meeting with a Russian colleague and more (thoughts on OS's limitations; getting into consulting work)

Sat May 29 08:10:06 PDT 2004

Raffi - Per usual, there is a lot of good stuff here. And it is good to hear
that you and Elena have hooked up. Should you see her again, tell her we
have missed her on OSLIST. Her preference for Future Search in the Russian
context is something she has shared before, so it does not come as a
surprise, nor would I question her preference or her experience - but I am
curious. This is not about OS vs FS - indeed, I have infinite respect for
Marv Weisbord and the FS crowd. However, if it is true that FS "works better
in the Russian context" we have a very interesting cultural discriminator. A
sort of litmus paper test of some sort. Briefly put - Are there some
cultures where Open Space doesn't work? And if there were, I think we might
learn some useful things about culture, cultures, and Open Space. But of
course, we would need to be quite precise about what we meant when we said
"worked."

I would suppose that there are at least three levels of "worked." 1) The
process worked formally - people sat in a circle, created and agenda, and
formed work groups. . .) 2) The process worked experientially - people
became engaged, issues were seriously discussed, "useful" things happened
(minds were changed, ideas were generated, projects initiated/terminated,
etc.) 3) The process worked over time - there was some perceptible,
continuing impact. 

In my personal experience, I have never seen an instance where Open Space
failed to "work" at the first and second levels - no matter the group
involved, the issue under discussion, or the cultural context. Now
obviously, my experience is limited, and my perception doubtless biased --
but that has been my experience. It is absolutely true that I have never had
the privilege of opening space in Russia, but I have done just that in what
I think are similar cultural environments, including parts of the old USSR.
The truly interesting thing to me is that over the almost 20 years of
Opening Space, I have never been able to identify any significant difference
of group performance regardless of culture, ethnicity, economics, education,
national origin, or any other variable that I can think of. I have, of
course, heard of instances where it was reported that Open Space did not
"work" as advertised, but in every instance where I was able to dig deeper,
it turned out that the problem wasn't Open Space, but rather the way it was
done. The most usual offenders were those situations where it was decided to
try "a little Open Space." Typically this meant "doing Open Space" in a one
hour time slot in the midst of a formal conference. Another example would be
when it was decided to "demonstrate Open Space." In those cases an arbitrary
theme (or no theme at all) was announced, people sat in a circle, and
nothing (or little) happened. Typical reactions of participants was
something like "It that all there is?" And the reason, of course was that
there was no passion and no responsibility - and therefore nothing moved.
Anyhow, that has been my experience, and it would be great to have lot more
experiences. Personally, I would love to hear about some situation where all
the conditions were met (real issue, lots of diversity, complexity, conflict
- and a decision time of yesterday), the process was followed (sit in a
circle, create bulletin board . . ) and the facilitator got out of the way -
and the whole thing just went nowhere. A case book of such instances could
teach us a mountain of good stuff. 

And then we come to Level 3 "working." Genuine answers here are hard to come
by - not only for Open Space, but for any other approach as well. To really
get an answer here we would need long term studies, but even if we had them,
I am not sure that the changing variables of the environment would not be
such that real certainty would be denied. However, it is interesting that
after 20 years, Open Space is still around, and its use seems to be growing.
This, despite the fact that OS flies in the face of just about every
theoretical and practical principle of organizational behavior - at least
all the mainline ones. Briefly put, Open Space cannot work - but it seems
to. So there you are.

At the end of the day, the choice of method (OS, FS, Real Time Strategic
Change, etc) is dependant (I think) on 

At least three factors 1) The situation (when the space is already closed -
don't use Open Space) 2) Client preference - What does the client feel
comfortable with? 3) Facilitator preference (what does the facilitator feel
comfortable with?). Client and Facilitator preferences are not unimportant!
And certainly should never be contravened. Doing an Open Space by force,
simply does not make it!

So there are some thoughts Raffi. I guess you will have to pick you pathway
any way you can. On the face of it, putting your faith in the Open Space
basket as a young consultant is probably the worst thing you could do. Since
it organizes so quickly and you do so little, billable hours go down
quickly. Of course all that implies that you were able to "sell" an Open
Space - which is a doubtful undertaking. Who on earth would hire an expert
to do something that any fool with a good head and a good heart could do all
by themselves? Everybody knows that really good interventions have to be
complex, confusing, hard to do, and take a long time. Open Space is really
hard on the wallet. So my advice, Raffi, is get another gig. And should you
ever get hooked, I take no responsibility. Just remember you were warned.

