Mmmm. This is offered with the greatest of respect for previous speakers. I am 
not on board with any assertion that an implementation plan for complicated - 
and complex - issues is not hugely valuable. I am not sure if that is what is 
being said here... It may be semantics.
I would see many activities - building a bridge is the current example - where 
a robust concept, design and implementation plan is crucial to enabling an 
outcome that meets requirements: Safety. Performance. Longevity. Good plans are 
always the outcome of an extensive process of collaboration between diverse 
groups and individuals. They don't always get along. There is frequently 
disagreement and much iteration to work out the optimal way forward. This 
process continues every day right through the project to when you cut the red 
ribbon declaring it open. 
Is this process of collaboration what you are thinking of here when you talk 
about 'open space all the way'?
I would just see that as part of good project management.   ????  
I think my question/issue here is that my concept of 'self-organising' is 
somewhat separate from project management which I see as a process that, if 
well designed and executed, ensures that all the key voices are heard and taken 
account of, and then takes a disciplined approach to making sure all the myriad 
of required actions actually takes place. 
Bronwyn


: [email protected]: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 17:47:20 -0400
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [OSList] Management and Organization

Nothing ever happens according to the plan. And OS helps with those elements 
that take us by surprise. 


-- CHRIS CORRIGANHarvest Moon ConsultantsFacilitation, Open Space Technology 
and process design 
Check www.chriscorrigan.com for upcoming workshops, blog posts and free 
resources. 


On Jul 22, 2014, at 5:06 PM, "Harrison Owen" <[email protected]> wrote:

Chris – I love your story, but I guess you have never built a bridge. Neither 
have I. But I have been involved in a whole mess of large construction projects 
(The CIA, Dulles International, etc) and I can tell you NOTHING ever happened 
according to The Plan. Open Space the whole way! Harrison Winter Address7808 
River Falls DrivePotomac, MD 20854301-365-2093 Summer Address189 Beaucaire 
Ave.Camden, ME 04843207-763-3261 Websites 
www.openspaceworld.comwww.ho-image.comOSLIST To subscribe, unsubscribe, change 
your options, view the archives of OSLIST Go 
to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org From: 
OSList [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of 
[email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2014 2:58 PM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Management and Organization I seek simplicity in trying 
to describe where and how Open Space does it’s magic. One of the ways I have 
had excellent success over the years in describing this work is derived from 
David Snowden’s work on the Cynefin framework.   The short story is this: We 
are faced all the time with problems that are basically knowable, and problems 
that aren’t.  Knowable problems mean that with the right knowledge and 
expertise, they can be fixed.  A technical team can come together and analyse 
the causes, work with what’s available and craft a solution.  Then they can get 
an implementation plan in place and go ahead and do it.  These kinds of 
problems have a start line and a finish line.  When you are done, you are done. 
 Building a bridge is one of those kinds of problems.  You build it and there 
is no tolerance for failure.  It needs to be failsafe. Open Space doesn’t work 
well for those kinds of problems because the solution is basically already 
known, or at least knowable.  Then there are problems for which no know 
solution exists, and even if you did get a solution, you can’t really “solve” 
the problem because the problem is due to a myriad of causes and is itself 
emergent. For example, racism.  Look around and you will find very few people 
that identify themselves as racists, but look at the stats for Canadian society 
for example and you see that non-white people are trailing in every indicator 
of societal success.  Essentially you are seeing the results of a racist 
society but no racists anywhere.  This is an emergent problem.  Racism itself 
is a self-organizing phenomenon, notwithstanding the few people that actively 
engineer racist environments.  Such a problem didn’t really start anywhere and 
it can’t really end either.  What is needed is a way of addressing it, moving 
the system away from the negative indicators and towards something else. In 
other words, this is a complex problem.   The way to solve complex problems is 
to create many “strange attractors” around which the system can organize itself 
differently.  Open Space nis the best method I know of for creating such 
strange attractors, as they are born from the passion and responsibility of 
those that want to create change, and they are amplified by people coming 
together to work on these things. It’s “post and host” rather than “command and 
control.”  And because you can’t be sure if things are going to work out, you 
have to adopt a particular mindset to your initiative: one that is “safe to 
fail.”  In other words, if it doesn’t work, you stop doing it.  If it does 
work, you do more of it.  And all the way along you build in learning, so that 
the system can see how change is made and be drawn towards those initiatives 
that are currently making a difference.  Certainly this kind of problem solving 
is not useful for building a bridge, as you cannot afford a failure there.  But 
for problems with no known solutions, it is brilliant.   Harrison has spent 
decades outlining this simplicity in even less words than I have now and his 
writing and thinking is, and continues to be far ahead of it’s time and maybe a 
little under appreciated because it is delivered in simple terms like “don’t 
work so hard.”  But ultimately this is the best and most important advice for 
working in complex systems.   Open Space.  Do it.  Learn. Do it again. Don’t 
work so hard. More than that really starts to build in the delusion that people 
can possibly know what to do.  From that place solutions will be deluded.  That 
they may work is pure luck.  Open Space offers us a disciplined approach to 
addressing complexity in an ongoing way.  Don’t be fooled by its simplicity. 
