Open Space and OST

Harrison Owen owenhh at mindspring.com
Thu Aug 17 11:49:05 PDT 2000


At 07:52 AM 8/17/00 -0400,  Birgitt wrote:
Jeff,
going back to Harrison's training manual as one source, pg 29
"In the Beginning was Nothing...An Open Space for the Dance of Chaos and
Order
Dance of Shiva
The flow of the Tao
The affirmation and negation of the Buddha"

and then he goes on with "A Modern Version...Complex Adaptive System with a
picture of Chaos and Order and the quote of "Order for Free"
****************************************
Birgitt had me here for a moment -- "Training Manual??? -- a book I was
going to write????  Then I got it figured. She had to be talking about the
overheads I used in the training program -- which were printed up for all
participants. Anyhow, the points she raises are very valid -- in my view.
Open Space Technology is very simply a window through which we and others
can see/experience what is already there. Nothing is added. Nothing is
created -- it already is. On this point, I have always been uncomfortable
when folks say that I "created" OST. Stumbled upon is more accurate, if
contemplating some way out of yet another meeting in the bottom of several
martinis -- qualifies as stumbling. But the core of my work, and I guess I
would think, the core of all of our work -- is the journey of
transformation which takes place in the Open Space of our universe. OST was
just a funny/wonderful thing that happened along the way. Starting in the
early '60s with a dissertation carrying the sub-title "Chaos, Order and the
Creative Process, "  through the "invention" of Organization Transformation
and the convening of the The First International Symposium on Organization
Transformation (1983), and the publication of my first book, "Spirit:
Transformation and Development in Organizations" (1985 -- but written in
1981) -- I have been pretty thoroughly hooked. Not that my addiction need
become everybodys' , but there has never been any question in my mind as to
which was the horse and which was the cart. And to bring it all to the
present moment, my new effort, "The Power of Spirit: How Organizations
Transform," makes explicit whatever may have been implicit to this point.
OST is vehicle and a natural laboratory in which we can experience and
experiment with our on-going journey of  Transformation. But the main event
is Transformation, and my words for the venue have been Open Space -- a
designation which showed up well before OST appeared in the Beefeaters.

So that is where I sit, which certainly doesn't make it right...

Harrison


Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, MD 20854 USA
phone 301-469-9269
fax 301-983-9314
Summer Phone 207-763-3261
Summer Address
189 Beaucaire Ave.
Camden, ME 04843
website www.mindspring.com/~owenhh
Open Space Institute website www.openspaceworld.org
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