Thanks for this, Diana. I will incorporate this in my next opening where the topic is governance and debate could be a naturally assumed discourse.
Christine Christine Whitney Sanchez KAIROS Alliance Inc. 2717 E. Mountain Sky Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85048 480.759.0262 www.kairosalliance.com <http://www.kairosalliance.com> -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Diana Larsen Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2005 12:29 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Alternatives to Debate/Was Re: Open Space in the European Community Hi All, Time to stop lurking, I guess. ;-) When the purpose of a gathering (or that part of a gathering) is to explore ideas more than it is to make decisions, I create an additional flip chart poster with four continua. As I open space (notice the lower case) for groups, I extend the invitation to focus on: - inquiry rather than advocacy - discussion rather than debate - conversation rather than argument - understanding rather than defending Participants have come to me to say that it helped them for me to make this distinction in the kinds of possible discourse. They hadn't thought about the fact that they had options to choose from when they interacted on topics about which they felt passion. Peace! Diana Diana Larsen www.futureworksconsulting.com 503-288-3550 I'll be at the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference in Portland OR USA, Oct 10-12, 2005. They are ready to accept registrations! Sign up now for a great conference: http://www.pnsqc.org http://www.pnsqc.org/conference05/workshops.php Other Upcoming Events: - Open Workshop with Diana Larsen, Esther Derby & Ken Schwaber "The Secrets of Agile Teamwork: Beyond Technical Skills" Dec. 6-8, 2005, Portland OR USA http://www.futureworksconsulting.com/events.html On Sep 29, 2005, at 9:29 AM, Harrison Owen wrote: > Very good point! I have just been invited to facilitate a gathering of > 200 Rabbis and Imams from around the world -- on the question "Issues > and Opportunities for enabling peace between Jews and Muslims" (At > least I think that is the question). And that nasty word "debate" came > up in our discussions of how to write the invitation. I can certainly > understand how it jumps up -- given everybody's history. But it really > is a bummer. > We do > need to think of some alternatives. "Engaged Conversation" might head > in a more fruitful direction. And other possibilities would be > wonderful. > > Harrison > > Harrison Owen > 7808 River Falls Drive > Potomac, Maryland 20845 > Phone 301-365-2093 > > Open Space Training 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 * * ========================================================== [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
