Open Space in Taiwan

ICA Taiwan icataiw at ficnet.net
Sat Sep 16 21:54:59 PDT 2000


I'd like to share a follow-up story to Jimbo's training series over the
summer in Taiwan.  In 2 of the introductory OS days, we had 5 people from a
large insurance company (250 business units, including 20,000 employees in
a land of 21 million people).  Three were from 1 unit, 2 from Human
Resources.  One person had previously been in our facilitation training
programs.

The young lady from the unit had a wonderful spirit energy and I felt I
wanted to stay connected with her.  She asked for more information about
our (ICA's) services for both organizations and individuals, including more
about Open Space, so my husband met with her and her boss.  Because of her
positive OS experience, her boss immediately set the date for a 1-day OS
with 60 supervisors from his unit of 120.  Being in a very aggressive and
fast changing business, he wanted everything we could provide (open space,
trained leadership, detailed implementation plans, etc), all after 1 day.
I was invited to facilitate.  They invited the 2 HR people to join them in
the program, as well as 2 private consultants who were also in Jimbo's
programs.

After 6 pre-meetings with the the sponsor team of 3, including a site visit
to the lovely mountain Boy Scout center 45 minutes from downtown Taipei, I
felt we had a common mind about the program, what they could count on,
their roles, the theme and invitation letter had been re-written several
times, and we had extended to 2 days and 75 people.  Only to have it
postponed because of a typhoon.

We have now done the 2 day OS program and it went quite well.  I had a team
of 4 including Jimbo's wife Anita who has facilitated programs in their
company as well.  Topics were a little slow going up, but we had 22 topics
for 3 1 1/2 hour sessions.  One group was quite large and they split into
2.  Everyone was highly participative, one group did some grief work over
pain experienced on the job, and many shared during the closing circle on
day 1.   That evening we did a "training session" for 12 people on the
leadership team on listening,  reflection for group learning, and awareness
about what they had learned about open space.  On day 2 there were many
overnight reflections shared in the morning news time, but no new topics
for the day came forth.

We moved to report reading and convergence.  For 2 reasons we decided not
to give each participant copies of all the reports.  Taiwanese education is
very competitive and feels "closed".  And I have a great aversion to
excessive uses of paper that get left behind.   All participants are
connected by in-house email and preferred it.   So, we printed and enlarged
each report, placing a full set in 4 different locations before opening the
morning session.  They spent a very inter-active 45 minutes, making
additions to some reports and beginning convergence.  We then had them
place dots on their top choices of one specified set of reports.  The The
top 11 topics were placed inside the circle and I invited those who had the
passion and wanted to take responsibility for convening an action team to
come forward and get their report.  Two were takes plus 1 which had only a
few dots.  After a long silence, the boss indicated his support for any
groups that formed, and the rest were taken up.  Wonderful passionate
pitches were made for people to join their teams, and they went off to
work.  After about 20 minutes a woman came and asked if she could take
another one to form a group around, that she had been shy but now had
courage.  So she recruited 4 people to join her.  All action team reports
were posted on walls around the circle and the leader quickly read through
the main points to symbolize their work for the whole group.

Fortunately we had an hour for the closing circle.  We moved outside
because it was more spacious, all of us standing, and after a few minutes
everyone sat on the ground.  There was laughter, tears, and great
appreciation for one another.

I was again made aware that it is a great gift working in a place where I
am not fluent in the language and therefore have to become more attuned to
both group and individual energy.  The feeling of safety was quite variable
among participants, reminding me how much unlearning and letting go is
needed for most of us.

So now what?    They called me 2 days later with a date for an open space
for the whole unit of 120 next week.  And we have done a second leadership
training evening with the top team of 12 plus the head of HR.   The boss
wants to talk about a long term relationship for leadership training, and
I'm encouraging having an in-house OS training.  One of my partners has
also  made a presentation to the HR department which could go beyond this
one unit.  This weekend 2 of the "sponsor trio" came to our home/office for
some personal energy healing.  One is really worn down from the relentless
pushing of herself in this competitive business, the other had been
rear-ended by another car and was feeling stiff and sore.  We've also done
some reiki for the HR lady who is 8 1/2 months pregnant.  It seems quite
natural to people here that open space and energy work go together.  I'm
looking forward to whatever is next.

This listserve has been an incredibly rich resource and support community
for this work.  Thanks to you all.

Gail

Gail West, ICA
3F, No. 12, Lane 5, Tien Mou West Road
Taipei, Taiwan
Tel:  (8862) 2871-3150
Fax:  (8862) 2871-2870

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