Yes, what Michael Herman said.
And: there are gatherings I have seen and other gatherings that people
have talked to me about, that were called Open Space but did not open
the space very much. Because there was no Law of Two Feet, and/or
because there was a preset agenda, that kind of thing. There are a few
things that make up the essence of Open Space and if you take those
away, you can of course go ahead and have fun with your meeting, but
don’t call it Open Space.
There can be a lot of reasons to play with the format and adapt it.
Nothing wrong with that. But I know that for folks who are used to
conventional meetings and the old corporate way of managing an
organization, it can be a pretty scary thing to do an Open Space. And
more often than not, these folks try to combat their fear by adapting
Open Space into something less scary. Usually, making it less scary
takes away the essence of Open Space. Those are, at least in my book,
the wrong reasons to play with the format. And in those cases, I
become one of the “elders” who say: don’t tamper with it, because it
is not going to work. And for good reason.
Koos
*Van:*OSList [mailto:[email protected]] *N**amens
*Michael Herman via OSList
*Verzonden:* zondag 31 januari 2016 19:12
*Aan:* paul levy <[email protected]>; World wide Open Space Technology
email list <[email protected]>
*Onderwerp:* Re: [OSList] The Question
This whole story about a split between OST and opening space, this bit
about unchanging dogma is a big mystery to me.
There is what is written in the User's Guide. And then there is what
all of us do. I can remember exactly one instance, almost twenty
years ago, when anyone said to me "that's not open space cuz it's not
what's written i the book." That was in person, but i've never
actually heard any such thing on the list.
And I see LOTS of changes and adaptations. What was written as 3 days
has been experimented down to 3 hours or even less. Convergence still
happens, but non-convergence happens probably more, and other
convergences, too. John Engle taught us to open with skits instead of
posters, and oral reports instead of typed notes. We've mixed OST
with appreciative inquiry. I once sprinkled six breakout sessions into
a formal, powerpoint-heavy corporate top leadership retreat week.
Ralph Copleman came to the list once for ideas on how to open space or
do OST on a beach without walls. Anne Stadler and friends
experimented with ongoing, quarterly open space practice. Others of
us have run OST-like tracks inside of traditional conferences,
sometimes as part of the conference plan and at least once as a
totally emergent experiment that ran on nametags that said "ask me
about open space" and a pop-up community bulletin board wall in a
hallway. Daniel Mezick has opened a new frontier in adapting the
practice of open space tech to agile adoption.
Brian Bainbridge, who once told me that he read a little bit of the
user's guide before every time he facilitated an open space meeting,
also came to this list with a report about how he'd just stood at a
podium, on a stage, looking out at decidedly-not-a-circle sitting in
cushy fixed seats, given a little opening invitation briefing and had
people streaming across the stage to post their topics on some sort of
temporary wall. And that was it. No breakouts, no proceedings, no
open space? Not a chance. The group buzzed about those topics
through the rest of their conference, in lots of standard sessions and
the usual coffee breaks.
The thing that stands out for me about these things, other than that
they never got written up in any of harrison's books, is that they
happened -- they weren't hypothetical, mental exercises we did on the
list. They were real live practice stories first. This tells me
that, true to the intro of the original user's guide, anyone can go
and experiment and bring the story back for conversation and
learning. When we talk in theories and generalities, including about
dogma, dogma arises. When we talk about the real things we did and
what seemed to happen as a result, there is no room or need for dogma.
There is only the work of understanding what's happening(ed). And
then everyone in the conversation can choose whether to repeat or
adjust that experiment, in any other situation that might show up.
There are all these new things that have been tried and shared, and
there are also many common threads and practices. I see no benefit in
or need for tagging the common ground as dogma OR for things
differently only for the sake of novelty. In practice, the only thing
that matters is what we actually do and how it works. What we think
is happening, what we believe might work, and all manner of
intellectualizing and theorizing is just so much distraction, until
somebody actually puts it on the ground in the center of a circle or
flashmob or stage.
