Hello Open Space friends and colleagues, Harrison, thank you for that kind welcome Home! Unwashed and heathen indeed! Australia does have showers :-) even at points in the Outback.
And now I want to share with all of you some of my excitements from the past many weeks in Australia. A big thank you to Brian Bainbridge for putting together an itinerary of all that transpired. Brian has been doing Open Space work in Australia for several years. I responded to an invitation from him to go to Australia to promote Open Space Technology and to conduct a training program for those interested in learning Open Space Technology. Over the year, Brian and another colleague in Open Space, Viv McWaters (and thank you too Viv) worked hard to get word out about the training program and about my willingness to meet with people to discuss Open Space Technology. In early July we had 36 people at the training program that was held in the bush outside of Melbourne.High learning and high play for sure. The program begins with an introduction about the presence of soul and Spirit in the organization, quickly moves to conducting an Open Space Technology meeting complete with collective convergence of the topics, and then spends the balance of the days unpacking what it was all about and how to do it. The form and the essence. It was wonderful for me amidst the gum trees and the cockaburros (sp?). Two days later I was on a "talk back" program on the Australian Broadcasting System (which is where Bruce Kidd started connecting with us---welcome to the list Bruce) and we had only positive comments from the callers learning to embrace and navigate through chaos. Brian fielded many phone calls after the show of persons interested in learning more. It is pleasing that we were able to tell those who were interested about the trained facilitators who could be of assistance. In Melbourne, I stayed with Viv McWaters and was taken to meetings by Brian Bainbridge. My recollection of that time is that it was packed with good conversations and that Brian would appear in his little red car at the end of Viv's driveway before the sun was up to pick me up and deposit me back long after the sun had gone down. I sometimes wondered if he made it all the way home in between or if he was at the end of the drive for the few hours of night in between. The way I know that he went home was that as I coveted my bit of sleep, Brian would greet me in the morning with the paperwork he had done since he had last seen me. The itinerary continued on with meetings for me in a number of cities with people who wanted to know more about Open Space Technology and with individual companies who were exploring their desire to create healthier workplaces. A few meetings focused on the use of Open Space Technology for reconcilliation with Aboriginal peoples, the details of which were almost identical to the conversations I have been in here in Canada regarding the use of Open Space Technology for reconcilliation with indiginous peoples here. In most places, people were gracious and invited me to stay in their homes, giving me a chance to really experience life in Australia and to be in even more Open Space discussions. The entire experience was high learning for me, exhilarating and felt in total keeping with my understanding of my life purpose. What I found in many places was that people have experienced something that was called Open Space Technology, when in fact it used a few of the principles and so on but then modified the process. And they were coming to me wondering why Open Space didn't work. Those of you who know me, know that I always say "there is no modified Open Space. We either Open the Space or we don't Open the Space. It can be a big space or a teeny tiny space, it can last for just a few hours or for days which is okay. There is no such thing as modifying the space". Examples of modified Open Space in one organization that has done dozens of "Open Space Technology" meetings involved staff coming to meetings, being asked to get their issues out but there was never a theme for the meetings, nor were "givens" named. Staff now greatly dislike Open Space, feel harmed by it and used by it and have less trust in their managers than they initially did. They found, as I described Open Space Technology, that they had never really experienced an Open Space meeting and agreed that they would like to give Open Space as they now understand it, a try. I referred people to the Open Space Institute of Australia for continued support and learning about OST. I conducted a few Open Space meetings, the most interesting of which was with a group of significant leaders in Australian business. They also loved Open Space Technology . They had been exposed to the practice of Dialogue but found that they naturally slid into Debate. In our reflection time after the Open Space, they commented that they had enacted Dialogue rather than Debate for the first time and that Open Space had done for them what the course in Dialogue had been unable to achieve. I had a few days to myself on the trip. And explored the beaches of Cairns where it was warm, and the Outback including Uluru (Ayer's Rock) which was magnificent. I found that kangaroos wait at the side of the road patiently until a lone car comes along and then they hop in front of it (such a road might have maybe five cars all day---this is no coincidence). I saw the empty lake bottoms and river beds throughout the semi-desert outback that used to house lakes and rivers before the last earth shift and was reminded about how big nature is and how insignificant mankind is in the greater scheme of things. I laughed hard when our bus (an 800 km trip in the outback from Uluru to Alice Springs) came to a full and sudden stop. The cause, in the middle of nowhere, was not a kangaroo or a camel or an emu as we had been warned about---but road construction. The sight was so funny because there was a man standing with a stop sign because that was his job. On a road where we hadn't passed any cars and if one did happen along the dust from it could be seen for at least 100kilometers. We all piled out of the bus and had to wait for the paving machines to do their thing---for whatever reason on this corrugated dirt road, there was an initiative to pave this 500 meters of it. And the man kept holding his stop sign. I was in Sydney for the oil spill in the harbour and realized how vulnerable nature is and how significant mankind can be in the greater scheme of things. And then decided that in the end, nature would take care of herself and when she had had enough of mankind, could eliminate us all for the harm we have done. Nature will be healed. We may not make it. All this rambing is my way of saying that I learned a great deal about myself on the trip and who I am in relation to Open Space Technology, what it means in my life, my commitment to enabling organizations to operate as Open Space Organizations if they wish this transformation, and my sheer joy at being able to work with people with Open Space. I have my own interpretation of what Open Space Technology and the Open Space Organization are. I am clear and talk about Spirit and Soul, no matter who the audience. I am happy to tell the story as I understand it to be, and if it fits for whoever hears it, good. If not, that is okay too. So....to my Australian friends on the list....thank you. And a special thank you to Harrison for supporting me in my work and learning and encouraging me to do the training. And a special thank you to Brian Bainbridge for working so hard to get word out about Open Space Technology so that more and more people and organizations in Australia are using it. And my best wishes to the Open Space Institute of Australia to work with all of the interest that we have kindled so that people can connect, network, build relationships, and be supported in their quest to do and use OST. Light and love to you, Birgitt Bolton
