Dear Birgitt,
I intrigue myself with your remark "I am not an advocate of self
organizing systems".
Its a new thought to me being under the impression that all systems
(including man made systems)are by nature selforganizing. In other
words, dont need advocates anyhow.
I cant speak for all systems but those I experience, especially man made
ones, seem to selforganize constantly. In fact, I have the impression
once they no longer selforganize or are capable of doing almost no
selforganizing, they are, for all practical purposes, dead... although
they still "exist" under conditions of high control.
Also, it seems to me that those systems (especially man made ones) that
have a high level of selforganizing going on, for whatever reason, are
more succesful, agile, productive and fun to be part of.
I am a friend of finding out under what conditions the selforganizing
character of systems plays out most completely. Or put differently,
under what conditions do the forces of selforganisation unfold most
completely.
It also seems to me that this is a different question from that of
self-management... at the same time noticing that self-management
appears to be a common by-product of systems in which the force of
selforganisation is able to expand and play out freely.
So my focus is no longer on promoting self-management or selforganizing
processes (as in "we organize our work ourselves") as it used to be some
time back in my days as an OD consultant, but rather looking for those
conditions under which the force of selforganisation can do its thing best.
In addition to self-management there are other neat things that I call
"by-products" of the work of the forces of selforganisation... the ones
I observe are laughter, play, curiosity, productive patterns, intensive
learning and inquiry, grand cooking, intense listening, surfing in
chaotic environments, muddling through...
Oh well, here I went off ranting inspired by what I perceived as an
odd-sounding remark. So, what is this emphasis of yours on not being an
advocate of self organizing systems?
Have a great day
mmp
PS: Spent a good part of the last couple of years transposing "Don't
Just Do Something, Stand There!" (Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff)
into German. It finally saw the light of day a couple of weeks ago under
the name "Einfach mal NICHTS tun!" If I recall correctly, you do know
German, so if you like a copy, let me know.
On 16.11.2011 19:31, Birgitt Williams wrote:
Dear Julie,
If you are contemplating a singular on line OST event for our global
group, the best option is Gabriela Enders’ Open Space Online
http://www.openspace-online.com .
I wish to add a little more on the topic of global organizations and
meetings. I like that you and your colleagues are adept at having
meetings in which some are face to face and others are linked virtually.
It is a testament of your work in and of itself that this is working for
you.
For the last eleven years I have steadily explored how to achieve
successful, life nurturing, productive global organizations. The most
passionate for me is the Genuine Contact community of professionals, now
in its eleventh year. With lots of trial and error, staying true to our
own five core beliefs, and consciously enacting both the principles of
OST and the four immutable laws of Spirit of Angeles Arrien, we are now
a lot wiser as a global organization. In 2006, ownership of Genuine
Contact expanded to a co-ownership model, a legal structure was created
now housed in Belize for as much neutrality as we could create, a
leadership management team was formed of nine people from a number of
different countries, and our organization has been guided by the
Co-owners, the Leadership Management Team, and emergent leadership being
enacted throughout our global community when people are inspired to do
so. The meetings of all teams, workgroups, and co-owners take place in
an on line environment. We have had a list serve for eleven years and
only now have the good fortune to have a newly launched Virtual Home to
give us greater opportunities for our sharing and collaboration. Using
group purchasing power, we have ten Elluminate (Blackboard Collaborate)
licenses, an online meeting platform that has allowed us to do most
things that we want to in a meeting. Under the leadership of Thomas
Herrmann, Laura Bolton, Marquis Bureau, Michael Nothdurft and some
others, we now use Whole Person Process Facilitation (WPPF) as the
meeting facilitation platform for all of our meetings, as adapted for
the on line environment. It is highly participatory, with maximum choice
and maximum freedom, yet more structured than OST. We have had good
success, with groups of up to 25, of placing an OST meeting inside of
the WPPF meeting container. I am deeply grateful to all who created this
wonderful way of having our on line meetings and our online workshops.
My work with clients is almost exclusively with global organizations
with the kind of extraordinary leaders who understand about maximum
choice and maximum freedom to get results. I am not an advocate of self
organizing systems, although I am an advocate of self management within
the organization’s givens. Most weeks, I am in at least four global
virtual meetings using the above, with executives, amazing leaders, and
with whole organizations. I am interested in developing their capacity
to participate in well done highly participatory meetings globally, and
having shared experiences that these can facilitate genuine contact, be
life nurturing and highly productive. If you are interested in having
discussions about sustainability of exceptional performance of global
organizations who make a lot of use of on line environments for their
meetings, please contact me at birg...@dalarinternational.com
<mailto:birg...@dalarinternational.com> .
All the best,
Birgitt
tingshaBirgitt Williams
Author Genuine Contact Way
Co-owner of the Genuine Contact program
President and Senior Consultant,
Dalar International Consultancy, Inc.
www.dalarinternational.com
Note: picture of the bells that have journeyed to numerous countries
with me for twenty-two years as an international consultant. During the
closing circle of every meeting, everyone in the meeting has held these
bells. They have now been held by thousands of people, all doing their
part to create life nurturing conditions for humanity. The bells have
also been held in blessing and in prayer by countless people, who bless
all who ever hold them, with the journey of the bells uniting all of
their energies to make a difference for humanity, one person at a time,
one organization at a time, one business at a time, one community at a time.
*From:*oslist-boun...@lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-boun...@lists.openspacetech.org] *On Behalf Of *Julie Smith
*Sent:* Wednesday, November 16, 2011 1:35 AM
*To:* oslist@lists.openspacetech.org
*Subject:* [OSList] deja vu
Dear all ~
It's been a long time! I've just skimmed through the last several months
of postings and find myself sitting here with a big silly grin. It's
really amazing how vibrant and alive and connected everyone here still
is. A real testament to what naturally happens when we self-organize. :)
Two things bring me back here. One is that I recently came across a book
of our conversation on the oslistserve that I compiled in 2002. The book
is a little more than 300 pages and contains the remarkable conversation
that unfolded here in the days from 8-25-01 until 9-27-01. Really. We
created over 300 pages of conversation in the span of one month. We had
a lot to say as we watched the world change on 9-11. I still count that
experience as one of the highlights of my life.
The name I gave to this compilation is A Partial Diary of the Collective
Buddha. I included a bit of art to dress it up, put things in order,
cleaned up the formatting and had it coil-bound with a cover to protect
it. I like it a lot. For me, this book is a treasure. So much was felt
and shared here, so many of us were so heart-moved.
I long ago lost track of whatever computer I was using in 2002, so this
copy is pretty much what I have. But still, I have this. I wonder if it
would be worthwhile to take what I have back to the copy shop where I
could cut off the binding and scan all the pages into a pdf document
that I could then share. Is this something anyone is interested in
having? If there is interest, I will find out more about how to make
this available. Whether you are interested in the book or not, I look
forward to hearing from you!
The second reason I came back is to learn more about the ways in which
Open Space is being used in virtual space. I'm pondering an open space
event that serves a global community that doesn't have the capacity to
get together in the same physical room. We are quite adept, however, at
holding meetings in which we are connected in some combination of
face-to-face, audio, and video conferencing. I know a bit of this has
been done already, and I'm eager to learn from those who have done it.
Can someone please point me to who I might connect with about this? Many
thanks!
Much love ~~~~~
Julie
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--
Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
++49-30-772 8000
mmpa...@boscop.org www.boscop.org
Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 440 resident Open
Space Workers in 71 countries working in a total of 142 countries
worldwide: www.openspaceworldmap.org
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