OS in low trust environments

[FamilyFirm at aol.com]

Sounds really good to me Karen.

Brigitt you asked me to say more about continuity and change.  (that phrase is
very much with me because I put on a confernce that Harrison Owen facilitated
for us called Continuity and Change: Expanding the Possibilties. It was a huge
success and as the co-chair of the conference it was  the high point of my
professional life so far.  Giving the gift of Open Space to the most important
people in my professional life lifted me into the currents of something much
bigger than the narrow limits of my life, or profession I am a part of).
Anyway,  I think you are right they are intimately linked.

I experience the two as levels in an organization (or a person).  At the core
where deep purpose abides change is very slow.  On the surface, especialy in
these times, change is almost continuous and the capacity for change is a
survival requirement.  I think that the capacity to sustain continuous change
may lie in connectedness to the core.  And to the ability to articulate deep
purpose, to live it, and to others through it.

So seen in this light the capacity to change may be intimately linked to
clarity about the core, that which abides.  The deep purpose that is
relatively uneffected by the changes on the surface.
Joe