Harrison, Thanks for the question asked in such a loving, powerful way.
Where to begin? Open Space changed my life. So many, many lessons. And after 11 years of working with it, I still feel I am just at the beginning of my learning. Here is a bit of a retrospective of learnings. The miracle of my first Open Space was to see that it somehow enabled the needs of the individual and the collective to be met. That's when I fell in love with it. I think my very first practical realization was that as a facilitator, I wasn't responsible for other people's experiences. What a revelation! I could do my best to create the conditions for the work to be done. Beyond that, it was up to the people in the room. Over the next several years, I found myself talking about my lessons from Open Space. Some of them come through your words, Harrison, others through the experience itself: Focus on essence -- the form of OS is so elegantly simple that it is a clear message that what is most important is the core content of whatever the subject is. I remember very clearly a conversation with Chris Kloth at OSonOS IV in Washington, D.C. He told me that where other change communities he was a part of spent most of their time focused on questions and arguments about process, the OS community was always asking about essence, purpose, the core meaning of whatever it was we were discussing. Kerry shared recently a comment from a participant: "one day in open space was the equivalent of two years of hearings." I think this is because when all you've got to pay attention to is the essence of what's important, well, it sure makes it easier to let all the nonsense fall by the wayside and focus on getting something done! Simplicity of design -- you gifted me/us with a very profound design question: what is one less thing to do? (and I would add implicit in the question: and have this be whole and complete?) While I sometimes joke that you came to this by being a master of laziness, I think continually doing less ensures the focus remains on what is most important. Whether OS or just life, I find this insight of remarkable power. Anytime a group is struggling, with how to do something, this question cuts through the mess. During my Total Quality days, there was a saying: "remedy first, then deal with the root cause." My definition of remedies were they always added more steps -- made things more complicated. When the root cause was handled, 100% of the time, it resulted in less steps -- a simpler process. And it always required looking at the essence, the purpose as the starting point. Invitation/Inclusion -- you talk about invite whoever cares about the subject and welcome the stranger -- whoever comes. It is such a huge gift to accept the rightness of whomever and whatever shows up. It is also at times a deeply courageous act of of faith. Through the years I have seen people healed by the experience of being welcomed, with all of their quirks, of feeling heard. I have also seen it as a challenging test of people uncomfortable with those who are different. The rewards for those who usually exclude others and for those who are often excluded are powerful. People discover compassion in themselves. Outcasts experience something often unfamiliar: support. I remember years ago at OSonOS in Monterey (1998?), an intense day 2 opening circle where there was this conflicted discussion of "in group" and "outsiders". Finally, this woman, I don't know her name and I never saw her again, got up and walked, or perhaps she flew, around the circle, inside and out. Her words were something about belonging coming from within ourselves. It shifted everything. Generosity of Spirit -- you gave OS away, no trademark, copyright, certification or other hurdles. You said there is one responsibility -- to give back what you've learned. I look at the extraordinary community that we've created -- one that shares its stories, its fears, triumphs, insecurities, and questions. I follow several learning communities. This one is my home. It is in part because of the incredible ethic of sharing we gift to each other. Abundance -- there is always enough for what is important. When I've underestimated the number of break out sessions for an event, I often joke that time and space are infinitely expandable and people figure out where and when to meet. This is a reminder to me of just how incredibly creative we are as a species when something is important to us. People find remarkable solutions. These were my first deep lessons from living with Open Space. I think somewhere about this time, I began to realize that self-organization and spirit -- the two ways I talked about OS -- described the same phenomenon in different language. And then Spirited Work began. While I already understood Open Space was way more than a good meeting method, this quarterly foray into living in Open Space opened a new and deeper journey of understanding. It was Anne Stadler who helped me understand that the Law of Two Feet is about taking responsibility for what you love. I now believe this is the essence of Open Space. It is the power of this one idea -- to take responsibility for what you love -- that creates the remarkable invitation to listen to our internal voice and act on its message. Now I understand the dynamics behind what I originally loved about OS: when people take responsibility for what they love, they discover that others love the same things. Thus, the needs of the individual and the collective are met. At Spirited Work, watching Anne Stadler showing up wherever there was disonance or conflict, I learned to welcome disturbances. I came to understand that they are indicators that something new wants to emerge. And it was watching the patterns of behavior at Spirited Work, the complex, unpredictable human behavior as people experimented with living with spirit in the material world that I have come to understand what Open Space governance looks like, what it means to make difficult decisions in Open Space (way beyond consensus), the role of silence in individual and collective learning. I now understand the dynamics of emergence when consciously embraced. Emergence is spirit in action -- where people discover that what is most personal is also universal. When this happens, what we in the OS community