Very long story of a 1.5 day OST with deep conflict

[Mike Copeland]

G'day Chris

Thanks heaps for your story.  It was great to hear about it in detail. I
liked your opening remarks, seemed to say, "hey if nobody believes this can
work then I'll put my hand up and hold the belief until it does."  Like a
prayer of sorts.

There is an earthy, kind of life and death quality to this workshop you have
written of. I'm glad open space can work with this reality.

Really enjoyed your refocusing on the issues when things got out of hand on
the second day.  You read this dynamic well:

"It felt very quickly like space was closing and with nowhere to go, people
started going for the jugular."

This is the modus operandi around where I live too. I find it refreshing
living in a place where people speak their minds.   At least you know where
people stand, but it can be devastating!

Glad to hear that even hardened "blokes," as we call them down here, can use
open space. It obviously took courage and staying very centered on this one
from you.

Chris, I have really enjoy your contributions on this server! You obviously
have a good mind and like plumbing thoughts to their bedrock. I have used a
number of your theories e.g." Freedom Shock" to help in my work.

Keep on opening that space!

All the best
Mike Copeland




-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Corrigan [mailto:chris at CHRISCORRIGAN.COM]
Sent: Sunday, 6 July 2003 8:23 p.m.
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Very long story of a 1.5 day OST with deep conflict


Colleagues:

It's been a while since I posted a story of a recent Open Space, but I have
a few saved up, including this one, which I undertook with my erstwhile
partner Chris Robertson.

I just returned from northern British Columbia, in a region known as "The
Peace," named for the mighty river that drains northeastern BC to the Arctic
Ocean by way of Athabasca Lake and the Mackenzie River system.  It's the
edge of what is the true north in Canada; the northern horizon stays alight
at night with a ribbon of pale yellow as the sun traverses Asia.

Ironically, we were called up to the Peace to help resolve a long standing
conflict between contractors who work in the oil and gas sector.  Oil and
gas are the primary economic engines of the Peace region, and First Nations
are big players in the field. Oil and gas companies have deals with the
First Nations of northern BC to hire First Nations contractors for work out
in the traditional territories.  It's a cutthroat business and lucrative
too, with a good contract netting over $1000 a day in profit from clearing
seismic lines for oil and gas exploration, or opening up the forest for a
gas or oil wells, or clearing corridors across the land for pipelines.  But
there is a
limited season for work, and there is not enough to go around.   In an
area where a traditional way of life is still practiced and hunting and
trapping feeds the family but only barely supplements the income, work in
the oil patch is a ticket for independence and self-sufficiency, if you can
get it.

For ten years or more the contractors within one First Nation have been at
each other's throats over the work in the oil and gas sector.  The fierce
competition within the small community has been devastating.  The Chief and
Council have tried over the years to assist the contractors in working out
their differences, in creating fair systems for dividing up and sharing the
work, all the while trying to keep the community together.  They have met
with limited success.  Usually contractor meetings degrade into shouting and
threats and folks storming out. Violent behaviour has been broached on a few
occasions.  It's tiring. For these guys, the fighting makes it feel like
every dollar earned is worth a bucket of blood.

It's pretty clear now that the contractors need to have a policy in place to
settle their differences about how work should be divided up. There is a
fledgling Contractors Association, but the infighting has made it
ineffective and the oil and gas companies have only limited patience for
getting dragged into the mess.  Work is continuing all around this First
Nation, with other Aboriginal contractors getting the jobs.  Everyone knows
that the fighting is costing big money, big stress and lost opportunity.
The oil boom will only last another 35 years at the most.  Every year lost
to fighting is another year off the clock.

We were invited to open space.  The Council asked specifically for us to try
something different with the contractors.  They weren't sure who would show
up, but they wrote up the invitation as "Seeking Agreement: Issues and
Opportunities for meeting the economic challenges in the oil and gas
sector."  The contractors were told that they had to show up to pre-qualify
for a big upcoming job.  In fact the company representative was to meet with
the contractors right after we finished on the second day.

I was worried.  This was perhaps the most conflicted group I had ever worked
with in Open Space, and I had my doubts about the local organization of the
meeting and the motivations of the contractors in being there.  As if to
signify an omen, the meeting got postponed on the eve of us traveling up
there due to a death in the community.  We scrambled to find another date
and rescheduled.  When it turned out that the meeting room we would be in
was too small, the local organizers tried to get us into the almost
completed community centre, which was due to house the First Nations
government offices, a gym and a preschool.  As it turned out, the
postponement of the meeting meant that the paint would dry in time for us to
use the new building.  With no furniture in the offices, and a wide open
space to form a circle in, we had a tailor made facility, but I still wasn't
comfortable.

Opening space on day one was nerve racking.  I was up late into the night
(watching the glowing horizon) turning my opening over in my head. These
were heavy equipment operators, chainsaw wielding oil and gas industry
workers.  They were hard nosed, competitive and in deep conflict with each
other.  I needed to be very grounded to believe that we could actually make
this work.  My self-critic had a field day with my self-esteem until I
managed to get him back in the bottle.

We got started about a half hour late which was fine by me, and as the guys
trickled in the air began to crackle.  At about 9:30, the Chief and Council
indicated that we could get to work with the 20 or so contractors that were
there.  I stood to do my opening.

I can't remember exactly what I said, but I remember beginning by inviting
everyone to follow me around the room with their eyes and make visual
contact with each other.  I said that I am no expert in oil and gas issues,
in heavy equipment work or in the dynamics of their community.  I am a
process guy, and when the process goes sideways, sometimes I can offer
something to straighten it up again.

I continued by talking about what it's like to have to scrap with each other
for bits and pieces of work.  I acknowledged the feelings in the room,
despair, anger, frustration and stress.  I asked people to look ahead into
the future and imagine themselves in this condition 20 years down the road.
I offered the thought that sometimes the price to pay for independence can
be too high.  The cost is in shorter lives, miserable conflict and work that
is drudgery.  I invited them to think about what it would be like if it were
different.

There was lots of nodding in the room, so I continued on my little roll. I
said that the only people who were going to solve these problems were the
ones sitting around the circle.  No one was going to parachute into this
situation with the answer.  I explained that the next day and a half was the
opportunity people had been asking for to see if there couldn't be another
way of doing things.  I said that if we arrive at lunch time tomorrow and
there is light shining through a door cracked open, then we will have done
something really significant.  Then I sat down.

My partner Chris stood and explained the process, the principles and the law
and then I rose again and reiterated the theme and ended saying that it was
entirely possible that nobody here believes that what we are about to do is
possible.  I said Chris and I would hold that belief.  We would stay in the
belief that in a day and a half, there would be a new way of being together.
I said I believed in the people in the circle and believed they could solve
these problems and then I invited the issues.

It was more than I expected.  Guys were quick to come out of their seats and
pen the big issues they needed to resolve.  By the time the dust settled we
had 23 issues.  When the market place opened they immediately converged them
in about 15 issues.  Folks grabbed coffee and then we were underway.

The first sessions were heavy going, but they stayed civil.  Staff from the
First Nation government provided some "facilitation" in a couple of small
groups, ensuring that people took turns speaking and that the group stayed
on topic.  The contractors respected this leadership and the trend continued
throughout the day.  We were really pleased with this, because it showed the
latent leadership in the community to help people be respectful with each
other.  For some reason, probably due to the climate of fear and anger, this
kind of leadership had never come forward before.  Several of the
contractors remarked that this was the best part of the whole experience -
talking to one another and each taking a turn and being respectful.  This
was a new way of communicating.  No one got angry, no one stormed out, no
threats were uttered.

The small groups continued and as the big issues were being dealt with,
those who had exercised the Law of Two Feet started in on the smaller
issues.  The agenda was chaos.  Little issues convened by someone in the
morning were dealt with by a small group of other people later on.  It was
as if the bulletin board had become a big shared "to do" list.  Five minute
groups sprang up with three or four people.  Recommendations and one line
reports were submitted on the "easy" stuff.  And all the while, a handful of
major issues kept most of the contractors engaged in deep dialogue.

