Chicago Social Forum (again) AND Conversing about..."the right conditions"

[Harrison Owen]

At 08:47 PM 9/10/2003 -0500, Ted wrote:

>Anyway, last night was that Sept meeting and while the process worked
>perfectly as always, and what happened was the only thing that could have, I
>was left thinking "these people just aren't ready for this type of
>self-responsibility."  Harrison pointed out a couple of months back that
>he'd take battle hardened marines over the peace, love and light crowd any
>time if choosing a group that thrives in open space.  I can't remember his
>reasoning, but last night I had to do a heck of a lot of internal work to
>just let it all happen.

The reason I would prefer the Marines (engineers, managers, fire fighters)
over the Love 'n Light crowd, or even worse, professional meeting managers
and facilitators -- is that typically the Marines want to get something
done, and the others are more interested in talking about how to do it
(process). There is also a certain proprietary interest on the part of the
L 'n L folks. If it turns out that Open Space works as well as we all know
it does, a reasonable question arises as to why do a whole mess of other
stuff???? And since the folks in question are being paid (or trying to get
paid) for doing a whole mess of stuff (detailed agendas, phalanxes of
facilitators etc.) there is a certain hesitation in letting the OS genie
out of the bottle. And of course, there is the old bug-a-boo of control. A
whole generation of human service professionals (not to mention most other
people) have been educated to believe that the worst possible outcome is to
lose control. And of course, in Open Space, we are out of control from the
start.

So, it is not surprising to me that "some folks don't get it." What is
quite amazing is that despite all of the above, all sorts of people all
over the world get along just fine in Open Space -- provided there is real
passion/responsibility, diversity, complexity, and urgency. In short, they
really care about something of common interest.

And what would I have done in your situation? Nasty curmudgeon that I am, I
think I would have finessed the "Planning Committee." Just send out a
powerful, attractive invitation to anybody who might care -- and open the
space.

Harrison


Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, MD 20854 USA
phone 301-365-2093
207-763-3261 (Summer)
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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