Dear fellow spaceholders, Fresh back from a little over a month in Moscow and St. Petersburg working with OST and related approaches, Iâd like to share a little of my impressions and questions. Overall, not sure there is much here to add to the larger Open Space conversation, but I feel it is important to share nonetheless. Iâm also sharing here not just on OST but related approaches in part because I think all of this work spoke to creating and experiencing the larger Open Space of life.
I arrived in Moscow the evening of April 2nd and the morning of April 4th conducted a one day Introduction to Dynamic Facilitation (DF) workshop for a group of corporate trainers at the invitation of a trainer development club called the Mark Kukushkin Open Trainer University (otumka.ru) Iâve only been working with DF for six months and most of that experience has been one on one phone work. So, it was definitely a risk to go ahead and offer this workshop to a group of 15. It helped to frame this workshop as an experiment and also to invite people to set aside all their knowledge about training and learning aside for the purposes of the workshop. Even though- as I expected- DF did not deliver a breakthrough or aha!- 1 ¼ hours is just not enough time in the space of a daylong workshop to experience that- the short time they had to practice and also to reflect on the process. Open Space principles using a Whole Person Process Facilitation container (http://genuinecontact.net/mtg_whole_person.html) informed the design for this and all the other workshops conducted during my stay. By the end of the workshop even the most skeptical saw value in the approach and seemed interested in trying it out even (or especially?) as it challenged most directly the whole Change Management paradigm. Inspired by the example of Thomas Herrmann, Iâll be following up with this (and the other groups) 4-6 months from now to evaluate the effectiveness of these workshops. April 5th was a full day Introduction to OST workshop at the same trainer club, with a few of the same participants, altogether a group of 15. Olga Zolotareva, previously a corporate trainer with Beeline, one of Russiaâs Big Three cellular providers, co-held the space within the workshop for a 4 hour OST meeting âMy growth edges as a trainer/coach: issues and opportunities.â Among the 10 topics: âHow to win a corporate tenderâ âWhat benefit is there in corporate learning programs?â âThe coach/trainer at the summit: what does she/he think about?â âDifferent applications of OSTâ âKnowledge management in trainingsâ A mini-non-convergence was held â if Iâm using the term correctly- where participants were invited to develop action plans, announce a new topic, or further discuss a previously announced topic. This was perhaps a first time in my experience in really being able to discern what words in explaining how they would be invited to work would best serve the group. And special attention was given to reduce the Magic Charm Effect in part by pausing and having silence in the opening only so much and not to a point that could cause discomfort among the participants. It has really helped to listen over and over to disk one of âUnderstanding Open Spaceâ and to hear how Harrison subtly invites the shamanic in the opening.. Part of what was emphasized in the context of this OST meeting was: a) an invitation to consider what personal successes they were embarrassed of- a way of considering perhaps that sometimes success is really a time when one held back and didnât take the full risk and did something well but not terribly differently from before; in other words control was not let go of b) an invitation to consider which personal oops, failures, catastrophes, and fiascoes they have to celebrate as delicious indications of growth opportunities, road signs which scream loudly âtake risk here!â This seasoning in the opening really seemed to help the group to get straight to work as if theyâd taken part in OST many times before (they hadnât). The overall design for the OST one day learning workshop was: Introductions (a process-facilitated âtransfer-inâ using illegally imported into Russia natural objects from San Diego, Florida, and Iran. Participants took an object from the center and were invited to ask themselves what the object told them about what brought them to the workshop) A little about the workshop- with an invitation to set aside everything they know about training, facilitation for the duration of the workshop to maximize their own benefit from the workshop Hopes and fears- work in groups of four on identifying their own hopes and fears regarding the workshop A break Then the 4 hour OST meeting Another short break And then five questions were posted around the room â drawing on the core questions, as I understand them, in the Genuine Contact Programâs three-four day OST learning workshop - - what do the participants, sponsor, facilitator feel during an OST meeting? - what is OST? - what are key elements of OSTâs form? - what are key elements of OSTâs essence? - what does the facilitator do to prepare the sponsor, facilitate the OST meeting, and to follow up? And the participants were invited work with these 5 âsessionsâ simultaneously for 30 minutes as if in OS. They were also invited to announce any other sessions, which they did. Time was set aside to answer any questions. And I did a little presentation about when to use/not use OST, working with the sponsor, and the energetics of walking the circle (sorry, Jack!, no meditations on the romantic quality of a Brighton bicycle horn!) with a little bit of practice with the whole group in the last. At the end of the workshop, I invited anyone who cared to to step forward to conduct a week later a follow up meeting and a further meeting 4-6 months down the line. Doesnât look like it will happen. It was really refreshing to see how easily people for the most part took to this kind of facilitation and to see how much ground could be covered in the space of a day. Overall, it was really palpable how in the space of less than a year and a half- since the last time I was in Russia, living there- how time has speeded up even more and space is even more compressed. On the one hand there seems to be less space for grassroot initiatives and social change â what with the continuing building by the Kremlin of the so-called Power Vertical-, and on the other hand the soil, air, water seem even riper than ever for Open Space. People just took to it like ducks to water, even if at the outset of the workshop there was this energy of people sitting with crossed arms with a look that seemed to say âWhat does this American have to show us?!â The following day Sergei Shchepilov and Anna Bernikova who some met at the Kiev or Moscow WOSonOS held the space for a daylong stammtische/mentoring circle for about ten of us in Moscow. The romantic process-oriented in me was magically charmed by the use of the jaw harp and a Russian jerry-rigged version of the Tibetan temple bells- Sergei took the âtongueâ out of two Valdai bells and strung them together. Not sure there were any specific business results from our gathering but it was great fun, OS storytelling, and conversation held in a perfect space: an nonprofit art gallery displaying paintings by children with disabilities. A little over a week later conducted an 1.5 hour storytelling workshop at Intertrainingâs annual gathering of trainers and consultants. Just about everyone â a group of 13- was surprised âalmost uncomfortably so- how deep a group of people who had never met before can get with a simple storytelling circle. So many layers of meaning, so many questions elicited from the stories told. And before heading off for St. Petersburg, I conducted another daylong workshop, an Introduction to Dynamic Facilitation with a nonprofit organization that invited me to do an OST strategic planning session a number of years ago and now was regularly using OST for its own strategic planning and programmatic work. Aside from yet another set of ahaâs! from people participating in the DF workshop it was exciting to hear that they were now interested in exploring becoming a Conscious Open Space Organization. Indeed, when they first experienced OST, they exclaimed âWhy, weâve always been in Open Space!â Looking forward to following up with them on this. The Coaching Institute (coachinstitute.ru) in St. Petersburg had invited me to conduct a three day OST learning workshop (as part of the Genuine Contact Program). Previously, on the list Iâd mentioned their bimonthly initiative in partnership with other organizations, the Directorâs Club (directorclub.ru), a three hour OST meeting for CEOâs of St. Petersburg-based companies. Talking with them before, during, and after the workshop, I really came to appreciate and admire their work deeply. The coaching they teach in their two year program is really something at the nexus of coaching, psychotherapy, and facilitative leadership adapting Western approaches to a Russian context. The Law of Two Feet â âthe courage to express what you wantâ in their parlance- carries through everything they do. And I felt privileged to be conducting this learning workshop with one of four organizations I have worked with in Russia that make an intimate connection between Spirit and Practice. The structure of the workshop was essentially working with the same questions as in the one day workshop, of course in more depth. Altogether there were about 15 participants, including from the North Caucasus and Siberia, about 1/3 were from the Coaching Institute, 2/3 were from other (commercial) organizations or were representing themselves. Surprisingly, some of the workshop participants had never even heard of OST before and yet based on the workshop announcement had elected to come from thousands of miles away! As part of the workshop there was a four hour OST meeting on the topic of âCreating Healthy Organizations: Issues and Opportunities.â Seven topics were announced, and there was again a non-convergence. Among the topics: Russian business: Is it healthy? And to what extent? The health of the CEO and the health of the organization- what is the connection? Using training and psychological workshops to introduce corporate standards into a dealer network Ambitious people, Grand goals: How can organizations avoid limiting them and rather use them fully? The consultantâs role in organizational renewal: what is he/she truly capable of? Highlights for the participants included the Whole Person Process design of the workshop. Participants remarked on the surprising spaciousness of the learning experience throughout and how the learning process seemed to be markedly different from a typical training. As a group we did return to and talk about the original invitation for the