A Partial Diary of the Collective Buddha

[kenoli Oleari]

>Dear Kenoli,
>are givens really "statements of reality" ? Will not everyone
>confronted with a socalled "given" process it with his or her
>perceptions of reality? Are not most givens, when scrutinized, more
>perceptions than anything else? Is this not what Birgitt found out in
>her famous "givens exercise"?

I don't know what Birgitt found out.  She brought some focus for me
on givens, but perhaps I have added my own perspective here.  It is
always true at a basic level that we all "create" our realities.  I
guess what I mean is that putting forth givens is putting forth the
"realities" from the perception of the sponsor, e.g. "We will only
take your outcomes as recommendations," or, "Your outcomes will be
adopted into policy."  This way the participants know what they are
being invited into.  Of course, they can do whatever they want with
that, including put it through their own filters, ignore it, deceive
themselves, etc.

>Why are givens particularly important in processes like open space?

Because it is about empowerment.  This is a sensitive business.
People generally are disempowered by institutions.  When this is a
daily recurrence, built in assumptions hold and expectations are low.
When we invited people into a paradigm shift, it is important to be
true to the new foundation we are offering.  if there are to be
limitations place on this foundation, this is critical.  This is
especially true if the assumptions in the system are changed.  If the
new assumptions are not made clear, there will be a tendency to act
on old assumptions.

>Are they less important in other processes?

Not in an essential way, except as I describe above, with business as
usual, there are a lot of ongoing assumptions that don't necessarily
need to be made explicit, though this is always good practice.

>Is that really so, that there is "nothing worse than to hold out a
>promise then take it away"? I can think of a whole bunch of things
>that are worse in my perception. What about people taking off in open
>space on a "promise", working on their passions and planning action
>and then being told it was all just a game, what will happen next?

I think this is an example of what I meant by holding our a promise
and then taking it away.

>Will they all drop dead and go into a stupor or what?

I doubt it.

>What about our
>experience that open space always works?

I don't know if this is my experience.  What Harrison says is in
practice is true "Whatever happens is what was supposed to happen."
But this is affected at every step of the way.  We set ourselves up
with certain goals.  We try to set up the conditions so those goals
are met.  "Givens" are part of this.  We refine our goals as we go
along.  We think about who needs to be present to accomplish those
goals.  We refine that.  In the end, we act and the results are
governed by Harrison's statement.  We also observe the extent to
which our goals were accomplished, to what degree the system was
ready for that, to what extent we did our part of the work, to what
extent we discovered a more appropriate set of goals through the
process etc.

>Why is being disappointed worse than being deceived?
>And who is to tell?

I must have mispoken.  I meant to say that being deceived is worse
than being disappointed.

>Why so much worry?

I'm not worrying, are you?

>>From a sunny sundaybreakfastmorningmywifecallingmetojointhecrowd
>I send greetings

The same to you.

Kenoli
--
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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