Chris On Jul 21, 2014, at 6:52 PM, Harrison Owen <[email protected]> wrote:

Love what you are saying... and I think you may be working much too hard. From 
where I sit, the basic reality is that all the World is self-organizing. That 
includes all the stuff we think we “organized.” So the bottom line is – we are 
all self organizing, and some of us are doing it better. Which is to say that 
some folks are struggling to invent what is already happening “all by itself,” 
and others are allowing (appreciating) what is happening all by itself.  For 
me, Open Space is simply a great way of “practicing” what is already happening. 
Even if we think it isn’t. Or something. Harrison Winter Address7808 River 
Falls DrivePotomac, MD 20854301-365-2093 Summer Address189 Beaucaire 
Ave.Camden, ME 04843207-763-3261 
Websiteswww.openspaceworld.comwww.ho-image.comOSLIST To subscribe, unsubscribe, 
change your options, view the archives of OSLIST Go 
to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org From: 
OSList [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of agusj
Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2014 11:25 PM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Management and Organization Hello Harrison, David S and 
David O, I find the thread of this conversation very interesting and inspiring. 
In my opinion, the success of using OS to transform businesses in 
self-organizing organizations depends of the way you do it. It is very 
different to use OS as a means to experience a different way of organization 
than using OS as a means to allow organizations to have an experience of 
themselves from a context of self-organization.  An option of the first 
approach is to use OS as an isolated practice in the "old system". This way 
maybe it can help to fix something, but it is very possible that it is not 
going to make a real difference, if the organization does not transfer in any 
way the underlying conditions of OS to its everyday environment.  An example of 
the second approach is to use OS as a Trojan horse, acting like a hacker. Under 
this scenario, the organization adopt OS as a common practice because its 
effectiveness to solve problems or to foster innovation, or whatever. This way, 
its continued use over time probably generates a new cultural context that 
facilitates the emergence of self-organization. It could take time, but the 
chance that self-organization put down roots is higher than with the first 
approach. AgustinPS - Recently I read a book that shows the cases of some 
organizations that are defying the "old system" very succesfully. The name of 
the book is Reinventing Organizations written  by Frederic Laloux.From: 
Harrison Owen <[email protected]>
To: 'World wide Open Space Technology email list' 
<[email protected]> 
Sent: Wednesday, February 5, 2014 12:09 PM
Subject: Re: [OSList] Management and Organization David, Listen to your 
words... “we're exploring the question of how can we have some structure and 
boundaries and  yet provide space for self-organization. It's hard to find 
models that enable both.” I hate to say it, and you won’t be surprised, but I 
think you are working much too hard. Sounds to me suspiciously like a variant 
of “organizing a self organizing system.” Especially that part about “find(ing) 
models.” The systems you are contemplating (your business and the Association) 
are their own best models. Nothing else will even come close because they are 
unique. And if self organization is anything like I think it is, one of its 
major activities is the creation of “structures and boundaries.” That, by 
definition, is what self organizing systems do, along with a few other things. 
So the key activity for me would be to stop looking for models, and start 
paying careful attention to how your two self organizing systems naturally 
express themselves in structure and form. Initially your task will be 
complicated by all those “other” structures and forms that have been laid on, 
arbitrarily I would say, just because it seemed like a good idea at the time – 
in accord with the latest “models,” or “accepted practice.” After all, we think 
we all know what an organization SHOULD look like.J But there is a way through 
the forest, I think, which is actually the “design principle” I employed in the 
development of Open Space Technology. You’ve heard it before. Think of one more 
thing NOT to do. Just keep striping away those forms and procedures that you 
thought to be essential for your organizations’ function. Don’t try to do it 
all at once, and start with what I might call the low hanging fruit. Those 
things that just get done, even though nobody can remember why. Then notice 
what happens. If something comes back, that is pretty good evidence that it was 
a natural form or structure, and your systems, in their own wisdom, felt the 
need. On the other hand, if it stays gone, just say bye, bye, enjoy the new 
space, and get on with your business. It is true, of course that some 
structures and forms are required by external authorities: Taxes, annual 
reports, and the like. In those situations, I have found it helpful to ask, 
“What is the minimal level of form and structure required to get the job done?” 
