At 06:22 AM 7/14/2002 +0200, Tova averbuch wrote:
Did anyone use OS with management/senior team/whole system to redesign changes in organizational structure? still tossing and turning with how and when in the process to use ost, with whom, etc/(high teck client, needs change done as of yesterday). will deeply appreciate any relevant experience, soon
Hi Tova -- been away for the weekend and just now catching up... so events may have passed me by. But. I think the question Ralph poses is the critical one. "How Open is the Space? If the space is really open, and the folks really want something good and quick, I think there is a lot of experience that says the OS can help. On the other hand if folks want to keep the cards in their hands all the while seeming to invite full participation, the results will be miserable. Frustration would be the least of the problems. Presuming that the openness is present the story by Hugh Huntington In Tales From Open Space could be helpful. All that occurred about 10 years ago, and I think maybe we have learned something since that could make it even better. That learning is all about Self-Organization. As you know, I am convinced that the power behind Open Space (at least a part of it) is self-organization. Open Space enables us to do consciously what we ordinarily do "just" naturally. A second conviction, which a number of my colleagues take to be pure heresy, is that all organizations are self-organizing systems -- it is only that some people delude themselves into thinking that they organized them. If there is any truth to this notion -- then the whole business of organization design and re-design is a little off the mark. Why do something that is probably going to happen all by itself? At best you are just wasting time -- at worst you could mess up something that will take care of itself, if you let it. Now for your situation. If it were me, and if the client were willing, I would do an OS for anybody who cared about the company. Top to bottom, left to right. All comers who cared. But the theme would not be about "re-design." I would go for something a lot broader, and (to me) more important. I don't know how this would come out in Hebrew, but in English, the theme would be something like -- "What are the issues and opportunities for building the business we would really love to be a part of?" I am sure the folks would have lots of good ideas and lots of discussion. (Or , of course, they could just decide to go out of business -- which happened to me once.) And something else would happen -- they would naturally and without thinking about it, create the organizational design to deal with their business. Self-organize as it were. It would not come out all neat like an organization chart -- but no organization works that way anyhow. Just looks nice on paper. On the Bulletin Board and in the proceedings you would see the natural groups, tasks to be done, people who cared -- and further it would all be working right before your eyes. As a "next step" (and this is a little over simplified) all you have to do is take notes, clean it up, and get to work. You could even make a new Organization Chart, if anybody cared, and some will. Best of all you will have a natural design and not something arbitrary and abstract which is what you always get from any organization design process. Final suggestion. Stop working so hard. Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, MD 20854 USA phone 301-365-2093 Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org Personal website 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