Opening space, invocations and such

[Joelle Lyons Everett]

In a message dated 4/26/02 3:31:08 PM, mmpanne at snafu.de writes:

<< This seems to have helped me to be the fellow just introducing the

os-technology and to move into the "totally present/invisible" mode

("holding time and space", whatever that means, we discussed this

before), getting out of the way as quickly as possible so that it is

the participants who "do" the open space.

What is your experience with this distinction? >>

I'm very clear with myself and the client that I may have some technical
expertise about facilitation, but the client organization has all the
expertise about their own organization.

I also ask clients to open the space, and brief them ahead of time--sometimes
more successfully than  others.  I facilitated one OS which was sponsored by
two non-profit agencies and invited many from the community to attend.  The
director of one agency was fully involved in the planning, and grasped the
essence of OS in our first conversation.  The second director sent a very
competent person to represent the organization in the planning meetings, but
asked to open the meeting, which I invited her to do.

The day before the event, the first director called to say that the second
director wanted an overhead projector to make a presentation, and did I think
that was a good idea?  I agreed that I would prefer not to have a projector,
and we negotiated that the woman would speak in the circle, and use handouts
if she felt there was statistical information that was critical to the
meeting.

She came with multi-page handouts, which she went over in excruciating
detail--but it was information which was useful to the discussions to follow.
 When she finally finished, the first director stood up and made the same
point with a brief, moving and very personal story.  Then I introduced the
OST, and the participants had a lively and productive meeting.

Joelle

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