Hosting in the field where open space and chaordic becomes one

[Pannwitz, Michael M]

Greetings from Berlin, just a week away from Nr. 11,
to me, its appropriate to be
witness
to the selforganizing nature of systems, organisations and such
with a good dose of humbleness
and a good dose of careful attention to preconditions
mmp
(am in the midst of putting down some of my observations re the
preconditions from real practice with, I hope, tons of
theory-building implications for those of us who are into that end of
our experiment in remembering)

--Original Message Text---
From: Harrison Owen
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 09:13:28 -0400

At 08:59 PM 8/13/2003 +0200, Jan Hein wrote:
SO, maybe OST is the proces and maybe Chaordic is the structure that
in
combination holds the whole of divergence and convergence - if we are
to find a way to organize ourselves more authenticly ???

I think it may even be simpler than you suggest...although
simplicity, more often than not, seems to make approaches
unacceptable. After 20 years with Open Space, I have come to the
conclusion that creating an Open Space organization is in fact a
waste of time, for all organizations already are Open Space
organizations but they don't know it.  Stated this way, the notion
appears as the height of hubris. Somehow "we" know the truth and all
the world is deluded. But with slightly different words, the idea may
become somewhat less outrageous. My mantra has become -- Open Space
works because self-organization works. And prior to that -- all
organizations are self-organizing, it is just that some folks seem to
think they did the organizing. When Dee Hock discovered the Chaordic
Organization -- it was in fact a discovery, not a creation, I think.
Quite happenstantially, and contrary to all expectations, Dee found
himself in the middle of a self-organizing system called Visa. His
brilliance was that he intuited the essential nature of things, and
treated the organization  appropriately. Surprise -- It worked. I
think we do the same thing every time we open space. So it is not
about creation (as in creating the Chaordic Organization or the Open
Space Organization), but rather acknowledgement and appropriate
treatment. Still less is it about "structuring" either the Chaordic
Organization or the Open Space Organization. One thing we know for
sure is that given the essential preconditions, structure
(organization) happens. Once this structure has emerged/manifest then
there are some things we can do to clean it up a bit, but creating
structure is not something we need to do. It happens all by itself.

I believe there is enormous synergy possible between Chaordniks and
Spaceniks. First, we can share our growing, practical, on-the-ground
understanding of the nature of self organizing systems at the level
of human systems. This is not a theoretical endeavor, although theory
is always helpful as we seek an understanding of what we are looking
at. Secondly, I think there is much to share about how to best treat
such systems appropriately. One of the major learnings from Open
Space is that the imposition of arbitrary Control is not only a no/no
-- it is in fact the only way to insure that the Open Space will not
work, or work at less than optimal levels. In a word, appropriate
behavior starts with massive amounts of letting go of pre-determined
outcomes. When we do this, things work better. But this does not mean
that we should become totally uninvolved in the process. A workable
stance seems to have a lot to do with being totally present and
absolutely invisible. And of course, there is much more . . .

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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Michael M Pannwitz
boscop
Draisweg 1
12209 Berlin, Germany
FON +49 - 30-772 8000     FAX +49 - 30-773 92 464
www.michaelmpannwitz.de

An der E-Gruppe "openspacedeutsch" für deutschsprechende open space-PraktikerInnen interessiert? Enfach eine mail an mich.


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