Doug's query reminded me of a 4.5 day OS event in January 2006 that I attended as a participant.
Someone on the planning team (not the event facilitator) asked people to post not just the topic of the converation they offered in the Market Place but to anotate the 'format' that would be used in that session. To illustrate: I might have posted that I wanted to talk about "Martians Landing in Nevada" but, in order to comply with the request, I was supposed to anotate, right there on my offering, "presentation and/or facilitated dialogue and/or name-conversation-method-you-will-use. I was not on this planning team, nor was I the OS facilitator, so I don't know all of the backstory. but I think that the person who insisted on making this request simply hated OS and she wanted to be sure that she only went to sessions that, in her mind, were better organized and conventionally facilitated. Her intervention, to ask people to explain how a topic would be convened once one got to the breakout group, was clunky and awkward. It cast a pall on the day, if you ask me. Having said that, though, I will also say that anyone convening a session at any OS event is fully free to say "I want to have a XYZ kind of session". . . .Speaking personally, I would stay away from such efforts to control the dialogue. Speaking as an OS facilitator, I try to do what Harrison has outlined: remind people that if they don't like their experience, they are fully free to do something to change it. I agree with what Sheila said, too. I think it is best when the space remains open in all sessions at an OS event but whatever happens is. . . On 3/5/07, Sheila Beauchemin <s.beauche...@shaw.ca> wrote:
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
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