Recently I provided Harrison an update on my research as I promised him I would. In it is an observation of reaction by my fellow students to the subject of OST. Has anyone experienced any similar reactions to OS when not formally Opening Space. Harrison's response to me on this is included.
Harrison, Update - my reaserch project is about 1/2 complete. Settled on "A grounded theory study of the value of using OST". I gathered as much of the written material I could find on the WWW and other sources and am using them as my Qualatative data. I am using Ethnograph v5.0 Qualatative analysis software to organize and synthesize any reported incidents of value. Each is categorized according to it's affiliation..value being: * Type - personal or organizational. * Time frame - realized immediate (during OS event), post (after OS event) or seen as potentially valuable (future). * System relationship - Leadership, Vision, Community, Management. Am also looking for trends in what reporter/writers described as the value and it's relationships to the above categories. The reasearch will weave notable linkages to contemporary theory as appropriate. Hopefully this paper will be a great jumping off point for future research and give quantative "umph" to the qualative data for those to use it when approaching leadership in Orgs that are contemplating using OST. One thing I have noticed is when I begin giving my out briefs to my peers and Profs. they all looked at me as though I have a third eye in the middle of my forehead. But in every instance (3 times so far), all completely stopped what they were doing, quickly seemed to become mesmerized by the topic and began to make stronger connections to what they have studied in their other graduate classes ....they are all, in my view learning at a deeper level...guess I kind of inadvertantly (without rituals and not intended, just mere mentioning of what OST is about) opened some space for them, including the profs. Have yet to complete a full briefing and we always end up in some fantastic discussions. Everyone is all smiles at the end of each class (and most were not smiling when they came to class). My learning... Open Space is a powerful catalyst and surprising! I'll keep you in the loop as things progress and time permits. Thanks for listening. Rich Norris *********************************************************************** Harrison's response: You are definitely in the loop so to speak. And good show on the dissertation. The experience you are having with folks in the briefings has been mine for years, which is to take nothing away from what you are doing, only to say, don't feel like the Lone Ranger. As you well know by now, given a paradigm which says that organization happens only by dint of major effort and great skill (for which folks are highly compensated), it is shocking to think that it seems to happen all by itself, with little to no effort. And further that the end result is typically better than the finely crafted organization design in terms of functionality and human enjoyment. For academics, this is their whole career, and for working managers and executives, pretty much the same thing. So there is a lot of pride and money riding on the experience -- given all of that the truly amazing thing is that most folks seem to come out smiling. But don't be surprised if that smile doesn't last. Sooner or later they will think seriously about the consequences of what they have actually thought. You might want to consider using Open Space as the mode of briefing. Then they can't say it never happened. Richard Norris (407)779-0531 <rnor...@digital.net>