OST, OSO, OSW... (an overall coment on "It always works revisited")

[Chris Corrigan]

Larry sniffled through a cold:

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"As for Ongoing Open Space always working.  The relationship of an Open
Space Technology event to an ongoing organizational form is the learning
journey I am on with others.  Large, complex, hierarchical organizations
will not become OS organizations because of an event or a series of
events.  It can enable such an organization to experience "flow" to
function at another level.  But it does not eliminate the hierarchy or
the need for it in that organization.  It can "transcend and include".
But include means the best of what has worked in the past (whatever
happened) to get that organization where it is.  It takes a shift to
another level of consciousness, culture, behaviour and system
interaction -- all levels and all quadrants for an existing complex
organization to become an OSO.  They are not there yet, most of us are
not either -- whatever happens is the only thing that could've."

---

I want to pry around this include and transcend thing a little.  I
really believe that this true, that as an organization evolves, it
includes and transcends previous levels of its life, all quadrants, all
levels.  Ken Wilber's notion of evolution also involves
"differentiation" which is the point at which a system frees it self
from its current level and ascends to a new level.  Once there, it
integrates itself with its new environment, by including the previous
levels and incorporating the differentiation in a transcendent move.

What I am wondering about is whether or not this is a value neutral
process.  In other words, does the evolutionary process that drives
"include and transcend" have to be "good?"  Or is it "good" BECAUSE it
drives the process?

What leads me to this thinking is your comment that evolution includes
"the best of what has worked in the past."  It has been my experience
that the stuff that hasn't worked is included too.  Evolution in fact,
could be thought of as an imperative to go beyond what isn't working,
because by definition, what isn't working is causing the organization to
be out of synch with its environment.  Evolve or die is the choice that
confronts creatures in evolutionary processes.  What is "now" is
everything (what works, what's dysfunctional and what is the seed of
transcendence) and that suitcase comes along on every journey.

If we invite attention to "now" we invite attention to all of it.  In
the swirl of chaos that is "now", the good the bad and the ugly, the
promise of evolution is always there.  Depth and span collude to bring
the entire topography of the present to awareness.

That's what I am thinking at the moment.

Hope you cold is better,

Chris


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

(604) 947-9236

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