Re: [OSList] urgent need of your wisdom : how to reassure a political guy who fears that the OST format will not be inclusive enough ?
Dear Martin, Harrison, Lisa Thank you very much for your answers. It helped ! I had the call with the guy, and we had a long conversation together. We talk about the range of outcomes he wished for. Having Harrison's voice in mind I told him that to my knowledge, there was no other way to have 90 people engage in 3 hours with the ability to act together soon and keep connected on the long run in spite of divergent interests. he insisted on having 2 guys presenting briefly before I explained how it worked. We ended up with the agreement of 5 people supposed to speak 5 mn each, including himself. Of course they spoke 10 mn each, so I shortened the opening keeping it to a minimum. It was obvious that the sponsor was doubtful and his glances at me - and his team- were quite cold. But he played the game. And guess what... of course it worked ! There were 30 sessions and about 20 action plans. In spite of heat wave (and no chairs for breakout sessions , because of no chairs allowed in the huge hall...), people didn't leave during breaks, and obviously were not in a hurry to leave after the closing... Everybody was very happy. During closing circle, all standing, the sponsor admitted he was very doubtful, then added quietly today I learned a lesson about participative democracy. Another guy said he was used to open space, and that this one was very convivial. :) I'm glad I know how to breathe. Lisa, you asked me why I am asking when I know the answers. Precisely for these reasons. Knowing that there are other people somewhere that are as crazy as I am and do believe the same, help me breathe and open the space the best I can. Christine On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 6:51 PM, Lisa Heft - lisah...@openingspace.net wrote: Hi, Christine - Several things come to mind. And I know you already had your phone appointment. And I am wondering what you sensed and did and what happened. But still I will share reflections if it helps in general or as you reflect. 1) What does your intuition / gut / sensing say? I imagine you know your own answer. Is there a reason you hesitate when you can feel inside exactly what to do and say? 2) I agree that it sounds like OST is a good approach if the issue is complex such as this. However there are huge power dynamics operating as well, right? So these next things come to mind: - if the sponsor fear that there it will not enough reflect the diversity of actions and timeframe and the possibility to create a kind of frame to support long term action on the territory. — then her/his intuition may be speaking loudly, not just her/his fear, no? If this all is so, does that not tell you both that it is more important to take more time to plan (rather than the rushed planning) and find a longer meeting time on another date? if it is so important? And SO many things support long-term action. Not a single short event by itself. Instead, relationships, infrastructure, time, ability, resources, partners, champions, desks and computers, ability to step outside one’s daily tasks to add in these tasks, SO many things. Are these in place before the event to support the actions that are being invited? If not, is asking for action appropriate for this particular event? Or is this for part of that strength, such as in ideas, relationships, and so on ? Does all that have to be accomplished by one short event? And if it is complex, why so short? 3) I always go with what is realistically achievable, given the circumstances which I may or may not be able to inform. - Without knowing more details, dynamics, ideas and emotions brought up during your pre-work conversations, I can only say that as an outsider to this my own intuition / gut / body says to take advantage of what a short OS meeting can =realistically= deliver - which is a highlighting of emergent issues, ability for people to notice who else cares about these things, ideas generated for opportunities and for describing challenges, and that’s about it. With a documentation design that really captures, with another event scheduled after people can rest and reflect on their documentation (data), then going into the next step of mapping out (or even a small group having a conversation about) what are resources / relationships / realities for what in their systems can support actions, then inviting people who are really the people who have power-mobility-ability-relationship to identify and work on some actions, and so on and so on in a chain of meetings and conversations. Not just a quickie because (do I understand you correctly?) there was some meeting time within a COP21 event. - Also with these power dynamics I would pay attention to other things that can help as in: no introductions, no speeches, name tags only saying names (not organizations or titles), and maybe even more of an emphasis in the theme question on “I” to bring it into peoples’ bodies (mixed dynamics here can
Re: [OSList] urgent need of your wisdom : how to reassure a political guy who fears that the OST format will not be inclusive enough ?
