Hierarchy & where authority comes from?

Tue Mar 30 15:29:36 PST 2004

Right on Harrison!

You've struck a chord with me! I know plenty who know the rule book and
always take it seriously. This is their authority: THE RULES!

This has come to me of late. Where is my authority coming from?  I notice
that when I'm not centered (my word) I look to another or someone or
something else to give my words or actions authority; even approval. They
don't stand alone as I'm not balanced at that moment. Yet, when I am
centered, I don't need to look to anything for my authority.  I just know!
It's like I'm in tune with myself and the planet. Someone may disagree with
me and I can be open to that. But their opinion , approval of me does not
balance or unbalance me, whether positive or negative.

This is that process I need to go through when opening space. It's all about
me. Opening space takes real guts and being centered (Genuine contact with
yourself!). Throw the rule book away, its like any work of art, know the
technique and then forget it and dance.

Hierarchy seems to come back to that inability to dance and is a poor
substitute for authority. I struggle with this dilemma everyday working for
a bureaucratic organization. When someone has to resort to "pulling rank" to
gain authority then I know they are insecure/unbalanced.

I love when you said leadership comes from the one with the passion
Harrison. Not the one reading from the rule book. It would be interesting to
do a study on people's ability to dance. It's hard to imagine people who
follow rule books being good dancers.

Mike Copeland

-----Original Message-----
From: Harrison Owen [mailto:hhowen at COMCAST.NET]
Sent: Monday, 29 March 2004 11:22 a.m.
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: Hierarchy

John -- on the basis of no hard data, carefully collected and randomly,
double blinded -- I would definitely answer YES. After 40+ years of being in
a variety of organizations including the Church, Federal Government (US) at
what is known as "Senior Levels", Non-For profits -- and for the last 23
years, sitting in as a consultant -- I KNOW that the folks who really can
make it in all dimensions are those who can effectively "go with the flow",
intuit the self-organizing informal organization, know the "rule" book and
never take it seriously -- except to buttress a position previously taken --
in short real open spaceniks. . . these folks rule. Just my opinion.

Harrison

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, Maryland   20845
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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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of John Rapp
Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 2:29 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: Hierarchy

I continue to be a major fan of OS, and have only one major continuing
question about its potential limitation: Are abilities that cause/allow some
to lead in OS well-correlated with the abilities required to lead in a
day-to-day enterprise?  This question may be a bit similar to whether great
political candidates also make great political leaders.  J.

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Harrison
Owen
Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 11:13 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Hierarchy

Hierarchy for sure gets a bad rap. But as Michael points out, hierarchies
show up naturally, even -- and maybe most especially  -- in Open Space.
Somebody has the passion, takes the responsibility and some other folks come
along. I don't know what else you would call it. I call it Hierarchy. But --
and this is a BIG BUT -- it is a natural hierarchy totally dependant upon
the situation, the people involved and the task they are undertaking. Change
any of those variables and you will have a new organization/hierarchy. I
think the critical thing is that it is natural, and therefore appropriate to
that particular situation. The problem with hierarchies that not only get
the bad rap, but fully deserve that rap, is that they are imposed,
arbitrary, and un natural. I don't care that the CEO/MD was appointed by the
Board and gets the big bucks/yen/marks -- that does not make him or her THE
leaders. I think that went out with the Divine Right of Kings. Or something.

One other problem with Hierarchy may also be that it is (unfortunately) an
artifact of our graphics. When we draw our organizations they always seem to
come out looking like an inverted family tree. A real odd tree with the
branches in the ground and the trunk in the air. No wonder it dies. You
would too if you had your head 6 feet under! But there are other graphics --
circles, spheres -- polycentric spheres in 3-D. Suppose you thought of an
organization as polycentric spheres all overlapping each other to some
degree. And at the center of each was the one with the passion who took the
responsibility. Now tell me which way is up -- and does it really matter?

Harrison

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, Maryland   20845
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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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Pannwitz,
Michael M
Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 9:00 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: Modesty & 5 Simultaneous Open Spaces

Dear Larry,
the "team" I referred to, is the temporary organization created for the
os-event (not part of the sponsor) made up of assistants, helpers,
facilitator, documentation specialists, photographer etc.. This team has or
rather gives itself a hierarchy. Its been a great learning field for me to
look at these small "systems" that I am part of when involved with
facilitating an open space and to tinker with "appropriate" structure or
hierarchy. One of the principles that I try to stick to is the notion of the
"fully present and invisible" facilitator...recent feedback has indicated
that sometimes the hierarchy designed for the facilitation team actually
supports this "state" in the eyes of the participants...extending the "fully
presnt and invisible" mode to all team-members from the experience of the
observing participants. My assumption in general is that every system has a
hierarchy (more or less
appropriate) (Ken Wilbur reports of more than 200 hierarchies that he had
collected in his search for a "fit", eventually coming up with the concept
of "holons"...noting that "Even those memes that don't recognize hierarchies
- such as beige or purple - still have hierarchical structures. Everybody
seemed to have some sort of hierarchy, even those who claimed they didn't.)
The reason I am diving into this aspect: Where can I get a more practical
and existential learning or remembering experience than in my actual praxis?
And:
(referring to Joelles comments about open space and hierarchy) I find it
productive to look at "hierarchy" as a "given" in all systems and
organizations without the popular stigma attached to the term (I looked it
up in the Unabridged and there it is almost exclusively documented with that
negative stigma attached). What would a system or organization look like in
which hierarchy is eliminated? Appears, it would no longer exist.
Selforganization, which surfaces especially visible in ost-events or when
children play,  brings forth hierarchy and structure. Yes, of a kind that
has no designer! And of a kind that seems the appropriate vessel for
creating "peace" out of chaos, confusion and conflict. Ok, what kind of
hierarchy is appropriate for the " team" described at the beginning that
"facilitates" the ost-event? Or, what kind of hierarchy is appropriate for
the subsystem in the organization you are working with that has the role of
"providing support to tenants and staff as they work together to enable the
local clusters to make key decisionsen" Greetings from Berlin mmp

On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 11:44:02 -0500, Larry Peterson wrote:

>Michael:  You said:
>
>"For me as facilitator working with teams (often groups of  7 or more)
>its proven to be useful to consciously design the "hierarchy" for the
>team and for the interaction of the team with other subsystems
>(catering, publishing, facility management, the sponsors, child-care,
>sound technician, press/radio/television, etc.)  for the open
>space-event (including pre-meetings, setting up the os, the os itself,
>follow up)."
>
>I'm not sure I understand what you mean.  I usually don't get involved
>in "designing" the hierarchy in systems I'm in.

Michael M Pannwitz
boscop
Draisweg 1
12209 Berlin, Germany
FON +49 - 30-772 8000     FAX +49 - 30-773 92 464
www.michaelmpannwitz.de
www.openspace-landschaft.de

An der E-Gruppe "openspacedeutsch" für deutschsprechende open
space-PraktikerInnen interessiert? Enfach eine mail an mich.

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