workshop. Initially, people whoâd signed for the workshop had been invited to co-design and co-lead the whole workshop, including the prep work and follow-up work connected with it. Seeing as this was the first time Iâd ever extended such an invitation for a workshop and that the group hadnât apparently had prior experience, this did not happen. What did happen, however, was planting of seeds and my sharing some of my beliefs with the group that anytime we are in a learning situation where there is a set program â even if it can be changed â the open space for wonder and imagination, for giving birth to practical, applicable situational knowledge is rather limited. That the deep learning happens where the formal workshop leaders and participants are partners in developing the workshop and its implementation and follow up. Who knows, maybe next time the group might be able and willing to respond to this kind of invitation? Speaking of invitation, the personal practice of invitation and inviting leadership (as elaborated by Chris Corrigan and Michael Herman) really had people buzzing. It felt really liberating that they were being invited throughout to engage in whatever was planned, no need to âmanageâ the participants! The Coaching Institute people really seem to take a ball and run with it. Very curious as to where they take this further. The group was invited to join the larger OS and Genuine Contact community and looking forward to seeing them on an OSlist or a WOSonOS near you! The following day I had the pleasure of working again with the Soldiers Mothers of St. Petersburg (http://www.soldiersmothers.ru/pages/english/presentation.htm) A number of years ago I shared a little about working with them in OST. This time I introduced them to Dynamic Facilitation, working with internal organizational issues. One of the ahaâs from our two days of work together was that in this highly turbulent time the main thing the organization should focus on at a minimum is just to remain open, continue operating. The organization just by its existence plants many seeds and the day will come when the Power Vertical will just shift by itself into the Power Horizontal. We also continued an earlier conversation on how the organization might potentially co-organize a series of public conversations using OST with âproblemâ military bases â where a culture of torture and forced prostitution of recruits is especially pronounced- on how they can work together. This is not entirely a science fiction notion, it is doable. Ideas, thoughts on moving this concept forward are welcome! And lastly in the oops! department â and frankly, I share this to also invite others on the list to share their oops!, however small; I think we learn more from each othersâ boo-boos more than from our glorious triumphs, inspiring as they may be-: in doing a one day strategic session toward the end of my stay with one organization, with a group of ten, I made a grave error: one of the participants was there with her two year old. Iâd seen the child beforehand but it had not occurred to me to give thought to how the child might invite an additional dimension during the opening. Needless to say, during the opening, the child fell quite in love with the temple bells (Magick charms again?) and dragged them across the floor making quite a ruckus. It was a very messy, unclear opening for many of the participants. And on top of that, many said they did not feel like Iâd held the space. Theyâd wished that Iâd been in full view even if I was not party to the conversations. And yet, my experience was that I was breathing with them the whole time, sitting in the closest room, thinking of the group, and making sure that I would not be too close to hear their conversations! Indeed, the sponsor said he felt cheated. It was important to the group after the closing just for me to hear them out, and for me to honestly acknowledge where I felt Iâd come up shortâ¦and where I hadnât. And to honestly and openly express my sadness about how things had not worked out as wished for. I donât think thatâs the whole story, because others expressed privately that this was a very productive meeting, with a chance to really get real in a way that does not usually happen in their business meetings. Another remarked that the meeting took their organization to a qualitatively different level. Still much to chew on here! At the Moscow WOSonOS in 2006 Birgitt (Williams) shared how she was â in her words- probably a slow learner as she found something new in OST and OS every time she invited Harrison for a learning workshop in Canada for seven years in a row. Indeed, my key learning from that WOSonOS is that I know (next to?) nothing about OS/OST. I continue to make these huge, basic mistakes. If OS and OST has taught me anything, however, it has helped me to be more forgiving of myself and others. One of the personally satisfying things to hear in the OST learning workshop was a sense from the participants that the workshop leader really seemed to live the principles of the approach. As I continue to wonder if I have a personal practice of OS and what it looks like, itâs heartening to hear such feedback for the first time! Thank you for reading and letting me share this story. And continuing to marvel and enjoy being part of the OS/GC communities. In appreciative granularity, 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