os topic report

[Birgitt Bolton]

We recently had a meeting of the Open Space Institute of Canada meeting. As
always the meeting is held in a one day open space. The theme was something
like "New Learnings and Developments" in Open Space and for the Institute.
Whenever I get an opportunity like this, I usually post a topic to discuss
the "Ongoing Open Space Organization".  Possibly like a dog with a bone
that I won't let go of. However, I do tend to follow my passion and am
prepared for now to keep taking responsibility for creating opportunities
for this discussion. It excites me. So, I thought I'd put our report from
our group here on the list and see if I can get the discussion expanded,
enhanced here. If you have any comments, insights, questions for
consideration, I'd love to receive them.

Open Space Institute Meeting February 11, 1998
Open Space Report #



Name of Issue or Opportunity: Current Learnings about on-going Open Space

Name of Leader: Birgitt Bolton

Names of Participants:
Eleanor Belfry-Lyttle
Barry Owen
Mark Brubacher
Larry Peterson
Ellen 

Describe Issue or Opportunity:

Birgitt introduced the topic by speaking about her ongoing passion for Open
Space as a means of being in organization together. Aside from her
experience at Wesley which she has talked about a lot in the past in terms
of the ingredients that seem to be essential for on-going Open Space as a
way of organizational life, she has been working with four smaller
organizations who committed to working towards organizational
transformation beginning with an Open Space event and commitment to working
to being organizations operating in ongoing open space. 

The key elements in each organization have been:
1.      understanding the need for change, to operate in a different way to
capture the most that each employee can give of their knowledge, creativity
and responsibility for getting the work of the place done
2.      formal leadership committed to working in a different way, one in which
they are willing for people to operate in cross functional work teams, and
in which participative decision making is accepted
3.      whether the organization is operating in a hierarchy or not doesn't seem
to matter to being able to work in ongoing open space
4.      working with leadership before the first open space to prepare them for
what is likely to emerge, how to capture it after the event, how not to get
in the way of all the passion/responsibility. Despite this coaching ahead
of time, leadership always goes through a state of great panic once the
organization really starts operating in a different way and everything
feels out of control. The coaching ahead is a critical ingredient in having
leadership trust the consultant after the event to hang in with the process
and continue to learn about new ways of leadership
5.      leadership learning through a "training" program about Open Space is
essential. The one done by Harrison or the one by Larry and Birgitt. It
seems that this is more effective and has greater impact for the
organization if the learning opportunity takes place after the Open Space
event and once it is evident that the old way of doing things just won't
work anymore
6.      each one of the leaders that Birgitt is working with says the most
important ingredient for them is the ongoing coaching/mentoring as they hit
their rough spots and spots of uncertainty
7.      IN EACH AND EVERY EXAMPLE INCLUDING THE ONE AT WESLEY, ABOUT THREE TO
FOUR MONTHS AFTER THE FIRST OPEN SPACE EVENT AND ONCE SOME OF THE NEW WAYS
OF OPERATING ARE IN PLACE, THERE IS A REVOLT BY STAFF THAT IS VERY LARGE
AND AWFUL FOR THE LEADERSHIP. Even though staff want the change at the
start, they rebel and get very angry at the leadership. In all cases it is
about this time that leadership ends up in tears, wondering if they have
made a BIG mistake, doubting themselves as competent leaders.
COACHING/MENTORING/HAND HOLDING from the consultant is critical at this
time just as the midwife holding the hand of the woman in labour when
things start to get really bad just before birth. It is exactly the time
not to try to fight what is happening, and the most important thing the
coach can do is to reassure and to tell stories of how "normal" this stage
is. When everyone gets through this stage, staff start talking about how
angry they were but how they now get it. And leaders talk about their anger
at Open Space but when asked if they would do it over again, always say
that they WOULD. In every case they said that although the transition had
been very painful, that the stuff was out in the open that had always been
under the surface and had always gotten in the way (ie: Dead Moose stuff)
8.      In establishing commitment to operating in ongoing open space, we should
not just rely on people's somehow getting it, but to actually bring the
changes to the awareness, awakeness, conscious level by doing things at the
end of an Open Space event like covenanting/contracting as a group to meet
in person or on-line 4 months after the event to give feedback about
progress to date on the actionable items. This does a shift from reporting
back to "the boss" to holding each other accountable. Which has marvelous
spin-off effects. In Birgitt's experience no "champion" of an
issue/opportunity has ever not been prepared with a report back at the
scheduled time. No "supervision" /memos/reminders were necessary along the
way, it just happened. Amazing thing—people taking their own responsibility
J
9.      To Birgitt's chagrin, after all of the gains made after almost nine
months in each of these four organization's and that each of the four is
basically operating in ongoing open space and despite all the coaching,
only now are the leaders asking questions about "what is open space
anyway".  They don't know they are in it.
10.     "Givens" must be truthful, known. They can be reviewed regularly for
relevancy ie: once a year. They need to be communicated to everyone.


Birgitt then did a diagram from one of Harrison's more recent teachings
about what is happening in an ongoing Open Space organization.



Discussion brought out the following key points:
1.      the book The Wisdom of Winning Teams by Katzenbach and Smith (Harper
Business, 1993)  is recommended by Larry as giving  more insight to what is
likely happening with the teams that emerge and why organizations that
operate in this way are successful
2.      Work groups doing the regular work of the organization can continue
through the established hierarchy for tasks that are time limited and
known. Teams in this instance help each other work individually better.
3.      If there is a performance challenge, use Open Space to get the
cross-functional team, the strategy, the plan of  moving to success. NOTE:
these performance challenges are coming faster and faster within
organizations so it makes sense to use more and more Open Space events
within an organization. Does this cause the organization to shift into
being an ongoing Open Space organization??? Suggestions of this are in
Harrison's 1995 book Millennium Organization. Likely he has much more
recent and deeper thinking about this.
4.      Both the organization and the work are EMERGENT bounded by passion and
responsibility---not just at an OS event, but ongoing in an OS
organization. And this isn't always comfortable for people who maybe have
patterns of complaining, blaming the "boss" when they really get that they
are part of the solution and have to exercise RESPONSIBILITY.
5.      None of the four principles of Open Space should stand alone. We hear
people quoting "whatever happens is the only thing that could have" when
they haven't exercised their responsibility about something. There is in
fact an excuse for very bad human behaviour when the principles are handled
this way separately. It seems critical that they come in one package, one
whole, always with a reminder that they are bounded by Passion and
Responsibility.
6.      We want to refer to organizations using ongoing open space as Open Space
organizations and see if we can get this term to be used rather than
Millennium organization because probably there are going to be a thousand
varieties from different authors very shortly and prolifically about their
version of millennium organization and this is going to get very confusing.
We have something special in open space and shouldn't hesitate to promote
these words for universal acceptance.
7.      Ongoing Open Space organizations in their ideal state can be self
organizing systems. Open Space is the key. We have something HUGE to offer
to the literature and practice of the world that is interested in Self
organizing systems. We need to keep working at practice sites so that we
have demonstrations, not just theory.
8.      Should space ever be closed?? In an ongoing OS organization there is one
ongoing space that is held Open by the formal leader and is not closed.
Simultaneously, there are many smaller spaces ( 1 day, two day, 3 hour)
spaces that are opened and closed within the organization.  Closure
acknowledges endings and beginnings. It acknowledges breathing in and out.
It acknowledges the ebb and flow of doing and being, doing and letting go.
Action/reflection cycle.
9.      "givens" should be reviewed when the "shift" begins.
10.     Leaders need coaching/mentoring to be learn to handle creative U-turns
that seem to always emerge in Open Space.




I hope that I have captured the essence of the discussion and respectfully
submit this to you as a record and as an invitation to keep the dialogue on
this one going as we each keep learning more. If we put our individual
learnings on this together, we may have some really critical information 
that will benefit many people.

Birgitt