call Convergence naturally occurs. People move into coherent individual and collective action. This has shaped how I see my work today -- to grow the capacity for emergence through caring for ourselves, others and the whole in service to meaningful purpose. What I see today is that Open Space provides the essential conditions for emergence without the destructive force that comes when the disturbances that signal something wanting to emerge are resisted. It happens by asking an attractive question that matters (the theme), inviting all who care to take responsibility for what they love, and by putting them in a circle to begin and end each day to reflect together. This pattern enables people to step into what they fear with some glimmer of hope that something useful will happen. And, miraculously, time and again, it does. Doing the international Practice of Peace conference -- an experience planned in OS mostly by people from the Spirited Work community -- brought new lessons. We took the leap that we would have sufficient participation to fund inviting 10 OS practitioners from conflict areas from around the world. We not only accomplished that but created an experience that many, many participants described as life changing. They describe some variant of feeling their own capacity to make a difference. I got a deeply embodied experience of what Anne Stadler named the Radiant Network -- that innate knowing that we are all connected, that we are held in some mystical way. When my heart is open, I feel the connection. When not, the connection is still there, it is just hard to believe it exists. My lesson from PoP is that what is on the other side of emergence is the coherence of the Radiant Network. The most powerful OS events bring people to where they feel a sense of collective consciousness. They touch that place of deep, personal meaning that connects them to others and they have at least a glimmer of their connection to the whole. Today, I wonder about how the people I have worked with have been touched by their time in Open Space. How have they been changed by the experience? What has been the effect when OS is used over and over in a community or organization? How have people and collectives been changed by the experience? That's what I hope we learn through the research questions that Larry, Chris and I put out. http://www.openspaceworld.org/network/wiki.cgi?OpenSpaceResearch I believe that we are growing people's capacity to deal with what they fear, what they resist by offering them a path to emergence that runs through powerful, attractive questions. What are their stories? Harrison, for all that you are and all that you have done, I thank you. Finding you and your work was a turning point in my life. Love, Peggy ________________________________ Peggy Holman The Open Circle Company 15347 SE 49th Place Bellevue, WA 98006 (425) 746-6274 www.opencirclecompany.com P.S. It is curious to me that not one of us responded to Billie and Barbara's request. Wonder what that says about our community? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harrison Owen" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, March 18, 2005 3:39 PM Subject: [OSLIST] What have we learned?
In 1985 the first Open Space happened in Monterey California. This year (in case you haven't noticed) is 2005. In short OS has been around for 20 years (not counting the 14,000,000,000 years previously). So what have we learned? This is not an idle question. A recent publication of the American journal, JABS - otherwise known as the "Journal of Applied Behavioral Science" offered a "special issue" dealing with Large Group Interventions. All the usual suspects appeared, but somehow Open Space was among the missing. One of the editors, Barbara Bunker, who is definitely an acquaintance, and I would consider a friend - told me that they had advertised for "papers" - including the "OS Network" - and nothing showed up. Frankly, I don't recall seeing anything, but my eyesight is getting pretty cloudy. Anyhow, I feel inspired to ask a question - What have we learned? This is not about making a special edition of JABS. And for sure it is not about "sour grapes" because we were not really present in JABS. It is all about a genuine question - What have we learned???? My hope would be to inspire/goad/embarrass/encourage each one of you to reflect of the past 20 years (or at least that part of the 20 years in which you participated in the OS community) - and offer up your understanding of what you, personally, have learned - about Open Space, yourself in Open Space, about organizations in Open Space. And of course anything else you choose to share. I would hope that we would hear from more than the usual suspects. This is a call to all you Lurkers! Last time I checked there were some 440 folks on OSLIST. Not everybody has been heard from! Now would be a good time to break the silence!!! And although it is doubtless Politically Incorrect - I suggest a rule for our discussion. Pretend this is a closing circle, and we are passing the Talking Stick. Take a moment, maybe even a LONG moment (days/weeks) to reflect on what you have learned, and then talk as long as you want. And not just the "good stuff" - the pain and disillusionment as well, if that is your story. You have the stick! And please NO COMENTARY! I suggest that we just let this roll without response - just like a Closing Circle. In August we will gather for OSONOS in Halifax. That gathering will be a lot of things - but one of the things it WILL be is a celebration of 20 years in Open Space. I can think of no greater birthday present from everybody to everybody than a reasoned, articulate description of what we have learned in the 20 years on the journey. Harrison Ps Assuming we have really learned something and manage to give that learning expression, there is no doubt in my mind that a copy of our Collected Works would be fun to read. ho Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, Maryland 20845 Phone 301-365-2093 Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/> Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html * * ========================================================== [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
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