Dear friends Thanks all of you for sharing in this rich thread. As some of you know I work with OST in "the Genuine Contact way". Before every OST-event I always facilitate a four hour pre-meeting with the sponsoring group, mostly including other key people such as employee representatives (Union). The purpose of this meeting is to create the best possible condition for the planned activity to be successful. Usually we are already on the road to OST but on occasions the road has led elsewhere. I use a circle and do not use any tables for these meetings.
The meetings typically include: Transfer in, hopes and fears for this day, brief info about OST (if needed), what happened before, how´s it going now and expectations for after the activity, working out a theme and givens, follow-up activities, practicalities. The concept of "givens" is important to me, although I use different words in Swedish. To me the givens "specify" the space that is being opened. Of course it differs quite a bit depending on circumstances but especially when working in companies I find it of great importance. Mainly as has been pointed out, to free everyone from assumptions about "givens" that may not be. The first reaction is often that "we don´t want to build any boundaries - we want the space to be fully open". Well, that´s fine as long as this is really the case. I find though, that the sponsor is not prepared to open up everything. Usually there are some boundaries such as strategic, budget and so on. Another could be that leadership is prepared to look at whatever may arise outside these givens, but there is no guarantee that it can be moved forward at this point. I usually say that it´s vital that the space being opened is "honest" from the sponsors point of view. I often exemplify how difficult this is by telling a story about a ship that is being built right now here in west Sweden - a copy of the east indiaman "Götheborg" that sunk just outside the harbour of Gothenburg in 1745. Some funny people got this crazy idea more that a decade ago and now its almost built! Would this have been an OST about how to make Gothenburg more known to the world, this just might have been outside the givens! If there is passion, wonders can happen. Have a look at www.soic.se if you are curious and want to know more about the story. Another thought that has been with me for a while. We often compare phenomenons, concepts, projects or methods and judge them as if they are static. I find that the big thing mostly is HOW the work is being done. I think that goes for the "givens" as well. Warmest regards Thomas > -----Ursprungligt meddelande----- > Från: OSLIST [mailto:[email protected]]För Chris Weaver > Skickat: den 9 april 2004 17:02 > Till: [email protected] > Ämne: Re: is it still open? > > > larry, > > thanks for this description. over time, there is a lot of > subtlety in how an > organization honors, relies on, tethers to certain givens, while > transcending > others. it also seems to me that the use of language about givens does > something deeper than defining specific parameters for an OST meeting - it > provides common language and a conceptual framework. in the > organization where > i now work, the word "given" is used as a way of talking about > current reality > for meetings & gatherings large & small. interestingly, we never > start with > them - we do a transfer-in exercise first, in order to start wide open and > invite the whole in. then we briefly establish the givens as the > container in > which the specific work is to be done. > > chris > > * > * > ========================================================== > [email protected] > ------------------------------ > To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, > view the archives of [email protected]: > http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html > > To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: > http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist > * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
