Christine,
A favorite story about heroes and special guests
of mine: The Parents Union from an elementary
school here sponsored an OS inviting parents,
teachers, staff, some principles from other
elementary schools and members of the Education
Dept. Five special expert guests arrived, they
were presented with flowers for their lapels as
is customary here, and all joined the circle
(down low on elementary school size chairs). The
sponsor began by saying what an exciting day it
was, people were very eager to begin their topic
conversations, but they wanted to especially
welcome and honor the guests who had contributed
so much to education, etc, etc, so she would ask
each to say something to the group. And they
each had 1 minute to do that (with a very big
smile!). At the end of 1 minute she thanked #1,
passed the mic to #2, and so on. And everyone
clapped loudly. They were caught off guard but
actually looked relieved and pleased enough to
stay around for the OS to get going, which is not
the custom.
Looking forward to your report!
Gail
Chris - Being the odd duck that I am - I must
confess that I have never seen a situation where
Open Space was not appropriate. For sure I have
encountered times/places when people didn't want
to do it, were afraid of doing it - but at the
end of the day, and no matter what they did, it
would still be Open Space. This would be true
even if they chose the most draconian,
dictatorial, lockstep form of facilitation
possible. Ridiculous? Possibly, but if all
systems (organizations) are open and self
organizing (as I think) then that fascist
facilitator is ultimately a product of his/her
and the group's shared delusion that somebody is
actually in charge! Still Open Space - just done
poorly. Actually, given the level of anxiety and
frustration usually present in such situations,
it is worse than just "poorly." Probably closer
to the massive sub-optimization of the human
potential in that group.
Or how about another strange thought? - No
matter how frustrating a particular OS may be
("waste of time and money") it is still useful
if you understand that every Open Space is like
a Rorschach Test. Since there is no
predetermined content or meaning, What you see
is what you Got. Or put another way, "Whatever
happens is the only thing that could have."
Just imagine -- you do the Open Space and a
group of lethargic, backbiting, nasty people
spend their time doing nothing and/or pillaring
each other. Unpleasant for sure but clearly this
is an organization ready for a funeral. So get
out your shovel and prayer book! Nasty business,
but useful.
ho
Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Dr.
Potomac, MD 20854
USA
Phone 301-365-2093
www.openspaceworld.com
www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)
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From: OSLIST
[mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Chris Corrigan
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 6:15 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: open space and heros
Christine...
I don't have much more to add to what Lisa has
said here, except to sya that my own experience
has borne out the fact that high levels of
diversity are a good thing and in fact if you
have high levels of diversity in the room, OST
is a very good process because it allows the
resilience in the container to hold the passion
that goes with that diversity.
Giving people different levels of status in OST
is not something I would ever do. The fact is
that everyone has various bits and pieces of
status because of their history and
contributions and that is all going to be in the
room. But I would never organize structure
around it - such as a "scientific committee."
The closest I have come is having indigenous
Elders sitting at tables near the middle of the
room while 150 people talked about an indigenous
child welfare organization. The Elders also
convened sessions, but they had a space in the
room that was theirs and throughout the day
people came to visit with them. I would do that
in the context of your meeting though. In fact
the wise ones may actually be happy with just
being treated like everyone else.
As for the fears, it is very difficult to engage
in the "what if..." kind of hypothetical
questions. You would be hard pressed to bring
me an unsubstantiated fear that I have not
actually experienced in Open Space...what if no
one posts a session? Been there. What if
someone gets angry? Yup. What happens if a
small group tries to take the process over?
Check. THe more tied you are to your own
outcomes, the harder these situations will be to
deal with. And if you are severley constrained
by your own pre-determined outcomes, beyond even
reasonable givens, you shouldn't really be using
Open Space.
My learnings in all of these cases is that it
worked out. It wasn't always nice or fun, and
occasionally it was a waste of time and money.
I'm not going to kid you that challenging
situations can always be resolved by simply
using Open Space. This can be very hard work.
But if I could guarantee that everything we did
was going to go perfectly we wouldn't need to
meet would we? Dealing with complex groups of
humans always has the risk that things will be
different than we expect. Prepare to be
surprised, because most of the time in Open
Space, most people's expectations are exceeded.
Just don't panic, and if you get confused or
ambushed, stop and ask everyone the question:
what's going on here? And then open space.
Sending you great good wishes.
Chris
----
Chris Corrigan
<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
http://www.chriscorrigan.com
On 2010-11-29, at 6:12 AM, christine koehler wrote:
Hi to all
I am working with a group that wants to organize
a open space event in a highly "political"
context : Theme is very sensitive, has been
discussed for years by all actors without any
results except fights and division. But now
context has changed and they feel that if they,
actors of the system, don't work together now
and suggest something very quicly, the law will
do it for them without them...
Yet it took them some time to agree to go for
OST. Their fear is great : they fear that some
actors in the system will take advantage of the
event for their own interest. They also fear
that "wise men (and women)" who were pionners in
their field but now do not act any more but talk
talk talk , will take advantage of the event to
talk and bring the audience somewhere else.
Interesting fears, aren't they ? I'd love to have your opinion on those.;
Regarding the first fear : they choose not to
invite one specific person as co-inviter with
them. There was a strong veto from one of the
co-inviter, saying that working with this person
had been one of the worst experience in his life
and that he won't do that again. As this
co-inviter is probably one of the most active in
the group (he DOES the work), I think his
request was accepted as a given.
Yet now the group fears that this
(not-invited-as-co-inviter) person, who has a
strong influence base, might come with lots of
his people at the event and influence the whole
result..
The risk is that they limit the number of
participants to X people per organization
(or/and whatever criteria they choose).
My question : did you experience a situation
where a person, not invited as a co-inviter
because too difficult to deal with, has
"spoiled"an OS event ? I wonder if the risk is
real (if so I'd challenge the group and have him
included as a co-inviter) or if I just let them
go with people they really want to work with...
Their second fear concerns the wise persons (who are also "big egos" ;-))
They don't want them as co-inviters, but they
want them somewhere. These people are the
"heroes" of this community, but they are not so
young now , and are not so active anymore in
doing things. They talk about offering them to
join a "scientific committee" or something like
this. I don't like the idea of "scientific
committee" in the context of an OS event, but
don't have any better idea. What do you suggest ?
They also fear that they invide the space during
the creation of the agenda. All of those wise
persons, I was told, can, with the help of a
mic, bring a group wherever they want and talk
for hours. Especially if they are all in the
same room (because none of them wants to speak
less than the others...)
Any suggestion to me, as facilitator , to avoid
use of mic as a tribune without being rude to
their heroes ?
Christine Koehler
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Gail West
ICA
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8862) 2871-3150
SKYPE gwestica
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