Hey Folks -- I wasn't just giving a report of current activities (I am alive and breathing). I was also hoping to spark a little conversation about such things as -- when do you give up on the sales pitch and push the client to the wall in terms of intentions and degrees of freedom? And what are our obligations to the client and the participants? And to our selves?
Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, Maryland 20854 Phone 301-365-2093 Skype hhowen Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org Personal website www.ho-image.com OSLIST: To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit: www.listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of Harrison Owen Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 10:22 AM To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Keepin' Busy I guess I fibbed a wee bit. Yes I am working on a book (or the book is working on me) - and there are a few other things coming down as well. I have also been working with a really neat organization which is seeking to open some space in a very critical area. And they are more than a little worried about really opening space. We have been going on and on until I felt constrained to send the following message. I share it here because I thought it might be of interest. As I was writing this about 5 this morning I thought fondly of Lisa and her speech about "only the highly evolved..." But I didn't think that would work in this case. Needless to say I have scrubbed all the identifying details. Dear XXXX -- I am glad that you still think Open Space is the way to go -- but I must confess that I am having some reservations. These reservations have nothing to do with the capacity of Open Space enable this group, or indeed any group, to engage in meaningful conversation and come to useful conclusions. The issue for me is two fold -- First, Do the sponsors feel sufficiently trusting and supportive to let the process run? There will be moments of high tension, and experience has shown that the people themselves can and will handle it all by themselves. The bottom line is that I just let it go. Once underway, we are gone, and there is no place for intervention, mid-course correction, the conference management committee doing a re-design. It is all up to the people. My second area of concern is whether or not what I might call "competing interests" create conditions that are, to some real extent, antithetical to real Open Space. I am thinking particularly of the Press. I clearly understand the need for press coverage -- just to get the word out. The problem is that deep conversations can rarely be reduced to sound-bites. Even worse, deep conversations which are only partially concluded are even less susceptible to being sound-bites. I think it is quite possible that we will reach the end of the first day in Open Space and there is nothing to report -- or at least nothing that anybody wants to report. It is equally possible that we will reach the end of the conference in the same condition. Several thousand years (well almost) of understandings, misunderstandings, ignorance, misperceptions, to say nothing of mis-trust and anger will not be resolved in three days. We can make a good effort, and things may well move along much further than we have any right to expect -- but expectations of any sort can be very problematical. The hard lesson of Open Space (and I think life as well) is that firm attachment to specific outcomes is usually disastrous. When you don't get what you expected the temptation is to think that you achieved nothing at all. And if the expectation is that by the end we will have a neatly tied up body of conclusions combined with action plans, all of which may be "briefed" to the Press, I think that is quite unlikely. Possible for sure -- but unlikely. And should any of this occur (or actually NOT Occur) the press will leave frustrated and might well report total failure. The fact that subtle, but important movement took place in the building of relationships, the definitions of issues and opportunities for future conversations (but not immediate resolution) will escape them because they were not part of the conversations. That would not be, I would judge, a desirable outcome. An even worse scenario would be if we were to drive the whole conference towards a final, definitive document with neat conclusions, recommendations and actions. That would effectively shut the space down, and the only way to assure such an outcome would be to have all of the conclusions, recommendations and actions defined in advance. Obviously there are multiple international conferences that do just that. Such conferences have the advantage of meeting expectations and maintaining the semblance of control. But that is not open space (or Open Space). The crux of the matter, I think, is that everybody (certainly the organizing body) must be willing to exist in that wonderful Great Cloud of Unknowing. Something for sure will happen, but there is absolutely no way to predict or assure what that "something" might be. Personally, I have always found that the "something" we didn't expect was so much better than what was predicted as to make everything worth while. But you can never tell in advance. I have written at such length because I think it is absolutely critical that all the responsible parties are totally clear about what we are getting into -- which paradoxically is that we really don't have a clue, and certainly no guarantees. Hope, desires for sure -- but we will not know what is achieved until it has happened, and even then we may not be too sure. Personally, I also want to make sure that nobody mistakes me for a salesman or even an advocate for Open Space. I am delighted to share my experience and pleased to offer my services, but the choice on how to proceed is not mine to make. Truth to tell, I guess I am an advocate, not for Open Space Technology -- but rather for the people and their capacity to make sense out of the confusing and progress out of difficulty. But you can never tell how it will all work out. Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, Maryland 20854 Phone 301-365-2093 Skype hhowen Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/> Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org Personal website www.ho-image.com OSLIST: To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit: www.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: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist * * ========================================================== 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