Thanks, Koos, for your thoughts................I guess my take on it is that OS is a process that allows people to empower themselves. Paulo Freire had the idea in the 60's too......It is a major paridigm shift!..............Grace T. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Koos de Heer" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2002 4:28 PM Subject: "empowerment" is a disempowering concept
> At 11:30 12-5-2002 -0800, Kenoli Oleari wrote: > > >>Why are givens particularly important in processes like open space? > > > >Because it is about empowerment. This is a sensitive business. > >People generally are disempowered by institutions. When this is a > >daily recurrence, built in assumptions hold and expectations are low. > >When we invited people into a paradigm shift, it is important to be > >true to the new foundation we are offering. if there are to be > >limitations place on this foundation, this is critical. This is > >especially true if the assumptions in the system are changed. If the > >new assumptions are not made clear, there will be a tendency to act > >on old assumptions. > > Yes, and this is exactly why I have a problem with the concept of > empowerment when used in relation to Open Space. I will try to explain why. > > There are two things that are important about the concept of empowerment. > 1. "Empowerment" is a movement from a state of non-power to a state of > power, or if you prefer from a state of little power to a state of more power. > 2. "To empower" is a transitive verb, meaning it is something one person or > entity does to another person or entity. "To hear" is a transitive verb (as > in: I hear you) and "to sleep" is intransitive (as in I sleep; it is not > possible to say I sleep you). > > So what I am saying is that the concept of empowerment has to do with one > person or entity giving power to another person or entity. As in: the > management of this company empowers the employees. This sounds nice, but it > is awful. And it is not what we do when we Open Space for these people. At > least not in my system. Giving power assumes that there is something to be > given (which means it can also be withheld) and there is an entity that has > the ability to do the giving (or the withholding). I question these > assumptions. > > What we do when we Open Space is invite people into a paradigm shift. This > paradigm shift also concerns power. Open Space means the end of power and > control as we knew it. Open Space invites people to experience the power > they already have. There is no such thing as control. There are just people > who think they are in control and others who accept that thinking. This > deadly embrace of wrong thinking (which, by the way, can be very > comfortable) is what we invite people to throw out the window. > > Talking of empowerment is staying in the old power paradigm. If we want to > honor the paradigm shift we are making, we do not talk about empowerment. > We do not give the power to the people, because we know it is already there. > > OK, OK, I am sorry if I come on too strong. I would love any feedback on > this, honestly :-) > > Best wishes, > Koos > > > Koos de Heer > Auryn management advies BV > Utrecht, the Netherlands > mailto:[email protected] > http://www.auryn.nl/ > > * > * > ========================================================== > [email protected] > ------------------------------ > To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, > view the archives of [email protected], > Visit: > > http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html > * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
