New Arrivals into OS sessions. Yesterday, I completed a two day OS session with the council, executive and public stakeholders of the city of Eldoret in Kenya. We took the first day so seek and document the divergant views, and on the second day produced convergance and specific action plans. The group was a collection of hitherto conflicting parties, and this became the first time that they could sit together and dialogue. The event was highly energised and all participated fully.
However, at the end of the first day, to close, I asked participants to throw a light ball to one another, and as they received it, to reflect one thing that they had learned. A couple of people stated that although they had really enjoyed the sessions, they felt aggrieved that others of their colleagues had collected council perdiem to attend, and had not shown up. Of course I reminded them of the principles - whoever comes are the right people. Next morning, we started with convergance. Reports were given out and an hour allowed for reflection and voting. We used stickies to indicate votes on each issue. After we started, 5 new people arrived, grabbed a report found some stickies and started to vote with the group. These were the counsellors that were the subject of complaint the evening before. When the circle was reformed, in order to hold the space, I decided to welcome them in, and ask them to give their names and their expectations in attending - as all had done yesterday. They stood up, and gave names and sat down. From within the group, one vocal individual called out that they should give their expectations too, in light of the fact that they had not arrived until now. The new arrivals began to react demanding why they were being singled out for attention. Some of the group started to defend them saying that others were being too harsh, and the spirit of the circle quickly dissipated into partisan hostility. At this point, I decided to intervene by stating that we only wished to welcome them in, and that we should move on to discuss the next stage of convergance. I explained the next steps to a restless group, and suggested that we all take some coffee. After reconvening to add up votes and form small groups on priority issues, things settled, and we returned to productive energised attention for the remainder. Some of the new arrivals did settle in, while others remained aloof, and even tried to leave the procedings, only to return later. I would appreciate anyone's reflections on this specifically with respect to a) handling new arrivals to an OS session, and b) what experience is there in managing the balance between holding space, and letting the group degenerate into divisions. * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
