Working in health care, I've encountered great resistance to any activity perceived as wasting time . . . hence, one of the things folks in this field appreciate the most about OST is that we jump right in to the important discussions. Even though participants don't know each other, they have great passion for a common interest. In fact, when I'm first meeting with sponsors unfamiliar with OST, they often ask specifically that there be no warm-up events and NO GAMES!!
Laurel. -----Original Message----- From: Harrison Owen [mailto:owe...@mindspring.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 4:29 AM To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Re: Warm Up At 02:51 PM 5/1/01 +1000, you wrote: I've heard some criticism of open space along the lines of the group not being warmed up enough for the bulletin board and market place. I've never used a specific warm-up immediately before opening the space (although I have been involved in or used storytelling the previous night as well as playback theatre). I think I believe (that's confidence for you :-) that if the OS theme is appropriate and the group are passionate then a warm-up is not needed. However my recent research into warm ups for new groups, cohesive groups and ending groups has raised the question about a warm-up especially for a new group (where the participants don't know each other very much or at all). Would such warm-ups (before opening the space) add or detract from the experience? I'd be interested in your thoughts and experiences. Viv -- my experience says that your belief is well founded. I have never seen any attempt to "warm a group up" for Open Space that materially improved performance. More usually it seems to get in the way, and may actually be counter-productive. My best example was a bank that decided to hedge its bet in Open Space by doing a day of creativity enhancement up front. Truthfully it was grand fun, but at the end most folks asked why we wasted all that time. I can imagine warm-ups being useful in situations where you have a whole mess of folks gathered together about some issue for which they have no passion -- which unfortunately seems to be the situation in many of our organizational meeting. But if we encounter that situation at the beginning of an Open Space, we simply haven't done our homework. That space never should have been opened -- Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, MD 20854 USA phone 301-469-9269 fax 301-983-9314 Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/> Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org <http://www.openspaceworld.org/> Personal website www.mindspring.com/~owenhh <http://www.mindspring.com/~owenhh> osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Visit: <http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html> http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html