article: Mennonite Leadership in Open Space

[Harrison Owen]

John -- that is a nice story, although I am not sure how "new" the technique
may be :-). Seems like we have been at this store for a long time. Anyhow,
the moderator might be interested in the experience of the Presbyterian
Church USA.

Back in the early '90s the church was suffering from a number of ills, not
the least of which was that the budget was in terrible shape. It was decided
to convene a special session of the Church with 500 delegates, including
major representation from various official bodies, in addition to "just
plain folks." I have no idea how they put the guest list together, but it
was in fact a diverse crew ranging from senior executives of Fortune 500s to
street people. The task was pretty clear. Take a good hard look at the
church and figure out where they were heading and how to get there. For the
better part of a year the planning committee labored diligently to figure
out how to put it all together. The original model was quite traditional
including invited papers and speeches from all the usual suspects along with
large, carefully managed plenary sessions in which folks could express their
opinions and argue out the details.

However, the more the committee looked at all this the more it became
apparent that by doing what they had always done they would probably arrive
at where they always got. And that was precisely the problem. Somewhere
along the line they heard about Open Space. How or why I don't know, and
certainly Open Space was not a household word at that point. And it was
definitely a radical departure from anything that anybody had ever tried or
even thought about. In the middle of the summer (meeting was in October, I
believe)my phone rang, and somebody wanted to talk. They explained the
situation and asked if I thought Open Space would work. My answer, of
course, was yes. The situation certainly fulfilled all the pre-conditions --
real business issue, lots of diversity, complexity, conflict -- and the
church was going broke. In short there was a sense of immediacy, not to
mention desperation.

I then asked them if they really wanted to take the trip, and suggested that
they think on it and see if there weren't some other options. A week later
they called back and said they had run out of possibilities -- so it was a
go.

Come October, the 500 folks all showed up and the walls (agenda), as usual,
were blank. But as we all know, that situation changed radically and for the
next two days it was wonderful. By the end, they had created a set of
proceedings that holds the world record, so far as I know. Some 349 pages!
Talk about talkers!! And the sight of 500 349 page "books" coming into the
circle on a fork lift truck on the final morning was something I will never
forget. The Presbyterians created a marvelous video of this gathering, which
is probably still available from their national offices in Louisville KY if
anybody is interested.

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
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html



-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of john engle
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 10:57 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: article: Mennonite Leadership in Open Space

friends and colleagues:

i did an os event last week with a group of mennonite pastors. edgar stoesz,
the "moderator" for Atlantic Coast Conference of Mennonite Church USA who
instigated os, wrote an article for their newsletter. there's a lot of god
language, which will interest some and not others. nevertheless, edgar's a
wise old man. he's authored several books and has lots of leadership
experience which includes chairing the board of Habitat for Humanity
International for several years. i love the fact that he was willing to
experiment with open space and then so quickly wrote about the experience.

to read his article, click on
http://www.beyondborders.net/je-assoc/AtlanticCoastConferenceRetreat.htm

john

http://JohnEngle.blogspot.com - Reflections about Haiti, life, and our work.
http://JohnEngle.info
http://TheExperiment.info

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Hotmail : antivirus et antispam intégrés
http://www.msn.fr/newhotmail/Default.asp?Ath=f

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist