Half-way Technology (longish)

[Julie Smith]

Harrison, you said:

"And now - at long last - back to Open Space Technology as a halfway
technology. A halfway technology, in case you don't know, is something
you
do just to get started. It may seem grand and glorious, not to say
wonderful
and elegant at the beginning. But over time the true colors appear. It
is
just plain clunky. Why on earth should it be necessary to sit in a
circle,
create a bulletin board, open a market place - just to be what we
already
are? Seems like an awful lot of wasted effort, useless work. We have
been
accused with some justification of inventing the ultimate scam in which
the
client does all the work, and even writes the report - while we do
little or
nothing. I find myself wondering how to radicalize all this - so that we
totally go out of business. All being. No doing."

Which in my mind is pretty much the same as what florin said (what good
company you keep!):

"the practice of OST and the experience of OS
taught me to agree

that change don´t ask for our ideas about change.
change is taking place and direction in every moment.
change is using me as facilitator
in the only way that can happen to me in that time and moment. success
and outcome is happening in the moment of thinking about success and
outcome. working in open space is already success and outcome like every
doing is already success and outcome. OST gives space to become concious
that there is nothing beside open space. intention is not to be realized
in the future. intention is touching me to act in the now, giving space
to change my intentions in every doing."

All of which helps me get a handle on what I'm being/doing in the world
these days, which is to be present, open, and alive to 15 staff, 120
preschool children, and their 240-or-so parents and care takers.  My
first six months as the "leader" of this organization have been wracked
with turmoil as who I am came in contact with an organizational culture
that many experienced as painful.  As florian puts it, "change is using
me as facilitator."  I didn't come into the organization intending the
changes that have occurred.  The changes simply came about when my being
encountered the organization's being. (My being, I'm told, has a
stubborn streak, and doesn't tend to back down unless convinced of the
rightness of doing so.)

So, Harrison, this idea all being, no doing is an interesting one.  Our
being creates doing in the world. Our energy manifests. Can't stop it.

As for OST, I live it, breathe it, do it every day all day.  But in this
new culture I've entered, I don't talk about it or explain it or define
it.  I don't facilitate it.  I am it.

Sometimes this way of being in my community feels great, and other times
it feels terrible.  Everything is invited, and everything comes in.
I've taken lots of emotional hits for problems that existed long before
I arrived.  Some days I go home feeling like a human punching bag.  That
is the price I pay, many days, for inviting and expressing openness and
authenticity.  It is a price I gladly pay.  I hope against hope that
we're in that muddle-mindedness that precedes emergence or demergence
(did I get those terms right?), and that we're well on our way to
emerging to a more healthy state.

Hmmmmm..... maybe that's the big difference.  Doing OST (as a
facilitator) means you invite, but you don't engage.  Being OST (or just
being in the way florian describes) means you do both at the same time.
My experience so far is that doing both is painful.  That is probably a
reflection of the energy of the community I entered.  I wonder what's on
the other side.

Julie

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