Calling the Circle

[Birgitt Bolton]

Hi Don and others who have been involved in the discussion re: Open Space
and strategic planning and then the added dimension of strategic planning
regarding that which will meet tight government guidelines. I note that Don
has already said his thank-you's. I still wish to add some of my experience.
Two stories follow, so this is long. They come from my perspective and
experience that you don't need to mix anything with Open Space to get
spectacular results. And it comes from my recent experience with my friend
and colleague Virginia who today put in a proposal for a very large contract
with a very rigid government organization to design a landscape for them.
Virginia and I have done other work together and the formula works with
results that far surpass any expectations. She is a landscape architect.
Very rigid specifications and designs, right down to the millimeter. She
used to design her landscapes (and some of them have been many hundred
acres) in a traditional process of getting some info from the client in
terms of their wants, then designing, then going back to a committee, then
changing the design because of what then came up...and so on in a vicious
cycle. Often going for 1 -2 years. She says that the greatest sadness of
most landscape architects is that after the design is finally complete, most
are put on a shelf an never implemented. I said that this sounds a lot like
traditional strategic planning approaches. They take forever to finally be
agreed upon and then they sit on a shelf, without being realized.

Anyhow, we've taken to starting the whole design process with a 2 1/2 day
Open Space with all stakeholders present. And because of their passion and
ideas, Virginia gets enough information for the design that she is now able
to complete the master plan to everyone's satisfaction and in fact usually
surpasses what they are dreaming because she has tapped right into their
wisdom and passion ----within 40 days start to finish. Time and money are
saved. The designs are delivered while the passion is running high. And what
do you think that does to implementation rate??? To my way of thinking, we
have a lot to learn by using this as a metaphor for our strategic planning.

So, back to the story of today. Virginia could have proposed a more
traditional process and I watched her temptation to do so. She really wants
this contract---very prestigious.  And the organization is very traditional
and rigid. And today Virginia sent in a proposal that said that the process
for the design had to be done in Open Space if they were to work with her.
She would rather not have the contract that go back to methodology that
won't deliver for her what she needs in order to do the best landscape
designs that she can. This took courage for sure. And the willingness to
lose a contract. And the assuredness that the contracts that she does get
will have results far greater than any expectations in terms  of meeting the
needs of the stakeholders. If she had allowed for the mixing of another
methodology and Open Space, she would not get the richness of depth and
breadth of response and she would have far less spectacular master plans.
For me this is parallel to what we would do with strategic planning by
combining something with Open Space. It would work for sure, but would not
achieve the same richness. Fortunately in our organizations, when we don't
get the best, it is not so visible because we are usually complimented on
doing a good job anyway and the client doesn't know that they could have
gotten more. It is more visible in a physical landscape.

The second story comes from my own time as CEO of a multi service social and
health service. I was in this position for almost 10 years. We did well in
our early years in terms of attaining government grants and in terms of our
growth and our service delivery. We excelled beyond what should have been
possible in the last 3 years that I was there. We operated as an Open Space
organization doing all of our meetings in Open Space which included the
issue groups moving forward as what Harrison now states as DO IT, CLARIFY
IT, Open Space it again. Aside from the other amazing results, I thought I
would list a few here
1. The foundation of all of our government grant applications were done in
Open Space. We applied for and received about 6 million annually.
2. The foundation of a new housing complex including grant applications,
housing design, service design, etc. was done in Open Space. A 12 million
state of the art project with the rest of the community amazed at what we
actually got $$$ for and how we actually convinced the government that items
such as air conditioning that no other housing projects got, were easy for
us to get.
3. The foundation of, building of a Board, and establishment of funding and
other resources for a Community Health Centre, done in Open Space. Again a
multi million $$ project, but what was much more important to me was that it
was configured with the people who were to use it, in the process and so the
$$ are actually spent to meet need.
4. All of the organization's policies were developed in Open Space. For
sure, task groups went away and completed the word smithing. One of my
favourite stories is the development of the sexual harassment policy. Folks
who never would have been invited to draft this one (in this case the
janitorial staff) were the prime movers behind this policy and helped
establish an excellent and implementable policy. And no one had to "sell "
it after the fact or do "laid on" training programs. Training happened, but
the impetus came from within.

The tangible results of what we did in Open Space were many. All of this was
achieved during the recession of the early '90's during a time that staff
morale stayed very high and very creative, despite a doubling in our client
base with no extra staff. And no one complained that they didn't have the
time to attend to the Open Space meetings. They knew we were working smarter
and much closer to the needs of the client base AND that the most amazing
solutions kept popping up.

So...just thought I'd share this regarding the use of Open Space even with
very rigid guidelines. I often say that it doesn't matter how big or little
the space is, define it with a clear theme and clear and honest givens and
there is space there to open and you might just be surprised.  Enough said.
I know I am lecturing. From my passion.

Birgitt Bolton