This is awesome Harrison!
I particularly love your comments about the tendency to measure the impact in
terms of projects/fixes that are followed up or implemented.
Yet what's really more important is whether the unleashed spirit, passion, and
sense of responsibility can be sustained for future challenges.
Open Space is not an event, it's how we must operate in order to keep the
organization functional.
Thank you for sharing!
Chuni Li
________________________________
From: Harrison Owen <[email protected]>
To: 'World wide Open Space Technology email list'
<[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2013 5:08 PM
Subject: [OSList] Afterwards...
Well, the Open Space, previously noted, is over. For the client it was a raging
success, or so they said. For myself it was indeed marvelous, albeit just
another day in Open Space. But I also noted a sense of sadness, maybe even
tragedy. I have felt such feelings before, but never quite so strongly. I had
been told that the participants constituted a dysfunctional organization, low
on morale, and lacking in communication abilities. But when we opened space,
you surely couldn’t see any of that. Charged up, charging on – with purpose,
clarity, respect, and humor. What’s not to like about that? But more to the
point, how could the client been so wrong? The client in this case is a duo
(Chief and Deputy). Both are competent, sensitive, energetic, bright – truly
good folks. But the fact remains that the very same people (“the employees”)
who had been described as dysfunctional, dis-spirited, and un-communicative…
simply took fire! I believe this
raises some questions that we need to ask ourselves, and most especially our
clients. In what follows, you will see my attempt, appropriately redacted to
cover the innocent. I guess you could call this “After-work.”
(An Afterwards email to my client)
Given your initial description of the situation, it appears that some good
things may have happened. As I recall, the organization was described as
“dysfunctional with serious morale and communications issues.” Those may not
have been precisely the words, but pretty close. I heard what was said, and was
prepared for the worst, but to be perfectly honest with you, there was nothing
that I saw during our two days together that would lead me to such a judgment.
What I did see was a committed group of professionals deeply and passionately
engaged in their mission and with each other. To be sure there were arguments
and disagreements, but so far as I could see all of that took place in a
respectful manner. Above everything else they were genuine, warm, people. Nice
folks. With the exception of a few moments of trepidation at the very start,
which seemed to pass quickly (20 min?),it all flowed as a marvelous tapestry of
human endeavor.
Assuming that my natural (and doubtless prejudiced) optimism didn’t get the
better of me, it is reasonable to ask, What happened? One might suspect “The
magic of Open Space,” but I think that would be a false conclusion. A more
accurate one would be, The Magic of the People. And that magic seemed to appear
almost instantaneously – well,after 20 minutes or so. All of which could lead
to a deeper and more interesting conclusion: The people didn’t actually change
at all, they simply showed up as they really were. And a follow-on question:
What was different? Same people, same issues, same general constraints (
Washington is still Washington, and Africa remains its enchanting, maddening
self). To be sure, we were in an “offsite conference center,” but I can tell
you that had the space been available in the office, the results would have
been comparable. What was different?
As you wander on down the road, there will be a natural tendency to assess the
impact of our two days together in terms of the number of
projects/fixes/changes that are followed up on, and implemented. Natural, but
superficial, I think. Some proposals will be dealt with, some won’t be, some
never should be. Indeed the world may radically change tomorrow so that just
about everything we talked about, thought about, and planned is irrelevant. The
question then will be, can The People demonstrate the same level of
professional competence, commitment, passion and responsibility as they did
over the past two days, and effectively deal with that new world? I believe you
have now set a new high bar for yourselves, and based on the demonstrated
performance, I believe the odds are really good. No guarantees, of course, but
one thing is very clear, The XXXX Bureau is NOTessentially a tattered
collection of dysfunctional people, out of steam, and out of spirit.
And now we come to a really hard question – the pointy end of the stick, as it
were. What are you doing, by way of doing business, that creates an environment
in which good people appear as dysfunctional, with morale at snake belly low,
and incapable of meaningful communication? I don’t think for a moment that the
original assessment was wrong, but I do think there are alternatives. Short
take: Keep your space open. I do think you can apply some of the lessons
learned from Open Space so that good people can effectively maneuver in tight
quarters.
Harrison
Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Dr.
Potomac, MD 20854
USA
189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)
Camden, Maine 04843
Phone 301-365-2093
(summer) 207-763-3261
www.openspaceworld.com
www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)
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