Dear Peggy,
Thank you very much for taking the time to share this experience with
those of us on the listserv. Your language, clarity of expression and
humility are wonderful to absorb.
Kathleen
On Aug 24, 2006, at 12:01 AM, Peggy Holman wrote:
During the last week of June, I hosted what turned out to be the most
personally challenging work I’ve done in a very long time. In fact,
I’d say it broke me open, in a difficult but valuable way. The
primary gift was a move from a defensive stand around Open Space to a
co-creative stand. I’ll say more about what this means and how I got
there by sharing the story of what it was like to hold space for
Philanthropy, Love, and Evolution (also known as the Philanthropy
Salon). My intent is not so much to share the story of the
conference, but rather, the story of facilitating the conference.
To begin at the beginning…the signs that this would be different were
there right from the start. You know that thing about every group
saying, “we’re different?”, well, based on my experience,
transformational philanthropy – philanthropy intended to make a
substantive difference in how systems (e.g., health care, education,
media, etc.) themselves work – really is different! But, that shall
unfold….
The idea for the gathering was born in May, 2005, when Michael Dowd,
Tom Atlee, and I hosted the first Evolutionary Salon. At the end of
the gathering, one of our agreements was to host some “strategic
conversations”, bringing an evolutionary world view (I’ll share some
background on this in another posting) to different high leverage
fields. We decided to start with philanthropists. In September,
2005, we each reached out to people we knew in the field to ask their
counsel on how best to reach this audience. On a conference call, we
were met with enthusiastic support. People jumped in, saying…”we
should do x, let’s try y”…in other words rather than telling us what
WE needed to do, our counselors enlisted themselves in the work!
Seemed like an auspicious beginning, as they agreed to become our
planning group.
Over the next few weeks, we drafted an invitation and identified the
well-respected, well-networked leaders in the field of
transformational philanthropy. Our planning team thought it looked
great…until they realized that the invitations would be coming from
them. Suddenly, it wasn’t quite right. We went back to the drawing
board, getting clearer about the purpose of the gathering. We wrote
another invitation and were met with another stepping back.
“Hmmm….I wondered, is there a pattern here?” On our next call, I
asked about this approach-avoid pattern. I was clear to come from a
place of curiosity and non-attachment. After some self-reflection,
people acknowledged this as a cultural characteristic (understandable
when, as one said, everyone has an opinion on the best way you should
spend your money). Still, it was something of a turning point. The
next version of the invitation “took” and inviting began in earnest.
It was slow at the beginning, but as it became the place to be, we
ultimately reached the capacity of our facility with just the sort of
mix of folks we had envisioned coming together.
As the date grew closer, I had my second cultural surprise: more
participants contacted me with opinions and requests about how the
gathering should be designed than I’ve ever experienced before. In
retrospect, I can describe some of the other cultural characteristics
that I believe were at play. First, most of these folks spend their
professional lives in facilitated conversations. They are VERY
sophisticated about process. And since transformational philanthropy
has something of a spiritual aspect to it, most of them have done deep
personal work. Many were used to processes that took them into spaces
of intimate, collective connection. Some of the participants I talked
with before the gathering were familiar with Open Space, and didn’t
think much of it (more on this in another posting). Secondly, though
sophisticated, I found some odd blind spots. My hunch is that this is
a group of people, who are among the “powerful” that many have trouble
speaking truth to (as in speaking truth to power). I suspect they may
be sheltered from the uncomfortable or the difficult even if that
isn’t their preference. Finally, while the facilitator is ALWAYS in
service to the group, most groups unconsciously cede their power to
the facilitator. This is a group that fully understands that the
facilitator serves at their pleasure. Again, this didn’t truly come
clear to me until the meeting itself.
From the half-dozen or so conversations I had with participants prior
to the gathering, there were two issues that were most clearly
expressed: the need to go “deep” and the need for agreements so that
there was a sense of safety for marginalized voices. (Thanks to one of
the planning group, we had a wonderful mix of people of color and
youth present.) As is often the case when working with people who
want to fill the space with planned processes, I was highly protective
of the space. Tom described me as a mama bear.
