Diane, as I read your posting, I felt myself transported to June 2009 when you facilitated a 2.5 day Open Space for our young and vibrantly growing company. Raffi speaks of subtleties in your (facilitated) action planning to which I would add intuitiveness, a deep sense of presence and love. As a member of the sponsoring team, I can remember you huddling us together, asking us how we wanted as we were proceeding in our action planning with you suggesting a few options that we had not discussed in our pre-meetings. I don't remember the specifics, I just remember so vividly the feeling of that conversation, the very deep insight of your questions, the delicate way you had of guiding us to alternatives in the action planning that captured the essence and subtleties of what was happening at the time, in that place going from emergence to convergence. You were still the invisible facilitator, yet somehow so very present and caring. I remember thinking then that it will take me a lifetime to learn the subtlety of your presencing which had that mix of letting go, of it not being attached to you, and then so honoring of us whatever we decided to do for and with our larger group. Today NuFocus continues to grow. Magic happened there and it is still with us and in us now. Thank you for your posting which took me back to feeling it was June again in that special time and place with you and all of us. Suzanne
Suzanne Daigle Managing Partner, US Operations NuFocus Strategic Group Tel: 941-359-8877 <mailto:s.dai...@nufocusgroup.com> s.dai...@nufocusgroup.com From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of Diane Gibeault Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 12:33 AM To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Open spacisms Hi everyone, The question of Open spacisms raised recently on this list struck a cord because I had been thinking about some of my experimentations around Open Space, some that I consider keepers and others that I have let go a while back. Peggy (Holman) in your recent Nov 23 message about Honouring each other, you said different things about open spacisms (the shouldnts in OS practice that Kaliya had first raised) and wanting to experiment with them like many do. I agree with the examples you gave of your personal evolution around OS. I copied those extracts below to keep a link to that thread. Here are a couple of my keeper experiments and an experiment that I let go of. A Keeper Ive experimented with: Personal action plan. - Even for OS events where collective action plans have been developed, I invite participants to silently work on a few key questions about what they personally have passion to move forward in relation with the theme of the OS event. This lasts just a few minutes just before the closing circle. This gives every single person a chance to leave with something in hand and in heart. Many participants have said to me that this gave them their most important Ah Ah moment of the whole event. Or else they felt the completeness of the experience with this reflection and better anchored. I try to plan for an extra 10 minutes or more for an exchange with the person of their choice. Not only do they go deeper in their thinking and get some support but the fact of expressing it out loud increases the chances of moving forward according to studies Ive frequently heard of around change. Those who dont feel like sharing use their 2 feet and are usually found near the coffee pot in the room where they have other kinds of interesting conversations. One to let go: Decision Makers communicating their go ahead to priorities identified by the group. Another to keep: Action Groups choosing mentors within the organization or the community. Those two come from the same story: A while ago, an OS facilitator shared this practice he began. After priorities were identified by the group, participants would do the exercise of identifying related discussion reports to each priority and have a coffee. During that 15 minute period, managers would meet briefly in another room and confirm if they could give a clear go ahead on those priorities. They would also chose among senior management, a different person to be a mentor for each priority planning group. The intention was to show the group clear and strong support from the decision makers, i.e., something good from the point of view of management. I thought there was some merit in this intention. The very first time I tried this, during lunch group representatives came to me one after the other with strong emotional objections to the specific choice of mentors and for various good reasons (harassment problems with some, micromanagement with others etc). They suggested that each group working on a priority should choose their own mentor, from any level of the organization, based on their real need and trust relationship. I informed the top manager and their was quick recognition of the importance to do just that. It worked. I still offer this option of group selected mentors when the organizers feel its a plus for their organization in follow-ups. Now about letting go! I continued trying the practice of management confirming priorities. It gave a sense of security to decision makers who might be nervous about letting priorities surface without any chance of intervening if they felt things were going the wrong way. After a while I realized that it was unnecessary. No one ever overturned a groups priority. In reality the management team can be well informed of what is emerging. In the preparation phase I tell managers they can do that by fully participating in discussions, being bumble bees and butterflies and reading reports posted on the wall throughout the event. I also make available to a key senior person, if there is interest for it, an advanced copy of the full Book of reports so they can have a complete overview while reports are being printed overnight. They often feel so confident about what is happening that they pass. If by the morning they really feel they have to clarify a given before people made choices on priorities (much better than after), that can be done informally during morning news. Still, Ive yet to see that happen, maybe because during the preparation, I work closely with the organizing committee and management to clarify givens whats not on the table for discussion. Even if I encourage them to keep givens to the strict minimum so that newness can emerge, the exercise of reflecting on this brings a sense of safe space for everyone. Removing that priority approval step also sends the right message that when as a leader you open space, you trust the group, you trust the process, you get out of the way and you allow yourself to be surprised. Greater things do happen when we let go. I can almost hear Harrisons voice here. You are certainly right on that one. Yes, Harrison does often also say, a system that isn't changing is dead. I do believe experimenting is good even if messy at times. I also think that sometimes we keep life flowing best by coming back to what worked well in the first place, to that wisdom of simplicity and the fundamental truth of the power of letting go. This is just another opportunity to say again, thank you Harrison for all that. Diane Diane Gibeault & Associé.es-Associates Ottawa Canada Tel. 613-744-2638 diane.gibea...