Fw: OST as a conference track

Wed May 8 08:44:10 PDT 2002

What an exciting story.  It seems like a "touchy" thing to suggest,
and not intended as a "non-collaborative" strategy, but I see a
constructively "subversive" quality to open space here.  Since it so
much (and so easily) mobilizes the "wisdom in the room", it may be a
good tool to "politely" free that wisdom when it is feeling squelched.

I was also struck by Brian saying "since I only know open space".  I
am beginning to finally understand that when it comes to process,
"less" really is "more".  Marv Weisbord and Sandra Janoff use the
slogan "Don't just do something, stand there." as part of their
workshop on facilitating "whole systems."  As we facilitate Future
Search (which many of you know is, in appearance, very structured
compared to Open Space, but, from my experience with both, of similar
spirit and character) we are learning to be as minimally present as
facilitators as possible.  The work and wisdom is there and comes
from the participants.  As facilitators, we are not experts, either
in content or process, but there more as midwives.

The parentheses in the last paragraph made me stop and think about
structure.  It is easy to see Future Search as more structured than
Open space, but I am realizing that I am not sure it really is.  Both
impose some very rigid structure in certain ways and at certain
points and then turn things loose to participants fully within that
structure.

I recently had a chance to spend some times with Tom Hurley the
director of the Chaordic Commons, an institute growing out of Dee
Hock's work.  It has caused me to think more about this balance
between chaos and order.  As most of you are probably aware, there
are some ideas floating around that life (and perhaps meaning?) flows
in the narrow path where there is a balance between chaos and order,
losing out if things move too much into either chaos or order.

Perhaps Open Space and Future Search are examples of tools that
strike a balance between the two, each in its own way.  I think the
point has something to do with sensing that balance and knowing how
to stand in paradox -- the creative tension between order and chaos.
Can we avoid our "need" to "do something" and instead, just stand
there in "chaos" most of the time, stepping forward with that bit of
just enough "order" when that is needed?  I sense that this space is
rooted in our capacity to show up in full authenticity, immediately
sensitive to, and fully attentive to, the energy in the room.

