Notes from a one day OST meeting

Thu Jan 17 12:28:59 PST 2002

Chris, thank you so much for sharing such an intimate, personal view of YOU.
It enables and enriches us all.

Toni Petrinovich
www.sacredspaceswa.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Corrigan" <chris at CHRISCORRIGAN.COM>
To: <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 11:40 AM
Subject: Notes from a one day OST meeting

> Colleagues.
>
> Yesterday I facilitated a one day OST meeting for about 35 managers of a
> health care authority.  They are going through incredible trauma right
> now with the health care system in this province being decimated as it
> is prepared for privatization.
>
> The OST was partly a learning experience for the managers, and partly a
> chance to talk about how they deal with change both as people and as an
> organization.
>
> I took some notes about how I was feeling throughout the day, and offer
> them to you as I wrote them.  There were a couple of subtle shifts in
> the energy during that day and as a facilitator, it's always hard to
> know how to respond.  Following is a bit of an internal dialogue I was
> having with myself.  I offer it especially to those facilitators who
> have not yet found themselves in this situation as a kind of guided tour
> through one person's psychic engagement with space holding.
>
>
> * The room was far from ideal this morning.  No really good wall to work
> with, tables in the room ready for lunch, no cordless mic.  We got the
> tables pushed up against the wall, but that is still where everyone went
> when they came in.  BIG grief issues, seeking comfort in the less
> unfamiliar of the two room set ups. During the day some folks used the
> tables, but most did not.
>
> * Topics slow to come out.  There is a lot of grief in the room and
> there is a palpable sense of watching the group go through a mini grief
> cycle with respect to the process.  It always hurts when they reach
> denial just when they have been invited to post a topic.  It took quite
> a while to get these 19 issues, and the group went through denial from
> being quiet and reserved to being uncomfortable with the silence, and so
> they started to laugh.  Then there was a really clear shift to a deeper
> reflective mode.  Out of that came the bulk of the issues.  People
> seemed to get more serious, although there was still a lightness to the
> underbuzz.
>
> * When I got to last call ("going once") about 4 or 5 more issues came
> out.  One woman was sitting on the edge of her seat just bouncing.  She
> popped up just as it seemed as if the agenda setting session was about
> to end.
>
> * How to role model working with silence.  If you get uncomfortable
> walking the circle over and over in complete silence, you are finished.
> You have to love the silence, see the stillness as a brooding harbinger
> of passion and action unleashed, like prairie storm rising up above the
> horizon to hail, rain and thunder on the land.  There is a moment before
> that, when the wind dies out and the light changes to a gold or green
> colour and the black clouds come upon you.  Then the rain is unleashed
> and the thunder comes and the regeneration process begins to flow,
> transforming the land from brown to green again.  It is like the I Ching
> image of Wu Wang (Without Falsehood).  It is the image of thunder under
> heaven, and precedes the falling of rain and Great Nourishment.  The
> text of the gua says :
>
> Without Falsehood.
> Sublimely prosperous and smooth.
> Favourable to be steadfast and upright.
> If one's intention is not truthful,
> There is trouble.
> Unfavourable to have somewhere to go.
>
> If you do not love the silence like you can love that moment before a
> storm, the group will seize upon your inauthentic presence in the room
> and turn on you.  I have seen it happen.  It almost happened today.
> Everything I did to role model my love for silence (smiling, frowning,
> making eye contact, looking at the floor) seemed to make it worse.  Then
> I stopped trying and suddenly the flow was back. Truthfulness and
> authenticity emerge on their own.  They cannot be cultivated.
>
> * What is this?  Where does  this self-critic come from?  One negative
> comment and my mind is filled with questions like: "this doesn't work.
> Who am I kidding?  I don't know what I'm doing.  This whole thing is
> flippant."  Even a batch load of positive comments don't seem to undo
> the damage I do to myself with the negative comments.
>
> * There is a lot of laughter and high spirit in the room despite this
> underlying toxicity in the environment.  The sponsor is worried that the
> energy level seems low.  I don't sense that. Oh no. Why not?  My sponsor
> seems to be saying that people feel so powerless that they sense that
> this is not a time when they can contribute anything.  They want to
> simply sit still and wait for things to happen to them.  I've heard
> those comments.  Nothing matters because we can't change anything
> anyway.  Hmm.  Maybe we have the wrong theme.  Maybe there is too much
> business to conduct and so people aren't willing to step back a bit a
> learn.
>
> * The energy picked up again in the last session.  I think sometimes I
> am too highly tuned, like a blade of grass waving with each
> imperceptible breath of air.  We ended with a bit of discussion on how
> to use OST with the Purpose, Vision, Structure and Action parts of
> organization, a little bit on the grief cycle which was critical for
> these guys to know about given everything that is going on for them.
> Sponsor said she felt that the space was more open for her now.
>
> * Several people asked me how they could access this spirit in their
> organizations.  I responded with saying that in the absence of knowing
> anything specific about their organization, that it should be about
> invitation.  Are you doing things in your organization that create and
> respect invitation?  What can you do to create an inviting workplace?
> Invitation makes so much sense because it allows people to respond
> within their personal givens, in a totally full way.  It asks them to
> give only what they can, and give it all fully.
>
>
> Chris
>
> --
> NEW EMAIL: chris at chriscorrigan.com
>
>
> CHRIS CORRIGAN
> Consultation - Facilitation
> Open Space Technology
>
> http://www.chriscorrigan.com
> chris at chriscorrigan.com
>
> RR 1 E-3
> 1172 Miller Road
> Bowen Island, BC
> Canada, V0N 1G0
>
> phone (604) 947-9236
>
> *
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