Michael,
Thanks for your reply; I like this conversation.
My current beliefs summarized:
1/ The culture of the org is a game. It is goal-seeking, it has rules.
It delivers feedback. It is opt-in, because you can quit the org. (See
www.TheCultureGame.com)
2/ OST is a pre-fabricated meeting format with excellent game
properties. It is well formed. It is optimized on manifesting up-spirit,
as described in the SPIRIT book. Spirit is a topic beyond the scope of
this thread
3/ Leaders choose to play OST. Or not. If the Facilitator stays true to
OST, the leader opts-in-or-opts-out to occupying the Sponsor role and
actually going all the way with OST (self-selection, all issues on the
table). This amounts to opting-in to play the OST game.
4/ Org culture is a game. Games in orgs are nested. Thus a meeting is a
small finite game bounded by time and space inside the org's wider
culture-game-space. Orgs contain collections of meetings. As a general
rule, most meetings reflect the containing ambient culture; authentic
OST meetings are a notable exception. An OST meeting has at least the
potential to change the culture in the culture-game-space of the org.
5/ There is no 'real' and 'game' distinction. All real work is a game.
The real work and the meeting are one and the same: games.
However, the game of the org (per McGonigal) is not well formed. Goals
are unclear. Rules are not uniformly applied. Self-selection gets
"managed". Spirit gets dampened. Meetings are not opt-in. Disengagement
becomes a rational response and a grave consequence of the poorly formed
game. Etc. OST has none of these warts. It's a good game, one that's fun
to play.
www.gaminghappiness.com
On 10/6/13 2:28 PM, Michael Herman wrote:
what your quoting suggests to me, dan, is a distinction akin to what
i've already shared about tools/techniques versus practice.
in another message you've suggested rules, feedback etc, and defined
ost as a game. what i hear harrison saying in the quoting here,
though, suggests that organization is the game.
My current belief: The culture of the org is a game. It is goal-seeking,
it has rules. It delivers feedback. It is opt-in, because you can quit
the org. (See www.TheCultureGame.com)
ost is a strategy, a style of play, a gambit, or something inside of
that game.
My current belief: It's a meeting. Good meetings are well-formed games
according the McGonigal definition found inside the book REALITY IS
BROKEN, page 22.
it's a way we choose to play. (when i go look it up to be sure, i
think when you're calling ost a game, i think gambit might be the
better word.)
My current belief: Yes, leaders opt-in to occupying the Sponsor role and
actually going all the way with OST (self-selection, all issues on the
table)
this helps explain, at least to myself, why calling open space itself
a game seems too small. it seems to remove open space from the larger
context, and in doing so, the practice loses it's reason for being.
it never exists on its own, for it's own sake... always we "do it"
for some purpose. the chasing of that purpose is the game. if we
make open space a game, we give up our license to comment on the
larger game that is organization, software development, or whatever.
in other words, my sense is that if the languaging of these things
makes ost a "game" and organization/software/whatever is "real" --
then ost becomes significantly limited in what it can do to change
what i see as the real game, the bigger field of play.
My current belief: Games in orgs are nested. Thus a meeting is a small
finite game bounded by time and space inside the org's wider
culture-game-space. As a general rule, most meetings reflect the
containing ambient culture, authentic OST meetings are a notable exception.
i don't know this for sure, but this is my hunch. it also may be that
this story works better in software circles, where the actual work,
much of it done by people glued to computer screens, looks more like
some kinds of gaming. this context would make the split between real
work and gaming less pronounced.
My current belief: All real work is a game. However, the game is not
well formed. Goals are often unclear. Rules are not uniformly applied to
all. Self-selection gets "managed". Etc.
i'm all for it, if and wherever it works. and my guess is that it
doesn't translate immediately, cleanly, and effectively to all kinds
of work. but then again, almost story does translate easily and
effectively to every/any context.
m
--
Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
312-280-7838 (mobile)
http://MichaelHerman.com
http://OpenSpaceWorld.org
On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 10:44 AM, Skye Hirst <sk...@autognomics.org
<mailto:sk...@autognomics.org>> wrote:
I guess I want to play in this "game". Feedback implies
mechanistic processes that have been identified through cause and
effect responses. This is where we get into trouble. Life is not
machine like, in any way. It is complex and not complicated as a
set of gears and cogs can become if there are too many trying to
interact. However processes of living require new metaphors to
capture or even point to the "game" of living process where each
entity and combination of entities initiate to form a group,
organization or society and have formed to "experience
satisfaction" or find effective actions separately and together.
The constraints emerge from what the individuals and the
collective discover as useful temporary rules of the moment - they
can take habit if they are useful beyond the moment. Some where
in the process someone decides to "name" the rule, the process
and everyone nods in agreement to call what they have shared in
common by "that word" (i.e. jargon) Then someone else comes along
who perhaps was not in the experience and take up the name and
they pass it along as the "rule" that must be the container for
that process and try to create the same process starting with the
rule instead of the initiating impulse to come together.
Well I think you can see an ephemeral organic process that is ever
changing gets bogged down with words, the names and with labels,
however useful they may be for a bit. GAme on, as they say,
yet, all I'm suggesting is that we stop trying to name, and
control with naming a process beyond anything but pointers we can
use to share a common experience - each of us forming it each time
uniquely with both particular and universal operatives. Unique to
the entities in the forming circle, the space time event forming
the circle and so on and so on
On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 10:41 AM, Daniel Mezick <d...@newtechusa.net
<mailto:d...@newtechusa.net>> wrote:
Hi Harold,
In THE CULTURE GAME book I make the radical/heretical claim
that culture is a game...and every meeting...a game.... and in
fact every interaction... is a game.
In the book there are examples that support the idea that all
meetings are games.
