At 11:18 PM 6/15/99 +0800, you wrote: > > I have just gotten into some conversations about the reaction to Chinese > groups to an Open Space event. My gut reaction is that it would work after > the initial shock of the extreeme egalitarianism and opportunity to take > responsibility for the agenda and content. However, I do not have any > empirical data to back this up. > > Do any of you have stories about doing programs in a Chinese or Asian > environment, and what has been the response of the participants?
**************************************************** As I suspected, Brian Bainbridge had some useful thougfhts. He copied me his responseto Mark, and I thought thqat others on the list might enjoy so.... Harrison Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 23:18:21 -0700 From: Fr Brian S Bainbridge <bria...@mira.net> X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02E-KIT (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: mjpix...@ficnet.net CC: o...@tmn.com Subject: Mark Pixley - Re OS in "Asia" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-UIDL: bf14ce1bf911ca44fc44e2ed0ab80d8a Dear Mark Not sure if I told you when last we connected, but - as Harrison mentioned - I did some programming in Hong Kong and in Beijing a year or so back. Without getting into dramatic detail, I need to say that in both places the structure of Open Space took on life just as it has done in so many other places, including Papua New Guinea (is that Asia also, do you think?) and Guam (which perhaps isn't Asia, maybe). There has been discussion about language barriers, but I found none of that and rather experienced the option - as I have in Europe - that once they get into the process, there is eagerness to ensure that everyone understands and shares thoroughly. In both the Hong Kong and Beijing programs, there were clear decisions reached, and in both cases the decisions were not those anticipated by the management but better and more meaningful. Especially in the Beijing program, there was great energy generated, there was great enthusiasm, and great depth of sharing. They figured that it was simply not on that they did not have time to get to know one another and so understand the extent and strength of the resources available within the company - so it seemed obvious to them that they had to make time to change that by getting to just spend time with the other members of the company. A very simple but remarkable outcome, it seems, and the results have been of great impact and usefulness to the people and the company involved. And, Mark, I remain mindful of youur request that, if I am again in Asia, you might be able to be involved. Likewise, may I suggest, if you can get into Australia (it's very close to Hong Kong) come and see what happens. Cheers and blessings, BRIAN. Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, MD 20854 USA 301-469-9269 (phone) 301-983-9314 (fax) email o...@tmn.com Website http://www.tmn.com/~owen Open Space Institute website http://www.tmn.com/openspace