Chris Karen reply about 'needs'made me reflect. I once did an 'sort' of Appreciative Inquiry with as many of the people involved who want to come and asked them just a few questions. coming form the AI theory. We ended with thequestion: 'what do you want more of....' Every single individual got the opportunity to write his answers and reflections on a very big and long brown paper. As we stood in fromt of the big brown paper the question and invitiation became clear (and was a common ground!). Afther this event we had an Open Space. warm regards Carla Met vriendelijke groet, drs. Carla Vliex Adviseur Organisatie Ontwikkeling ------------------------------------------------------------------ Twynstra Gudde Adviseurs en Managers Stationsplein 1, 3818 LE Amersfoort Postbus 907, 3800 AX Amersfoort 033-4677761 06 53927407 Internet www.twynstragudde.nl <http://www.twynstragudde.nl/>
________________________________ From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of Chris Corrigan Sent: maandag 20 maart 2006 17:17 To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Conflict in community Hi Folks: An inquiry for you. I've had a couple of conversations this week with people involved with local school boards in the United States. The common themes in these conversations include high degrees of local conflict, positional politics, an extreme lack of resources over which no one locally has any control and labour relations that are best described as toxic. IN a conversation today, one man said that he wanted to try Open Space simply as a way to have all the parts of the system understand each other. I suggested that this might not bring the peace he was looking for, as people who would come to that kind of meeting hoping to convince others of their righteousness would feel at the end of the day that they were either winners or losers. I thought that result wouldn't necessarily be transformational. When I asked him if instead we couldn't issue an invitation to invite people essentially to answer the question "how can we BE together differently in this system" he balked a little at the notion of a smaller group of "like minded" individuals. Of course I don;t see this as starkly black and white, but nevertheless, he thought an "airing of the issues and a shared understanding" were most important. So my question goes to people who have worked in this situation, with groups that are highly wedded to positions. What are the kinds of invitations that allow for "airing," generated shared understanding, and perhaps lead to transformative relationships? By the way, I told him I would do this for less than 1.5 days. Thoughts and reflections welcome. Chris -- CHRIS CORRIGAN Consultation - Facilitation Open Space Technology Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com Open Space Resources: http://tinyurl.com/r94tj <http://tinyurl.com/r94tj> * * ========================================================== 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