As you're describing these two apparent sides, Paul, I really can't
figure who's on what side. It seems to have something to do with
being older or newer in the practice, but that doesn't really explain
it. I know I have been called at various times both purist and
heretic. I think that might be true for many of the folks i've
learned from, my elders, and also many of those I call peers in the
practice. I wonder if what you're labeling dogma isn't really more
about depth of experience and rigor of reflection and analysis. When
the conversation is focused on practice, more than theory, those with
more experience have more stories to share. As long as we keep
focused on practice, there's nothing wrong with that.
I think it might be that when we wander out into questions like "What
is Open Space Technology," and get away from what anyone is actually
doing, in practice, experience ceases to count and those with more
experience are seen as just dominating the conversation with their old
stories. "What is Open Space Technology" is a groundless
conversation. Nothing wrong with that, but in removing itself from
the ground of practice, it leaves us no way to evaluate anything that
comes in response. In this way, it invalidates lived experience. If,
instead, we ask "How are we explaining the practice of open space to
clients we want to hire us?" ...or something like this, past
experience is valued again, to show us what's worked and not worked.
We can see patterns in how the things we've said and how they worked
have been able to change and evolve. We can make guesses, choose from
the options and go test each and all of them directly, for ourselves.
History and new experiments are equally needed and valuable.
For all the talk about dogma, I have no idea what any actual dogmatic
definition of OST might be. The user's guide is a historical artifact,
a concept paper, and by it's own admission only a restating of a sort
of older, universal concept. It's a beginning point for our community
that needs neither abandoning or sanctifying. We just need to keep
proving it out, in practice, in the space we open here, between
experience and experimentation -- neither one better or more important
than the other. It's the going back and forth, in practice, that has
made and can/will continue to make us stronger.
Learning and contributing, passion and responsibility, breathing in
and breathing out, four principles and one law, and now, if you
will... experience and experimenting. another slice of "mutuality" --
the co-existent, inter-informing play of apparent opposites -- arising
in open space.
Michael
--
Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
312-280-7838 (mobile)
http://MichaelHerman.com
http://OpenSpaceWorld.org
On Sun, Jan 31, 2016 at 10:11 AM, paul levy via OSList
<[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
This was my attempt at this a while back. It still feels relevant
to Daniels's question...
best wishes
Paul Levy
Open Space Technology opens space. That might sound a bit strange,
or even a bit obvious, but bear with me. I’ve said that for a reason.
In the Open Space Technology community of practitioners and fans
I’ve encountered over the last twenty years, there is a strong
behavioural pattern of not changing the first and original version
of Open Space Technology. Harrison Owen called it a technology –
it is a way of doing something that does this: opens space. SO why
change it? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Open Space Technology, as you’ll find it taught today, is just
about exactly the same as it was back in the ’80s.
Now, back to “Open Space Technology opens space”. What on earth
does that mean?
It opens space for a conversation. It opens space for
self-organised exploration of an issue of importance to a
community. It opens space for getting things done. And often a
hell of a lot of things do get done from an Open Space event.
There sits a group in a circle, and when the space opens and they
self-organise, using the minimal structure of the Open Space
Technology process (marketplace, principles, rules etc), all kinds
of stuff then bursts into the physical space from the previously
hidden world of Spirit, (Or Potential, if you prefer), realising
all kinds of action in space and time. In other words, practical,
useful and usable action results. Open Space Technology has
achieved that again and again and again and again and again and …
(insert tens of thousands of ‘agains’ here). No, it really has.
So, as I said, Open Space Technology er… opens space.
Over the years, this hardly changed technology has added a new
principle, and tinkered with the wording here or there.
Anticlockwise “walking of the circle” has crept in, and the odd
talking stick has popped up, and an Eastern gong brings back
attention to the circle. But, at its core, Open Space Technology
is a technology that has never had (nor, according to its fan
base) needed, an upgrade.
Indeed, whenever an upgrade has been suggested, the elders in the
Open Space movement tend to sigh knowingly and then kindly offer
“Aw, shaddup and open some space already!”. If that sounds like a
generalisation, I invite you to read the Open Space discussion
list over the years and you’ll find plenty of evidence of “don’t
change a thing”.
Suggestions for change will come and go with the passing of mortal
facilitators, but Open Space technology is either as timeless as
love, or will pass away, unchanged, in its own good time.
