A First Step From Rome

[Harrison Owen]

At 12:39 AM 6/13/2002 -0800, Dan wrote:
>It occurs to me "conflict" is a loaded word, having different
>connotations in different cultures. For example, we have Bahai friends
>who see no benefits in the category "conflict."  They talk about
>"conflict free conflict resolution," with heavy emphasis on our common
>humanity. This and other examples notwithstanding, we use the term
>"conflict resolution" frequently, and we like the common association of
>"conflict" with the Chinese Mandarin word "wei-ji," usually translated
>as "crisis" and embodying the characters for danger and opportunity.

If conflict is a loaded word, even more so peace. It seems that many people
understand peace mostly in terms of the absence of it's opposites. Such
things as conflict, confusion, and chaos. Yet in my experience each of
these "unholy trinity" have essential contributions to make to the process
of living. Admittedly, if you could rid the world of conflict, confusion
and chaos you would probably achieve a state pretty close to equilibrium,
but as a biologist friend of mine says, "When you reach equilibrium in
Biology, you are dead." So the real issue, as I see it, it to "transcend
and include" all three "C's" -- and "wei-ji" is heading in that direction.

>I am very interested in questions associated with what are necessary and
>sufficient conditions for constructive OS process.  I notice in this
>case that a relatively large expenditure of energy must have been
>required create and fill the Open Space vessel we read about in Rome,
>far from the pressure cooker of home.?

No doubt many people worked very hard for a short period of time assembling
that incredible 50 in Rome. But it is worth while noticing what they did
not work hard on. No thought or effort was devoted to the agenda or the
process. When folks arrived they knew only when it would start and when it
would be over. For the curious (and the Villa staff) we scheduled meals,
but that was it. I think it has been a common experience that working on
agenda and process is not only a waste of time and energy, such work is
actually counter-productive. First of all, things never turn out as
planned, and secondly, when you are fixated on the agenda and process as
they "should be" (according to the plan) -- it is quite likely that you
will miss all the good stuff that is happening. As we say -- Be Prepared to
Be Surprised.

>De Lange on the learning-org list many times has observed the following
>"essentialities" that give form to what he considers are conditions of
>emergence in self-organizing complex systems:
>
>Wholeness (associativity-unity)
>Liveness (becoming-being)
>Fruitfulness (connect-beget)
>Sureness (identity-categoricity)
>Spareness (quantity-limit)
>Otherness (quality-variety)
>Openness (open-paradigm)
>
>I think Open Space has potential to deliver on these "essentialities"
>quite well.

De Lange's list is interesting and useful. Personally I find the work of
Stuart Kauffman of the Santa Fe Institute to be most helpful, but
regardless of the details, I think there is a growing consensus in the
scientific community that there are essential pre-conditions, which if
present will produce order. While it is true that I knew of the work on
self-organizing systems as early as the late '70s -- dumb me I never put
two and two together. I "created" Open Space, and then one morning I said
damn -- this is a self organizing system for real. So I guess I would go
one step further than your statement above ("I think Open Space has
potential to deliver on these "essentialities"). For me it is not a
question of "potential to deliver" -- rather, if the conditions are not
met, there is no Open Space. I have tried to put all this together in Part
I of my book, "The Power of Spirit" (Berrett-Koehler/2000) if you are
interested.

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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