Management in a World of Trurtles

[Pat Black]

Perhaps we do have enough couches and ashrams already, perhaps we are just
not recognizing all the available couches as couches.  Yesterday I started
an art residency in an elementary school where I live, a rural center in the
very northern midwest US using Open Space.  The residency is a collaborative
project on slavery.  It is with a 4-5 class which includes kids ages 9-11.
The teachers feel this is a very immature group and not capable of
processing the slavery issues and would I cover Civil War Battles instead.
I said I would not as I am not qualified to handle that but if they would
trust me I think I could handle the slavery topic with them.  We would look
at the issues in US history and current global issues and see if we find
correlations between the histories that would lead us to an action plan to
address real life slavery issues and of course the design for the art
project.

So I began the day with these youngsters opening space and 5 hours later the
kids were finishing up the first stage of this project with designs for
their individual portions of the project.  By the end of the day that had
identifed what they knew about slavery, what they were willing to do about
it, the gifts they had to use in their work against slavery and had created
an abstract symbolic visual language they could use to direct slaves to
freedom or direct slave owners to their hearts and the eventual dissolution
of practices that lead to slavery. We will be working like this for another
20 hours or so until the project is done. I did not have to ask one child to
get with the program, not once.  I have taught young children for almost 30
years and I can say positivly that 5 hours without having to direct anyone
to the task at hand has never happened before.

So I am suggesting that the unidentifed couches and ashrams are in our
educational systems which includes the schools themselves, directly working
with kids and with the adults who work with them.  I did another  mini 3
hour open space with teachers in a graduate class on intelligence.  I
thought what better way to talk about intelligence than within a process
that is the essence of intelligence.

I do think we can get to all 6.5  billion people but I think it can be done
most efficiently by getting to our youth and the people that work with them.
Working with youth has the added benefit of access to their open brains.
They are closer to accessing all biological possibility because those
receptor sites have not atropied because of lack of use yet.
Pat Black

Date:    Fri, 18 Feb 2005 07:50:59 -0500
From:    Harrison Owen <hhowen at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Management in a World of Turtles

A number of people have suggested that Focusing and Open Space have much in
common, or perhaps much to give each other. I can certainly see the point
after these conversations and having read some of the material. It seems to
me that Eugene Gendlin's work could be very powerful for use in coaching
sessions following an Open Space. And as a matter of fact, coaching in a
variety of forms could and probably should be part of "the package." I
suppose we all do that in some fashion, but it may be to the point to do it
more intentionally, or possibly involve colleagues whose passion and
expertise is in the realm of coaching. I think the problem might be,
however, that there are not enough really good coaches or sufficient time to
handle the work that is in front of us. I find myself having similar
thoughts with the work of Ken Wilber and others who say, (correctly I think)
that the tools, practices and approaches of what they call Integral
Psychology will make a major difference in the areas we are talking about. I
absolutely agree, and then think about the 6 and 1/2 billion potential
clients and come to the conclusion that we really don't have the couches or
ashrams in sufficient number to do the job. That doesn't mean we should not
try -- and for sure it is better to light a single candle than curse the
darkness. But given the stakes of the game it seems to me that we also have
some further thinking to do.


Harrison

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