OS with women's organization

Harrison Owen owenhh at mindspring.com
Fri Apr 12 06:00:36 PDT 2002


At 01:49 PM 4/12/2002 +0400, you wrote:
>I have heard skepticism regarding OS from others who have participated
>in it, including one person who participated in one you did, Harrison,
>(something about jails and South Africa). What I have heard is that OS
>brings people into a very excited state. That doesn't necessarily mean
>that there is follow through after the event even though the OS may
>have allotted time for it.
>
>Maybe like everything in life OS can't be expected to work perfectly
>because its
>success depends on many variables.

Raffi -- I think it also depends on what you might consider "working" to
be. If your expectation is that the organization will suddenly be
energized, a new Director found, and that everybody will take
responsibility for identified actions, you might see some problem with Open
Space. However, if the truth of the matter is that the organization is
dead, nobody wants a director, and further action a needless expenditure of
energy, I would suggest that the Open Space "worked" perfectly, but the
expectations of outcomes might need to be adjusted. Personally, I find it
useful to have as few expectations of fixed outcomes as possible -- except
for one very important one -- which is that the people present will have
the space and time to be fully themselves and look honestly at their
situation. Where they go from there is totally up to them.
         My favorite story on the subject happened a number of years ago
when I was asked to do an Open Space for a small consulting company (about
50 people) on the subject of "Their Future." By the middle of the first
afternoon, it was clear to everybody that they did not have a future, and
by 4pm they had essentially dissolved the business. The President was not
happy, but the people were vastly relieved. The "end" of the company was
something that everybody knew about, but nobody dared say -- until the Open
Space. It was truly liberating, and in fact the folks then went on to
create a whole mess of new businesses with all that frustrated energy that
was now freed up to do something useful instead of pretending that they
really liked how things were.
         Sometimes the best result is a good funeral. Say good by to the
old and move on to the new. But surely neither Open Space (nor anything
else so far as I can see) can guarantee that Folks are going to do what
they don't want to do, even if somebody else thinks they should -- at least
not in the long term. Goodness knows, lots of Folks have tried, but
eventually it seems the people will do nothing at all (just sit on their
hands) or revolt. Neither of which is a useful outcome in my judgement.

Harrison


Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, MD 20854 USA
phone 301-365-2093
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm

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