--Kenoli

--Kenoli

--Kenoli

>Brian,
>
>You said:
>>  I don't know if others might be
>>  interested in it, and would be happy for you to add it to the LIST if
>>  you think so.
>
>This is such a WONDERFUL story!  I have no doubt others will benefit from
>it, as I have.
>
>Thank you,
>Peggy
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Fr Brian S Bainbridge" <briansb at mira.net>
>To: "Holman Peggy" <peggy at opencirclecompany.com>
>Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 6:24 PM
>Subject: Re: OST as a conference track
>
>
>>  Dear Peggy
>>  Have read all the inputs since your note.  And I can perhaps add a bit.
>>  Did an Open Space parallel track within a 3-day Conference on the
>>  environment in Adelaide, preparing the Australian input for the
>>  Johannesburg Environment Conference later this year.
>>  All of the no-no comments made in other people's comments probably
>>  applied.
>>  BUT
>>  we set up the Open Space in a separate area to which "whoever came were
>>  the right people".  And they came and set up sessions and stayed for the
>>  sessions they wanted to be at and they went off to other traditional
>>  conference sessions when it suited them and added new topics as seemed
>>  appropriate - shades of the Law of Two Feet, obviously.
>>  And all sessions were reported on and included in the final document
>>  from the Open Space.
>>  The announced theme was "GEARING UP DOWN UNDER FOR LA21 - THE ISSUES AND
>>  OPPORTUNITIES", and there were 14 sessions, some of which were very well
>>  attended and very electric.
>  > The conference sponsors were delighted with the input that was generated
>>  for the "Final Declaration" of the conference, though they would love
>>  more people to have been involved.
>>  The Open Space sort of concluded before the final session of the total
>>  conference - which they asked me to make happen.  And since I really
>>  only know and use Open Space, that's what happened.
>>  Some 300 people, in a theatre setting with a small stage area raised
>>  above the floor by about 18 inches.  And a local rule that nothing can
>>  be pinned or taped to walls (under pain of death!), and the need to get
>>  "The Declaration" signed by the appropriate heavies.  Very boring and
>>  meaningless.  Certainly not any sign of spirit or energy or anything
>>  useful.
>>  BUT, as it happened, a miracle escaped and they accepted my suggestion
>>  that the declaration should be signed and gotten out of the way and
>>  then.....
>>  There was a "Counter-declaration" emerge, and the organizers were
>>  terrified that this might be suggested as the substitute for their
>>  prepared and pre-written declaration.  They were right, of course.  And
>>  I said "Whatever happens...."
>>  So I arranged for the dais to be cleared of everything.  There was a
>>  youth rap-group to do a rap on "do-do-do, not talk-talk-talk" which was
>>  wonderful.  Funnily enough, all the people who left (bored) during the
>>  formal signing found their way back into the space by this time.
>>  I though it might be good to draw a big globe/circle on the black floor
>>  of the dais and asked for volunteers to do this.  I had some wide orange
>>  tape marked with the word "FRAGILE" (packing tape) and thought that
>>  would be good for such an event.  The globe/circle was drawn.  Lights
>>  dimmed throughout the room except on the globe/circle area.
>>  Asked the rap-people to hand out to everyone a felt pen and a half-sheet
>>  of paper about 12 x 4 inches.
>>  Invited anyone who cared enough to write on the paper "After the
>>  conference, I am going to.............." and sign it.  And then come to
>>  the two mikes at the front of the dais, make their personal declaration,
>>  and then use some ordinary masking tape to stick it to the floor inside
>>  the globe/circle (sticking so that air conditioning would not blow them
>>  away).
>>  There was no way that was not going to work - and it worked
>>  wonderfully.  Even the "counter-declaration" leaders were encouraged
>>  (and did it) to put their paper on the globe/circle, right in the
>>  middle.  About five people in the whole crowd didn't put a paper up.
>>  And the lady in the wheelchair at the front did.
>>  And I asked those who had done so to form a bank of people at the back
>>  of the globe, and they thought their job was to clap each of the inputs,
>>  which they did endlessly and with increasing volume (obviously) and
>>  enthusiasm.
>>  Asked for quiet, told them the Charles Handy story about the traveller
>>  who waited for the mountain to move and suggested they might be people
>>  to actually move mountains by doing what they had promised. A huge
>>  "YES>>>>" to that.
>>  Invited them in silence to catch the eyes of each other person in the
>>  group and say with their eyes what they would like to share.  Fabulous.
>>  Then announced that the last rule of Open Space is "WHEN IT'S OVER, IT'S
>>  OVER" and that it was my honour and privilege to announce that this
>>  conference was now over.  Huge cheers and huggings and emotion and
>>  spirit release.
>>  It was marvellous.
>>  One seasoned organizer, two weeks later - said he had been at hundreds
>>  of environment conferences and never had they ever ended on a high -
>>  it's all so serious.  Thought this was wonderful.
>>  The chief financier/organizer of the conference - a public servant - sat
>>  next to me later that evening at recovery/drinks/nibbles and said that
>>  she wanted to seriously congratulate me for the way I had done the
>>  closing, that she never believed it could happen, that she had no
>>  alternative and so allowed it to happen, and was stunned and hugely
>>  excited at the way it had all come together so marvellously.
>>  I figure that if we hold to our 4 Principles and One Law, as I did again
>  > on this occasion, miracles can emerge.  And they did this time, too.
>>  Peggy, I'll send this direct to you.  I don't know if others might be
>>  interested in it, and would be happy for you to add it to the LIST if
>>  you think so.  It was a great occasion and a very deep expression of
>>  spirit for those people.  That's special.
>>  Cheers and blessings,   BRIAN.
>>
>>
>
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--
Kenoli Oleari, Horizons of Change, http://www.horizonsofchange.com
1801 Fairview Street, Berkeley, CA  94703   Voice Phone: 510-601-8217,
Fax: 510-595-8369, Email: kenoli at igc.org (or click on: mailto://kenoli@igc.org)

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