Part three OST with children and families

[Harrison Owen]

At 12:03 AM 1/27/01 -0800, Chris wrote:

>For me, this is hugely profound in its implications, because what it says
>is that community development is most effective when one simply opens
>space for the community to develop.  It doesn't require elaborate planning
>strategies and particpatory initiatives aimed at, in my opinion,
>establishing who has power and how much of it gets parcled
>around.  Instead it simply requires the task of opening and holding space
>be performed so that people can access their passions, and find ways to
>take responsibility for them.  Forgive me if I seem to be pointing out the
>glaringly obvious, but I am going to continue to write about and think
>about this approach to community development.  I think in many ways it
>grows out of a lot of the work that has been done on the Open Space
>Organization.

Chris, I agree. And it is also a blinding flash of the obvious. In this
case, the community and its members suddenly becomes aware of what they
truly are. This may be a new insight, but it is not a new reality. They
always were what they are. (duhhh) I think there is something else here as
well. In the better, more enlightened parts of medicine, it has long been
known that the body is its own best healer. The role of medicine is to
optimize the possibility of the body healing itself. But at the end of the
day, should the body refuse the mission -- for whatever reason -- that is
pretty much the end of the line. I would like to generalize from this
accepted principle to the larger body of which we are all a part, known
variously as a "system," "organization," or "community," and say
essentially the same thing. The system is its own best healer, and the best
we can do is optimize the possibilities that the system will heal itself. I
think that is what we do when we open space.

And there is more. A (or more likely -- THE) fundamental process in any
system which enables its healing (as also all other processes of the
system) is self-organization. This process is at once a marvel of
simplicity and a maelstrom of complexity -- and it works without our help,
and often in spite of our best efforts to be of assistance. Now for a small
leap. Healing and well functioning self-organization add up to the same
thing. Or put a different way, a self-organizing system is always in the
process of healing itself. A word for this is adaption. I believe that what
happens in Open Space is that the process of self-organization is
kick-started so that what should be happening naturally has a chance to
start again. And it may or may not. That is for the system (body) to
decide. The gift of Open Space is that we have the chance to see and
experience what we naturally are -- a well functioning self-organization
system.

A consequence of all of the above is simply that the Open Space
Organization is nothing new. It is already there. This, of course,
precludes the possibility that we might decide to become an Open Space
Organization, or worse yet to create an Open Space Organization. We can,
however, consciously provide the space/time for what is natural to occur
naturally. I think this is what we do.

A final thought. Concentration on the details, the bits and pieces of
organization (structure, controls, givens etc) may be interesting and to
some degree useful -- but not if that concentration blinds us to the
central reality (I think), which is the process itself. As facilitators (or
whatever it is that we call ourselves) we are only and ultimately witnesses
to the process -- witnesses to the flow. The details -- before during and
after -- will pretty much take care of themselves. -- or not.  And
witnessing, of course is not simply to assume the role of a passive
bystander. There is a lot more here than immediately meets the eye -- as we
all know. But that might be food for another discussion.

Harrison


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