For some reason, people seem to make the simplest things unendingly 
complicated. In extremis there is a presumption that if it is simple, it can’t 
be any good. I’ve noticed this on more than one occasion with the public 
perception of OST, especially among those who have never been involved. I 
suppose this has something to do with the Expert Syndrome – if you make it 
complicated enough you will surely require the services of an Expert to help 
you through. For a fee of course. And to be honest, we in the OS community 
sometimes seem to be guilty of the same thing. So there are some suggestions to 
get started. If you want more, and probably more than you want – you might take 
a look at Part II of Wave Rider, “A Wave Rider’s Guide to the Future.” And for 
a slightly different slant see Part IV of the Power of Spirit, “The Care and 
Feeding of the Interactive Organization.” And just to be clear, an Interactive 
Organization is my term for a conscious, self organizing system. HarrisonPS – 
And for the record, all of the above are by yours truly and available from 
Amazon.com and the publisher, Berrett-Koehler. Harrison Owen7808 River Falls 
Dr.Potomac, MD 20854USA 189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)Camden, Maine 04843 Phone 
301-365-2093(summer)  207-763-3261 www.openspaceworld.comwww.ho-image.com 
(Personal Website)To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the 
archives of OSLIST Go 
to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org From: 
[email protected] 
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of David Osborne
Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2014 6:57 PM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Management and Organization Harrison, I had to laugh at 
my own words as I re-read them.. ."support leaders in adopting approaches that 
move toward greater and greater levels of self-organization."    The system of 
course is self-organizing all the time !!!  Opening space enables the system it 
to move closer and closer to high performance versus stuckness, stagnation, 
decline and death.  If I restate what I was trying to express, I think we can 
Open Space in big ways as an OS does and/or in small ways through the openness 
in leadership approaches that provide more space for passion, creativity, 
personal responsibility etc. This is working at the micro-level though versus 
the full paradigm shift you describe. I agree with your description 
whole-heartedly. You raise for me very pragmatic questions. Both in our small 
company, ChangeFusion, and in a global membership organization I'm involved in 
we're exploring the question of how can we have some structure and boundaries 
and  yet provide space for self-organization. it's hard to find models that 
enable both. I'd love to hear if others have suggestions of examples. David  On 
Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 2:54 PM, Harrison Owen <[email protected]> wrote:Hello 
David O. and David S. I’ve re-titled to give the thread a new name if only 
because I think it is headed in some new directions with hopefully a long and 
useful discussion in prospect. This discussion may get a little difficult as we 
attempt to define and understand the words we are using, “Management,” for 
example. I had in mind the more common garden variety of Management’s role in 
organizations. As Wikipedia (that source of all useful information) notes, 
“Despite the move toward workplace democracy, command-and-control organization 
structures remain commonplace as de facto organization structure.” (Wikipedia). 
Back in the old days a common definition of a good manager was one who, “Makes 
the plan, manages to the plan, and meets the plan.” And we all know how that 
was supposed to be done. Single word: Control. Lots of Command and Control. 
David has moved in new, interesting and effective directions saying, “What I 
have found is that as I'm able to share the conditions that support 
self-organization and how they can be integrated into individuals leadership 
approach that the leaders move toward approaches that support greater and 
greater self-organization.” I applaud the effort, but it seems to me it may be 
rather a half step. If I hear David’s words correctly, the fundamental 
understanding of “organization” remains unchanged (predesigned structure and 
controls with Leaders/Managers in charge) and the new effort is to enable 
“leaders (to) move toward approaches that support greater and greater 
self-organization.” Tactically I can certainly understand the approach, but 
what if organization is fundamentally, essentially, in totality – Self 
Organizing? If that is the situation, “greater and greater self organization” 
makes little sense for a very simple reason. It is all self organizing to begin 
with! But I guess that is just splitting hairs, and for sure the heart is 
moving in the right direction. The revolutionary in me (and yes there is some 
of that J) would dearly love to shake the organizational world by the scruff of 
the neck saying something like, Move on, Wake up! You just can’t get there from 
here. And for a certainty, such an approach would have no chance of success. 