According to this theory, if OST is a type of meeting, then
OST is a type of game.
Games have: Goal, Rules, Feedback mechanisms, Opt-in
Participation.
The OST Game:
The Goal:
Explore the Theme-Question.
The Rules:
1 Law, 4/5 Principles, some defined Roles, a few other
suggestions. A supporting slogan...
The Feedback Mechanics:
Continuous, rich feedback via all of the senses, in real time
for each individual and group-as-a-whole.
Opt-In Participation:
YES
By these measures, OST is a beautifully designed meeting-game.
Here is a specific quote from your message, below:
"But I'd never heard anyone describe Open Space Technology as
a beautifully designed game before."
The reality is that Harrison mentions the word [game] when
discussing High Play & High Learning as it pertains to
self-organizing social systems... it shows up in the book Wave
Rider. OST encourages a social system to reach higher levels
of self-organization...Hmmm.
Here is the quote (emphasis added...):
"...High play is the antidote to dogmatic thinking & therefore
an essential companion to High Learning. It is also fun. In
'X" Company, PLAY is strictly prohibited, for after all there
is work to be done and it is always very serious. Even worse,
PLAY, almost by definition, is out of control- which is what
makes if fun. Can you imagine anything worse than PLAYING A
GAME where the results are already known in advance? Boring! "
-H.O., Wave Rider, page 132
On 9/4/13 6:23 PM, Harold Shinsato wrote:
Dan,
Thank you for forwarding that interview. I've worked with
your interviewer Amr Elssamadisy before in Dr. Christopher
Avery's "Leadership Gift" program. Great to hear his voice.
Thought he did a great job bringing forward your insights.
It's hard for me to express how deeply your thinking aligned
with what I see as the essence of Open Space, and what I feel
emerging in my own psyche and that in the collective when we
spoke and I got to be present at your session in Nashville at
Agile 2013 last month. I continue to find your material to be
a critical piece in helping bridge the Open Space and Agile
communities - something Peggy Holman called "Sister
Communities" at the World Open Space on Open Space in St.
Petersburg back in May.
I'd heard your thinking before and it continues to astound me
the relevance and power in getting these two communities to
work together.
Open Space truly is the "secret sauce" making possible
successful Agile adoptions. The science behind this awareness
goes deep. The timing of it feels like perfection. You seem
to be getting just the right audiences to engage with this
idea. And what you posted earlier in terms of a framework for
adoption involving interspersed Open Space events to help
promote agency and engagement - very exciting. Very simple.
Truly elegant. And phrased in a way the holders of the bottom
line can "get it".
What's new about your stuff?
Perhaps it's been mentioned before - but here are some points
I find most critical.
1) The Mandate. Perhaps Open Space Technology came out of
Organizational Development (and Organizational
Transformation). But most attempts to transform the
organization that I've seen have been "rolled out". Kind of
like a steam roller. It's definitely mandated. You went into
great depth in your Agile 2013 presentation how Mandated
Agile goes fundamentally against the values and principles in
the Agile Manifesto. Open Space can help us bring back the
original thinking of the signatories of the Agile Manifesto.
2) Games and engagement. Jane McGonigal's book "Reality Is
Broken", and the whole arena of Gamification, has become a
focal point of driving home ideas from positive psychology,
and is also driving many huge wheels of industry (and
dollars). Because getting people excited about using your
products is important. Getting employees excited about
contributing to your products - also critical. But I'd never
heard anyone describe Open Space Technology as a beautifully
designed game before. This perception I think plays directly
with the TOOL versus PHILOSOPHY debate in our community.
3) Agency. This might have been a significant idea as well in
Paolo Friere's book - "The Pedagogy of the Oppressed".
Without people feeling like they have some say in how they
apply their blood, sweat, and tears - engagement is not going
to happen. Open Space is a critical way to nurture agency in
people.
I'm so thankful that you've started posting on the OSList and
I look forward to how things unfold. From what I see you
saying, and how I see people are hearing you, it seems as if
we're on target for a much more explicit chapter in the
relationship between the Agile and Open Space "sister
communities".
Thanks!
Harold
On 9/4/13 2:37 PM, Daniel Mezick wrote:
Here's a 16-minute video that explains the crisis of
disengagement in Agile adoptions, and how the time to act
was yesterday, and how Open Space can help...
http://www.infoq.com/interviews/dan-mezick-qcon-new-york-2013
--
Daniel Mezick, President
New Technology Solutions Inc.
--
Harold Shinsato
har...@shinsato.com <mailto:har...@shinsato.com>
http://shinsato.com
twitter: @hajush <http://twitter.com/hajush>
--
Daniel Mezick, President
New Technology Solutions Inc.
(203) 915 7248 <tel:%28203%29%20915%207248> (cell)
Bio <http://newtechusa.net/dan-mezick/>. Blog
<http://newtechusa.net/blog/>. Twitter
<http://twitter.com/#%21/danmezick/>.
Examine my new book:The Culture Game
<http://newtechusa.net/about/the-culture-game-book/>: Tools
for the Agile Manager.
Explore Agile Team Training
<http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-training/> and
Coaching. <http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-coaching/>
Explore the Agile Boston
<http://newtechusa.net//user-groups/ma/>Community.
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(203) 915 7248 (cell)
Bio <http://newtechusa.net/dan-mezick/>. Blog
<http://newtechusa.net/blog/>. Twitter <http://twitter.com/#%21/danmezick/>.
Examine my new book:The Culture Game
<http://newtechusa.net/about/the-culture-game-book/>: Tools for the
Agile Manager.
Explore Agile Team Training
<http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-training/> and Coaching.
<http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-coaching/>
Explore the Agile Boston <http://newtechusa.net//user-groups/ma/>Community.
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