Christine You rock. Thanks for posting! Thanks for sharing! Suzanne On Jul 5, 2015 9:11 AM, christine koehler via OSList oslist@lists.openspacetech.org wrote: Dear Martin, Harrison, Lisa Thank you very much for your answers. It helped ! I had the call with the guy, and we had a long conversation together. We talk about the range of outcomes he wished for. Having Harrison's voice in mind I told him that to my knowledge, there was no other way to have 90 people engage in 3 hours with the ability to act together soon and keep connected on the long run in spite of divergent interests. he insisted on having 2 guys presenting briefly before I explained how it worked. We ended up with the agreement of 5 people supposed to speak 5 mn each, including himself. Of course they spoke 10 mn each, so I shortened the opening keeping it to a minimum. It was obvious that the sponsor was doubtful and his glances at me - and his team- were quite cold. But he played the game. And guess what... of course it worked ! There were 30 sessions and about 20 action plans. In spite of heat wave (and no chairs for breakout sessions , because of no chairs allowed in the huge hall...), people didn't leave during breaks, and obviously were not in a hurry to leave after the closing... Everybody was very happy. During closing circle, all standing, the sponsor admitted he was very doubtful, then added quietly today I learned a lesson about participative democracy. Another guy said he was used to open space, and that this one was very convivial. :) I'm glad I know how to breathe. Lisa, you asked me why I am asking when I know the answers. Precisely for these reasons. Knowing that there are other people somewhere that are as crazy as I am and do believe the same, help me breathe and open the space the best I can. Christine On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 6:51 PM, Lisa Heft - lisah...@openingspace.net wrote: Hi, Christine - Several things come to mind. And I know you already had your phone appointment. And I am wondering what you sensed and did and what happened. But still I will share reflections if it helps in general or as you reflect. 1) What does your intuition / gut / sensing say? I imagine you know your own answer. Is there a reason you hesitate when you can feel inside exactly what to do and say? 2) I agree that it sounds like OST is a good approach if the issue is complex such as this. However there are huge power dynamics operating as well, right? So these next things come to mind: - if the sponsor fear that there it will not enough reflect the diversity of actions and timeframe and the possibility to create a kind of frame to support long term action on the territory. — then her/his intuition may be speaking loudly, not just her/his fear, no? If this all is so, does that not tell you both that it is more important to take more time to plan (rather than the rushed planning) and find a longer meeting time on another date? if it is so important? And SO many things support long-term action. Not a single short event by itself. Instead, relationships, infrastructure, time, ability, resources, partners, champions, desks and computers, ability to step outside one’s daily tasks to add in these tasks, SO many things. Are these in place before the event to support the actions that are being invited? If not, is asking for action appropriate for this particular event? Or is this for part of that strength, such as in ideas, relationships, and so on ? Does all that have to be accomplished by one short event? And if it is complex, why so short? 3) I always go with what is realistically achievable, given the circumstances which I may or may not be able to inform. - Without knowing more details, dynamics, ideas and emotions brought up during your pre-work conversations, I can only say that as an outsider to this my own intuition / gut / body says to take advantage of what a short OS meeting can =realistically= deliver - which is a highlighting of emergent issues, ability for people to notice who else cares about these things, ideas generated for opportunities and for describing challenges, and that’s about it. With a documentation design that really captures, with another event scheduled after people can rest and reflect on their documentation (data), then going into the next step of mapping out (or even a small group having a conversation about) what are resources / relationships / realities for what in their systems can support actions, then inviting people who are really the people who have power-mobility-ability-relationship to identify and work on some actions, and so on and so on in a chain of meetings and conversations. Not just a quickie because (do I understand you correctly?) there was some meeting time within a COP21 event. - Also with these power dynamics I would pay attention to other things that can help as in: no introductions,
