Fw: The World Cafe meets Open Space

Susan M Kerr Smkerr7 at aol.com
Tue Jun 14 20:43:22 PDT 2005


In a message dated 6/14/2005 5:12:55 P.M. Central Standard Time,
jack at designinglife.com writes:

One of my tests for good process is the question: Does it bring to  people's
consciousness the kind of freedom in connectivity we and they want  outside
the process?


Jack and Harrison,

How synchronistic (not surprising) are your comments. Tomorrow I ride for
two hours with my  skeptic boss to one of our sites where I will be  fa
cilitating a dialogue with disillusioned employees about what happened with  two
processes they were supposedly an integral part of (while my boss consults  with HR
and the manager). I plan to share your words with him. I say, "skeptic"
because although he and I have fascinating and in-depth dialogues  about the world
of learning, something in him fears open space when I talk  about it. Yet what
you just wrote, Jack, sums up precisely what I  suspect is missing in the
processes the employees have been asked to  "participate" in. It has been little
more than a false structure.

So my hope is to open some space for them to dialogue about what happened
with these processes and what did not happen. Somehow I hope to open space  for
the manager of this group to trust the group and the process to  them to
create what they need in order to accomplish the goal of their and  her work. Ditto
for my boss (who is also hers). I've not been given  permission to conduct
"open space."

Where does one start with something like this? I work in a  conservative
environment where I daily experience the old form of "control"  not working yet
management clearly afraid to try anything else.

Later this summer, I am planning an event with employees using TWC simply
because I think it will be useful to them (my personal goal) and yet acceptable
to management (my guidelines). All the while I'm hopeful it might edge me a
little closer to being able to really open some space.

Susan

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