Angels at my back

David Adams david at adamsassociates.com
Fri Jun 29 10:40:30 PDT 2001


Wonderful List,

Now and again our farm cats leave us a gift on the doormat (a couple of mice laid out neatly the other day) and I am so grateful for the spirit and generosity of sharing stories, dramas and precious insights of the heart from so many people and cultures, that I also have to do something appreciative.

I had the great opportunity to run an Open Space Technology event on the theme of how to create a new partnership of local government and voluntary agencies for community planning in an area of Scotland. I had some profoundly valuable advice about the planning from UK colleagues in the Partnership for Whole Systems Transformation, especially from Romy, detailed everything that could be planned from every perspective I could think of and went ahead. 

Where you, O List, came in was in sustaining my confidence in responding to real client anxieties, and in holding to space open to welcome unpredicable happenings, especially over timing. There were lots of limitations (very tight budget, only 5 hours, fragmented wall space, etc.) but the first success was visioning the future partnership. This released so much positive energy that the space opened beautifully and in no time people were posting up issues for the market place. And the conversations went on....and on..... and on!  We were soon 45 minutes behind our available time. When I gently asked the groups how much more time they needed, one of them remarked "This is our conversation and we can tell him to go away!" That was really the best comment of the day for me. 

The surprise came at the end, after reports (they were great) had been 'dotted' and nascent Action Groups had reported back with clarity and feeling on their key issues to take forward, and we were in the closing circle. I invited people to say any last things - and there was complete and utter silence!   But a fulfilled silence; they had said everything they wanted to say in their groups. You were all there, like angels on my shoulder, helping me to appreciate the meaning of that silence. Any action would have spoilt it. I felt good about simply closing the event (the Harrison closure?) - and there was a spontaneous burst of applause. We ended only 10 minutes behind the intended schedule!

This was no more than every day, common or garden, plain vanilla open space, one of thousands, in an obscure and dingy part of the planet; it should not take up list space. And yet it was a window to a whole universe of hope.

David





David Adams
Adams Associates
Meadowhead, by Cleish, Kinross, UK, KY13 0LP
Tel: 44 (0) 1577 850330
Fax: 44 (0) 1577 850285
Mobile: 0797 1092167
Email: Solutions at adamsassociates.co.uk
Web site: http://www.adamsassociates.co.uk
David Adams
Adams Associates
Meadowhead, by Cleish, Kinross, UK, KY13 0LP
Tel: 44 (0) 1577 850330
Fax: 44 (0) 1577 850285
Mobile: 0797 1092167
Email: Solutions at adamsassociates.co.uk
Web site: http://www.adamsassociates.co.uk
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20010629/8ec1d33d/attachment-0016.htm>


More information about the OSList mailing list