Diane Thank you!
I agree - the importance of preparation and sending out the right messages beforehand can be critical. _______ Larry Thank you also! I like your insight that people who are comfortable with existing constraints are often the ones who suggest that OS would be too open and would disempower some people. I don't believe this lay behind the person's comment I report - but I have met this elsewhere. ____________ Just to be clear - the situations I am talking about are where people have differing levels of power in a more covert way - hierarchy is expressed more in terms of power of providers over clients, middle class over working class, articulate over the less articulate, people with money & budgets over people without either etc (and including all the strands of diversity, power and inequality). This is the terrain for building community cohesion. Very best wishes Jon ____________________________________________________________________________ ___ Jon Harvey Director www.jonharveyassociates.co.uk +44 (0) 7771 537535 +44 (0) 1280 822585 j...@jonharveyassociates.co.uk Helping you connect the prose and the passion to deliver superlative results http://smallcreativeideas.blogspot.com/ for ideas about how to improve public & third sector services http://jonharveyassociates.blogspot.com/ for articles & ideas about leadership and organisational change http://twitter.com/JonSHarvey for ideas and questions to help build a more creative, fair and ambitious world Jon Harvey Associates Ltd Registered Office: Chandos House, School Lane, Buckingham, MK18 1HD Company Number 6661588. VAT Registration Number 936 2921 11 Please consider the environment before printing this email. Thank you. -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of Diane Gibeault Sent: 26 November 2009 21:41 To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Re: [OSLIST] Power, hierarchy and OS Hi Jon, You have a perspective that is consistent with the intent and the capacity of Open Space I my view. Of all the facilitation methods I know of, OS is the one that allows the most, the creation on site of a level playing field. The circle creates that basis and the principles create the spirit and the container. Together they bring the necessary safety and power for people to work together in a respectful way. It is also true that good preparation with a group representative of all stakeholders invited will go a long way to increasing a safe, constructive and creative climate for greater successful outcome. It is a specialty of OS in fact to best deal with diversity, conflict and giving power to speak to those who usually don't have it. This is nevertheless a common fear with people who have very imposing structures and it helps to give them explanations and examples to show why OS works. Cheers, Diane -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of Jon Harvey Sent: 26 novembre 2009 14:49 To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: [OSLIST] Power, hierarchy and OS Hallo I went to a meeting of community cohesion practitioners today (UK) and had a really great time - lots of good ideas, research trails to chase and lovely people. Of course it would have been better to have used OS as the process of the day - which of course I suggested for the next meeting... But then we started a debate - with no time to explore it - as to whether OS is always applicable to meetings where there are people present with very different levels of power and authority. The presumption by one person was that hierarchy would get in the way of the flat structure of OS - such that the less powerful would not feel as empowered to have the conversations they wished and needed to etc... He was advocating (although I may well have this wrong) more structure & perhaps capacity building in adavnce to ensure a level playing field etc where everyone's voice would be heard. I was left frustrated - as this is a topic that interests me as I have some sympathy for the point of view. Equally, I take the view that the law of mobility means that the even the least powerful have vote with their feet / wheels etc to move to other topics of conversation. And Open Space is what it says on the tin - it is open to all - and part of our job as facilitators is to make this abundantly clear. So I promised to start a debate here on the OSLIST to see what others may think. I have also just posted a link to here for people from the Community Cohesion network (on the forum part of their website) so we may get some new members too.. (if you want to check out the host organisation - here is the link: http://practitioners.cohesioninstitute.org.uk/PractitionersNetwork/About all can join) So to start the ball rolling: 1) Do less powerful people get less (or more) from Open Space? 2) How does hierarchy interact with the OS process - if at all? 3) Are less powerful people less inclined to go with / show their passion and nominate topics for discussion - if so - what do you do about that? 4) If the subject is all about variable power (and in community cohesion it often is...) - does that make OS more or less applicable? 5) Am I over complicating all this?! I look forward to your thoughts. Many thanks Very best wishes Jon ____________________________________________________________________________ ___ Jon Harvey Director www.jonharveyassociates.co.uk +44 (0) 7771 537535 +44 (0) 1280 822585 j...@jonharveyassociates.co.uk Helping you connect the prose and the passion to deliver superlative results http://smallcreativeideas.blogspot.com/ for ideas about how to improve public & third sector services http://jonharveyassociates.blogspot.com/ for articles & ideas about leadership and organisational change http://twitter.com/JonSHarvey for ideas and questions to help build a more creative, fair and ambitious world Jon Harvey Associates Ltd Registered Office: Chandos House, School Lane, Buckingham, MK18 1HD Company Number 6661588. VAT Registration Number 936 2921 11 Please consider the environment before printing this email. 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