Be prepared to be surprised. . .

[Joelle Lyons Everett]

A couple of weeks ago I opened space, three half-days, with a group of eight
women from Novosibirsk, Siberia in Tacoma, Washington.  This was the
conclusion of a whirlwind three weeks of sightseeing, homestays, and a lot of
site visits and presentations re: women's organizations, political advocacy,
and strategies for dealing with domestic violence.

The third week was focused on organizational leadership skills.  OSLIST
members Peggy Holman, Nancy Skinner and I looked at the amount of data input
during the first 2.5 weeks and decided that 1)  Reflective time was needed to
allow the women to integrate what they had learned and think ahead to the
future, and 2)  We wanted to demonstrate tools which, in our experience,
created the opportunity for heartfelt conversation and shared leadership.  So
we agreed to lead the group in one full day of Appreciative Inquiry, followed
by three half-days in Open Space.

In a program with so many unknowns and variables, virtually none of them
under my control, I could make a few predictions, and I expected surprises.

It was impossible to keep to a schedule--NOT a surprise.

Some women were not too interested in the project objectives--NOT a surprise.

Some days someone was ill and needed extra attention--NOT a surprise.

This is the first time I've carried a cell phone while facilitating, and it
has taken its place right up there on the supply list with marking pens,
masking tape and Kleenex.  It made it possible to deal with changes in
countless arrangements without a long jaunt to a pay phone, and made it easy
to order a pot of coffee when afternoon jet-lag showed up.

And of course there were many surprises.  Day One, we arrived to the news
that the room we had been assigned was in fact not available the following
days--a problem which the college staff took care of promptly, leaving us
only to watch the door for students who were looking for their statistics
class.  It also was a surprise to realize that the room would have to be set
up every morning and returned to its classroom format every afternoon, all
posters removed from the walls.

The other surprise this day was a pleasant one--this college extension campus
in inner-city Tacoma had a nice new building, not much food service--but
lunch was soul food, catered each day by Eddie, a grey-haired black man
famous for his barbecue.  Eddie cooked wonderful lunches, delivered them, and
sat in the corner to collect the money ($5 on days with one kind of meat, $6
on days with two meats), brightening everyone's day with his friendliness and
genuine concern.  Lunching on fried chicken, barbecue, potato salad, greens
cooked with ham hocks and chile, sweet potato pie sent us back to work happy.
 On Friday the college has no classes, but Eddie made lunch just for us, with
baked salmon, cheesecake and tea added to his usual menu.

On Day Two, I arrived early to set up, to find a fire truck in front of the
building.  Inside, fireman were squeegying and pumping up water from a huge
broken pipe, and half the first floor of this almost-new building was
flooded.  They told us that we could use our upstairs seminar room, but the
water was turned off, making water fountains and toilets unusable.  For an
uneasy half-hour I brainstormed alternatives:  meet at the home we were using
for gathering in the morning (nice but a tiny space)?  find another meeting
room in an unfamiliar city on zero notice?  screw up my nerve and cruise the
neighborhood (a mix of residences, clinics and small businesses) asking if
our group could use their bathroom for breaks?  Fortunately, the custodial
crew was able to isolate the broken pipe and turn the rest of the system back
on by the time the group arrived.

Day Three we had an optimistic schedule:  Half the time for the remaining
posted sessions, half for brief session reports (the only thing translated
into English from the sessions), closing circle, and an evaluation needed for
the project funding.

At 7:00 am, an explosion of unknown cause at a neighborhood transformer
station blew a heavy lid into the sky, severing the main line bringing in
power from the utility's generating plant.  Pierce County was without lights,
hot breakfasts, and traffic signals for the morning commute.  The group
arrived an hour late, due to slow traffic and the need to locate a doctor for
a woman who got up with a badly-infected eye.  One woman received news, via
e-mail, that her aunt had died in Moscow.

But somehow it all happened.  The participants did a great job of
self-managing the remaining sessions, we had a report on the trip to the
doctor, offered support for the one whose aunt had died, heard brief reports,
took the time we needed for closing, and were only twenty minutes late for
Eddie's farewell lunch.  The evaluation was postponed until later.

Logistical problems aside, it worked!  The day of Appreciative Inquiry
brought the whole program right down to the personal level, and was a very
moving experience for all of us.  A couple of participants who had sat in
silence through presentations and site visits were very involved in both the
AI and the OS.

After lunch we asked the small groups, one Siberian and one which mixed
Siberians and Americans, to plan a creative presentation portraying their
vision of women's leadership in the future.  With great hilarity, one group
prepared a dance of leadership qualities and situational leadership.  The
other offered a complicated skit contrasting Margaret Thatcher's style with a
new vision of shared leadership.  The creativity and complexity were
terrific, and the visions were clear in any language.

Not a surprise to anyone on this List that Open Space worked very well.
Nancy and I could hardly contain our curiosity about what was going on in the
groups, but people were obviously engaged and passionate about what they were
discussing.  The reports on Friday morning were brief and to the point--and
we were blown away at how much work had been accomplished in a very few
hours.

My special thanks to Elena Marchuk for her translations of materials about
OS, and to Michael Pannewitz.  Between Day One and Day Two, Nancy downloaded
Russian-language report forms from Michael's website, and we used them for
handwritten reports in Russian.  It is very heartwarming to me to have other
practitioners offer their skills and materials for use by others--I
appreciate this supportive community!

Another group is coming from Siberia in May, and the project team will be in
Siberia in July, so I expect many new surprises ahead.  As a friend commented
after leading an Open Space in Korea, "I notice that OST is very resilient!"

Joelle Everett
jleshelton at aol.com

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