OST story: there must be better ways to make a living!

[Elwin and Joan]

16 January 2001

Friends-

Chris has provided here the MOST beautiful and
critically important story/lesson that I have EVER
encountered in the OSLIST.

THANK YOU CHRIS!!  You have given us the GIFT of a
classic experience that each of us must/will face.

Colleagues, please read on.  You too will be
grateful!!

Elwin Guild
Baltimore

--- Chris Corrigan <corcom at interchange.ubc.ca> wrote:
> Colleagues:
>
> I have stared into the abyss and come away with a
> new appreciation of
> goat farming as an occupation.
>
> What a day I had.
>
> Now I've dealt with all kinds of space invaders
> before, most of them are
> benign, or only mildly ornery.  But today I had my
> first encounter with
> a space invader who grabbed the mic and used the
> following words:
>
> "This isn't working for us.  Whet we need to do
> right now is bring a
> table into the middle of this circle, get someone to
> figure out how to
> address all these issues and talk about them around
> the circle!"
>
> It wasn't just a small intervention.  It was a show
> stopping, riot
> inciting, process-scrambling mother of all
> interventions.  It resulted
> in 68 people stopping dead in their tracks and
> considering the idea on
> its merits.  And I must admit that the first thought
> that went through
> my head was "I'm F***ked."
>
> But let me back up....
>
> Fishing issues could not BE more contentious for
> First Nations people in
> this country and especially on this coast.  The
> right to fish,
> especially for salmon and herring, is as deeply
> rooted and sacred an
> Aboriginal right as you're going to ever find.
> Armed standoffs occur
> regularly over access to the fishery between First
> Nations people, non
> Aboriginal fishers and government.  It's serious
> serious business.
>
> Today I opened the space for 68 people who are at
> the heart of the
> matter in British Columbia.  They are Chiefs, folks
> in charge of large
> Aboriginal fisheries organizations and political
> leaders.  Serious
> heavyweights.  The purpose of the gathering:
> "Organizing our Nations to
> reclaim the Pacific fishery."  Lofty goal. The
> sponsor was the British
> Columbia Vice-Chief of the Assembly of First
> Nations, an umbrella
> political organization.  He convened the meeting to
> provide an
> opportunity for diverse groups to get together and
> start to take
> responsibility for moving their issues forward.
>
> The diversity in the group was very much compounded
> by politics.  Some
> First Nations here operated their fisheries under
> Canada's Aboriginal
> Fisheries Strategy which provides the federal
> government with a
> regulatory framework in exchange for First Nations
> having the ability to
> fish according to their hard won Constitutional
> rights.  Many other
> First Nations reject this strategy and see it as an
> infringement on
> their rights.  Needless to say the two groups rarely
> talk and hardly
> ever appear in the same meetings together.
>
> But they were both at ours.
>
> 68 people proposed 24 groups and for some reason, no
> one put their names
> on their topics.  NEVER LET THIS HAPPEN!  It is the
> difference between
> an agenda topic being a dissociated issue or a
> passion driven matter of
> importance.  That was the first problem.
>
> The second problem was all my fault, and it had to
> do with a bad
> opening.  Every so often we flub them, get tongue
> tied, forget
> something, say things in the wrong order, whatever.
> It wasn't the worst
> opening I have ever done, but it was probably the
> worst situation not to
> be perfect in.  Usually people get the hang of the
> process anyway.
>
> This time however there were too many divisive
> politics at play for the
> group to go smoothly into discussion.  Folks milled
> around at the wall,
> for 10 minuets, 15 minutes, 20 minutes.   I started
> to break a sweat.
> My sponsor was cool, and level headed, but suggested
> that I prompt
> people to getting down to work.  I refused.  "They
> know what to do." I
> said.
>
> They didn't.  For some reason an air of confusions
> descended upon the
> group.  People wandered away.  A lot of little
> discussion started taking
> place.  In retrospect i think two things were
> happening.  First folks
> wanted to be sure they were not going to be
> committing themselves to
> being in a politically awkward position, so a stand
> off of a sort
> ensued.  Someone had to make the first move.  Who
> you were meeting with
> was as important as what you were going to be
> talking about, and so a
> lot of people were waiting for the right people to
> make the first move.
>
> Second, there was a lot of socializing going on and
> folks catching up
> with each other which isn't normally a problem,
> except in this case it
> provided a useful way to bide time creating a
> positive feedback loop.
> The more standing around that was going on, the more
> solidly people got
> engaged in the social groups and the more engaged
