Weaving OS into other processes (long)
Julie Smith
jsmith at mosquitonet.com
Mon Jun 3 23:42:14 PDT 2002
Greetings Peggy, Pablo and all ~
Harrison graciously engaged in a conversation with me and others about a
similar topic several months ago. I think my original question had
something to do with what happened to the conflict that I knew must be
present in the situations people were describing here. Coming from the
place of being a mediator in my professional life, I was curious about
what OST facilitators “do” with the conflict they encounter in OST
events.
By the time we finished that conversation, I had become aware of an
entirely new (to me) way to think about conflict. I began to see that
conflict is sometimes created from the container of interaction being
too small and too limiting, and I began to understand how the OST
process might allow participants to bypass huge chunks of conflict
simply by providing enough space and freedom for people to converse
authentically about what is important to them rather than bumping up
against unnecessary barriers and obstacles.
I now think Harrison is right. I think OST challenges prevailing
notions about conflict resolution in significant ways. I haven’t quite
figured out how it all fits together yet, but I do know I no longer feel
a need or desire to mediate... seems like an awful lot of doing... :)
As for how the collaborative conflict resolution process might fit into
OST, I think increasing the skill level of participants couldn’t hurt. I
assume any OST event would benefit from participants having good
communication skills and an awareness of how collaborative conflict
resolution processes work. If the existing status of the OST
participants is having had this kind of training, that is all to the
good.
I don’t think it would ever have occurred to me to try doing an OST for
every step of the conflict resolution process. Interesting...
stretching it out like that would provide lots of opportunity for people
to get to know each other and build trust and relationships... but
sometimes too much of a good thing really is too much of a good thing.
Seems like both options provide lots of learning opportunities, and if
Pablo and his colleagues have passion and are willing to take
responsibility for this new idea...
whatever happens will be the only thing that could have...
it’ll be over when it’s over...
and most important, it’s all good...
There, am I a good disciple yet? Is there some kind of advancement...
like a gold star on my forehead or a green belt around my waist, or...
hey, how about refilling that glass of wine, Harrison? (I’ll order
another brandy for you...) :)
Julie
-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Peggy
Holman
Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 3:52 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Weaving OS into other processes (long)
I've been exchanging e-mail with Pablo Restrepo on a subject in which
we'd be interested in hearing other perspectives. Pablo is using a
conflict resolution process with OS at each stage. My belief is doing
an OS with sufficient time and an appropriate theme will lead to similar
results with less effort and less overall time. What are your
thoughts?
Here are the details of our exchange.
Peggy
----- Original Message -----
From: Pablo Restrepo <mailto:prestrepo at tandemadr.com>
To: Peggy Holman, Open Space Institute (US)
<mailto:peggy at opencirclecompany.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 12:26 PM
Subject: First experience with OST
Here we are well, we are happy with the election's process, and hope the
new president govern this country intelligently, he is a capable man,
but we are all concern about his lenience towards the right. This makes
our project to involve the civil society in the search for solution much
more relevant.
The reason I am writing to you is because I wanted to share our first
OST experience. I remember hearing Harry Owen in his CD making a
reference to his ?conflict resolution colleagues?, I may venture to
guess that he is concern about our tendency to control the conflict
resolution processes, it is true we do. One of the first values, if not
the most important one, that I found in OST had to do with this:
loosing control of the process and having faith in the capacity of the
agents involved. I still think that the process in Conflict Resolution
makes a lot of sense:
1. Preparation
2. Building the relationship
3. Building the information
4. Defining the process
5. Creating options
6. Designing the agreement
7. Follow-up
I also believe there are best practices in each phase that help create
value, claim value, and build better long term relationships. What we
have found of incredible value in OST is to complement our process with
the events. In Bellsouth we have proposed a mix of OST with our
conflict resolution process to negotiate a new contract with their
distributors. What we think is that OST can be use in each phase to
improve relations, increase creativity and participation, and build
information (among many other things that we are discovering as we go
along). In practice we did our first OST to help prepare Bellsouth´s
counterpart to negotiate with them. I have to underscore that this was
done after training all parties in depth in conflict resolution through
workshops, so they are very knowledgeable in the techniques and have
applied them in the events. The event was a success, it help the
distributors negotiate among them, build more trust among them, identify
the issues they want to negotiate with Bellsouth, propose a negotiating
process to Bellsouth, and design a few proposals. Now, on Thursday, we
are using OST again to help Bellsouth prepare ?multiple proposals? (a
very effective negotiating technique) to present them next week to the
distributors; then we will do another OST, in two weeks with the
distributors, again, to help them prepare their counterproposals.
