Dear Artur, Thank you for reading so carefully my reporting out of my ongoing experiment with Open Space Technology and organizational design/life… and of course your thoughtful comments. On my path with this, which is not the only one of course, I continue to be excited by what we are learning. Basically, I am having a grand adventure with this experimenting and there are extraordinary leaders who are in the same boat with me.
I believe that all organizations are Open Space Organizations, even if Spirit is hiding in what appears to be a closed system. If this were not the case, an Open Space Technology meeting would not work. And we all know that the good news is that OST works…every time. OST does not create something new in an organization…it simply creates an opening like a window, to see what is already present. I think in terms of the ‘remembering organization’ rather than ‘self organizing system’ as I believe we know so much more than we currently have conscious access to. I find this to be a useful story and it is a grand way to approach my consulting work to achieve extraordinary results. I am pretty big on ‘conscious’ awareness of something as great as the fact that the organization under all of it’s stuff, is really an Open Space Organization. And yes, dear Artur, I am aware that we have different points of view on this. I hope the one you are having is as much of an adventure as the one I am working with. And over time, we can share some stories, and both of us will be richer for it. Warmly, Birgitt From: Artur Silva [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, August 19, 2011 7:23 AM To: World wide Open Space Technology email list Subject: Re: [OSList] the Conscious Open Space Organization revisited and renamed Hello Open Spacers: I am still on holiday with bad access to the Internet, but today I came to a small village nearby that have an Internet spot, and the post bellow got my attention. I remember many past discussions in the OSLIST on the concept of "Open Space Organization" - OSO (also called at the time "InterActive Organization" - name that I never liked, as it can be applied to many other things) but never could understand why they should be called "Conscious OSO's". If I recall well, the main argument it is that all organizations are OSO's. I think they are not - many organizations that I know are quite "closed"! Of course, self-organization (a concept that some of us have difficulty in understanding) is everywhere, even in "closed organizations". IMHO, that is the reason why, if the appropriate "foundations" are respected, an Open Space event is possible… But no one calls it a "Conscious Open Space event"... So an organization that regularly uses OS meetings to manage their business can be called an "Open Space Organization". No need for the word Conscious, IMHO. But this message is quite surprising. Now the Open Space community (that is organized mainly around this list) is informed that a different group has decided to change the name, and - if I understood well - there is an implicit suggestion that we all should adopt the new designation. But, being OST (by decision of its initiator clearly stated in the User’s Guide), nor trademarked, neither copyrighted, and having no certification process, shall we change for a definition of a different group that combined OST with other methods and trademarked the result? I have continued (and will continue) to use the OSO expression. On another hand I have been told that there are many OSO's, or COSO's (or even GCO's) but never have been informed of one, that is not a group of friends or a NGO, but it is a company or even a department of a Public Administration. As I continue to try to research if and how an OSO has more learning capacities as different types of organizations, I would be grateful if someone could give me references that I can quote or, even better, that I can contact by mail to make a few questions about their openness and their learning processes. Best regards Artur From: Birgitt Williams <[email protected]> To: 'World wide Open Space Technology email list' <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2011 9:09 PM Subject: [OSList] the Conscious Open Space Organization revisited and renamed Dear friends and colleagues, This morning I was thinking of Anne Stadler, a dear friend who has mentored several of us to follow our passion. I fondly remember a number of gatherings in her living room in Seattle, Washington that included fabulous people. She held (and likely still holds) what used to be the ‘salon’, intended for engagement and emergence of great ideas when interesting people come together. One of those things I know and appreciate about Anne…she likes people who she deems as interesting. In those days in the early 1990’s, there was a lot of thought and inspiration about how to move OST into the world. There was also a lot of thought exchanged based on my experimentation with what I came to call the first intentional Conscious Open Space Organization. Information of my journey with the Conscious Open Space Organization is archived on this list in my posts as Birgitt Bolton and Birgitt Williams, so no need to get into that incredible journey here. Suffice it to say that concepts such as using ‘givens’ in organizations