FW: Open Space information in Portuguese

DGibeault dgp at cyberus.ca
Fri May 30 09:25:56 PDT 2003


Hi everyone,

I've received this request from the organization that I worked with at their
international OS on Participatory development last year in Guelph. Can
anyone help? You can contact Tanya directly at the email address bellow.

Diane Gibeault


-----Original Message-----
From: PD Forum [mailto:pdforum at pdforum.org]
Subject: Re: Open Space information in Portuguese


Dear Diane,

I hope all is well with you.

While in Brazil I talked alot about open space, and have acutally
convinced two people to try it out. One for a youth conference and another
for a conference on senior citizens. I have been looking for information
in portuguese but have only found one resource - openspaceworld.org.
Do you know where I can find more on open space in portuguese?

I would greatly appreciate any suggestions that you might have.
Sincerely,
Tanya Stergiou
--
Participatory Development Forum
1404 Scott Street
PO Box 3000, Station C
Ottawa, Ontario
K1Y 4M8   CANADA
Telephone: (613) 792-1006;
Fax: (613) 792-1206
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Please visit our website: http://www.pdforum.org
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>From  Fri May 30 10:08:10 2003
Message-Id: <FRI.30.MAY.2003.100810.0700.>
Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 10:08:10 -0700
Reply-To: chris at chriscorrigan.com
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: Chris Corrigan <chris at chriscorrigan.com>
Subject: Re: Open Space ,Self-Organizing Systems, and The Plexus Institute
In-Reply-To: <3ED55768.6090607 at globalchicago.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hey folks:

My partner Caitlin and I were having a discussion about this stuff over
supper last night, and I was left with an enduring metaphor for what
Open Space does in relation to orthodox organizational development.

We were talking about healing systems and noting that OST tends to work
like a homeopathic intervention into a system, where the cure comes from
the disease.  That is, OST introduces very small amounts of "what ails
you" into the system and lets the system reconnect to itself,
stimulating its own healing response.  It does this by, as Michael so
beautifully wrote providing the "opportunity to look into what is.  to
deal with it directly, rather than playing cat and mouse with its
shadows."  OST provides the opportunity for the system to be stimulated
into healing by exposing it to a minute dose of what is ailing it,
whatever that is.  Building peaceful peace movements is a great example.
We are not saying that peace movements are violent, but we are implying
that they are not as advertised.  Convening an OST around that topic
introduces the possibility that we can get better by injecting the
systems with a little shocking dose of its own reality.  Like
homeopathic medicine, the smaller the dose, the more potent it is.  One
less thing to do becomes one more powerful magnitude of healing.

In allopathic medicine, where the cure is the opposite of the disease,
diagnostics leads to treatment.  Allopathic medicine, the standard
western model, leaves very little room for actual healing (healing is
usually in the province of folks other than medical doctors: nurses,
counselors, family members), and focuses more on treatment of the
disease.  It has its parallels in OD as large consulting firms come in
to surgically remove the problem, perhaps by cutting out a whole
corporate division.  Rather than leading to healing, this solves the
problem ("the patient has stopped bleeding") but can set up conditions
for toxic leadership and emotions to flow from the bloodied stumps.  Who
comes in to "heal" the organization in these cases?  A very different
type of person with very different process looks after that, just like
in the allopathic medical model.

OST is not the be all and end all of organizational healing, but it does
seem to me to take that critically divergent path.  The Plexus folks are
composed of a lot of medical practitioners and they might find this
metaphor both compelling and controversial, in a good way.

Cheers,

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
Michael Herman
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2003 5:42 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: Open Space ,Self-Organizing Systems, and The Plexus
Institute

Harrison Owen wrote:

>
> Thanks Glory -- and to all the others who have responded. I have been
> forwarding the stuff to the Plexus folks just so they have some idea
> where our heads are. I will talk to Henri and Curt next week, and
> while I doubt definitive decisions will be made, I will let you know
> what's coming down -- or up. Whatever????
>
> Harrison


hi all, if it's not too late to get in the game here, i'll add a few
thoughts, too.  not sure if they go anywhere helpful or not.  it's quite
a question and quite a discussion already... thanks to all for that.
 and here is what i add...

first, i am reminded of the varela quote that goes something like.. ."if
a living system is unhealthy [or perhaps just immature] then the way to
make it healthier [or perhaps more mature] is to reconnect it with more
of itself.  also, i heard an interview yesterday with architect and
community designer william mcdonough.  among the many wow things he
said, he suggested that commerce could be conducted as healing.   open
space tech started way back as a way to get somethign done.  after some
years adn reflection, some story grew up around that and the talk on
metanet and then this list was about stories and where ost had worked.
 in the last few years, we seem to do more and more about hybrid designs
and connecting to other practices/forms.  and most recently harrison has
introduced this notion of practice of peace, which begins to look into
power.  as i watch us evolve around this little medicine wheel from
doing to reflecting to storying to designing to power(doing again, but
bigger), my guess is that the gift of 'practice of peace' will
ultimately lie in the practice.  if we do it over and over, sooner or
later we screw it up, get surprised, whatever.  in reflecting we find
we're not in charge, find compassion, rest into our passion (suffering)
and capacity to care.  my question here then is what are the
implications of ost as *practice* and as *healing*?

springing from healing, related by etymology and by varela to what might
be called 'wholing'... it seems important that any study would embody (i
love that word, peggy) a state of no separation between those studying
and those being studied.  springing from what glory says, i think it's
essential that ost be studied from *within*.   chris' bit about fractals
reminds me too that we, each of us, walks into the circle and to some
extent embodies open space.  so studying from within open space might
also include studying os *as* open space.  how is it that the topology
of individual consciousness gives shape to the rippling out and also
inviting of other into an expanding organizational consciousness?

related to equality, i think that is perhaps just the outer first step
that allows for the inner experience of 'mutuality' in which we practice
allowing the experience and even existence of other (apparently
separate) beings to be as real to us as our own experiences and
existence is.   i often distinguish with regard to equality that people
are not equal, but their access to the attention of the group, via
posting or announcing, is.  also all are equal in their right to move,
and their responsibility to maximize their own learning and
contributing.  access, space, responsibility is *shared* mutually.  this
is very new for us, i think.  reminds me of a workshop exercise in which
pairs were asked to connect one person's hand to the back of the other
persons heart, and to bring attention to the space where the hand and
back met... THEN speak from the shared space there... speak from the
*we* and not use any "I" or "me" statements at all.  very hard! because
so much you don't know.  so my question is about language and how open
space fosters the development of a shared, mutual language of "we".

and i suppose my last bit would be about this notion of attention.  we
don't make action happen in os.  we don't even do anything to motivate
or otherwise raise the 'energy' of the group.  we only 'invite
attention'.  when it shows up, we direct it and stand back.  what goes
up on the wall is, to me, the mind of the organization.  topics coming
and going on that wall, if maintained over time in ongoing open space,
as clouds in the sky.  but as soon as we seek to study that sky, it's
another outside thing... so we can only, i think study it by watching
what our own individual attention does as we watch the clouds go by.
 and the clouds only clear as individual minds get cleaner, clearer...
so this makes me think that the only way to study what happens in os is
to study the evolutionary effects of os on individual consciousness.
 might be hard to separate from life.  <grin>

m

--

Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
300 West North Avenue #1105
Chicago IL 60610 USA
(312) 280-7838

http://www.michaelherman.com - consulting & publications
http://www.globalchicago.net - laboratory & playground
http://www.openspaceworld.org - open space institute usa

...inviting organization into movement

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