By the close of day one, people were really surprised that they actually
spent a day together with no fighting.  There was a lot of work completed, a
book of proceedings in the works and significant headway made on most of the
major issues of conflict.  Many people remarked in the evening news that
although there wasn't agreement on everything, there was a new spirit of
working together.  I concluded the day by drawing their attention to the
circle and remarking that as First Nations people we are lucky, because the
Creator gave us the circle as our tool and we take it for granted.  I
suggested that if they just used the circle more, things would be different,
let alone using Open Space. I was really tired at the end of day one.

On the morning of day two, it was clear to me that the circle wasn't enough
on its own to handle conflict of this magnitude.  As we began and I invited
morning news, one contractor grabbed the talking piece and launched into a
tirade about one of the hot issues of the previous day, having to do with
how work is divided up and shared.  He thought that what looked like an
agreement in the proceedings was unfair to him and he started in on the
issue.  He also managed to bring in another hot topic, the issue of work
happening on his trap line, the territory in which he traps fur-bearing
animals.  He said that work that traversed his trap line should be done by
him, regardless of how the contract was awarded.  Accusations and heated
words began to fly.  Both these issues were central to the conflict, and
even before we started on the second day, both threatened to derail the
concord we had emerging.

I did something I had never done before.  I stood up and said that I thought
morning news was over and why don't we get on with our day.  I took back the
talking piece and opened space again for action planning (using our
non-convergence model, whereby we invite people to identify action based on
their reading of the proceedings rather than prioritization).  Six action
items were raised, including trapline issues and the issue of a rotation
list for contracts.  Small groups met and the conversations got underway.
They were heated and emotional, but the law of two feet applied and was
used.  I realized that the most valuable result of my intervention was
encouraging them to put the issues on the wall and deal with them in
different spaces.  This accomplished two things.

My partner Chris Robertson noticed that when the issues went up on the wall,
they became de-personalized.  This made it easier to attack the problems
without attacking people.  In the opening circle on the second day the
attacks were getting personal before I invited the issues to go up on the
wall.  The other thing that worked was having somewhere to go. As the big
circle broke up and the small groups got underway, people came back to the
main meeting area when things grew too hot and heavy. Most often they
gravitated to the coffee machine where light conversation was taking place.
There was laughter there and people were more relaxed.  When they felt
ready, they could go back to the small groups and re-engage.  It struck me
that having many centres around the main meeting space, left the main space
as a kind of sacred place where people could come to re-charge.  The folks
who were butter-flying around the coffee machine were holding a kind of
positive space for anyone who needed it.  In the larger circle we would
never have had this safe space emerge.  It felt very quickly like space was
closing and with nowhere to go, people started going for the jugular.  Small
group space loosens the body of the conflict and allows for Spirit to show
up in just the right ways.

As we closed, everyone agreed that the day and half was well spent. There
was substantial progress made towards a policy for the contractors and there
was, at least for this week, peace in the Peace.  Two oil companies came in
to talk about work and they sat in the circle with the contractors and
outlined the scope of the jobs.  They were both big projects and the
contractors were respectful with each other and quietly listened while the
company reps sat in a circle with them and explained the opportunity.
Everyone remarked that a previously unknown civility had permeated the room.

Now we are only two days away and it's impossible to tell whether this will
have lasting effects on the contractors.  But we have been asked to help
draft the policy and to come train the First Nation staff and staff from
neighbouring First Nations in Open Space so that they can hold a community
meeting using OST.  We got the light we were hoping would be there.  One
contractor said in the closing circle, that the door was opened a crack and
he could see a new way of doing things.  I reminded them that they were "in
deep" now: there was no way to avoid that possibility except by choice, and
who would choose the way things used to be?

It was good doing this with a partner that I know and trust.  Holding space
was really hard and having Chris there meant that we could both keep things
supported.  I'm hoping he joins the list here soon!

The contractors passed on their thanks to "the guy that thought this thing
up" and I promised I would convey them to Harrison.  If you've read along
this far, thanks for indulging me.

Chris

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

(604) 947-9236

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