that make frequent use of OST meetings in the organization emerged, rapidly, thanks to my very insightful staff who were, as far as I know, the first staff group who were in frequent OST meetings as part of our daily life as an organization. We learned a lot and I shared a lot with this community. Other activities emerged from those great conversations in Anne’s living room…Peggy Holman was the one person I remember as always there too…included the formation of the Open Space Institute model, with a focus on what we needed to do in Canada as different than what was needed in the USA. And another outcome was the Spirited Work group, which became an incubator group that met at Whidbey Institute, out of which emerged incredible creations including the inspiration for Peggy’s book Engaging Emergence. They are having another gathering http://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?EventID=969890 . I wanted to report to this list the current learning and status of the Conscious Open Space Organization. The basics, as described over time, are still the same. The name changed in 2009, as agreed upon by the co-owners of the Genuine Contact program. As a community of professionals who work with the Genuine Contact program, we were invested in the Conscious Open Space Organization, its use and its development…and so to change the name required a community decision. I initiated the Conscious Open Space Organization and so I felt inspired to be the one to identify that the name was causing us problems and that we needed a different name. The Conscious Open Space Organization includes a number of key ingredients, framed by a liberating structure and a participatory architecture requiring a culture of leadership. There is structure with clear distinction between what is open and what is not open to change, keeping the latter to a minimum. These organizations make frequent use of OST and other participatory meeting methods. What I proposed and what was agreed to was the change of the name from Conscious Open Space Organization to Genuine Contact Organization. Here is why. Originally, I had created the name ‘Conscious Open Space Organization’ because the way of understanding the Conscious Open Space Organization is to understand both the form and essence of a singular Open Space Technology meeting…in other words, they are quite linked. I am now taking the leadership of recommending the name change because while the community of people who work with Open Space Technology might understand what is intended with the Conscious Open Space Organization, we have found that with our client groups, there is mis-understanding. We have had a serious situation in which staff of a client organization assumed that everything within a Conscious Open Space Organization became open and when they discovered that some space was still closed by senior management, many bad feelings emerged. The real purpose of ‘Conscious’ Open Space Organization was to understand at an organization wide level what is open and what is closed, so that the energy is not wasted on what is closed. And so, I am no longer feeling that the name ‘Conscious Open Space Organization’ serves our clients well. When I analyzed this further, it became clear to me that what the space is being opened for results in genuine contact in the way that we do it, and so it seems more accurate at this time to shift beyond what was determined historically by me, and to move on to something that seems to be more accurate after working with this for some twelve years. We have had an interesting journey with what is now called the Genuine Contact Organization (GCO). The beginning point of becoming a GCO in any organization is a single OST meeting, and then a real desire by senior leadership to lead their organization in such a way that the high quality and quantity of the OST meeting and its results is experienced on a daily basis in the organization even when not in an OST meeting. And indeed, people experience genuine contact with self, with each other, and with the collective (whole). Birgitt Birgitt Williams President and Senior Consultant, Dalar International Consultancy <http://www.dalarinternational.com/> Author, The Genuine Contact Way <http://www.genuinecontactway.com/> 919-522-7750 The Look Lo Res.jpg AW104 GCP Logo Yellow w Blue Back.jpgCo-Owner of the Genuine Contact™ Program <http://www.genuinecontact.net/> rss.pngGenuine Contact Way <http://blog.genuinecontactway.com/> blog <http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Genuine-Contact-Way/241784543761?ref=ts> cid:[email protected] Become a fan <http://www.facebook.com/genuinecontactway> of the Genuine Contact Way <http://twitter.com/genuinecontact> cid:[email protected] Follow me <http://twitter.com/genuinecontact> _______________________________________________ OSList mailing list To post send emails to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] To subscribe or manage your subscription click below: http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
_______________________________________________ OSList mailing list To post send emails to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] To subscribe or manage your subscription click below: http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