Following this, we will bring both sides of the negotiations together in
an OST to negotiate there proposals to each other and design the final
agreement. As a closure, we will do a final OST to have them jointly
think how they will ready themselves for the new competition of PCS´s
that will be appearing next year in Ecuador. This with the purpose of
emphasizing the joint future and to strengthen there relationship.
What I believe is very interesting about what we are doing is to
integrate a process which in our experience is very valuable, our
conflict resolution process, with a process that brings about
fundamental things to a negotiation: participation, creativity,
commitment with the outcomes, trust, exchange of information, creation
of additional issues, prioritization, identification of interests and
underlying interests, etc. We believe that, as needed, OST could be use
to construct each of the phases. I would underscore that something that
has been fundamental is the previous training in negotiation that all
the parties have had, they have integrated the techniques, strategies
and best practices iin the OST´s actively.
Well, thank you again for your interest and unconditional support.
Best regards, Pablo
Pablo Restrepo
TANDEM Alternative Dispute Resolution
Pablo Restrepo Sáenz
Tel: (571) 296 7080 & 635 6330
Fax: (571) 296 7081
Email: prestrepo at tandemadr.com
Webpage: http://www.tandemadr.com
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Pablo,
Thank you for the update. The election made the news here and I thought
about you, wondering if you were pleased with the outcome.
I'm delighted to hear your first OS was successful. Congratulations!
I'll look forward to hearing how it unfolds as you proceed. You are
very right about the need in OS to let go of control and have faith. I
literally sat on my hands in the back of the room when I did my first OS
meeting. There was only one session posted during the first time
period. I was worried about what those not interested in the topic
would do. It turned out there was only one session because it was such
an important topic and NO ONE was going to miss that session. I was
awestruck as I watched the group hold a dialogue. These were mostly
blue collar workers with no formal training in any sort of conflict or
communications processes. They were intense, respectful, and voiced
many different and conflicting perspectives. Over the 2 days, they
solved their issues themselves.
I have a suspicion about your mixing OST with the conflict resolution
process. This is based upon my own experience with OST. The longer you
work with it, the less you will feel the need to mix the processes. I
think this is because OST allows a natural flow of interaction to emerge
and the conflict resolution process works because it is a natural flow.
Given the appropriate theme and at least 2 days in Open Space, you would
find people going through the conflict resolution process without the
explicit steps. This is even more likely to happen given participants
are trained in conflict resolution.
Thank you again for keeping me informed,
Peggy
************************************************************************
************************************************************
From: Pablo Restrepo <mailto:prestrepo at tandemadr.com>
To: Peggy Holman, Open Space Institute (US)
<mailto:peggy at opencirclecompany.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 3:54 PM
Subject: Re: First experience with OST
Peggy, Thanks for your comments and support. Your description of what
happened to you in the first OST is the same of what happened to us.
There were several proposals, in our case but just one session. We
trusted the process and everything worked out fine.
With regard to the mixing of OST and the negotiation process, it is
possible that I did not explain what we did clearly. We are not asking
people to follow the process in an OST, we are following the process and
using OST to develop each phase of the process. For example, we invited
the distributors, the counterpart of our client to prepare for the
negotiation with an OST. The question was: What are the issues that
should be discussed during the negotiation, what possible proposals
should be made to Bellsouth, and how should the process be structured.
The next OST we are doing tomorrow is for the preparation of Bellsouth
with a similar question. Then we are doing another joint OST to
negotiate the proposals.
What we think can be done in any process, I will keep you up to date on
the results of the experiment, is to use OST through a question to
develop each and every phase. Let me exaggerate the idea to make my
point:
1. Preparation: What are the interest, priorities and issues of
the parties? What proposals could be make? Etc. (Separate)
2. Building the relationship: How can we improve the relationship
between distributors and Bellsouth? (Joint)
3. Building the information: What are the interest of each
parties? What are the priorities of each party? What are the issues we
want to negotiate? What are the relevant facts? Etc. (Joint)
4. Defining the process: What is the problem or problems we want
to solve? If we do not reach agreement, what are the parties
alternatives? Etc. (Joint)
5. Creating options: What are the possible solution? What are the
packages that could be negotiated? What are the tradeoffs that could be
made? Etc. (Joint)
6. Designing the agreement: What is the agreement? (Joint)
7. Follow-up: What are the mechanism to follow up on
implementation and the possible ways to improve the agreement? Etc.