As I started to appreciate the demands of this group, I was glad to
have some highly skilled partners for the hosting: Thomas Hurley,
Juanita Brown and Tom Atlee. As we began discussing specifics, they
made it clear that they would do their best to support me. Though it
was not the design that they would have used given a clean slate, they
were there to make it work. I made the choice that we would not begin
in Open Space for several reasons:
• Our experiences of the 2nd and 3rd salons made it clear that we
needed to set some context with the evolutionary story.
• There were enough participants that I knew were hostile to Open
Space that I wanted to start with something more familiar to them
(BTW, as I checked into it, several had experienced multiple day OS
gatherings with OS practitioners that I respected, so it wasn’t a case
of inexperienced support)
• My hosting partners had gifts to contribute to the mix
• I had sufficient clues to know I was dealing with a culture that I
didn’t understand. Since I was working with people who were familiar
with the culture, I knew I needed to trust their counsel. (The
planning stretched us all as we made room for each other’s very
different beliefs about facilitation.)
We had the luxury of time - an evening, and 4.5 days. We agreed that
before going into Open Space, we had two pre-requisites: go deep –
creating a strong sense of intimacy and community, and ground people
in the evolutionary story (a lesson from the second and third
evolutionary salons) so that when we opened the space, we would go
broad from depth. I was actually quite excited by this, suspecting
that with the diverse mix of people present, that deep connection
would increase the likelihood for breakthrough. On the issue of
agreements, I argued that this would work itself out in the Open
Space, so we didn’t take it on directly.
The first evening, people introduced themselves by taking a
“courageous love name”. (This was inspired by two sources: the
etymology of philanthropy – loving humanity (or more loosely, loving
service); and something we’d done at Spirited Work one season. We’d
chosen warrior names. In the spirit of a broader understanding of
philanthropy, rather than warrior names, people took a courageous love
name. Mine, which I have used since taking it as my warrior name at
Spirited Work, is Standing Still in the Fire. Little did I know that
I would have quite the opportunity to live into my name!
Following this step into intimacy, what was supposed to be a 60 minute
presentation on evolution by a cosmologist, ran way over. While it
contained beautiful animations of galaxies from the Hubble, there was
enough technical information and it was late enough at night, that it
turned out not to be the inspiring introduction to the story of
evolution that we had expected. (Something that Juanita and Thomas
had been VERY concerned about.) When it was over, I said to Thomas,
that while I knew he would find no satisfaction in it, he had been
right about not doing the presentation in the evening.)
Following this mixed beginning, Juanita, Thomas, Tom, and I met and
concluded that we should re-think our plans for the next day. The
location of the gathering, Gold Lake, is very special land.
Traditionally a gathering place for Native American tribes to put
aside their weapons and meet in peace, this land and its native
populations were ravaged by settlers when gold was found nearby. Its
current stewards are working to honor and restore its special energy
to support efforts that heal and transform the world. We began the
first full day by offering some reflective questions to people and
sent them out to connect with the land and each other, using the
questions as they wished.
When they returned, Juanita was to host a World Café intended to begin
connecting philanthropy and evolution. As she introduced the question
for the café, one of the young people, Evon, a man who had been chief
of his Alaskan tribe, spoke. He was respectful and articulate and
named his discomfort with evolution, a term which we’d incorporated
into the question being used for the café. More than this discomfort,
he was raising the question of safe space (remember that
pre-conference warning that we needed to create agreements? I hadn’t
counted on this being an issue before the space was opened!). Juanita
handled the situation with grace, ultimately handing the leadership to
Evon and a partner with whom he worked, angel to create safe space.
We moved back into a council circle and they led a circle in which
people could say whatever they felt they needed to say for the space
to be open for their voices. While this was frustrating to those who
wanted to get to the content (and they voiced this), it seemed to
accomplish its purpose.
When Juanita, Thomas, Tom and I met after this circle, we agreed it
was time to open the space. One other factor now entered the
situation for me. We were at 8,500 feet of elevation. I discovered
that I couldn’t get more than 3 hours of sleep each night. And I’m an
8-hour-a-night kind of person. I was well aware of being far less
centered than I usually am when opening space.
Tuesday morning, I opened the space. Something occurred that has
never happened to me in the 12 years of space holding. The group
rebelled. They were quite adamant that they wanted to stay together
until they had a common grounding in both the state of
transformational philanthropy and an understanding of the evolutionary
story. I said that all they needed to do was post the sessions and it
would be clear by how people negotiated at the agenda wall and how
they used their two feet if they all wanted to stay together. They
rejected this; I stepped back and watched as a debate ensued over
whether to do a fish bowl, a world café, or some other form to handle
their desire to stay together. As I witnessed this, I was mostly
marveling over the passion of this group as it clearly took charge of
its needs. After about 45 minutes, the group fragmented into lots of
small conversations. At that point, I made the one choice that in
retrospect, I see as my attachment to things. It was an impulse based
in my Spirited Work culture – I got up, asked for silence, said I’d
ring a bell and when they came out of silence, they would know what to
do. When the sound of the bell just ended, one of the participants,
who was sitting directly across from me, looked straight at me and
said they were doing just fine, thank you and that my ringing of the
bell was completely out of order. I felt seared by his words. I
was standing still in the fire and I got cooked. Shortly after that,
another participant said that he thought they should do what I had
suggested – post their sessions and see what people were interested
in. And that’s what they did. Vindication of sorts. They did stay
as a group for the afternoon, with two powerful sessions, one on how
the field of transformational philanthropy had evolved, followed by a
session that finally provided some insight into what the evolutionary
world view had to offer to philanthropy.
That evening, one of the participants hosted an extraordinary
storytelling session that took people into very intimate connection
with each other. The design was simple: Tell a story of personal
transformation. People had 3-4 minutes for their stories. A bell
was sounded at 3 minutes and again at 4 minutes. There was a talking
object, so whoever wished to speak could do so when they were ready to
tell their story.
It took 2 days before most folks talked to me. I realized that in
process work terms, I’d played an important role, making it completely
clear who was in charge - them. I was basically fine with what had
taken place, still, it was definitely took some deep breathing to be
at peace with it all. I spent much of the time over the rest of the
gathering making amends with the people who had called me before the
gathering, letting them know that I realized that I needed to work
with them in a co-creative way rather than simply defending the
space. As an example of what I mean by this, on the last day of the
OS, one of the participants approached me with a common request in
multiple day Open Spaces – they wanted people to say more than a title
for their sessions so that they had a better understanding of what the
sessions were about. My traditional stance for this is to encourage
them to talk to the convener to find out more. This time, when we
began the morning postings, I named the request and the tension – the
more time describing sessions, the less time to be in them. I said
they were adults and could make their choices knowing this was the
tradeoff. I felt this honored the request and the space. It seemed
to work.
This is how I am thinking about what it means to be co-creative:
Identify what, if any, tensions exist between the request and keeping
the space open and then work with the requester to create a response
that respects both.
By the end of the conference, a number of the participants talked
about it as a landmark event. When Michael, Tom and I had discussed
our desire for this gathering before it began, that had been our
highest aspiration. No matter how personally challenging it was, the
outcome was all that I could have wanted…and more.
Unlike most Open Spaces, I actually wrote a report:
http://www.co-intelligence.org/PhilanthropyES2006.html
Stay tuned for:
· The perceptions of Open Space by some of the
folks I met
· The evolutionary world view (as offered in the
context of its relationship to conversation)
BTW, one other cultural characteristic of philanthropists – they live
their lives as butterflies, holding many, many private sessions.
________________________________
Peggy Holman
The Open Circle Company
15347 SE 49th Place
Bellevue, WA 98006
(425) 746-6274
www.opencirclecompany.com
For pre-orders with a 20% discount on the new edition of The Change
Handbook, go to:
www.bkconnection.com/ChangeHandbook
"An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get
burnt, is to become
the fire".
-- Drew Dellinger
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