I have always had a perspective about working with Open Space Technology that was deeply influenced by my position as the head of a multi-service social service organization when I learned the facilitation of OST in 1992. It was interesting to be responsible for an organization that made frequent use of OST, that had its ups and downs with OST, and that had a very opinionated staff who gave feedback about what worked and what did not work for them. I fully experienced what it was like to be the leader as together we explored ways to work within a liberating structure, and a participatory architecture, while simultaneously facing my Board of Directors and the public regarding public accountability for the performance of our organization. In more than a decade, with those early learnings gifted to me by the incredible staff that I worked with, we have learned a lot about the Conscious Open Space Organization (COSO). In early days, my instinct was to extrapolate from a single OST meeting into the development as a COSO. A key concept in our success was ‘consciousness’. Anyone who has worked with OST and understands both its form and its essence can work in the development of a COSO. However, sustainability was another matter. The concept of ‘givens’ or ‘non-negotiables’ was birthed, the defining of closed space was explored as a way to define what space was truly open, and our learning continued. By 1999 we developed the Genuine Contact program to assist leaders and consultants learn how to develop a successful sustainable COSO for peak performance. Graduates from this program who are available for hire established their own website in 2005 as a group of GCP professionals at HYPERLINK "http://www.genuinecontact.net/"www.genuinecontact.net. Graduates are co-owners and co-creators of the program. We continue to explore, to learn, and to engage with one another. Our fifth annual international mentoring circle for the GCP will take place Sept 28-29 in Raleigh, North Carolina and anyone interested in a holistic approach to organizational success is welcome to participate in this learning exchange. The meeting format as always is in OST (of course!). For those of you interested in learning how to develop an intentional COSO, and if you have attended training in OST by any of the wonderful trainers around the world, you are welcome to register for the COSO workshop to be held Sept 10-13 in Raleigh, North Carolina. There is a lot of information about the COSO on the website noted above and on our website at HYPERLINK "http://www.dalarinternational.com/"www.dalarinternational.com . I apologize for not letting you on this list know about this opportunity sooner…we have only 4 spaces left. There are other trainers of the GCP who will be offering the COSO workshop at other times but this is the only one that we do and we do it annually, same place, same dates. Blessings, Birgitt Williams
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