Friends, I wanted to share something from the OD World Summit that took place in Budapest last week - http://www.odworldsummit.org. I was honored to be asked to do a "master class" on OST and to be part of an opening plenary to bring an OST perspective.
The others speaking were: * Sandra Janoff on Future Search * Diana Whitney on Appreciative Inquiry * Janet Fiero on America Speaks/Twentieth Century Town Hall * John Nkum on the Gestalt approach to Organization Development * Joseph Melnick on Gestalt, the Cape Code model * Sari van Poelje on Transactional Analysis * Bo Gyllenpalm on the World Cafe We were each asked to speak to the question: What are the three most important ways that our practice (e.g., OST/self-organizing) has influenced the field? I tried to send my thoughts to the OS list for comment before the event. For some reason, the message wouldn't go through. So instead, I'll tell you what I chose to say about OST: Open Space Technology made explicit the notion that everything is self-organizing. OST offers a pathway for productively working with the dynamics of self-organization. OST re-defines the role of the facilitator. No longer the expert in the front of the room, but “totally present and completely invisible”. Rather than a facilitator who intervenes, the OST practitioner opens a welcoming space for self-organization to emerge. OST provides a profound invitation to people to work from passion and responsibility. Or, as I usually say it, to take responsibility for what they love. Not just during an OS event, but as a life practice, when we pay attention to passion and responsibility, the good of the individual and the good of the collective are both served. This seems a contradiction. Some have told me that they thought this behavior was selfish. Just the opposite is true. It takes people to a deeper place. When we operate by taking responsibility for what we love, we touch the part of us that connects to a deeper stream from which we all draw. In practice, when we each bring our full-voiced selves, a differentiation occurs from which novel patterns that draw from all facets of a system emerge. In the process, individual passion helps us discover our fit as a greater whole. All in all, ODWS was great fun - about 350 people from 30 countries. back in Seattle, Peggy _________________________________ Peggy Holman [email protected] 15347 SE 49th Place Bellevue, WA 98006 425-746-6274 www.peggyholman.com www.journalismthatmatters.org Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity www.engagingemergence.com The Change Handbook www.thechangehandbook.com "An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get burnt, is to become the fire". -- Drew Dellinger * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