At recent OSONOSes (What is THAT?, I hear you ask – it’s an Open
Space meeting ON Open Space!), I discovered that a lot of people
like the fact that Open Space Technology is largely still below
the radar of mainstream organisational intervention and meeting
theory. It quietly piles up its tally of successfully opened
spaces without much care for detailed research into its practice
and efficacy. It lies largely outside of journal based scrutiny,
and, most of all, it lies beyond innovation and tinkering with its
own process. Yet at two recent OSonOses I met a significant number
of people who do adapt it, change it, innovate it, and they still
find that, not surprisingly – space still opens! They feel as bit
sad that its a golden field of practice that doesn’t seem to want
to lovingly question its foundations. As a result, what should
have been a changing, organic building, has turned into a temple
that moves only its pot plants around.
Yet space still opens. Of course it does. You see, Open Space
technology opens space. But so do a bunch of other gorgeous and
eloquent processes. And sometimes (and I heard more than a few
stories confirming this), dogmatically unchanged Open Space
Technology limits the opening of space. The officionados would
claim that it is never Open Space Technology that limits the
opening of space, but a bunch of other factors. It’s the sponsor’s
fault, or the facilitator should have done X or Y differently.
They usually sigh at the facilitator and say “Get over it, and
just stick to the knitting”.
This is all very (annoyingly) general, I know. But I’ll keep to
that and see if the generality resonates with anyone reading this
for now.
I’ve written in detail, elsewhere on this site, how and why
dogmatic use of Open Space Technology can inhibit and limit the
opening of space.
I do believe there are archetypal elements in Open Space
Technology that are pretty timeless or, at least, standing up
pretty well in terms of relevance and applicability, to the test
of Time’s passage. Archetypes tend towards timelessness.
In Action Learning, for example, reflection on action is a pretty
timeless archetype. As Action Learning has evolved into a range
of approaches, that core concept of the “learning cycle” of
conceptualisation, experimentation, action and reflection, seems
to stay relevantly at the core of all the diverse developments.
Yet how we do action learning has changed wonderfully.
In dialogue work, as another example, the importance of active
listening remains and pervades, even as the field of practice widens.
In Open Space technology, the archetype of the circle remains and
has a deep living quality, wherever space is opened. Equally, the
spirit (if not the wording) of the principles remains vibrant and
relevant. The notion of self-organisation sits at the heart of the
natural world, and is a core, timeless quality of opening space.
But “Breaking news”, and “Marketplace” and even the role of the
facilitator, are not as fundamental as many of the elders think
they are.
At the OSonOses (including the World one) I met people who thanked
me for challenging the status quo (which wasn’t in any plan of
mine going in). Some said they didn’t feel they could challenge
Open Space Technology at these events, nor share alternatives or
share stories of how they has changed it in practice. I myself
got some hate mail from an Open Space elder a few years back when
we ran an OSonOs exploring “Beyond the dogma”. I’m not sure how
true it is that there’s a norm to stick to the technology like
glue or feel like an outsider. It’s a big shame if it is true and
if it becomes true at the WOSonOs in Florida in 2013. There’s
certainly nothing formal to stop healthy challenge and
questioning, but quite a few people pointed to a norm that exists
in the Open Space Technology community, that critique marks you
out as a kind of “misery guts”, even as a betrayer of a lovely
elderly gentleman. Basically you are pooping on a party that is so
benevolent is lies beyond that poop.
Open Space Technology, in its classic form, opens space. Often,
and beautifully. But it isn’t the only “technology” that opens
space, nor is it always the best or right one. Also it isn’t only
technology that opens space. Art also does it. Often, when a
facilitator is truly in the moment, in an ego-free state of
service to his or her community, space opens and NEW approaches
emerge, sometimes beautiful hybrids of Open Space Technology,
sometimes tiny adaptations, sometimes entirely new fusions,
versions, forms. Sometimes something entirely close to Open Space
Technology “escapes” into our practice entirely afresh, especially
when we have forgotten it!
At the heart of all these approaches I believe is nearly always
the circle, the principle and love of self-organisation, the
creative urge towards getting things done, and also a kind of
acceptance of the rightness of who is there, where we are,
whatever happens and also, the love of freedom to flow in and out
of the open space as needed. These are the archetypal qualities
that have led to Open Space Technology being so powerful and enduring.
