Dear Marie Ann,
"Practice of Peace" is all packed up and ready to fly to Stockholm, but,
alas, I dont have your postal address.
Please send it to me at [email protected]
or
include yourself in the Open Space Worldmap
http://www.openspaceworldmap.org/
go to MENU and there to WANT TO INCLUDE YOURSELF?
Craigs question got me mulling and looking at my experience... returning
to the expectations of the sponsor (forget my expectations!). As long as
the expectations of the sponsor are voiced and as long as I as
facilitator can say "all of them will be met" or "this one will be met
but not that one" or "if you want all of them met you need the following
conditions" (the last one can be tough or sticky, especially if I am
eager to get the contract because I have a family to feed and hate to
say "no", thats usually where failure sets in)... and still, this is the
amazing resilience of the os process, it will "work" every time that
selforganisation gets a chance to do its thing. And the only way to shut
that process down is exerting control (if the sponsor or a participant
gets into that business - also called "space invader" - I as facilitator
am challenged and need to intervene by either doing nothing or
intervening in another appropriate way that selforganisation can
continue its business... as someone has pointed out, this is the
situation in which you really know why you get paid to be a facilitator).
Ok, this is all a bunch of advice from an old hand... would love to hear
of situations where sponsors or participants were unhappy or os did not
deliver...
Greetings from a hot summer night in Berlin
mmp
On 25.07.2012 23:08, Marie Ann Östlund wrote:
Wow, thank you for all your responses and wonderful stories. Thank you
Peggy, that's a great example, and Christine - that's an interesting
process.
I wanted to do something 'constructive' with everyone open enough to
meet, as many felt hopeless about the situation. The issue now was
acute but they had a 20-30 year history of difficulties and conflicts.
I only had a few hours so convened a circle and planned a short AI and
World Café, so that they would have some sort of exchange. The floor
was 'high-jacked' though by someone that had important new revelations
to communicate, and I let it be for some time before asking those
wanting to speak about this to convene somewhere else. Those that
stayed convened in a circle and I gave them a talking stick. That went
well.
I was pondering over how it would be to open space in this situation.
As Harrison says, when there is conflict, open space.
In regards to having an agenda, Brendan, as a mediator I understand
that it's hard for people to hear each other when they are very angry
or upset, at the same time it's important for people to be able to
express just how angry or hurt they are. With OS I'm learning to trust
people to do what they need to do, and that they will manage
themselves. I just wasn't sure if opening space would really be
advisable, even if I thought it might work. There's nothing like
truth, but still I don't want people to get hurt.
And Harrison, our own Krishnamurti. No fluff, just open space! I
admire your trust - which is why you're so bold.
Michael, yes do send me Practice of Peace (in english!). You're right
that it's all very much about convincing oneself, and writing to you
all is part of that process for me.
Thank you Craig for trying to elicit some failure stories from the OS
folks. In conflicts people at least care enough to be in conflict, and
OS is all about what we care about so will have to work.
Thanks!
Marie Ann
On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 3:55 PM, Harrison Owen <[email protected]> wrote:
Good point Craig. We always learn from the exceptions/anomalies. In 27 years
of opening space, often in genuinely “hairy” situations, I have never
personally encountered a situation where “it didn’t work.” “Working” for me
is a fairly pragmatic definition. Folks got together, dealt with their
issues, and either found solutions or recognized that for reasons totally
beyond their control, no solution was possible in the moment. All of this
was done with a high degree of civility, respect, and economy of effort.
More often than not, participants will report that they even “had fun.”
I have heard of situations that were less than positive. In every case the
fundamental problem seemed to be that the sponsor/facilitator tried to “play
it safe.” This could mean restricting the time/space for discussion,
limiting the issues to be discussed (placing them off limits), and/or
intervening along the way with some form of mediation. Some people tried to
prepare the way by sharing “Handy Rules for treating each other nicely.” I
don’t suppose that hurt, but I never saw that it made any difference. Truth
is in the heat of discussion folks don’t seem to pay much attention to
rules, except those that are generated internally and are integral to the
conversation – which is what I think happens in Open Space.
Harrison
Harrison
Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Dr.
Potomac, MD 20854
USA
189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)
Camden, Maine 20854
Phone 301-365-2093
(summer) 207-763-3261
www.openspaceworld.com
www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)
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From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Craig Gilliam
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2012 7:49 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [OSList] Dealing with conflicts
I do a great deal of conflict work professionally. I am a practitioner of
OS as well.
Rather than hearing only success (and I know that the definition of success
varies) stories of OS and conflict, I am also interested in those times
when someone felt OS did not work in a conflict situation, or did not work
as well as he/she thought it would and what did you learn from those
encounters.
Thanks,
Craig
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2012 13:13:58 +0200
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [OSList] Dealing with conflicts
Dear Marie Ann,
the gathering Harrison describes (Israelis and Palestinians in Rome) got
him to write a book on why os events are so peaceful even in highly
conflicting situations.
If you like, I will send you a copy of "The Practice of Peace"... of
course, you can also get the german version I was involved in: "Raum für
den Frieden".
In my own experience there have been a number of highly conflicting
situations for which sponsors chose Open Space Technology. The biggest
job I had was to convince the sponsors that you need nothing but open
space and it worked every time (Israelis and Palestinians meeting in
Switzerland, Parish Board and church workers at issue with each other,
Board of Directors and Marketing Department of a Food Corporation at
issue, Welfare Organisation with all subsystems at "war", Highschool
with opposing factions of teachers...you name it).
Come to think of it, at the beginning of my OSpractice after 35 years of
OD consulting, I actually had to convince mainly myself that highly
conflicting situations is what os-events run on (one of the five
preconditions)... unlearning the old approaches (still very much in
vogue!!) was the hard part.
Greetings from Berlin
mmp
On 24.07.2012 22:35, Marie Ann Östlund wrote:
Dear all,
I just spent a week in a community in France that is divided by quite
a large conflict. Have anyone of you used OS with a group of people
where the conflict is at its hight and emotions are still strong? I
can see that OS can be used in complex conflictual situations, but
wonder whether you would first spend time bringing down their emotions
to a 'manageable' level before attempting to bring them together into
an OS.
Do you have any experiences in this regard? I'd be very interested in
your reflections!
Thank you,
Marie Ann
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++49-30-772 8000
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--
Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
++49-30-772 8000
[email protected] www.boscop.org
Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 388 resident Open
Space Workers in 67 countries working in a total of 143 countries
worldwide: www.openspaceworldmap.org
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