Space Invader at the Inviters Meeting

[Michael M Pannwitz]

Dear Doug,
thank the lord that you had this fellow at your meeting.
If you are attached to a particular outcome (your influential person
seems to be attached) or if it is already clear what should and
should not happen the space is pretty much closed and it is not an
open space.
Trying to keep it open and setting the stage for that and in that
process having a godsend gift can be a real challenge to the
facilitator (I imagine that is you). My approach, this I learned from
Marv and Sandra, is to assess whether what you experienced as a space
invasion is an outsider position in the group. If your judgement is
that indeed it is an outsider position, it needs to be integrated
into the group. This is most easily and elegantly done by asking "Who
feels the same way ?" And then wait, count to 10, do nothing:
invariably some other person in the group will "take side" with the
outside position and that is the first step towards integration.
Next, you might ask: Who thinks differently?
Can the initiative you have started going afford to work without this
fellow? Is he not a part of the "whole system" that you ideally might
want to get into the open space event?
Greetings from Berlin
michael


On Wed, 31 Jul 2002 22:15:13 -0400, Douglas D. Germann, Sr. wrote:

>Hi--
>
>How would you handle this?
>
>I have hand delivered the invitation below to many people in our community.
>In a nutshell, this is an OST for folks who want to use 9-11 as an impetus
>to create projects in our community to make this a better place, to give us
>a better future. The theme is "What Good Can We Make of 9-11?"
>
>The invitation and the newspaper article both made it clear that the last
>thing I want to come out of the meeting is a statue for people to visit: I
>want to promote a living memorial, project to involve people.
>
>This evening we had our first Inviters Meeting. This was a meeting of
>people who are going to invite other people to the OST on 2002/09/11. It
>was announced by way of a news release published in our local paper, and
>personal invitations.
>
>There were 5 people, plus me. The only one to come solely as a result of
>the newspaper article was a person known as influential in our community.
>
>After I announced the theme of the OST and described a little about the
>process of the meeting, he jumped in.
>
>"Well, I don't want to stop your project, but we have a project to which
>many hours and many Dollars have been committed already, and we should not
>scatter our resources, but rather concentrate them behind this sculpture of
>the Twin Towers we want to erect at one of our park entrances," he said,
>proceeding to tell us about all the money raised and efforts in that regard
>and the need for memorials so people will remember, etc.
>
>I thought, "Here is a pure Space Invader." I worried about intervening, so
>resolved to keep my mouth shut and see what happened.
>
>When he started into the details of the kind of steel to be used in the
>construction, I said something to the effect that of course we need
>memorials and it is a fine project, but people have many different
>interests, and those who want memorials can come to your group at the
>meeting.
>
>He said something to the effect that "You can't do any project without
>money, so it's fruitless to try," and similar things.
>
>Needless to say, he brought the energy in the room way down to start.
>
>Finally, someone else asked a question and started to turn the conversation
>back to where we needed to be. It was a fruitful meeting, but I sure am
>tempted not to invite him to the next Inviters Meeting!
>
>How would you handle this sort of invasion, seeing that there was no other
>meeting going on to which we could all use the law of two feet?
>
>                              :-Doug. Germann
>
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Michael M Pannwitz
boscop
Draisweg 1
12209 Berlin, Germany
FON +49 - 30-772 8000     FAX +49 - 30-773 92 464
www.michaelmpannwitz.de

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