Principles, process and people

Wed Mar 16 05:29:26 PST 2005

Gyuri Wrote: I told you this story because of my doubts, how else could I
have done it.  

Guri – I have no idea how else “you” could have done it, and I certainly
don’t think that what you did was bad. However, in similar situations I have
taken a rather different approach. My starting point may be a little
different than yours. When I work with a group such as you describe, I make
it very clear that my objective is NOT that their morale improve, that they
“save” the company, that they produce a particular product, indeed that they
accomplish any specific thing. My concern is only that the people involved
have sufficient space and time to be fully themselves, to reflect on who
they really are, and to accept the consequences of their actions and ways of
being together. 

In most situations in my experience, if these three things are accomplished
morale will improve, (sometimes radically), products will be produced, and
the organization will be on a path towards renewal. However, it may also
occur (infrequently, thank goodness) that the people involved will end up
taking a good hard look at who they are and what they are doing and come to
the conclusion that the situation is miserable and the best outcome for all
concerned is to end the misery. I have told the story before, but in one
situation I was doing an Open Space with a small company where the issue was
“Our Future.” Shortly after lunch on the first day it became totally clear
to everybody that there was no future. By 4:00 in the afternoon, they had
essentially dissolved the company (gone out of that business). I considered
that outcome to be completely appropriate for those people – Trust the
People!

Now as it happened, the people in that particular company, after they had
put it out of business, all went to the bar and then had dinner. Over a few
drinks and dinner they essentially invented two new and very different
businesses which they proceeded to organize over the next day – to their
complete delight and satisfaction. 

It was very clear to me at the end that had the people not gone to the
unexpected and scary place of dissolving the business – that business would
have blown up sooner or later. Further, it would have been quite likely that
in the explosion a number of people would have been badly hurt, everybody
would have been angry, and most would have walked away with a large sense of
guilt and frustration. As it turned out the people were able to let go of
the old and create the new. To the best of my knowledge the two new
businesses still exist and are doing very well. 

And if you ask what I did. . . Just “Standard Open Space,” by the book. Sit
in a circle, create a bulletin board, open a market place, and I got out of
the way. The people went to work. For me there is no real alternative to
Trust the People.

Harrison

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Drive

Potomac, Maryland   20845

Phone 301-365-2093

Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://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 Beck
György
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 5:16 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Principles, process and people

Dear Harrison,

I follow your words: if it works, do it.

Recently I facilitated an OS meeting for 40 people of a company.

The company is in a quite bad moral shape so all the case to help them "wake
up and walk" was very sensitive.

That was the reason I accepted to use a directed invitation instead of
voluntary attendence.

These people were not practiced neither in group work nor even to listen to
each other. 

After the OS introduction they made the agenda. In every time period they
could put 6 issues on the wall. In almost all of the time periods they have
put 5-6 issues and later they worked on 2 or 3. There were some more
burining issues, where the number of people were around 30 in the "small"
groups.

In one of the periods, when the dedicated time has expired, I suggested to
choose the next topic, to tell the truth I interfered to finish the
discussion. Before blaming me for abusing the principles you also have to
know that the "culture" of communication in this group of people was (is?)
that if they think of the "bean soup", they talk about "catering" in
general.

I could not allow them to realize, they won't get any result to talk
paralelly. 

Because of (my) need for control I inserted a feedback time after every two
time periods, where they could raise new issues and put on those they found
important.

Before the last period I realized that there will be an issue, that
concerned almost the whole group. I offered them, if they wish, to moderate
this discussion. They accepted it so I moderated this session that was
planned 1,5 hour instead of the originally planned 1 hour.

I used the classical nominal group method to collect all the partial issues
belonging to the main issue. They collected some 40 post-it "issues",
belonging to the main one. After clarification of the "bean-soups" they made
groups of the related post-its. Then I suggested to choose one for
discussion and take home all the others for further discussions.

Since we were close to the end of the whole program, there was no time to
open the space later, after getting a way of solution for problem solving. 

I showed them a problem solving method for the issue chosen. They could end
up with specific results and they were happy with the solution. 

I told you this story because of my doubts, how else could I have done it.  

Regards, Gyuri

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