outcomes and one-off OSTs and OSLIST

Wed Dec 3 14:26:33 PST 2003

Do stories have us, or do we have/tell stories? The assumptions we have -that the expert/ state/ guru figure - knows what is going  on and can figure out what to do next - is our current story - for many of us. It is so deeply embedded - most of the time - that it is an assumption through which we look at the world - not an assumption that we see or aware of. 
An OST based event can provide an experience of another way of being, and potentially the basis for a new story. It can be a 'peak experience' for many participants. Yet, I am struck by the parallels to other kinds of developmental growth, including spiritual practice. Unless there is some kind of ongoing practice, some kind of slow polishing of the vehicle which is doing the experiencing, then the peak experience fades to a memory, and the weight of the old stories takes over. And of course, the more this practice takes place in a 'community of practice' - for us this might be this listserve - the greater can be its effectiveness.
So that leads me to ask, what can we do to support such ongoing practice, and the development of a new story that seems to be emerging? One way is with clients and each other - before and after a OST meeting, using congruent tools, using methods that open space for people in a variety of ways [small o - small s]..
Another of course is the daisy method; - enough people open space enough times, critical mass is reached - and Poof! a new story is acknowledged.
It sure isn't up to us to control it!!

Meg Salter

MegaSpace Consulting
(416) 486-6660
meg at megsalter.com

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Chris Corrigan 
  To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU 
  Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 2:12 PM
  Subject: Re: outcomes and one-off OSTs and OSLIST

  You know Harrison is getting excited when he starts writing in red ink and calling me "Christ!!"

  I've been pondering Judi and Lisa's statements about loving the event-based OST even though we know it could be better, and I have to admit that even though I tried to come across as getting tired of them, I like them a lot too.  I was trying to figure out WHY I like them though and wondered if it wasn't just me.a fatal trap for a facilitator, to meet his own needs through a pet process, and so this had me a little worried.

  But Harrison put some words around it - gave me the story in fact - and so I realize now that the reason I love opening space at all is that it really does invite an organization or a community to embody a new story about itself - or to rediscover very old ones.

  This is really important in a lot of the places I work.  In indigenous communities and other places where colonialism has done its work, the story of how and what we should be is so deeply informed by the colonial culture that it is very rare that an Aboriginal organization or community actually gets to embody and manifest an identity that is NOT constrained by the colonial story.  In our communities of course this is most visibly seen by the way local First Nations governments organize community meetings by setting the room up as if it is a school room, with the experts at the front and the masses in rows of chairs.  Even if the government is trying to embody an inclusive style by holding consultative meetings with the community, I often wonder if the form of the meeting, the process itself is doing more harm than good.  And when the subject of the meeting has something to do with the recovery of our cultural resources, or land rights or something else that is so closely aligned to indigenous identity, then it school-room type public meetings become almost too painfully ironic for me.  

  As groups working in Open Space, we get to try out a new story, and this is largely the process benefit of the one-off or event-based OST meeting.  I realize now that I usually close these meetings by inviting people to notice how the quality of the room has changed, how relationships have changed, how the same people we looked at in the opening circle suddenly seem different after only a few hours together.  The people haven't changed of course, but our stories about them and about how we can relate to them, have changed.  It's nice to leave people with a question in their minds about how that change took place and how easy it might be to recreate it.. 

  In that sense OST is a powerful tool for decolonization and healing in our communities.that has largely been my experience.  Some people fall into OST like it's a feather bed.they just seem to enfold themselves in the dynamics. Others find it hard going, and some hate the process.  And still others, and I count many of the "results-based" cynics among them, change and transform and open their eyes to new possibility.  

  Here on the west coast of North America, many indigenous communities have stories of transformation.  You may have seen elaborate transformation masks that feature one animal splitting in two and another coming forward.  Those new creatures come forward fully formed from within the original being.  The dances and stories that accompany these masks talk about a time in the world when animals and spirits and humans could change easily from one form to another.  It is a reminder of both the interrelated nature of all beings and the ancestral time, when these happened regularly.

  For me too though it is also a reminder that the story of transformation lives very powerfully in these communities and cultures.  Whenever we talk about transformation here on the coast, I invite these stories and see what they can offer us about transformation of our organizations and ways of doing things and perspectives about work, results and process.  Recovery of these tools and stories is critical to recovering authentic expressions of community and organizations that nestle naturally within the indigenous context.  Because after all, at a very deep level, indigenous cultures and world views are still here and still alive although they may be glazed over by the patina of a century or more of contact, sharing and transcendence.  

  Open Space invites us to go deep and rediscover the foundations that inform all of our process work and which, in the end, does get results.  We can foreground parts of the contemporary story that help us do work and make things "get results", and we can also choose to foreground the stories that show us how we live in relation to one another and how all of our lives are dependant on those connections. 

  Chris 

  ---
  CHRIS CORRIGAN
  Bowen Island, BC, Canada
  http://www.chriscorrigan.com
  chris at chriscorrigan.com

  (604) 947-9236

  -----Original Message-----
  From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Harrison Owen
  Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 5:33 AM
  To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
  Subject: Re: outcomes and one-off OSTs and OSLIST

   Christ Wrote:

  I think we are in a time when our stories about who we are and where we

  have come from are changing and paradigms are coming to rub against each

  other in deep ways.  OST is a process predicated on the fact that all of

  us can have a hand in creating the new world.  It is nearly the very

  extreme example of that, in the world of organizational development.

  Other methods rely on facilitators or experts (sometimes called

  "management gurus" which isn't far from being gods) to come in and fix

  things, banish the bad and tinker with the good.  It's easy to see

  results when evil is banished.  That is a tangible step towards the

  "better world" demanded by cynics.  It's much harder to see tangible

  results from a process where the first step towards making a safe place

  for your babies is to smear the back of a turtle with mud.

  At any rate, I hope what I am saying makes sense.  We operate out of

  deeply held stories about creation and renewal.  Where we come into

  conflict with one another it feels dissonant but we can't put our finger

  on why.  I'm suggesting that some of the dissonance we feel from

  "results" people is at a fundamental level.  I mean, which story do you

  really resonate with?  You know my answer.

  Chris - you have certainly moved the discussion in what I would consider to be wonderful new territory. There is no question in my mind that we are - to a very large extent - the stories we tell. Not the trivial little tales that appear in the morning newspapers, but the deep stories that constitute our mythic consciousness.

  There used to be a day when the power of these deep stories was appreciated, but in recent times they are dismissed with the light thought that they are "just a story." And of course we all know that only the "facts" will do. And when it comes to myths, these are not only dismissed, but dissed. Worse than a story, myth now means lie and falsehood. How the world changes. And of course, for enlightened people such as ourselves, we have long since thrown off the bondage of myth. How sad. And we never really do - throw it off, that is. We simply develop new ones, and they of course, are understood to be The Truth, or better yet Scientific Truth. But it is still a story, now dressed up in different clothes. We call them "Theories" - but at the end of the day, these Theories are simply likely stories which help us interpret our world. So our essential nature hasn't changed - we are still story tellers whose life expectations are shaped by the stories we tell. Myth by any other name. What is different now is that the formative power of these tales is somehow out of our awareness. And when the stories are warped, distorted or partial - the world and our space in that world is distorted and shrunk. Of course, we could tell a different story. . .

  And I think that new story creation is a major part of what happens in Open Space. But it is not so much telling a story as being a story. 

  I love where we are headed! Go for it!!!

  Harrison 

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