There needs to be a change in view, I am sure -- but forced change, were it 
even possible, falls back on the old way which wasn’t effective then and won’t 
work now. And there is another way which unfortunately requires some patient 
waiting. But we may not have to wait that long. It is a very common lament -- 
that, “things just aren’t working.” What “things” and the nature of their 
dysfunction are often left unsaid, but the universal uneasiness is pretty 
clear. To date, the usual response has been to do more and more of what we’ve 
always done, but maybe with a different name (Quality Circles, Process 
Re-Engineering, Dialogue, maybe even AGILE when mandated etc.). The results 
have not been inspiring. Some would even include Open Space Technology as a new 
tool. But I don’t think that works either if the intent is to fix the old 
system. As the lament continues, some strange things are happening. Every now 
and again something actually WORKS! And it works even when the plans are 
busted, the leadership is incompetent, the environment sour and threatening. 
Who knows how or why – but it worked. The Brits usually call this Muddling 
Through, which is what happens when everything goes a different way than it was 
supposed to – but it all turns out fine. Phew! There is another name for this 
strange phenomenon. Anomaly. Anomaly literally means being outside the law 
(lawless) from the Greek a (without) nomos (law).  Anomalies cause one to 
scratch the head in wonder...How on earth could THAT happen? Most often, we 
just pass them by with a dismissive, “weird!” I think that is a mistake. Peter 
Vaill, an old friend and colleague, had a knack for seriously noticing 
anomalies. He observed that some organizations performed at levels of 
excellence that definitely blew away the competition. He called them High 
Performing Systems. The problem was, these systems broke all the rules of how 
organizations were supposed to work. As a Professor of Management, Peter could 
be accused of a flawed effort because instead of attempting to analyze how they 
worked, Peter contented himself with a delightful description of what they did, 
which he captured in a short paper (1977), The Behavioral Characteristics of 
High Performing Systems. I say delightful because he wrote in a totally 
colloquial fashion, and definitely not in the style of Academe, even though he 
was the (then) Dean of the Business School at George Washington University. 
Writing almost 10 years before Open Space Technology, Peter seems prescient, 
for his “Behavioral Characteristics” are a perfect description of the common 
behavior at every Open Space I have ever seen. Taking a tall leap in logic, I 
have argued (Wave Rider) that the link between Peter’s High Performing Systems, 
and what we have experienced in Open Space is the phenomenon of self 
organization. Or put somewhat differently, High Performing Systems are well 
functioning self organizing systems. And in function and effect they are 
definitely anomalous for according to the accepted wisdom, they simply could 
not happen or do what they do! On the subject of Anomaly and the importance of 
same, the work of Thomas Kuhn comes to mind. Author of, “The Structures of 
Scientific Revolutions,” Kuhn gave us that wonderful concept, “paradigm,” as in 
Paradigm Shift. As an historian of Science, Kuhn describes how the scientific 
world grew in wisdom and stature, passing through several understandings of the 
nature of things, on the way to new (and presumably better) ones. That passage 
he called, Paradigm Shifts. According to his story, the scientific  or learned 
community held a certain view of reality for a period of time, which worked 
very well, and seemed to explain most, if not all, of the phenomenon of their 
experience. This view (paradigm) was taken as The Truth, and defended with 
ferocity. For example, everybody “knew” at one time that the Earth was the 
center of everything and those who disagreed were considered heretics, and 
often dispatched. Galileo, for instance. Then funny little anomalies began to 
show up as people observed the heavens. If the anomalies were not an illusion 
then Earth centeredness was false – which everybody knew must be wrong, 
insanity, or worse. But the anomalies refused to go away, which made people 
more and more uncomfortable, to say nothing of angry. Then one shinning day the 
view shifted. Same old heavens as before but seen with totally new eyes. 
