Modesty & 5 Simultaneous Open Spaces

[chris macrae]

Chris Macrae writes:
Thanks Larry & Michael et all
1) Clearly I want to stir up a debate- if more people were confident
that Open Space is the central conversation (employee research,
community or network of change catalyst) communing all through
organisational transformation, then it would be the most vital
connecting skill connecting whole Transformation Projects not a loss
leader,

and the facilitating agent would be the whole transformation social
leader of the project -why do so few people seem to want to be fulltime
large scale change agents?

2) Over here in the UK we have at least 2 groups concerned with
exploring this and other lines of thinking which emerged from the
ukosonos in February.
http://www.openspaceuk.com/projects/index.html nurtured by  Martin Leith
[martin at martinleith.com]
(In fact I think this 'beyond lossleader' may have mobilised most of the
groups but I will leave other leaders to speak up beyond the two I met)

amanda at facilit8.com Amanda Bucklow pre-sell of open space (Amanda
battles hierarchy wherever its culture or metrics are the main conflict
driver eroding sectors where safety is core - think NASA!, transport,
...)

david at foolweb.com David Firth: post, repeat use of open space ( David
first entertained in my mind the innovation idea of subverting hierarchy
about 8 years ago with his book on why the corporate fool is the chief
innovation officer in disguise)

-perhaps you could contact any of us with cases which best exemplify
large projects you only got because of open space so we can record the
gist of how those organisations valued the whole role of Open Space &
Social Leader of Organisational Transformation; and obviously we'll
report back to all lessons learned

3) I've become obscenely interested in how to explain that hierarchy is
today's greatest system problem of non-transparent powers; This is what
is destroying the sustainable purpose of organisations to multiply value
openly for everyone; and when we open space is stirred into an
organisation that is the supreme innovation moment for taking hierarchy
out of the picture whilst everyone discusses how:
they could team
or could multiply value of personal networks or practice communities
or even collaborate with other organisations transparently
or any self-organising of networking model of how to be humanly more
productive and joyful/trustworthy with co-workers

We also now know that beyond the corrupt few, every big organisation
that has been devalued to nothing in recent years was caused by:
1) too much hierarchy, ruled by poor mathematical measurements and
knowledge governance that a) systemically failed to detect relationship
conflicts, b) compounded such conflicts ( after 5 years of research,
trust-flow governance maths is now fully available as an open source
code)
2) hierarchy ruling alone instead of collaborating with whatever was the
main people producing power in an organisation : be that teams in
service sectors or networks where the product's learning value is such
that the customer wants to multiply value created.

Let may be clear: when I worked in a Big 5 firm I wanted the best of
hierarchy and best of teamwork but was in a culture that spun the worst
of both, the worst working applications of my life (well emulated
perhaps for horrid lack of touch with serving human beings by working in
one of the big 3 media/communications companies)

So renegotiating hierarchy is the most fundamental consultancy process
that big organisational leaders need, and its just a case of finding a
friendly way to inform them!; I am sure a common language of innovation
can be crafted around that (tell me if you want to cut some slides
together) and open space facilitators are the central project designers
of all such true organisational transformations of systems

AND for all these reasons I would love to find some compelling sales or
after-servicing presentations on so OS is never perceived as a loss
leader for doing some other facilitation work

Chris Macrae, wcbn007 at easynet.co.uk, www.valuetrue.com
Black Swan Society, http://www.valuetrue.com/home/glossary.cfm?letter=f

Larry wrote:

Chris:
Michael is right that we have lots of experience here in Ontario,
Canada, with OS being more than a lost leader but as part of a change
process -- with some evidence of real results in a number of
organizations -- community, government and corporate.  It is not only
"part" it is integral and essential as an "accelerator" of
self-organization and change.  Starfield has called it the Project
Accelerator or Performance Accelerator and it is engages change
processes that also need the best skills of "project planning" or
leadership to move to implementation of specific pieces.  The cultural
and momentum shift, plus the learning with OST accelerates the
self-organization and the change (If it fits).  Or it doesn't and that
is important learning.

The case I have been sharing on the OS List is one of the best examples.
We are one external player in the change process of this large
organization.  We have worked at most levels with OST events as part of
change agendas.

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.  They usually have one
in place, but it may not work very well.  When I work with a "sponsor"
developing an OST event as part of a change process, I get as clear as
necessary with them about the nature of the decision structure within
which they are working  -- who makes what "formal" decisions.  The
sponsor group is often a cross section, but not always.  Clarifying the
"context" within which they are fostering change and opening space is
critical at the beginning.  That makes it more likely they will
understand how to "coordinate" the energy and clarity (do its) that
emerge from the OST and convergence in relation to what is being
pursued.

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