Hi Anne-Béatrice From my perspective you responded perfectly and I don't see it affecting the combining that took place. You might have given a reason why combining is not always a good idea, as some of us have suggested here. But I am not so sure that what we say has that much impact on what people decide to do. We can be careful and skillful and then we have to let it go.
People learn a lot in open space, because both 'content' and 'process' are raised to awareness. In reflecting on their experience I bet that people feel more aware of what's true in that group and its leadership and how they want to continue their involvement. And this kind of learning is valuable in a new organization. In that sense the freedom of open space is always with us, and OST makes it more visible and tangible. Using Adizes' old developmental framework, OST is often used after an organization moves past its 'prime' into bureaucracy that may no longer serve, and needs some space to open up structures and return to prime. But on the path toward prime in a new organization, OST can help in creating appropriate structures to support the purpose of the organization. At least in theory : ) It doesn't surprise me that there was desire to narrow and focus the discourse rather than expand it at this developmental stage. But if people are invited and feel left out they won't want to play much longer. As a consultant to the sponsor, one could try to prepare the sponsor beforehand for the best use of open space in turning loose the creativity of the gathered people for the task at hand; and try to reflect with them afterward on learnings about leadership in open space. (My gratitude to Larry Peterson for that language.) But this is a bigger contract than just facilitating a meeting. I'm curious if this resonates, and wonder about the experiences of others in new organizations. Jeff -------- Original message -------- From: Anne-Béatrice Duparc via OSList <oslist@lists.openspacetech.org> Date:01/31/2015 2:23 PM (GMT-08:00) To: oslist@lists.openspacetech.org Subject: Re: [OSList] Combining sessions - a slight change of title Hi, I want to share with you how my first OS went relating to the combination of topics. So the OS only lasted 3h30, we had around 25 people and two sessions. 16 subjects were raised. During the intro someone asked how to do when one wants to attend several subjects. I answered that there were several solutions : they could move from one to the other, they could ask the conveners of two sessions if they were ok to combine them, or could just choose the one they felt more inclined to go to. I have the impression that something went a bit wrong in the way I answered... because there was a lot of combinations... and I really think far too much. It ended up that even 4 sessions were combined together and that a group of around 15 people gathered in it. That's not the number of people gathering that matter so much, but the fact that the man who was the sponsor of the event (not a formal one, but still the one who made the event happen) was kind of acting like the chief, wanted to achieve really specific results, talking a lot, while half people did not speak. And having read a feedback about what has happened since the OS and talked with a friend of mine who is part of the group, I have the impression that this OS has been kind of an alibi, a participative process that has finally ended up in supporting only some specific concrete actions that were important for a few people in the group and that they already wanted to happen before the OS. I feel a bit disappointed and not so at ease with that, as if I had helped in some way to that "manipulation". I have the feeling now that the available time was too short for people to really accept to be free from their agenda (or the one of others) and enter the freedom of open space or that OS was not the appropriate thing to do with this forming group... Anne-Béatrice
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