OS in Asia

[Peggy Holman]

Jim,

Great story!  I would second what several others have said about the focus
of the "end of the day" work.  For me, voting is a reductionist approach
that throws people back into a mode of win-lose.  I see the end of the day
work as a time for synthesis, where the passions that have surfaced can come
together in new ways that perhaps didn't exist before.  It is a reason that
I DON'T work with the posted topics at this stage.  During the OS itself,
the topics evolve.  How often have you noticed that when people come
together, the posted topic is the starting place but the discussion moves
into different territory entirely?  To me, you run the risk of staying
locked in the old way of thinking when you use the original topic names.
Instead, this closing time is a chance for new ways of seeing to emerge.
The results are consistently more inclusive. I think this happens because
what is most personal seems to also be most universal.  This is a powerful
discovery as people check into what they care most about and hear others
express similar sentiments.

The mechanics of what I do involves asking people to think about their
experience and what has passion and they are willing to take responsibility
for now.  I have done this in a variety of ways depending on the size of the
group.  For smaller groups, I ask people (sitting in a circle) to quietly
reflect on what has emerged for them as the place of attraction -- where
they wish to put their time and energy and to write it down.  In groups of
less than 60, people read and post what they wrote.  They can easily "clump"
what they've written, and form groups to go from there.

Another format I've used with larger groups is to have people identify what
has passion and responsibility for them and discuss it in groups of 6-8.  As
a group, they identify 1-3 topics.  I always let them know that "wildcards"
are welcome -- that is -- someone feels very strongly about an idea that
doesn't pass muster with the whole group.  If they feel that strongly, then
post it.  You can then clump together topics and form groups around them as
above.

A third approach that I have finally had a chance to try -- as the "end of
event" convergence, do another open space.   This is like any other open
space, with 2 exceptions.  First, the opening question is one that asks
people to focus not just on their personal passion but to pay attention to
where their personal passion intersects with what they believe is essential
to the community as a whole.  In other words, I ask participants to look at
the both/and of themselves and their community.  So the question is one of
what they feel is essential for themselves and their community in light of X
(the subject at hand).  The second difference with this "end of day" open
space is that rather than encouraging people to leave similar subjects
separate, here I encourage them to combine them.  I've only done this format
once, but the results were quite stunning in that the topics selected really
did seem to reflect a systemic view of  the essentials of the meeting.  (By
systemic, I mean the topics formed a map of the whole system -- one related
to how people worked together, another to how the work was done, a third to
how they interacted with their constituency, etc.)

So yet another persective on convergence.

Peggy Holman


----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael M Pannwitz" <mmpanne at snafu.de>
To: <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2000 8:04 AM
Subject: Re: OS in Asia


