Dear Arno,
when I reflect on my work and role as an os-facilitator I feel that I am
looking at an experiment, my personal experiment. Since 1996, when I
joined the os-experiment, I am surprising myself to this day with what I
experience in that experiment. And some of the observations became more
and more predictable as I moved in this experiential experience... but
surprises still abound.
Another way of putting this for me is that it is an ongoing journey in
an experiment that a constantly increasing crowd is involved in.
But as far as the experience is concerned, it is my experience.
That also means that I dislike making generalizations about the "right"
way and try to stick to my experience, my impressions of what works for
my practice... and enjoy the exchange with other os-facilitators as on
this list or in Learning Exchanges or in (W)OSonOS gatherings and
especially at Stammtisch gatherings...
To your points:
1. Arriving at a topic is the task of the client and especially the
clients "Planning Group" to which he belongs and which is authorized to
work on this task. In this context I try to avoid the word
"responsibility" because it is an extremely complex concept... focusing
on a task is work enough and simply consumes all my energy.
So, as facilitator, I take no responsibility at all for the "Theme" or
the "Content". My contribution to the work of the "Planning Group" is to
back the Group in focusing on the task at hand without myself being
attached to any particular outcome.
(I wish you could have seen me watching the game Brazil/Mexiko: without
my comments and beliefs on what every player and the referee and the
spectators should have done, it would have never ended in a draw which
is exactly what I felt would be the proper result... it drives my dear
wife crazy!)
2. Yes, thats definitely been my experience AND it has freed me to focus
more on the design and interventions in the course of the 3.5hr Planning
Meeting. One result is that I never hurry the Planning Group which
often,seemingly paradoxical, speeds up the process... and sometimes
(rarely) the Planning Group decides to postpone the decision and meet
again OR (not so rarely) (and this I then take as a sign of the groups
strength, delegating the finalization of the Theme to a smaller subgroup
of the Planning Group which then also fashions the final draft of the
invitation which often is circulated among the members of the Planning
Group).
One element in the Planning Group process is also to spend time on
exchanging ideas on who all should be invited and who they feel is
essential for the gathering. This also results in an exchange on
specific ways specific groups or specific individuals should be
invited... and also gets members of the Planning Group to come forward
and take charge for inviting a specific group or a specific individual
in a specific way... keeping in mind that an invitation is an
invitation, it can be either accepted or not.
My reading on this is that the Planning Group enables itself for these
kinds of actions not so much because they found a terrific eyecatcher
Theme but because they have grown into a group working on something
together that they have become commonly attached to.
3. Well, first of all, "additional operators" distracts or tend to
distract me, especially when they are really entertaining.
But it does not support me in being "completely present and utterly
invisible" ... a stance I have painfully learned over the years: To be
non-controlling (my "nature", mind you, is to control, control,
control). This stance appears to be conducive for the selforganisation
force to do its thing (not to be confused with people selforganizing
which, however, I cherish when I notice it...)... but referring to that
force thats been active since the Big Bang.
I am not so sure that it "distracts the attention of the participants
from their main focus of gathering". It simply opens space for
"non-participants" to do things the participants could do and do and are
perfectly capable of doing. Put differently, it reduces the space for
participants to do what they are able to do and robs them of the
experience of being able to actually take things into their own hands.
Its simply one field of practice they dont usually get involved in:
Practicing and experimenting with independent, self-initiated action...
often these are simple actions to practice and gather experience in
preparation for the much more complex and difficult actions they want to
embark on after the "event". The opportunity to do such stuff in the
"event" is a rare opportunity to play and experiment in a "relatively
safe space".
To your wish to try the mind-map approach for formulating a Theme:
This idea was not something I brought into the process but was
originated in a Planning Group where participants added their various
notions to the "Theme" on the large flipchart paper I supply for the
group to take notes on while they are working on the Theme.
Also, in Germany, mind-mapping is well known and used in a broad variety
of learning settings... I "taught" it all our kids during their school
days several decades ago and hundreds of groups in my old job as
community organizer and consultant for organisational development in my
time with the protestant church. Thanks to Tony Buzan.
Greetings from Berlin
mmp
On 18.06.2014 00:07, Arno Baltin wrote:
Dear, Michael!
I hope I got your points:
1. Designing the topic of OS and the invitation is the duty of client.
And OS facilitator can arrange the space for them without taking too
much responsibility for the content.
2. The form/content of the main theme of gathering is not so decisive as
it seems at first glance.
3. Additional operators and actions around OS distract the attention of
the participants from their main focus of gathering.
Thank you for the "topic on the mind map" idea, I would like to try it.
Be well!
Arno
**
2014-06-17 21:58 GMT+03:00 Michael M Pannwitz <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>:
Dear Arno,
my experience has been that every additional person next to me (or
when I was present in events I did not facilitate) tended to reduce
the focus of the participants on their own devices.
This has been true for co-facilitators, translators, visual
facilitators, facilitators in breakout session, special folks for
recording the ongoings in breakout sessions, etc.
These roles probably are of their own of value in many other kinds
of gatherings but seem to reduce the self-organized action
orientation that I think is an essential characteristic of os events.
In my practice, I have always given a lot of attention to
participants of the Planning Group to do the work required by
themselves. This has almost always led to them finding their
"Theme"--- and I remember a couple of incidents where the groups
vision of the theme was so wickedly complex that it took the form of
a group mindmap which appeared not only in the invitation but also
on the cover of the documentation.
Focusing the work of the Planning Group in this way has always been
a robust way to get into the "os-mode", even though the Planning
Group work is not an "os-event".
What I also noticed is that while the final form of the "Theme" is
sometimes funny, interesting, deep, shallow, insignificant, totally
to the point, passionate, mind boggling, or boring (this is all from
my point of view on which I progressivly paid less and less
attention). To put it briefly, the form or content of the Theme as
such appears to be of little consequence to the os-event, who all is
attracted, on the outcome or on what actually grew into action.
It seems, that the process of the Planning Group participants (of
which the client is one, of course) of carefully going through all
the various notions and collectively planning the event all by
themselves is an important ingredient to transform the Planning
Group intoa a group of passionate invitors.
This, mind you, does not prevent clients (rarely) to snake up to me
at the end of a Planning Group process and ask:
"Do we really have to use the Theme that the group came up with?"
Greetings from Berlin
Got to run for the match Brazil-Mexico
(they do have a referee!!!)
mmp
On 17.06.2014 08:24, Arno Baltin wrote:
Dear Open Minds and Hearts!
I had wonderful experience to open Space with friends, graphic
facilitators.
As the client was a bit in trouble to state the Question/Problem
in one
sentence (the invitation included about 5 sentences which called
invitees
to share they thoughts on how, where and why should we (Tallinn
University)
move on keeping in mind year 2020. The results should become the
input for
mid-range strategic plan. So as there was no consensus on this "one
sentence" I asked my friend to draw the Question.
You can see the results via the link
<https://www.dropbox.com/sh/__28eb3vo70k5izep/__AAD3cPzFMxRIrcTGcibpf0Bca
<https://www.dropbox.com/sh/28eb3vo70k5izep/AAD3cPzFMxRIrcTGcibpf0Bca>>
(The Question is the last photo in the row.)
I am curious if anybody has tried this route already and what
are your
experience with inviting graphic facilitator to OS.
Be well!
Arno
**
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Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
++49 - 30-772 8000
Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 394 resident Open
Space Workers in 68 countries working in a total of 142 countries
worldwide: www.openspaceworldmap.org
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