Rich discussion, this. Joelle, your story reminds me of several times where I have listened to and with participants who are upset about how the Open Space is going (on the evening of Day 1) and on Day 2 they come out with their own solution thinking.
On one occasion I chose to say something in the morning as I open the Day 2 news. Not to name the negative but to honor the passion. On another occasion I chose not to. Both times (and indeed many times where there is a 2-day situation) Day 2 they broke through to solution/collaboration thinking. Was it me? Was it my doing something? Was it my *not* doing something? Is it just what happens normally in the great percolation of thoughts before, during and after a good night's sleep? (and why we as facilitators often push to have an overnight in a retreat/meeting/conferencing situation?) I don't know. And that me-not-me-stuff doesn't bother me - it all turns out great and I learn to do less all the time. Another thing you said, Artur and Martin: (Martin) >One of the explicit principles of RTSC, "Reality is a key driver", is >to redesign this sequence of events at any given moment if what is >happening in the room suggests that such a redesign is called for. (Artur) >The design team is monitoring, controlling and directing the event, isn't it? They act as if the participants were not competent and grown ups...< I have had several occasions where I felt things were happening during the OS which I thought were of great impact and I didn't know whether or not I should intervene (such as "Space Invader" situations - or are they just good rich things that happen in an OS? - one in which a large number of participants were upset and not in agreement before convergence and another time when the top client got scared at all the seeming chaos and wanted to shut the whole thing down immediately). Each time I r-e-a-l-l-y could not just breathe and say it would be okay and practice conscious non-intervention - it was really worrying me (or I wasn't breathing enough, or it was a tangible threat, or something, because I felt as if the space and greater good of the participants was 'in danger'). On each occasion I sat down in the middle of the room during the OS-in-progress with 'the planning team' and shared my concerns - participants wandering by sat down too and it was all a transparent moment of what should we do or should we do anything. A planning team of whomever wanted to be the planning team. In the case of the upset participants we co-re-designed the next day, including a co-designed consensus process to begin that day; in the case of the upset client we just got more people holding space for the good and somehow that good energy (or nothing we did at all maybe?) carried it through and the client didn't stop the process. So I guess what I'm saying is it all depends who is and how flexibly and when you want to define what the 'design team' is...and that keeping a healthy dose of concern plus flexibility and sharing-with-more-people maybe is the thing that does it - whether you are in Open Space or any other kind of facilitation... My two (and rather rambling?) cents... Lisa ________________________________ L i s a H e f t Consultant, Facilitator, Educator O p e n i n g S p a c e 2325 Oregon Berkeley, California 94705-1106 USA +01 510 548-8449 [email protected] * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