> Dear Jimbo,
> what a great report. I felt myself present.
> To your questions:
> 1. Yes. I have had 2 occasions this year. One was a group of some 60
> experts from diverse fields discussing new approaches to get youth
> into the labor market. The other was 100 people at their annual
> retreat dealing with issues and opportunities in their work with
> children and young people in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
> (north of Berlin).
> In both cases people merged in one case 3 and in another 4 topics. It
> did not seem to me an attempt to combine all the topics but to work
> on a topic that was common to the 3 and in the other case the 4
> topics that were not in the list of most heavily weighted and that
> they had a passion for. It seemed like a major breakthrough to me
> that after 2 and in the other case even 3 days of intensive work they
> had this new energy at that point. They even went out and
> selforganised posters etc. to go through the whole process of
> "associated topics" and "further suggestions" and giving a new title
> to the merged issues.
> To my reading, these two "new " topics were central to the theme of
> the spaces and some substantial work has been done since the open
> space in the two areas.
> My observation is that if you play down the idea of "voting" and "top
> vote getters" which makes it look to many like a contest with winners
> and losers and emphasize that this is an exercise to find out where
> energy is highest, hot issues, and that through the step "identifying
> associated issues" (all issues turn up again in this step,
> guaranteed) nothing gets lost you might get less of a drive to
> combine stuff.
> 2. I have not had 7 people propose an issue. I have had 2, they came
> into the circle as a team each making a couple of statements. One
> idea I had is to ask all of the conveners to enter the circle and
> state their names (how did they communicate with each other during
> the phase where people post issues?)
> Great going and stimulating stuff
> Hope you and some of your colleagues can make it to OSonOS in October
> in Berlin. We have 85 people registered as of today and there is room
> for 100. More at www.openspaceworld.org/osonos.html
> A grand opportunity to get more of an exchange on your experience.
> Its great to see how it works worldwide.
> Greetings from Berlin
> michael
>
>
>
> On Sun, 28 May 2000 10:06:30 GMT, Jim Clark wrote:
>
> >Greetings from Formosa,
> >
> >I've been using OS for a number of meetings in the company I work for
> >(operations in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan) and thought I would share a
> >story with you all.
> >
> >Last week we had a two and a half day meeting with half a day of follow
up
> >presentations from previous meetings and about 2 days of OS.  The
> >presentation day went pretty well.  We had had a meeting with our top
sales
> >managers and the people who deliver the services they sell to come up
with
> >some ways of improving the service we deliver to our customers (we are in
> >the English language learning business).  They came up with about 24
ideas,
> >and we used the "hot dot" convergence to boil those down to about 9 key
> >arenas.  The service people then had about 2 months to follow up on those
> >ideas, checking for feasibility, etc. and they gave their reports on the
> >afternoon of the first day.
> >
> >Very well done and well received.  Many things were agreed to by the end
of
> >the first day, and some hot topics were pushed to the next day "to talk
> >about in Open Space."
> >
> >That night after dinner we sang Karoke songs till the wee hours.  Energy
> >was going well.
> >
> >Saturday morning, we were getting the room ready for the opening circle
> >when I got a call from the President of our company, who suggested that
we
> >take an hour break from 11:00 to 12:00 to listen to Taiwan's new
president
> >Chen Shui Bien's, inaugural address.  We weren't going to start the
opening
> >session until 10:00 and I thought it better not break up the flow, so we
> >did some discussions about all the infomation that had been presented the
> >day before, watched the speech, and had an early lunch.
> >
> >I surprised myself with how calmly I made the switch in the flow.
> >
> >We ended up with evening news about 7:15 that night.  This group was very
> >diverse, with about 35 people from all three areas (HK, Japan, and
Taiwan)
> >and some customers.  The customers were only invited for the first day of
> >OS, but were not invited for the convergence.  I tried to encourage our
> >company to let them stay, but they were concerned about them being there
> >when we were talking abou how to spend money....
> >
> >We spent the early evening getting the Book together and I went to bed at
> >10:00 p.m. (which in Taiwan is like going to bed at 7:30 for people in N.
> >America as we all stay up pretty late here).
> >
> >The next morning we did morning news, and it sounded like there might be
a
> >few more topics that people either hadn't thought of, or were
uncomfortable
> >of bringing up with the customers around.  I gave a minute or so for
people
> >to post any new topics, and nobody did.  We passed out the books, and
> >started doing the convergence when two topics did get added, which was
> >cool.
> >
> >Something interesting happened, and if you've read this far,
> >congratulations.  The group started putting topics together so that those
> >that weren't top vote getters would be connected to a TVGer.  I let it go
> >for a while until it hit me that they were trying to make sure that
"nobody
> >lost."  I reemphasized that those that weren't TVGers would still be in
the
> >document, and people could still follow their passion to make those
things
> >come true, but we were looking for those areas where the group has
passion
> >and energy and urgency to get things planned this afternoon.  They were
> >reassured, and the combining fury slowed down.
> >
> >The groups did fine in the planning and we had a wonderful closing
circle,
> >in which a number of people shared their feelings of uncertainty leading
up
> >to the meeting, and how happy they had come anyway.
> >
> >We have been asked to use OS for three more major meetings in our company
> >in the next four months, and I'm quite certain there will be more.  It
does
> >give me great pleasure that people in the company are asking for OS,
rather
> >than it being me that suggests it.
> >
> >So the two questions I have are:
> >1.  Have any of you come accross groups that want to combine all of the
> >topics after voting?
> >
> >2.  In coming up with topics, I've found that the Chinese participants
> >(particularly first timers) will have a number of names on the topic,
> >sometimes up to 7 people.  I now ask that if more than one person
proposes
> >the topic, that one person takes the responsibility to be the point
person,
> >and that the circle that person's name.  Have others come accross a
similar
> >situation, and if so, any other responses.
> >
> >With respect from Afar,
> >
> >Jimbo
>
>
>
>
>
> Michael M Pannwitz
> Draisweg 1
> 12209 Berlin, Germany
> FON +49 - 30-772 8000     FAX +49 - 30-773 92 464
> www.michaelMpannwitz.de
>
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