outcomes and one-off OSTs and OSLIST

[Lisa]

Hello, Chris, Reinhard, Mike, Ashley and others -

Okay, I thought I'd just jumble all the topics together.  Shows you I've
got sort of a collage-mind working today (serious headcold).

Outcomes and One-Off (single, isolated) OSTs:  Seems to me this raises
the age-old issue known to facilitators everywhere - how do I measure
success?  And I feel that our measuring tools / need for measurement is
what makes me feel we are limiting ourselves and our understanding of
success/outcomes.  If a one-time OST helps even one person breathe a
little, then to me that is success.  If that breathing helps someone
reinvigorate in their jobs *or* realize they must leave their job to do
something which is more their passion / find a more nutritious
workplace, then to me that is success.  If I do have the great and
delicious opportunity of working with an organization in an ongoing way,
we get to work on the leveraging of momentum post-OST event,
communications systems, ongoing OST meetings and the whole thing.  But
that is not usually my experience, much as I'd like it to be.  I work
with them pre-event to help them design and focus on all that, but I am
often not able to be involved in the 'post'.  Should I therefore not do
the OST?  That, to me, would be a loss to whomever the OST can help, and
to me it is never a waste of time and resources for the folks
experiencing the OST.  Can I control clients who don't follow through?
Alas, no. Or delightedly, no.  Mine is not that job, anyway.  But I feel
I'm serving by helping people b-r-e-a-t-h-e  and seeing each other in
new ways.

That's my measurement.

And as for me, I take great delight in this wonderful, generous,
nutritious global learning community that is OSLIST.  I sometimes don't
read threads of conversations that exhaust me (even great ones), and I
love learning from folks reporting on their actual OSs.  And their
concerns.  And their variations.  And their successes.  And their
wonderment.

And I am one who has great difficulty with text-based learning/
environments, including email.  The way I absorb data is graphically and
kinesthetically (by physically interacting with things and people).
Plus I am very interested in offering environments for participants (of
OSTs and of workshops) which are nutritious for those of *many* learning
modalities (not just those who can or like to read).  I have had many a
delicious conversation about OS without text.  For example with Avner
and John Engle at the Vancouver OSonOS - OS for non-text-based
communities (such as in Haiti or in many prisons).  At the Melbourne
OSonOS we got to do some exciting work with movement and mapping one's
life, and witnessing another person's story through movement.  At the
Swenmark OSonOS we had several sessions in movement, and several without
words (amazing as you can well imagine and full of laughter!).  So I
have found those conversations and experiences in-person very valuable.
Reinhard, I remember you from the Berlin OSonOS and wish you had been
with us for those more recent ones, but I know how time and resources
and life can make travel quite a challenge for us all -- but you can get
the idea and I know you would have posted some really invigorating
sessions, yourself.

I am especially touched that you share with us, Reinhard, your feelings
about this list and how it is working or not working for you.  It is
indeed your choice to engage here in conversation that enriches us all.
And Ashley, what is your sense for things?  Let's keep stretching this
(the method and the conversation) and pulling at it and jumping into it
and bouncing on it as we all benefit in the learning, and in our
dialogue ('multilogue?').

Be well, and cheers from rainy Berkeley, California,

Lisa

________________________________

L i s a   H e f t
Consultant, Facilitator, Educator
O p e n i n g  S p a c e
2325 Oregon
Berkeley, California
94705-1106   USA
+01 510 548-8449
lisaheft at pacbell.net

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