Susan (and all), Your situation with strategic planning at your organization and the management's current unreadiness to work with OST suggests the question, "What can one offer as a facilitator when they (the sponsor, the organization) are not ready for OST?" (whatever "ready" means)
Typically World Cafe, Appreciative Inquiry, and a host (or combination) of other approaches are offered as alternatives. I just recently completed two workshops in Dynamic Faciliation, originated by Jim Rough and have been rather intrigued. I first heard of dynamic facilitation two years ago on the Genuine Contact listserv. It was framed as a means of inviting the male energy in the room. I don't want to get into the details of DF, but some of the ways it can assuage a sponsor by looking like typical facilitation include: - it looks, to the unaided eye, like traditional facilitation: the group sits in a semicircle, a facilitator stands in front of 4 flipchart stands recording the discussion - people speak one at a time - meetings can be short, as short as one hour. And the ways it's like OST include: - there is no agenda - the guiding principle in the meeting's "agenda" development is "follow the energy" (law of two feet?!)-- people talk about what they want - there are no "rules" for the participants - it generates breakthroughs, gets to the bottom of issues - it leads to inspired action As someone used to participating in OST meetings, it is difficult to participate in a meeting where we speak one at a time, where the Law of Two Feet is not explicit. *And* I think there are ways DF and OST can complement each other quite well. It has been very fruitful experimenting with the approach in one-on-one sessions. Indeed, it has applications also in counseling, coaching, and therapy... Curiously, "dynamic facilitation" pops up just 4 times in an archive search of OSlist... Jim Rough's Society's Breakthrough! : Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People is a fascinating read, offering a very simple, (dis)passionate, and accessible analysis of the system we are in, (fresh) language that can also frame how OST and os fit in the practice of system tranformation. Jim's book also is devoted in part to a very simple, powerful, and radical vision for democracy around the world, an application of DF, called the Wisdom Council. There is lots more on the approach online - including - at dynamicfacilitation.com, tobe.net, and www.wisedemocracy.org/ The approach is also on pp.223-226 of your autographed copy of the Change Handbook : ) Warmly, Raffi * * ========================================================== 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