The role of the Group Animator

[Mike Bell]

Friends:

I've been following the conversation about how we prepare for open space and particularly noted Birgitt William's  response and its reference to Reiki.  This reminded me of an unpublished essay I wrote some months ago on the Future Search methodology for their Newsletter, SearchNews. (It was too long for publication--3300 words).  The essay also has a reference to Open Space. ( I think the two approaches have much in common). In my opinion, our ability to understand Open Space and Future Search is based very much on how we see organizations (and communities). The transition from seeing organizations as machines to seeing them as life-forms has a whole lot of implications, most of which we are barely beginning to understand. I think it has significant implications for us as group animators and how we work with organizations.  I think we have to begin rethinking our role--which is the point of the essay. 

Since I'm a newcomer and have never posted anything to this list before, I'm not sure if it is appropriate for me to post something this lengthy .  (Nor am I sure that it technically feasible)  So I'll try and post it as a file which will make it easier to ZAP for those who don't want to wade through it. To provide a bit of context to the essay, I live in the Arctic and for the past 20 years have worked mostly with Inuit folks in the Eastern Arctic--now called Nunavut--and with Dene (Indian) and Metis folks in the Western Arctic--the Northwest Territories. 

Mike

 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/msword
Size: 47616 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20000303/dee467b8/attachment-0016.wiz>