Reflections on a challenging OST event (long)

[Lisa Heft]

Friends -- I would like to share with you an experience I had last week
-- I am still mulling it over.

It was a success, but my mind is still sifting what occurred and what my
part may have been in it.  Memories of dear Chris Corrigan's recent post
about becoming a goat farmer come to mind.  I learn the most when you
all share the 'crumbly' moments as well as the perfect ones.  I shall do
the same here.

I facilitated a less-than-two-day Open Space for members of
organizations and non-governmental and governmental health and service
agencies working with and serving incarcerated people in Central
California.  The over 60 participants included prison Captains, county
department of public health educators, representatives from organization
working with people with issues surrounding HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis,
hepatitis (the top three killers in US prisons), family violence,
transitional housing, homelessness, death and dying, Laotian community
services, African American community services, womens' groups, Latino
(Hispanic) community services, deaf and hearing impaired services, and
more working with people in prisons, jails and youth authority centers.

My client was one of the local agencies training and coordinating inmate
peer health educators within one of the major state prisons in the
area.  They recognized an entire community of service providers and
agents who did not work together, never networked, did not trust each
other and had some hard feelings over who got what money from funders.
My client felt that an opportunity for networking, collaboration and
seeing each other through new eyes was needed.  Hence, a perfect
situation for an Open Space.

They thought they were all coming to a conference.  That's what they
usually do.  Panels, speakers, some of it interesting, some of it
boring, hopefully a good lunch.  It was billed as 'an energizing,
interactive summit' and when they walked into the room without banquet
tables, podiums and microphones they were shocked indeed.  (One woman
was mad because she had worn a short skirt and now had to sit in a
circle worrying about crossing her legs just so -- she'd wished we had
told her to wear pants.  Sigh... but she turned out to be an energized
and committed participant, happy as can be.  In future I must make a
note to include emergency fashion consultants on-site...)

They said the message was clear as they entered -- we are going to do
business in a whole new way today.  Perfect.

Day 1 (roughly 1:00 in the afternoon until 5:00 in the afternoon) went
wonderfully, with a broad range of topics, energizing discussions, great
reports and great learning and weaving together of people formerly
unknown to each other in this manner.  Closing circle comments were full
of all the right things, including deeper learning, deeper
communication, and really feeling safe to discuss sensitive feelings and
matters amongst each other (such as racism, lack of documentation of
people served between agencies, access to people without English or the
spoken word as their main language, and other deep and important issues
not always discussed out in the open.

That evening we were treated to an independent film festival with a
video made by male inmates and their partners preparing female partners
for the issues and diseases inmates may bring back with them after
incarceration.  (I say that crudely but it was a very thoughtful, frank
piece on how the world 'inside' has different rules than the world
'outside' and people live changed and different lives from what they
return to 'outside'.  Also several short award winning films from
national and international gay and lesbian film festivals -- a real
eye-opener to many folks in this community.

Overnight we prepared the booklets of proceedings for everyone and set
up for the theme of 'next steps' with a collage of bright colors on the
theme sign with the words 'collaboration', 'projects', 'programs', 'next
meetings', 'services', 'new ways to work', and a lot of other images
recommended by the previous night's closing discussion.

The room for Day 2 was awful, for OS purposes.  Not a closed room, not
enough light, no posting possible on the walls, everyone squished
together, warm, room for food and beverages only on the other side of
the partitions...I could go on.

I opened with some time for storytelling, as these people have
experienced having their spirits erased over and over again when good
ideas and trusting energy are stepped on by uncaring supervisors and
failing momentum.

I asked them to think of something they accomplished in their personal
lives that they never ever dreamed they could ever do in all their
wildest dreams... but indeed they did do those things.  Out came
touching and funny stories of personal 'bests', from coming from
homeless and single parenting to having an advanced doctorate degree and
owning a home...to raising beautiful and special children...to winning a
stand-up comedy award.  Really a diverse set of miracles.  And I
reminded them that all these things were hugely challenging, but each
was accomplished with time and a lot of little bitty steps.  Teeny ones.
You know -- anything is possible with passion and personal
responsibility.

Then I opened the circle and people started posting agenda items.  And
that is when things went very strangely.  As soon as the first or second
person stood in the center to announce their issue, people started
talking, and getting up, and leaving the room to get food, and talking
right out there, and standing around.  I was shocked, and personally,
culturally, it is really disrespectful and offensive to me to break a
circle and to speak over someone else's moment.  People in the center
kept at what they were doing, and so I went with the flow and encouraged
them -- they did not seem to mind and kept at their announcements and
postings.  Then I stood for a second in the center, with my control ego
on my sleeve, trying to 'will' people to re-enter the circle and to
focus on the postings and subsequent signing up.  In my head I repeated
the mantras "let go", "maybe they need this time to talk to each other
more than they need it to post issues" and "trust the process".  So I
smiled at myself and b-r-e-a-t-h-e-d and sat down in the circle as
everybody was talking, and I talked with people.  Okay, my control
button was slightly (heh) on, so I went to talk with people who looked
uncomfortable at the lack of 'familiar' structure (everyone knew how it
worked from participating in Day 1).  Of course my mothering instinct
was to 'take care' of them if they looked uncomfortable.  Heh. (heh, by
the way, for those of you non-English as a home language speakers, is a
slightly shoulder-shrugging laugh).

Eventually the groups that wanted to got together, the same deep
learning and communication ensued, and in the closing circle all the
right comments came out.  We even did written evaluations after this
event, and the evals underlined peoples' delight with this new process,
wish to use it again although in a longer conference (a full 2 days, for
example or 2.5 days), and overwhelmingly positive comments on how
networking and finding out things in common was one of the biggest
benefits of their experience together.  There was even an announcement
for a next similar meeting.  And even better, there were a few comments
on how, if this group was waiting for a leader to tell them when to
begin, maybe that was reflective of their current situation in the
California Central Valley -- nothing is being done because everybody is
waiting for some outside leader to tell them when to begin -- when in
reality *they* are the leaders -- *they* are the people they have been
waiting for.

I couldn't have hoped for a better outcome.

My instincts tell me I did the right thing, given the circumstances.  I
was physically and spiritually exhausted holding that kind of wiggly
space, and I had to rest and replenish for some days after.  And I am
very happy.

But wow, what a ride!

Love to hear your comments.

Lisa

- - -
L i s a    H e f t
Consultant, facilitator, educator
Experiential learning and Open Space Technology

2325 Oregon
Berkeley, California
94705-1106 USA
(+01) 510 548-8449
www.openspaceworld.com

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