one of my latest descriptions of open space is this: it is fundamentally a decision and a commitment on the part of leaders and sponsors and facilitators to *movement*. seen from this place we can always ask ourselves whether the work we do in the prep time is making movement more or less easy or possible.
i hear kerry saying that he sees givens get in the way of movement. larry saying in corp groups it helps for folks to hear that this or that is open for movement. michaelmp saying "let's get moving together now" in the planning. some of us prefer to let the movement go as it will/can and deal with givens as limits that tend to pop up in the discussion of the question. other times discussion about "what is" happening now, current conditions, usually experienced as limits, can help surface the bigger question. all in all, i'm hearing movement, and the space to move in, as our common center. not particularly surprising, i think. in terms of moving through preparation, i find that many "givens" or what i sometimes think about as "forms of focus" are necessarily embodied in the people who will come. the invite list. if you want discussion and ideas, invite talkers. if you want decisions, invite the decisionmakers. if you want action, invite those known for doing. if you want it fast, invite the bottlenecks. etc. i think in many cases if i fish around the edges of who should be there, who could be allowed to be there, then most everything else gets handled in that question. as we expand or simply clarify the invite list, we take care of naming and testing lots of "givens," too. and in the end, those invited are certainly the ones who decide what this event will be. so they really do embody the whole of it. ideally, it sort of pulses for me between invite/question and invite list until those two 'click' and then we fit a space and time to it, then a documentation and followup plan... like one band member starting and then others joining in one by one, moving and blending. and it's nice to always start with the question, but i've had plenty of folks show up absolutely clueless, if not oblivious, to the question and be absolutely rock-solid certain with the space and time and often the invite list as well. lots of givens as limits and little question/space to start with. those are the ones i think we really earn our pay up front! reminds me of the old saturday night live news program skit where gilda radner always finished her little story bit by turning it back to jane curtain saying, "it just goes to show you, jane... it's always something." ...and still, it always works!
-- Michael Herman Michael Herman Associates 300 West North Avenue #1105 Chicago IL 60610 USA (312) 280-7838 http://www.michaelherman.com - consulting & publications http://www.globalchicago.net - laboratory & playground http://www.openspaceworld.org - worldwide open space ...inviting organization into movement * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
