.
somebody once told me that carl rogers (some sort of psychologist,
i think) used to listen so intently that he would often break out
in a sweat -- just listening to someone. sometimes i think open
space takes this sort of quality or intensity of attention... or
maybe of awareness. that the heart is this active, even if the
body is apparently doing nothing. like when so many muscles are
engaged in walking a balance beam, or timing a jump. actively
pulsing, checking, on and off, holding and releasing, inviting and
reporting.
i'd guess a fair number of "failures" have their roots in
forgetting that os is this sort of active practice, even if a lot
of the action is not outwardly visible or dramatic or difficult.
weirdenss seems to flow from gaps in clarity, in attention, in
awareness, in relationship. not so much, i think, from gaps in
actual outer logistics.
m
--
Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
http://www.michaelherman.com
http://www.ronanparktrail.com
http://www.chicagoconservationcorps.org
http://www.openspaceworld.org
312-280-7838 (mobile)
On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 12:07 PM, VISUELLE PROTOKOLLE <mail@visuelle-
protokolle.de> wrote:
Harrison and all,
Another example of an OS that went terribly wrong:
It was a factory producing printing machines, both in Eastern and
western Germany, and the participants were mixed from both areas.
We had the o.k. from the four directors, to whom we had illustrated
what to expect, and a final conference after the OS was already
determined. One of the directors, the one who seemed to be the most
employee-oriented, was choosen to say some words at the end of the
OS. Our partner in the company was a young man from HR, very
active, with good contacts to the directors. So he insisted that he
should brief the director what to say at the end of OS.
Everything went fine. The groups worked with joy and enthusiasm. We
accompanied the whole OS with 3 people visualizing everything, and
that was a big success, because everybody could see what had
happened everywhere. After we had shown the pictures in a final
slideshow, the director stood up and destroyed everything within 5
minutes. He said that he was disappointed, had expected other
outcomes, and that the managers wood have a hard time to use some
of the results.
That was the end of the project for us, but much worse all the
participants were angry and a big chance was lost for the company.
Of course the mistake was to let the young HR-man brief the director.
Reinhard
Reinhard Kuchenmüller
Dr. Marianne Stifel
VISUELLE PROTOKOLLE
Kuchenmüller & Stifel
+39-0566-88 929
www.visuelle-protokolle.de
Am 03/06/10 18:12 schrieb "Ralph Copleman" unter
<[email protected]>:
Harrison and all,
I've had a few that sort of fell flat.
One involved a group concerned about availability of services for
senior citizens across an entire US state. Two-thirds of the room
consisted of seniors themselves and, frankly, a lot of them ran out
of energy about an hour after lunch. So they sat around, a number
slumping in chairs with eyes closed.
Another involved an exploration of customer service issues for an
airline. Lots of corporate leaders from the airline present, along
with their booking agents (this pre-dates internet booking sites),
frequent flyer customers, and corporate travel execs who make
travel policy for their companies. A great mix, actually. We were
set to go from 8:00 a.m to 4:00. About 2:00, a group of
participants more or less seized control of the meeting somehow (I
wasn't in the room when it occurred) and got everyone to agree to
shorten the meeting by a full hour. When I returned at 3:00,
someone simply informed me, and asked that I begin the closing
circle. So that's what I did. I never found out what actually
happened.
Not sure how to think about that last one, since I never found out
how it all developed, but the following one is more like a true
failure.
I was asked to convene a two-day open space gathering for about 200
folks from around the US. It would be the annual meeting of an
association of a certain type of public health officer (cannot
recall the details). The whole thing was pretty dead from the
outset –– I mean 200 people posting a total of only 15 sessions for
two whole days!? I found out the theme was all wrong. The
planning committee chose an idea that turned out to have no juice
for the association's members. I had spent hours in conference
calls with the leadership group and the planning committee, and
they'd assured me that the idea they chose was at the heart of the
challenges facing them and their organizations. Turns out that was
dead wrong. Nobody else cared. I don't know how I might have seen
through this situation ahead of time.
I essentially agree with you, H. If the conditions are
appropriate, it will work. But, if the three experiences above
teach me anything, it's clear that stuff can always happens.
Ralph Copleman
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