the dark side of circle practices

[chris macrae]

For example, imagine twenty people spend two day together in a retreat
and its intent is to sustain and maximise communal intelligence around
an invitation that sets up a huge change area. Such a retreat often
rotates between a big circle (with taking stick and timeout clangers)
and breakout groups, but the hosts/directors of the 2 day's format
thereby:

--miss opportunities to create markets for breakouts

--Make the main circle time almost impossible culturally to use 2 feet
from without upsetting everyone's belief in we are communal/collective

The process starts erring to absolute democracy of everyone must have
equal time contributions to speak at each phase (to the extent that
energy gets lost if this doesn't happen); yet the truth might be that
there are certain deep experiences in the room which at stages during
the 2 days either need to be outed in direct conversation or written up
and circulated so that everyone has access to the
experienced/conflicting view before they leave the 2 days. In other
word's the circle's communal harmony only permits it to pass through one
type of conflicts ; in fact it can co-creates such deep love of nice
behaviours to each other that it misses the biggest spiral out above our
communal thinking's common denominator

I'm in a rush today (to catch a plane). If this doesn't clarify a
nagging problem I have about how an increasing fashion for circles in
big change arenas without having a deeply experienced open space
facilitator there, forgive me if I have a second bite in a few days

Chris macrae


-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of
Harrison Owen
Sent: 08 July 2004 21:45
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: the dark side of circle practices

I guess I am in the darkside of the darkside. What is/are circle
practices -- in the West or anywhere else????

Harrison
----- Original Message -----
From: "chris macrae" <wcbn007 at easynet.co.uk>
To: <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2004 2:57 PM
Subject: the dark side of circle practices


> From some recent experiences, I have realised that it would be jolly
> useful to have some open space guidelines for circle practitioners in
> the west who never quite get to open space but also believe in the
> 'democracy' of speak when you have the talking stick, and gong when
the
> group needs a timeout
>
> The strength and weakness of circle culture (divorced from other rules
> of open space) is that it takes everyone's equal right to chat about a
> context to democratic extremes. I realise that this is useful where
the
> eldest are the most confused; but its not always useful in the case
> where the youngest are the least systemicly connected either in their
> own experiences or in the stories they are able to tell representing a
> diversity of views (beyond that the person actually holds)
>
> Enough said to start a conversation, or do I need to amplify?
>
> Cheers, chris macrae
>
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