Paradigm shift. Very powerful and never comfortable. This brief sojourn into 
the History of Science can be helpful to our present concerns, I think, for we 
are facing a very similar situation in our understanding of organizations, as 
well as management. The traditional understanding of organization, and 
therefore management, has been around for a long time. As with all paradigms, 
it is taken to be The Truth, and those who challenge will inevitably be subject 
to dismissal at the beginning, changing to discomfort, and perhaps ending with 
anger. The reason is very simple. The investments in this particular paradigm 
are enormous, and include ways of life, ways of making a living, and for some, 
life itself. Messing with all of that cannot be done lightly. And yet the 
anomalies persist. Some are quite subtle and are perceived only as a growing 
sense that “things are not working as we expected.” However, when the 
system/organization seems broken, it is clear that we must fix it and we think 
we know how. If the organizational process is screwy, then obviously we need 
Process Re-Engineering. But it didn’t work. We try harder and harder, doing 
variants of what we’ve always done, and (surprisingly) we get what we’ve always 
got. But hope springs eternal, and someday we will find The Fix. Or so it says 
in all the books. Maybe. Other anomalies are not so subtle. Open Space 
Technology is such an anomaly. I believe it to be true that Open Space violates 
virtually all principles and practices of traditional organizational theory and 
management practice. To the extent that it (OS) works as we have experienced it 
working – much if not all of current practice is called into question. My view 
is doubtless biased, but some 20 years ago, a senior official from the American 
Society for Training and Development (pardon the repeat) seemingly had the same 
impression when he told me, after hearing what happened in Open Space, 
“Harrison, if what you say is true, then 99% of what we are currently do does 
not need to be done.” I would have been greatly relieved had I been able to 
argue with him. But I couldn’t. I can’t. So David(s) – where does that leave 
us? Discretion might dictate picking up our toys and going home. Others might 
suggest heading for the barricades. Personally I don’t think either possibility 
is very useful. I simply cannot deny what I have experienced in Open Space, nor 
can I resist the compulsion to share the experience in whatever way with 
whomsoever might show up. I think the bottom line may come down to: Move slowly 
with empathy, and be prepared to wait. And what would that mean for us and what 
we do...? At a practical level, it could mean something like this. Let’s 
suppose that the Management of a very traditional Organization shows up on our 
doorstep. They are concerned that organizational function is dismal, the people 
seem to dislike each other and what they are doing, and profits have 
disappeared. The request is simple: Help!  Somewhere they heard about Open 
Space and believe (hope) it could fix their system, or at least make a start. 
It sounds like a marvelous opportunity, and a natural response would be, YES! 
At least that would be my response. All the essential preconditions for OS seem 
to be in place (real issue, complexity, etc) – BUT ... There are some issues to 
consider. First, if by “fixing their system” the client means that the 
“traditional Organization” is going to be put back together as it once was, 
that is a real problem, I think. The reason is simple – the root of their 
problems is precisely the system (understanding of organization) they were 
working under. Make it even stronger. Were I to design a system that would 
maximize separation and alienation, minimize creativity and collaboration – I 
don’t think I could do any better than the system they were operating under. 
Fixing, or restoring that system would only compound their misery. Secondly, 
Doing an Open Space in that organization is quite likely to increase the 
general dissatisfaction with how things are done. As one senior executive from 
a very traditional organization said to me following an Open Space we did, “You 
have ruined me for work in this place. I am not sure whether to thank you or 
hate you.” Talk about being caught on the horns of a dilemma! If fully 
successful with my task (opening space), I will have failed the clients’ 
primary expectations (fixing the system) and simultaneously raised the level 
employee dissatisfaction. All true, I think. And I would still do the Open 
Space, but my reasons could cause some problems unless very carefully 
explained, and that explanation itself is problematical. At one level I will do 
the Open Space because I know that it will enable people to be more 
comfortable, powerful, sure of themselves. That’s the easy part. But at another 
level I will do the Open Space in order to introduce anomaly... one more nudge 
towards Paradigm Shift. I know full well that I can’t shift paradigms for 
people. The same is true of Transformation, which has a lot to do with paradigm 
shift. Both will happen all by themselves...or not. But I can and will nudge 
when given the opportunity. After that it is all about waiting... So what do 
you think about all that? Harrison          Harrison Owen7808 River Falls 
Dr.Potomac, MD 20854USA 189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)Camden, Maine 04843 Phone 
301-365-2093(summer)  207-763-3261 www.openspaceworld.comwww.ho-image.com 
(Personal Website)To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the 
archives of OSLIST Go 
to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org From: 
[email protected] 
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of David Osborne
Sent: Monday, February 03, 2014 9:47 AM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Trust I'm not sure I agree OS fails as a management 
tool.....Self-Organization has become the lens I look at all my work as an 
individual who supports groups and organizations in change and in my leadership 
and management development work. It's not an either / or for me os works or 
doesn't work as a management tool.  Leadership is simply supporting an 
organization in moving toward its goals. The invitation in OS is the goal or 
issue that people care about. What I have found is that as I'm able to share 
the conditions that support self-organization and how they can be integrated 
into individuals leadership approach that the leaders move toward approaches 
that support greater and greater self-organization. This is not top-down, 
traditional leadership or management. As you propose in Wave-Rider Harrison, I 
believe the principles of OS / self-organization can be integrated as a 
leadership approach with great results. David    On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 8:57 
AM, Harrison Owen <[email protected]> wrote:David – I would totally agree that 
OS “utterly fails as a management tool.” Then again I think that OS shares this 
fate/condition with all other “management tools,” at least as I understand 
“management” and “tool” in the context of enabling effective human performance. 
