Raffi,
Sorry, I think I tied myself up in knots in my last mail.
I have found in my work that some people focus on "being trained" in order
to feel that they can facilitate a (any) process, and want to be sure that
they have got the "right" training from the "right" people in the "right"
format. I can see the argument for this with some tools and techniques,
although I have heard of people facilitating future search (for example)
without any training at all, simply using the book and applying the
principles.
With open space however, I don't know that it is the training (or lack of
it) that makes the difference. The real key it seems to me is to actually
trust the process and the people, rather than just saying that you do. I
can't see that any amount of training, even with the best, can guarantee
that someone will get it. I know people who have been trained in open
space, who have used it at times with groups, who understand it completely
intellectually and think it's a fantastic thing - but when it comes to
actually opening space with a group they feel utterly out of control as
facilitators and set rules and give instructions and essentially close the
space right back down again. No matter how often they see it work they
still can't believe that the group will self-organise without their help
(the market place seems to cause particular panic), or that a self-selected
group of 20 people will be able to have a meaningful discussion (given the
facilitator wisdom that self-managing discussion groups shuoldn't be larger
than 8 or certainly 10 people).
I hope that this is a little clearer? I'm winding down for a couple of
weeks on holiday, and my brain seems to be slightly muddled this week.
I went to a Quaker school but I am not actually a Quaker myself. When I
moved to secondary (high) school there was a choice of several local schools
for me. One of these was very competitive and the other was more supportive
of individuals and had an ethos of helping every pupil achieve the best that
they could do, in compeition only with themselves. I felt at that stage
that there really was only one choice for me. It has to be said, that at
that time the school was (and sitill) is a part of the state education
system, and there were very few Quakers attending, but the Head was always a
Quaker, and I feel that something of the values percolated down into
everyone who went there to some extent.
All the best,
Julie
From: Raffi Aftandelian <[email protected]>
Reply-To: OSLIST <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: [OSLIST] "learning" OS and more; was use of OS in a training for
trainers
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 11:08:35 +0400
Hi Julie!
Thanks for your response! I didn't quite get what you meant here:
"what I really wanted to
say was that learning or remembering open space doesn't seem to me to be
directly related to what training a facilitator has or has not received,
and
that focusing on the training aspect might not be the most helpful thing to
do. I think that it is more closely linked to your experience and
approach,
and to whether you as a facilitator can actually believe what you say to
participants - that they really can self manage and come up with something
great on their own."
There was an important thought or several thoughts in this paragraph; but I
am not exactly sure what you meant.
You say you went to a Quaker school, but you don't say you are a Quaker. I
came to Quakerism in Russia, but for a variety of reasons do not practice
it (in the sense of going to Meeting for Worship). One of the things I have
wondered about is why Quakers (maybe the Quakers on this list will reply!)
don't use OS regularly in the life of the Meeting, as another tool for
conducting Meeting for Worship for Business. While I think discerning the
spirit of the group and using consensus is very powerful, conscious use of
OS is also about Spirit. I sometimes find meeting for worship for business,
well, boring frankly. Maybe that's a reflection of much innerwork that I
need to do, to truly understand how passion reflects itself in this type of
meeting.
Raffi Aftandelian
Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 08:46:15 +0000
From: Julie Stuart <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: use of OS in a training for trainers
Raffi,
I think that it's wonderful that you felt able to conduct part of a
training
session in open space despite some misgivings. I just wanted to reply to
the last part of your mail, about "learning" to facilitate open space.
From my experience in facilitating various types of off-the-shelf
participative processes (as well as hybrids that we develop to suit a
particular purpose), open space is not necessarily something that you need
to be formally trained to use. I have several colleagues who have been to
learning workshops on open space, and yet of everyone in the organisation
it
is me who invariably takes the baton and runs with it when an opportunity
arises to open space with a client. I think that this is because open
space
is something that resonates with me personally and I especially enjoy the
challenge to my normal ways of control that it offers me. On the other
hand, my colleagues find it very difficult to let go and trust in the
process and the people to self-manage, and they know themselves that while
they get it in theory they just don't quite believe in it. I have never
had
any formal training in open space - I just go with what I've learnt from
the
books, from OSonOs in Swenmark last year, and from the wisdom I've gathered
from lurking on this list for the past couple of years. I have had lots of
training in general facilitation skills and in other processes so perhaps
this gave me the confidence to jump into open space more quickly than
otherwise.
So, in case I've missed my point and rambled off, what I really wanted to
say was that learning or remembering open space doesn't seem to me to be
directly related to what training a facilitator has or has not received,
and
that focusing on the training aspect might not be the most helpful thing to
do. I think that it is more closely linked to your experience and
approach,
and to whether you as a facilitator can actually believe what you say to
participants - that they really can self manage and come up with something
great on their own.
I'd also like to thank you for the links to AVP information. Although I
grew up and live in Northern Ireland and went to a Quaker school, I had
never heard of the project before. Good luck with all your work,
Julie Stuart
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