@rogers.com <http://www.dianegibeault.com> www.dianegibeault.com Consultation, Facilitation and Training in Support of Transformation Conseils, animation et formation en appui à la transformation Peggy wrote : (a few extracts) MY STORY When I began working with OS, I fiercely defended the space from all comers. I worked to keep any pre-work to a bare minimum, sure that people would understand the brilliant freedom of Open Space the moment they stepped in. Since then, I've found compassion for those who experience the disorientation of freedom shock when they first experience Open Space. When I began working more in community settings, with greater diversity and where there aren't the implicit "rules of engagement", I found that cultivating a sense of connection and clarity of purpose is part of creating a welcome, nutrient space. And contrary to the myth that talks don't work in Open Space, even Harrison has successfully given them in the morning of the second and third day of an Open Space gathering. In other words, as my practice has grown, I treat quite differently "givens" that I used to take as gospel and defend. Examples: * Pre-work (clarifying the intention and calling question, identifying and inviting stakeholders) is trivial. If you spend a lot of time on it, you're working too hard. * Open Space doesn't mix well with other practices. In fact, I have found creative, flowing ways in which different practices work together to meet the needs of the specific situation and culture. It requires getting creative with design colleagues and sponsors to meet the needs of a group. * Once you're in an Open Space event, stay in Open Space. While this is still my preference, there are circumstances where integrating other activities, like a morning talk, serves the needs of the group just fine. I want to be clear that I am still there to ensure the space is as open as possible. I have just come to believe that what keeps the space open is more nuanced than I understood when I started working with Open Space Technology in 1993. I no longer defend the space. I co-creatively ensure it stays open. ..Wisdom involves discerning how to navigate the contradictions. Yes, whatever happens is the only thing that could have. This is empowering when used to awaken someone to their own capacity to meet their needs. When it is used consciously or unconsciously to maintain the status quo, it becomes destructive. It becomes a way to do nothing. Rather than just saying "who ever comes..." or "whatever happens...", when someone raises an issue, I now treat it as a potential learning moment for either or both of us; an opening to understand something more fully Most often, exploring the issue leads to them discovering their own power to act. But through the conversation, they feel heard, respected, met. And I learn something about their culture. With this change in my practice, I have become more fluid in how I open space, sometimes using other processes as a doorway in, sometimes hosting a speaker because it serves the needs of the session. I am less glib than I used to be about the principles, recognizing both their power and their shadow. And I am more wiling to experiment with form, knowing that the real work is opening space within and among us. What does this sort of experimentation which many of us are doing mean for how Open Space Technology itself evolves? Is OST's form perfection as is? It is definitely elegant. As Harrison often says, a system that isn't changing is dead. Isn't this an interesting paradox? I think that the last OST innovation that has been widely embraced was when several of us began opening space for convergence following a conversation at the Toronto OSonOS in 1997! So with all the people experimenting with how we use OST, what might we learn about the nature and form of our work? I suspect there's more fluidity to the nature of opening space than most of us consider. For example, I sometimes hear from colleagues who use other conversational practices that Open Space doesn't surface the collective intelligence of a group in easily shared ways. I can hear the "open spacisms" raised in objection to this statement. Indeed, I have seen groups come away with a deep sense of how they fit together as a system. Yet, through their words or the notes, communicating that collective intelligence to those who weren't there is often a mystery. How might we approach this as a design challenge while staying true to the ethics of "one less thing to do" and trusting the people of the system to find their own answers? I've become more willing to experiment, to seek simple, natural forms that meet these sorts of objections. For example, I have come to appreciate the intimacy of reflecting in small groups. Since people don't all return to the large group at the same time, there's a natural rhythm to starting small then moving to one circle. I don't pretend to have "the" answer of how OST and our understanding of Open Space evolves. Perhaps the evolution isn't in the form but in our deeper thinking. It could be that the simple elegance of internalizing the practice of opening space frees us to experiment more with the form. After 16 years, I still feel like a novice, learning about the nature of opening space. I think it is an important, creative question for the evolution of our work and our community to consider how we evolve rather than dismissing criticisms and objections by naming a principle. Is anyone else interested in such conversations? Kaliya, thanks for calling out open spacisms. It gave me a doorway to speak to something that I haven't been able to figure out how to say. from cold, cloudy Seattle, Peggy * * ========================================================== 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 * * ========================================================== 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