And thereby hang the beginning of a long and useful discussion, I think. ho 
Harrison Owen7808 River Falls Dr.Potomac, MD 20854USA 189 Beaucaire Ave. 
(summer)Camden, Maine 04843 Phone 301-365-2093(summer)  207-763-3261 
www.openspaceworld.comwww.ho-image.com (Personal Website)To subscribe, 
unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST Go 
to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org From: 
[email protected] 
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of David stevenson
Sent: Monday, February 03, 2014 1:51 AM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Trust Ho indeed Harrison! OpenSpace opens space for 
freedom of spirit and heart, choice and the weaving of our fates and destinies 
with that of our world, it does not achieve complience and so, at least to the 
extent that people are to be managed...On Saturday, February 1, 2014, Harrison 
Owen <[email protected]> wrote:Brendan said: “And in my view , all germinating 
from that initial transfer of trust between mentor and sponsor” Right on! I 
don’t think it makes a bit of difference how elegantly one “does” the Open 
Space. It is really all about TRUST. When I said that anybody with a good heart 
and good mind can “do it,” that is just a long winded way of saying what I’ve 
always found to be true. Expertise is interesting. Integrity and Trust are 
essential. A new comer to the OS world, opening space for the very first time, 
muffing some lines, and forgetting others – can do every bit as well as a 20 
year veteran. The coin of the realm is Integrity, authenticity, trust. But none 
of that should be news, for that trio is the bedrock of all positive human 
encounter, I think. Which may just be another way of pointing out that OS is 
not some special process we do, it is just life lived well. Or something. ho  
Harrison Owen7808 River Falls Dr.Potomac, MD 20854USA 189 Beaucaire Ave. 
(summer)Camden, Maine 04843 Phone 301-365-2093(summer)  207-763-3261 
www.openspaceworld.comwww.ho-image.com (Personal Website)To subscribe, 
unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST Go 
to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org From: 
[email protected] 
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Brendan McKeague
Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2014 12:57 AM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Sponsor PreWork Conversation (long) A very interesting 
question Chuni Li... The sponsor was being mentored by one of my colleagues in 
our local Open Space community of practice (Wave Riders) who suggested to him 
that OS was the right method/model for the task at hand.  As his coach (the 
formal role as perceived by the organisation), my colleague encouraged the 
sponsor to get in touch with me to avoid any perceived conflict of interest. 
The sponsor researched OS for himself first and then engaged me to provide the 
specialist knowledge....Harrison often says that anyone with a good heart and 
head can open space - and I agree - while at the same time, I acknowledge that 
'Open Space wisdom' is often helpful, if not necessary, in situations of 
increased complexity and potential conflict.  After his initial attraction to 
OS in theory, and as part of his research, the sponsor then ran a mini Open 
Space within his own jurisdiction to see how it worked in reality - he wished 
to speak from his lived experience when engaging with his higher-uppers.  He 
also watched a few of the growing library of YouTube clips that are so 
wonderful for educating potential sponsors.   Now totally convinced, the 
transfer of trust was complete at various levels....trusting the process (OST 
works) AND trusting the facilitator (who was aligned with the essence of OST - 
i.e living in it) AND trusting that both facilitator and process were 
'fit-for-purpose' in this context.  And in my view , all germinating from that 
initial transfer of trust between mentor and sponsor Hope this story helps  
Cheers Brendan   On 31/01/2014, at 1:10 PM, [email protected] wrote: Thank 
you Brendan for taking the time to organize and share this information - so 
precious and such a generous gift! I am curious about the sponsor who "put his 
neck out" to make the event happen.Had he experienced OST before? Did you have 
to "convince" him? What made him willing to "jump through the hoops?" Was it 
the OST process or was it you that he trusted? Chuni LiNew Jersey From: Brendan 
Mc

-- 
David Stevenson
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