Process question

[Birgitt Bolton]

Far be it for me to disagree with Machiavelli. And from this beginning,
you'll know that I am just about to launch into that anyhow.

One of life's lessons that I learned when I was 21 and fresh out of
university (a very long time ago) and working as a social worker in child
welfare was the one about trying to change another person. So...my story is
like this. People would come in to see me being given very little choice
because they had somehow made a mess of how they were parenting their child
and often this ended up abusing their child and often this ended up in me
having to take their child from them and place the child in a foster home.
The parents then were mandated to see me for counselling if they wanted to
get their child back. Well I was a wide eyed novice, well intended, and did
not see that there was quite a power imbalance happening.  I had the power
as given to me by the court. The family knew it. I thought they were coming
to me because they wanted to change. And often they told me some pretty
sordid stories about what was going on. And in my hour with them, I could
usually see pretty clearly what they needed to do and how they needed to
change, and what they needed to fix---and being the bright young person I
was, I told them what to do. And then was surprised when they did not follow
my sage advice even though the stakes were so high. And so I attended a
wonderful seminar on "resistance to change" and still have the handouts. And
I used what I learned to get people to change. And again, no change
happened. At least I had labels now for their behaviour. I actually kept
this kind of behaviour up for two years until one day I finally got it.
Imagine coming to a social worker who had just graduated from school and
knew nothing of life and facing this naïve person with problems that have
been hard on the heart and soul and body for say 40 years, and then having
the social woker tell you that you were too stupid to figure out an answer
that only took her one hour to get. And I was sooooo embarrassed. And
realized that they were not resistors to change, but human beings in fear
and pain. And so I started meeting people I a different way. They came in,
they talked to me, I offered no solutions, just listened and loved them. And
change happened, miracles happened. I still run into some of these people in
the grocery store and the changes lasted. Why? I opened space for them to
find their answers from within. And they were there. Sometimes, because of
the complexities of the problems, the solutions took a few years to
materialize. In the case of child welfare, this is usually because these
parents also had to come to terms with their own abuseive childhoods. When
processing takes years for the change to manifest, it often appears that no
change is taking place, when in fact it is taking place at those invisible
to the eye levels and it is big. All a matter of perspective as to whether
we think change is happening or not.. I know of no human being that does
not change-big changes may take a little longer. I haven't stopped opening
space since with love and holding it safe for all that I am worth, for all
that I have to give. And it is much harder than being that 21 year old
social worker with all of the answers :)

Likewise with organizations. Change happens. It is a matter of approach if
one has the privilege of assisting in the birthing of the change---opening
space and time seems to do the trick. And it is a matter of perception. In
my experience, as with human beings, all organizations change.

Birgitt Bolton

-----Original Message-----
From:   OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of
FamilyFirm at aol.com
Sent:   Thursday, January 21, 1999 12:23 PM
To:     OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject:        Re: Re[2]: Process question

In a message dated 1/21/99 9:05:44 AM Pacific Standard Time,
dferrett at placer.ca.gov writes:

<< One of the things that caught my attention most in the whole Open Space
meme is that self-organizing systems don't need a facilitator to organize
them. >>

But they often need someone to assume the responsibility for  "creating and
holding  the space" so that a new category of self-orgaizing forces can
exert
their influence.
Having said that I should say that I can't think of a human system that
isn't
self-orgainzing.  Machiavelli said a long time ago that " changing
organizations is the hardest thing in the world" . ( I may have misquoted
him
slightly, but that is basically what he said.)  Those forces of homeostatsis
in a system are about self organization.  To me it is not a question of
whether a system is self-orgainzing,  it is a question of what it is self
orgainzing around, and whether is has the systemic flexibility to reorganize
in response to environmental change.
Joe