> they were there, the
> less inclined they were to meet in their groups.
>
> I finally assessed the situation from a chaos theory
> position (you can
> see how close I was to losing it).  i thought to
> myself perhaps the
> chaos here is just below the threshold.  It isn't
> going to develop any
> self organizing priorities without a wee addition of
> energy.  So, not
> recognizing the self-organization that WAS going on
> (it was happening,
> ii just wasn't what I wanted to happen -- see the
> fatal error?) I put
> the mic to me lips and said, quietly "The 10:00
> groups can get going any
> time."
>
> Stupid stupid stupid.
>
> That's when the mic was grabbed from my hand and a
> complete process
> reengineering was suggested.  And it didn't help
> that it was a prominent
> local chief that made the intervention.  Great, I
> thought.  A bad idea
> backed with authority.
>
> My immediate reaction was to take the mic back when
> he was finished
> fomenting revolution and calmly suggest that if
> conveyors wanted to
> combine topics they were certainly invited to do so,
> but that I thought
> in terms of the process, folks were expecting to be
> in Open Space, and
> that meant that I was going to let the process
> unfold.  I thanked him
> for his comments though.
>
> In two minutes the circles were together and stuff
> was happening.  And
> the first 1.5 hour sessions worked great.
>
> After that I have to admit that the fire went out of
> the belly and the
> second and third sessions morphed into a circle with
> about 30 people
> talking about the dead moose: the way the Aboriginal
> Fisheries Strategy
> divided our Nations. In effect, the group ended up
> in a situation very
> close to what the chief had proposed, the difference
> however, was that
> it evolved naturally and so it worked very well for
> them.
>
> I never did get grounded, and found holding the
> space to be very very
> hard for the whole day.
>
> That discussion went on for three hours, with other
> things happening on
> the side.  I wrapped them up at 2:30, the group
> prioritized the 12
> issues that were reported upon and we gathered in
> the circle for what I
> was sure was to be the roasting of my life.  My
> confidence was shot, my
> demeanor reserved, my visage wan.
>
> And to my surprise we heard comments like: this is a
> great process, it
> was great to talk in this way, the level of respect
> in the room was
> phenomenal, we have to do this more....etc etc.
>
> I was pleasantly surprised, although absolutely
> drained.  I'm not happy
> with how the day went altogether, although i have
> nothing bad to say
> about the process. This was also the very first time
> I have done an OST
> meeting where people have acknowledged the power of
> the process but did
> not thank me.  And I did not deserve thanks.  It
> wasn't a stellar day.
>
> So the lesson?  The process always works (you idiot,
> of course it always
> works) but it works better if the facilitator is
> clear, cool, and
> collected and the opening has to be impeccably done,
> especially in these
> kinds of situations, where there's no forgiveness.
> It's such a simple
> lesson, so basic to any facilitation practice, but
> one that doesn't hurt
> to be reminded of.  Well, it hurts, but that's the
> point.
>
> I'm going to bed now.  I'll wake up on Friday.
>
> Chris
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> CHRIS CORRIGAN
> Consultation - Facilitation
> Open Space Technology
>
> http://www.chriscorrigan.com
>
> 108-1035 Pacific Street
> Vancouver BC
> V6E 4G7
>
> Phone: 604.683.3080
> Fax: 604.683.3036
> corcom at interchange.ubc.ca
>
> *
> *
>
==========================================================
> OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
> view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu
> Visit:
> http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
>
>
===========================================================
> OSLIST at EGROUPS.COM
> To subscribe,
> 1.  Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist
> 2.  Sign up -- provide an email address,
>     and choose a login ID and password
> 3.  Click on "Subscribe" and follow the instructions
>
> To unsubscribe, change your options,
> view the archives of oslist at egroups.com:
> 1.  Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist
> 2.  Sign in and Proceed


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail.
http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu
Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

===========================================================
OSLIST at EGROUPS.COM
To subscribe,
1.  Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist
2.  Sign up -- provide an email address,
    and choose a login ID and password
3.  Click on "Subscribe" and follow the instructions

To unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at egroups.com:
1.  Visit: http://www.egroups.com/group/oslist
2.  Sign in and Proceed