Management in a World of Turtles

Thu Feb 17 08:45:24 PST 2005

Tine -- What a wonderful story, and I am sure the young manager would do
well to heed the Wisdom of the Turtle. But I am not quite sure he would get
it, and maybe would need a little more help.

It could be that my short story is the wrong one, at the wrong time and
place. In short it does not strike a responsive chord, and therefore, fails
to excite any creative thoughts and suggestions from this illustreous crowd
(yourself excluded, of course!). However lacking the story may be, I find
the situation presented to be a critical one in my work, and suspect it may
be a tender point in the work of others as well.

It may well be the case that full acceptance of the totality of
self-organization (being turtles all the way down) is not something
everybody feels comfortable with -- or even gives credence to. And quite
obviously it is very hard to comment on something that seems off the wall
and beside the point. As you may have gathered, I am not conflicted with
such reservations, which may just be my problem. OK -- I am stuck with it.
But it seems to me that every time we participate in a gathering that
includes young managers (in fact any managers, young or old) the story comes
up again, although perhaps in slightly different format.

Typically (my experience) the Company gathers to do the business (develop
new product, plan for the future, resolve a knotty organizational problem)
and everything works out just fine. The task is done in record time, people
experience their own value and worth, they even (usually) have fun. And by
the end there is a wonderful glow combined with a gnawing sense of
dis-belief. What happened just should not have happened AND there is the
painful reality of Monday Morning just waiting to be experienced!

Many folks will handle this discontinuity by saying, "Oh well -- this (OS)
was just a special occasion. On Monday we go back to reality." I suspect
that we (OS practitioners) may even encourage this mental strategy, even
though we didn't suggest it. I have found myself saying something like, "Oh
yes, you will find OS wonderful -- and when you get back to the real
world..." Some of us also try to protect our guests by having conversations
with the "Senior Management" about the care and feeding of returnees. It
seems to me that the implication might be that the folks are coming back
from some place out of this world. I can understand that such conversations
seem like the responsible and charitable thing to do -- but there are, in my
view, significant downsides.

A major downside is to essentially call into question the positive
experience and feelings of personal worth encountered in Open Space. Nobody
ever would say it just this way, but the implication might be -- "You are a
very special person here in this special environment, but don't get up your
hopes. On Monday it is back to the salt mines!"

A second downside is that practical strategies and approaches to effective
work that have been "learned" (experienced) in Open Space are also
invalidated. After all, once back at the shop it should be business as
usual.

And then -- if my wild conjecture that it really is "Turtles all the way
down," is true in some significant way it would turn out that Open Space is
the reality -- and "back at the shop" is simply a distorted and
uncomfortable perversion. And further, that the pain and dysfuncton that
many (most?) experience in the standard place of work happens not because
people are not being nice, loving, respectful (all true), but fundamentally
because the nature of the organization is understood in the wrong way. What
is perceived as the machanical creation of an executive design team, to be
closely controlled and dominated by the liberal use of arbitrary power -- is
actually nothing of the sort. It is in fact an open, living, self-organizing
system. In such a situation the application of arbitrary power is at best a
waste of time, and at worst, a really destructive move. If we have learned
anything from the 20 year experiment with Open Space it is that the only
sure-fire way to mess it up is to think you are in charge (read --
application of arbitrary power)!

Anyhow, I am hoping for some sharing of thoughts, experiences and strategies
which might enable us to take full advantage of what we have learned in Open
Space, and more to the point -- to enable others to do the same.

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
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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of HUGE -
Løbende Tanke
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 6:06 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Management in a World of Turtles

Hello all.
I have been on this list for a while listening to all your great
self-organizing open spaced turtlevoices. I am an OS turtle wisard my
self....and lately I had an extrodinary oppurtunity to watch a big giant
Letherback Turtle laying it´s eggs!!!! Magic? Yes!! These creatures are
just pure beaty and magic. In their slowness and trance they just do
what they have to do - smooth and soft.

Under a rich star sky barefooted in the sand, at a beach in Costa Rica,
with the sound of wawes of the Pacific in my ears I was sitting behind -
simply reaching out and touching this giants back! Their story is
increadible. Each female turtle come up to lay eggs 9 times during a
periode of 2-3 months every time the moon is gone. Not 5 times, not 7
times.... It takes all in all 2 hours to move their corpses, dig the
whole and laying 60-80 eggs big like tennisballs. The last 20 eggs are
fake  - in case of predators! They never see the baby turtles again.
Knowbody really knows where they mate, they only meet while they mate
and how and where the males live is still a mystery. The females might
swim from Galapagos to this specific coast line - only 5 km - in the
world, but where they go inbetween knowbody really knows. The babies
allways come back to the same place where they were born to lay their
eggs, first time at age of 15...

At the end of this amazing spectacle I saw two shooting stars - at the
same time....... Well do I need to say that this was like being in the
middle of crazy and healing wisdom comming from beyond and going
beyond....and that the universe and I went swinging....

You might all know the story "MOMO" written by the german author Michael
Ende - otherwise go and read it! It´s a story about the girl Momo, her
friends and the Grey Men stealing the time. One of her friends is the
turtle Cassiopeia who has this great ability to know the future 30
minutes in advance..... At some point they are trying to escape the Grey
Men, who runs and runs very fast to get them. But at Cassiopeias back is
printet with red letters the true Turtle Power: the slower your walk the
quicker you get to your point! The slower the girl and the turtle walks,
the more behind the Grey Men seems....  And that is a true story...

I am an Open Space host too, danish by the way - and just to let you
know you will get an invitation very soon to "The Castle Borl Experience
2005"! I am a part of the hosting team this year. Filiz is right - there
is some special magic there.

Great day to your all

Tine Huge

HUGE-LØBENDE TANKE (Running Thaught)
Enghavevej 9, 2.th.
1674 Copenhagen V.
Denmark
+ 45 2859 6025
huge at loebendetanke.dk
www.loebendetanke.dk (not yet in english)

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