cooperative advice 1

[gm]

Dear Fritz,

An interesting question - I am sending you some thoughts.

1.      If the situation qualifies for an OS, by all means do an OS !!

2.      If it isn’t, for example because management believes the situation is
not really all that
        serious, or that they know the answer, they’d like to keep control and
so on a lot depends on the
         situation.
        I have however become weary of using the two other options you mention
as I have found that
        in bureaucratic government organisations they risk producing
halfhearted results and are too slow

3.      What I sometimes do is that when I am asked (typically through a
participant in another OS)
        to come and talk about OS, I spend the first bit of the meeting to
identify what the problem/
        objective is and whether or not OS would fit.
        If I have the feeling there may be too little energy, I give three
alternative methods in
        increasing degree of selforganisation.
        What I have found often happens, is that a management team will split
across a great divide:
        - half takes a position that “if we really want change, we should
choose OS”
        - the other half gets scared and says OS is risky and irresponsable
(and sometimes a lot of other
           things you don’t really want to know)
        This very quickly gives great insight as to what starting point you
have.

4.      Something which I have also experienced is taking the part of the
problem statement which is
        most urgent and out of control, sometimes only a small part - and
organise the OS around it,
        could be with a smaller group of participants.
        Typically everything that is important will come up during this OS
anyway - and after that
        the system either grinds to a halt preventing this from happening
again, or, having found out
        it actually works and is fun, expands into the one which should have
been held in the first place
        (but whatever happens ....................)

5.      An exercise I sometimes do when discussing a large meeting with a
management team is the
        paradoxical approach. If the issue is problem X, I will split them in
pairs or whatever, and ask
        them to come up with methods to ensure the problem rapidly gets worse.
I have never had a team
        who was unable to do this. I then congratulate them and typically tell
them that the good news is
        that only 2 or 3 of the methods suggested will do the trick, and that
they actually already are
        applying far many than that. The bad news is, all must be avoided
......... This tends to create
        a sense of urgency as well as a better idea what the issue is. (this
takes 40-60 minutes).

6.      Sometimes urgancy can be created by investigating the alternative - a
Russian collegue (this was
        just after the wall fell) once explained to me how he questioned plant
managers who felt they
        could more or less go on with business as usual until they had found
out what would be the likely
        outcome f they did.

7.      I have found that inviting clients can help to clarify what is
needed. They can of course be
        participants, but another option if the issue is seen as being
internal, is to invite them to come
        and give their feedback before the OS (but in the same event). For
example last Friday/Saturday
        we had 8 clients giving critical feedback to an organisation Friday
morning, and after lunch we
        opened space (without the clients).

I hope you find this useful. Tell us what happened !

Greetings from Denmark,


Gerard Muller (gm at openmspace.dk)

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