Hello
Christine and every one,
Congratulations Christinen for holding your breath during the opening. You
demonstrated what it means to hold space by trusting the group and the process
and sure enough, participants did what they chose to create.
I also offer the medicine wheel for the learning
/debriefing stage of OS events but I am torn on the two approaches described in
the
thread of this discussion.
I love the interesting reflection exercise (in pairs,
on the quadrant of their choice, with notes left in relevant quadrants in the
centre of the circle) that Thomas Herrmann described.
My instincts go more
often though in the direction Michael Pannwitz described: sticking to a closing
circle
with a talking stick, no questions... “it seems that leaves
"remembering" (as in contrast to "learning" or
"teaching") to surface well”.
I generally prefer to stay in this intuitive,
remembering and feeling mode of the closing circle which allows for rich and
rare expression of deeper and touching thoughts that are so the glue that makes
relationships and ideas stick. This also allows more incubation and taking some
distance before going into an analytical mode where conclusions are structured
to bring a picture of where things have moved.
On the other hand, with the pair reflection on site, the
organization is benefitting from everyone throwing in their unique perspective
about
what they see, instead of only getting that of the leadership team after the
event.
An alternative to get this feedback from the whole after
the event and to go even farther, is to invite every section of the
organization to hold a (15 minute)
medicine wheel reflection, within each work team in the days that follow the OS.
They can keep the discussion going for as long as they wish to. It becomes
another
opportunity for team building and for advancing a shared vision. The pooling of
the teams’ findings is another rich source of information for decision-makers
and those carrying follow-ups to the OS meeting.
This may not work as well in groups that are
not an intact organization, but there is nothing that a little imagination
can’t fix.
Diane
________________________________
From: christine koehler <[email protected]>
To: OSLIST <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, December 6, 2013 7:57:44 AM
Subject: [OSList] OST evaluation and medecine wheel
Dear all
After reading several posts here discussing the medecine wheel, I decided to
use it as an evaluation tool for an open space I did recently with 100
managers. As it was really helpful and productive, I would like to thank you
and to tell you the story
The open space itself had not been so easy to do, as it followed the report of
a diagnosis that showed the many problems faced by the management in this
organization. And it was tough to hear, for all of them. So after listening to
the diagnosis, the open space started with a loooong silence. And inbetween
each topic there was again a looong silence. I could see the director and
members of the planning commitee turning white or sweating. Yet we ended up
with 12 topics. 2 slots of discussions, very intense. They discussed the real
problems.
Then I opened space again for action planning. To tell the truth, I was scared
that they would not dare support actions. But they did : 10 topics, for which,
except one, several people jumped in, and that covered 90% of the diagnosis.
(probably the 10% left dealt with a category of people who were not there for
quite complicate and administrative reasons).
Yesterday, when I did the evaluation with the planning team, I explained quicly
the medecine wheel and have them reflect about what they learned for each
quadrant. What surprised me is that they did not answer about the process they
experienced the day of the event, but about the organization. In a very short
time they pictured a very clear, realistic yet optimistic image of their
organization. It was great.
The result is that they all commited to continue working together to support
the action plans for the coming months, although they had accepted the "job"
only because it was a one-time commitment.
And for the fun part, one of them told me "it looks like you guided us through
this like a shaman" ;)
Christine
_______________________________________________
OSList mailing list
To post send emails to [email protected]
To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
To subscribe or manage your subscription click below:
http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
_______________________________________________
OSList mailing list
To post send emails to [email protected]
To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
To subscribe or manage your subscription click below:
http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
