I recently held an open space in which some of the issues you mention came up - dominant individual, different facilitation styles/abilities of convenors etc. I am new to facilitating in open space but I resisted the urge to jump in and "correct" what traditionally would have been viewed as poor group dynamics. I remained in my corner seat, quietly avaiable as I had mentioned I would be. Gradually, over the course of the morning, something interesting happened. Every now and then, someone would stop by and sit down at my little cafe table. One person said, "You didn't give any guidance on how to facilitate in the small groups and it is frustrating. The convenor doesn't seem in charge and is not writing on the flip charts." My response was to ask, how could you have contributed to the group to resolve what she saw as an issue? Could you have offered to capture some of the ideas on a chart? Being a convenor does not necessarily also mean responsibility for 100% of the facilitation of the group. Faced with this notion, the individual seemed to look at the day very differently. I had a couple of other questions of this nature throughout the morning but by the afternoon, those floating to my table were more interested in sharing their excitement and fascination with their experience then with any perceived facilitaion problems.
I know this doesn't address your question specifically but perhaps it provides some food for thought. * * ========================================================== 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
