Harrison & co. I promised myself not to get snookered into this "givens" vortex again, but, alas, my willpower is weak.
Taking Esther's point that it is easier to put everything on the table when dealing with community issues, we still cannot deny the spirit of Open Space, which, let's face it, fundamentally involves self determination and participatory democracy. If a sponsor ring fences an issue and eliminates discussion, it excludes people from considering what might be a very important burning issue. Stifling discussion is not the way to build understanding and acceptance let alone ownership. When given a rare chance to discuss important issues, our experience is that participants respect the opportunity and contribute positively to improve things, because, after all, they are stakeholders or they wouldn't be there. Let's not forget that the sponsor sets the theme and invites the audience to discuss it, but that's all they are suppose to do. If a sponsor has a lot of givens, we question how open they are about the exercise and whether or not we want to work with them. So, our approach is simple: we never discuss givens and they hardly ever arise. If a sponsor has a problem, we discuss it with the planning team. Our response, invariably is, if you want creativity and commitment, "trust the process" and "trust your people." These should be the only real givens in large group processes. Regards Kerry Open Futures Edinburgh www.openfutures.com * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
