AW: 2108 -- Remember the Number

Harrison Owen owenhh at mindspring.com
Thu May 8 14:32:03 PDT 2003


At 10:40 PM 5/8/2003 +0200, Hans-Georg Wicke wrote:
>
>Firstly: In Würzburg I have learned that we need nothing more than the 
>circle, the market place, bulletin board... to get an OS working. No 
>chairs, no pinboards, no flipcharts, no report forms, no signs, no break 
>out rooms, no fineliner, no copies, no pillows etc. 2108 people have 
>proofed that they are perfectly able to organise themselves. Everything 
>was reduced to the max in Würzburg, we needed only 45 minutes to put all 
>our material for this giant OS in a normal car. And after that I would say 
>that it could have been less or even nothing. The crowd would have been 
>able to cope with that without any problems. Thats for me as an OS 
>facilitator very relieving and reassuring,  especially for the preparation 
>of an OS and in the case the resources (in terms of finances, staff, 
>facilities, space, time, material) are limited.

YES YES YES!!! It really is that simple. Definitely a man after my own 
heart. One more thing(s) not to do.

>
>Secondly: But, but, but I see my role as OS facilitators to create working 
>conditions which enable the group to concentrate on their issues as much 
>as possible - and not to distract people. chairs instead of pillows to sit 
>comfortably, enough chairs to have a seat and not to search for, break out 
>rooms to work in immediately, pinboards to work with and to get more 
>silence in the break out rooms, signs to find the rooms easily, 
>fineliners, markers and paper to notice things in the moment they come 
>into my mind, report forms as a help to write down the most important 
>results of the work, copies to be able to follow what happens or has 
>happend, flipchart paper to enable participants visualise group 
>discussions, to get something to eat all the time in order not to be 
>hungry but also not tired and so on, and so on. As a participant in a lot 
>of OS I have always enjoyed (and still do) very much this easiness - for 
>the duration of the OS I have the chance to take care for nothing else 
>than my passion.

There is never a point to making people uncomfortable. And for sure if the 
resources (chairs, flip charts etc) are available, certainly they should be 
used.  But as you noted above -- very little of all that is essential. My 
questions are always -- What is possible? and What is appropriate ? And I 
know from long experience (sorry for the "elder" statement) that the people 
will not only survive -- but thrive. There is another consideration: The 
more you do for somebody, the less they have to do for themselves. I am by 
no means advocating being hard-nosed and nasty, but I have often noted that 
adversity is often the mother of invention. Adversity can even heighten and 
sharpen the experience. For example in Wuerzberg, we had many, many groups 
meeting in a single space. Sometimes the noise level got pretty high (too 
high???) BUT -- When people really cared about what they were doing, they 
drew  closer together and really focused. Intense listening can go a long 
way towards productive discussion. And when it got too bad -- they moved. 
Taking responsibility for themselves and observing the Law of Two Feet 
(Mobility)!

Harrison


Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, MD 20854 USA
phone 301-365-2093
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm

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