But there is no need for chapter and verse, no need for the
technology to be so rigid in its core design. What is important is
that potential that wants to be realised can find its way to space
that has opened for it. Fractured communities that come together
into circles and then self-organise into smaller circles, before
reforming into bigger ones again, always linked to the strength of
that “holding circle” can use the circle to achieve amazing
things, notably synergy, where we are more together and where the
circle gives us shared inner and outer focus.
“Whatever” is more important than any Open Space Technology Dogma.
But not the whatever of laziness and indifference. This is the
whatever of emergence, of the space that reveals, the circle that
opens into possibility and then turns possibility into free
choice, and free choice into committed action in and upon the world.
So, I’ve discovered there are now two overlapping (uneasily)
communities, There is the Open Space Technology Community,
employing a technology that Harrison Owen could have tried to
patent or copyright but didn’t, but has instead offered it freely
to the world, trusting its beauty and success in the world, to
leave it unchanged and used as needed in the world. Then there is
a larger community which is the Open Space community that uses the
classic version of the technology but also adapts it, and also
uses other methods, all of which, more or less, open space for
self-organisation, for conversation and action. I think it’s a
pity, and also a bit of an emerging tragedy that those at the core
of the Open Space Technology Community (by no means all of them)
are not more open to change and innovation from that wider
community, to be enriched and inspired by it. Because of this, the
Open Space Technology community now has its own underground where
people ARE questioning its fundamentals and morphing it, but
aren’t sharing that openly at its events nor on its discussion
lists. When they do, there tends to be a benevolent and parental
closing down by many of its supporters to just leave things as
they are and put faith in the version that is never in need of an
upgrade.
Sometimes space needs to open without any stated principles,
without any structure-polemic, no matter how minimal and well
meant. Sometimes space needs to open with few if any words.
Sometimes space opens better in the language of the community and
not the language of Open Space Technology. Sometimes space opens
better through artistry, not technology. Sometimes space opens
without the need for a physical circle, and sometimes even without
the need for a facilitator. Sometimes space opens with Open Space
Technology in its original form.
But sometimes that form becomes a wall. The stories where Open
Space Technology has failed to open space tend to go unreported,
part of a collusion of niceness. Those stories are there to be
found, but they are below the radar of the community that has
confused blanket positivity with the grittier, messier mission of
Open Space to bring beauty to the world. Avoidance of our pain is
often both fatal and ugly.
Open Space Technology, when it becomes ossified, becomes
arthritic. When a facilitator doesn’t just DO Open Space
Technology, but becomes open space in their own inner activity,
they will sense what needs to be done, not out of dogma, but out
of the present needs of the situation. Often this situation will
call for a traditional use of Open Space Technology. But not
always. Sometimes we need to open space. And it is beautiful that
there are so many ways to do that.
What am I suggesting? I’m suggesting it might be time for Open
Space Technology to open the trap door – the trap door to its own
beautiful critique. It needs to look more warmly and openly at
what is growing consciously below its own radar. And it isn’t
about defending the first technological model from a position of
elder wisdom. It’s about inviting in the younger ones, the new
generation. If Open Space Technology lies beyond an upgrade, then
let that view survive a healthy Popper-esque conversation. But in
2012 I met some truly wonderful people who have upgraded it
anyway. They are the right people, in the right place, at the
right time, who dance with two wonderful feet into the future. Be
prepared to be surprised by them.
Something tells me it isn’t quite over yet, Harrison Owen!
Welcome to the open space community. It loves Open Space
Technology. But it loves so much more too.
(Original article appeared here:
https://rationalmadness.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/open-space-technology-and-open-space/
)
On 28 January 2016 at 17:55, Daniel Mezick via OSList
<<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]>
wrote:
What is Open Space Technology?
--
Daniel Mezick
Culture Strategist. Author. Keynoter.
(203) 915 7248 <tel:%28203%29%20915%207248>. Bio.
<http://www.DanielMezick.com/> Blog.
<http://www.NewTechUSA.net/blog/> Twitter.
<https://twitter.com/DanielMezick>
Book: The Culture Game. <http://theculturegame.com/>
Book: The OpenSpace Agility Handbook.
<http://www.amazon.com/OpenSpace-Agility-Handbook-Daniel-Mezick/dp/0984875336>
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