(Joint)
Also training the parties in negotiation before the process is very
useful.
I would be very interested in your opinion.
Saludos, Pablo
************************************************************************
***************************************************
Pablo,
I did understand what you were saying. I have no doubt what you are
doing will lead to strong and sustainable solutions. What I am
suggesting is that if you invited everyone involved to an OST on a
question that encompasses the reason for having a negotiation at all,
you would get similar results with less effort. Perhaps the OS theme is
something like "Doing great work together." I'm saying that with such a
question the participants would be posting sessions that roughly equate
to questions of all of the phases, e.g., there would likely be sessions
on:
Priority xyz (xyz being the actual subject of interest to someone)
Improving the relationship between distributors and Bellsouth
Solving problem zyx (zyx being the actual problem that someone is
experiencing)
What do you hear me saying now?
Peggy
************************************************************************
***********************************************************
From: Pablo Restrepo <mailto:prestrepo at tandemadr.com>
To: Peggy Holman, Open Space Institute (US)
<mailto:peggy at opencirclecompany.com>
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 9:48 AM
Subject: Re: First experience with OST
Peggy, hi again.
Of course we are just at the beginning of our experience with OST. And
it has been surprising.
At this point we have done three OST events for different purposes: One
with Bellsouth's distributors inviting them to prepare for their
negotiation with Bellsouth; another with the Ministry of the
Environment inviting them to produce recommendations and proposals for
the regulatory project of tariffs for the use of water from natural
sources; and one with Bellsouth to prepare proposals for their
negotiation with the distributors. So far the most impressive event has
been with Bellsouth's executives, a group of 40 people highly trained in
negotiation skills.
Fortunately will have a chance this year to do a lot of events before
approaching the big topic of peace.
As I told you it is very important for us to research and analyze the
applicability of OST to conflict resolution, this is one of the reasons
I value so much the dialogue with you.
In general we understand conflict resolution not as a way to contain
conflict, but as a way to approach conflict in a constructive and
sustainable manner; we know that conflict is chaos and that chaos opens
the door to ?accepting people the way they are and challenging them to
be everything they can be?. This is where we find that OST is a
wonderful tool. From the perspective of ?best practices? in negotiation
it automatically does several things:
1. Makes people understand the others perspective.
2. Allows them exchange information.
3. Increases the number of issues to be negotiated.
4. Invites them to present proposals and react to proposals.
5. Builds trust and relationships.
6. Identifies interests and priorities of the parties.
7. Brings the parties to recognize the legitimacy of the presence
and participation of the other parties.
8. Helps define the ?problem? for all.
These are some of the reason why I was fascinated by the OST promises,
even before having done the first one. But, and time may prove me a
control obsessive, I still strongly believe that the design of the
negotiation process is essential and adds incredible value, and that
training the parties that are going negotiate makes a difference in the
quality of the outcome. My thesis is that OST works better with this
than without this. We will have to observe the process and the outcomes
a lot more. To our advantage is that the upcoming events will allow us
to contrasts both approaches, we have several processes in which OST
will be a standalone, as you propose, an others in which we will
articulate OST within the negotiation process.
Saludos y gracias, Pablo
************************************************************************
*******
Pablo,
Yes! I'm DELIGHTED you are experimenting with using OST in mulitple
ways. It will be a great way for all of us to learn what works. May I
share some of our exchange on this subject with the OS list? There are
people on the list who do mediation and conflict resolution. I'd love
to hear their perspectives.
Peggy
************************************************************************
***********************************************************************
----- Original Message -----
From: Pablo <mailto:prestrepo at tandemadr.com> Restrepo
To: Peggy Holman, Open Space Institute (US)
<mailto:peggy at opencirclecompany.com>
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 1:06 PM
Subject: Re: First experience with OST
Peggy, of course you can share this discussion with others, I am sure
they will bring some valuable insights.
Pablo
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and so, my friends of the OS list....what do you think?
_______________________________
Peggy Holman
The Open Circle Company
15347 SE 49th Place
Bellevue, WA 98006
425.746.6274
www.opencirclecompany.com
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