facilitation questions

[Chris Corrigan]

Steve wrote:

> Has anyone pursued the Six Sigma "Voice of the Customer" concepts into an
> Open Space facilitation?  It seems that if the topics introduced into an
> open space discussion do not concern the participants, they will not
> respond.

I haven't pursued the voice of the customer into Open Space
facilitation.  I think instead I opt just for the voice.  If
customer's voices are required, we bring them into the session.  But I
think your observation that where there is no passion, there is
nothing to talk about is true.  I also think it's important that we
don't do things just for the sake of doing them, so if there is
nothing to talk about, why have an Open Space (or any other kind of
meeting) in the first place?

>There is also a 'fear factor' in this equation.  If the
> participants include members of adversarial groups, they may be unwilling to
> "Open" the discussion.  Perhaps a brainstorming session might surface common
> ground where a discussion might occur in the situation Harrison describes
> here..

The issue for me is the authenticity of the voices in the room.
Brainstorming externalizes the voice or idea and a list that we agree
on is one in which our own personal responsibility is diminished.
This is why I have stopped having groups ranks action items.  OST runs
on passion bounded by responsibility.  The invitation is for people to
come together around issues they personally care about and to take
responsibility for moving those issues forward.

In OST I am not interested in the group coming to "consensus."  I am
interested in the sponsor opening a container wide enough to invite
any action coming from an OST to be "part of the plan."  So it's not
about constraining voices, or making lists, but opening the bigger
plan so wide that anything that comes out of the OST IS part of the
direction, and thereby we emerge consensus - not a consensus in which
everyone agrees, but one which is full of creative tensions, passions
and loads of personal responsibility and which can all be seen as
moving in a similar direction, most often towards making a community
or an organization a better place to be.  Very few people will propose
in an OST meeting, ways for making a community or an organization
worse.  If leadership can accept the fact that "better" can
self-organize in a dynamic market of ideas and action, and that's it's
messy and complex and diverse and full of dialogue and working through
the big issues, then we can REALLY do something.  The major
transformation in OST comes when people realize that conversation and
not prescription is the way we move forward.  That changes everything.

Chris

--
-------------------------
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology

Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com

*
*
==========================================================
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