There is little doubt about it, OST is strange. But the strangest part is not the use of Temple Bells - but rather the fact that it (OST) works at all. As far as I can tell OST violates every single theoretical and practical principle when it comes to the management of meetings, as well as management in general. Everybody "knows" that nothing useful will happen without the presence of The Leader, who takes charge of things, insuring that the carefully made plan or design is implemented. The Plan is the product of long and tedious hours and its implementation is accomplished only by means of strict command and control. Anything else is weird, counterintuitive, wrong, and probably illegal, immoral and fattening. Which brings us to OST. Frankly it could not, and should not happen - But it does.
For participants around the world, now numbering in the millions, all of this creates something in the nature of cognitive dissonance. You know one thing to be true, and then the opposite happens! Fortunately, most people (our participants) are much more interested in results than they are in principles of theory and practice. And they get results - even have fun in the process. What a relief compared to the usual state of affairs! But for professionals in the field (managers, executives, other facilitators) - all of this is a real problem. If Open Space works so well, easily, and often, then one might question why they are working so hard. And that would be just the beginning of the questioning. Some years ago, a very senior official in ASTD (American Society of Training and Development) told me that if what happened in Open Space actually occurred, then 95% of what they were currently doing under the heading of Training and Development - need not be done. That is pretty shocking, particularly if all your professional status and salary depend on what you were doing. In that moment it became quite clear to me why people (in general) love Open Space, and the professional community does its best to ignore it, at the least. Under the circumstances, I would do the same. My personal response to all of this has been to accept the challenge and dive as deeply as I could into the puzzle: OST works. It shouldn't. What's going on? It has been a lot of fun, and all of you have been deeply contributory to the adventure. Collectively, I think we are beginning to see some sense in the non-sense! For me a critical step came when I began to think of OST as simply an example of the great force of self-organization at work. This is not something we invented or created. In fact it seems to have been going on for 13.7 billion years. But clearly that is not the only way to look at things, nor is self-organization the only thing that is operative in this funny thing we call Open Space Technology. To this I might add the shamanic act of Bounding the Circle, the age old mythology of The Hero's Journey, and of course - Temple Bells. "Bounding the Circle" may not be familiar to some people, but every time we (as OST facilitators) walk the circle at the beginning of a gathering - that is exactly what we are doing, and some people might call it weird. But I think it is very important to understand how Bounding the Circle came to be a part of Open Space. It just happened. Way back when - I found that at the start of a gathering it seemed like a good idea to walk around the circle so folks might see who I was, and simultaneously see who else was in the circle as their eyes followed me around. Nothing esoteric here - just seemed like a good thing to do. What surprised me as I and friends and colleagues did this simple walk, was how powerful it seemed to be in terms of exciting and focusing the spirit and energy of the participants. One day it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was simply doing what I had seen countless Medicine Men doing when I was in Africa. In fact, it was a simple ritual from millennia past. It worked then. It works now. Isn't it surprising, the fundamentals of human community are still fundamental! But the really important point is that I never sat down to deeply study Shamanic Traditions, and then said to my self - Right, Let's do this in Open Space. Quite the other way around! I did it, and then wondered why it worked. I could say basically the same thing for Temple Bells and the Hero's Journey. They just happened, and then we all had the wonderful opportunity to ask, How come? This conversation has been basically ongoing, and for me it is one of the richest parts of our community life. And now - What about Temple Bells? Or the Hero's Journey?? 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> * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
