Oui, Raymond. Kinda like the inverse of "degrees of freedom" like they used to say in mathematics (at least in the olden days). I think it is useful to add (or remind ourselves) that there is a 'time' element here too; that 'givens' are a statement at a point in time, reflecting the degree of freedom (or risk) that sponsors are able to accept at that moment. Boundaries can and usually do change with time. Maybe part of the 'mission' of OST is to help allow clients/organizations to (re)move boundaries - or as some of us might prefer to say become more aware of the freedoms inherent in the situation... wk
----- Original Message ----- From: "Raymonde Lemire" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 9:17 AM Subject: [Fwd: Re: A Partial Diary of the Collective Buddha] > To everyone who are discussing " givens". > > For me these are like "boundaries" within the open space. It's letting > people know how far they can / can't go within their self-organization. > For example, when doing an Open Space on the reorganization of a > company - often some of the givens are you can't change the name of the > company, fire anyone, but beyond that all ideas are accepted. I guess > to some extent it's letting people know what are the limits of the > situation and that's OK. We all have limits in our lives - I don't > believe people take limits necessarily negatively - they are part of > life - people then know where they stand within the current situation. > > > Raymonde Lemire > Documents Etcetera > Ottawa Canada > [email protected] * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
