point of non-intervention

[Koos de Heer]

Hi Raffi,

Here's another belated congratulations... And an answer to your question.
One of many I am sure.

To me, the essence of Open Space is all about reminding. Reminding people
of something they already know and can do. We all have this basic knowledge
and these basic skills. For some folks, the reminding just takes a little
more than for others. And people sometimes tend to forget bits again along
the way.

This reminding thing can be handled in many different ways. A reminder
like: "Hey you dumbo! Didn't I tell you to...!" obviously is not what we
want in Open Space. And often people need very little to be reminded. I
have people coming up to me asking whether they can do something (like
changing the time of their session, or merging two sessions, things like
that) and all I do is wait a few seconds and do nothing. In most cases,
after a few seconds, they know the answer, tell me what they ar going to do
and leave happily.

Quite often, it takes even less: just my being there, centered, conscious
of my love for this special group of people, trusting them with whatever it
is they need to do, is enough for a reminder. And at the same time, it is
much more than not being present at all.

Sometimes it takes a little more. But even if I do repeat an instruction or
offer some advice, I always keep in mind that I am not instructing people
or telling them what to do, it is just this gentle reminding process that
comes from a place of love and trust.

Just my 2 cents.

Koos de Heer

At 15:34 18-7-2004, you wrote:
>Thanks to the folks who congratulated me for my "first time." Yes,
>Harrison, it indeed is going from bad to worse. And I only have myself to
>blame!
>
>Oh well. Here I am with another question:
>When I attended the OS facilitator training with Birgitt, we were asked to
>frame for ourselves what we understood the essence of OS to be. The answer
>I came up with then immediately (which is no longer adequate for me) is
>"profound non-intervention." I don't think here I need to expand on why I
>thought that was OST's essence.
>
>What I realize, though, is that it's not entirely clear to me at what
>point that "non-intervention" (I'm not sure I would call it that at this
>point; holding space and time might be closer to what the facilitator
>does; even that isn't quite exact in my book) begins. Is there consensus
>on that?
>
>Another way of framing the question is "at what point can one consider
>that the facilitator has "opened" the space? I put this word in quotes
>because I realize more and more that there are times when indeed there is
>no need for a facilitator to even "open" space. There is no need for a
>"facilitator". That self-facilitated open space already exists (and has
>existed) for millenia.
>
>-Does the "opening" end at the explanation of how we will work? Thus, the
>facilitator can just leave the room then (before the topics are announced
>and put up)?
>
>-Does the "opening" end when the facilitator sees that all topics have
>been put up and then he/she can leave the room?
>
>A secondary (but maybe not that secondary) question is does the
>facilitator have any role in the Marketplace? If someone forgets to put a
>post-it on a topic, can the facilitator remind the participant about this?
>Do you follow the process of putting up topics?
>
>Or it just varies?
>
>I have come to understand that once I have given the explanation, that's
>it. I have no place to interfere in any way. If someone forgets a post-it,
>it's not my place to do anything. Or if all the sessions have been taken
>with topics and there is a desire to announce more sessions, it is not my
>place to create, for example, a third concurrent session. Since this is
>OS, I imagine it is up to the group to imagine and come up with the
>possibility of a third session.
>
>Raffi
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Koos de Heer
Auryn management advies BV
Utrecht, the Netherlands
http://www.auryn.nl/

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