Harrison 

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Drive

Potomac, Maryland   20845

Phone 301-365-2093

Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/>

Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org

Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU 

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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Raffi
Aftandelian
Sent: Saturday, May 29, 2004 1:51 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: meeting with a Russian colleague and more (thoughts on OS's
limitations; getting into consulting work)

 [OS'rs! I don't think this made it's way to the digest; my apologies if
you've already seen it]

Dear OpenSpacers,

I had the fortune the other day of meeting up briefly with Lena Marchuk in
Moscow. This is a real treat because the distance between Moscow and
Novosibirsk (where she is from) is essentially the same distance as between
Moscow and London. Far away. She had just come from the FS Learning
Exchange.

It was a chance to reconnect and also to share experiences and to be
mentored by her in Future Search (FS), which I hope to conduct some day and
also. And it was a chance to be mentored in Open Space. 

Lena spoke of her preference for using FS (she has conducted minimum 10 such
conferences) over OS (of course she uses OS during the action planning at an
FS) -as a large group intervention tool - in the Russian context. She frames
the global givens, so to speak, that Russians (speaking generally) haven't
had an experience of democracy yet. And an FS provides this experience. And
curiously, she sees that FS's in Russia for the most part don't necessarily
lead to action planning and the like. The whole notion of goal-setting, she
noted, virtually leads to people drawing a blank look. It is too bad Lena
and I didn't have more time so that she could elaborate on this thought
because I suspect there's much more behind it. Now this may be less true
when doing an FS/OS in a large town. Much of her work, as I understand, is
conducted in provincial centers in Siberia where maybe that kind of linear
thinking -- goal setting, making action plans-- hasn't filtered to. 

She sees the value of FS in Russia in, first of all, creating dialog,
community, building connections. As I understood her, before even thinking
about creating action plans for the future, people need to learn a whole new
way of being together. They have a true experience of democracy. They see
that totally different people can be together in a constructive way. In one
sense of the metaphor, an FS  is not about planting the seeds for change,
but rather working the soil so that seeds can be planted at a later point.
And, to extrapolate, this is a very important result. That Maybe this is
true of OS here, too.

I liked a Yakutian (in Siberia) joke that Lena told me (as I recall it).
"The difference between the East and West: "The Westerner says: "Ok, so what
are the results?" The Easterner says, "Notice the process." The Russian
says, "I'd like to say a toast to the process we are using so that we may
achieve results."

It is too bad we didn't have time to hear more about why OS doesn't
necessarily provide that in her opinion. FS's plus is that it provides a
structure to develop a picture of the past, present, future. 

********

A few days ago I had the fortune of speaking to a mentor in social change
work (since I haven't checked out with him-- in contrast to the message with
Lena, where I did check out with her before posting-- somebody I'd been
trying to arrange a phone conversation with for 1 1/2 years (!). I am
thinking more about my life/work plans, and want to consult with him. I am
getting my start in consulting work, yet don't have that clear vision of
where I am going. I was very interested in seeing his read on OS and FS. OS,
in his opinion, is a tool. And it's oversold. Yes, it can be valuable, but
it's one of many tools. But, if I am going to be an OD consultant (and I am
not sure I would want to describe myself that way), for one thing I would
need to have a more varied toolbag. He would never want to hire an OD
(organizational development) consultant with only one tool: OS. And, in his
book, anyone who is an OD consultant does need to get management experience,
to have acquired the body of experience/knowledge of a manager. This way a
potential client is likely to understand what the client is going through,
and is less apt to be in the clouds. Your thoughts?

In other words, if the only tool (OD) I have is a hammer, I'm apt to see
every problem as a nail. 

And yet curiously, he saw as a potential life/work path to totally get into
OS and achieve excellence in it. I think the contradiction here is a surface
one. Because OS's potential is not just in OD work, to beat a dead horse. It
has a myriad of applications. I am fascinated, for example, by its potential
as a career/life planning tool. I am curious if there are folks who use it
in this way as paid/unpaid work (as a career counselor/personal coach). 

I also asked him about OS being a tool for social change. Again, yes, it is
one of many tools. And I shouldn't expect to get rich off of OS on this
score.

This talk put me in my "discomfort zone." I realized how much more thinking
I need to do before going on. 

I would be curious as to how people got in to consulting work. Maybe this is
something people may be uncomfortable sharing so openly, even offlist. 

With lotsa questions and sitting with them,

(trying to) trust that my background/subconscious inner-OS program will find
the answers,

raffi

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