multiple facilitator roles

[Harrison Owen]

Gerard Wrote: "I thought of the boundary issue when last week I was asked to
help co-facilitate an event with the top 30 managers of a large
multinational. Open Space does not feature on the program, and there will be
a team of five facilitators..................."

Gerard -- I just have to ask -- will there be a facilitator to facilitate
the Facilitators? I guess you would probably need a small team, say 2-3.
Then of course you will need a facilitator to facilitate the facilitated
facilitators. . . . Sounds like Facilitators all the way down. And the
client group is a bunch of Top Managers? Making God knows how much money?
Who will be treated like children (kept under control) so that at the end of
the meeting the lack of innovative, inspired, creative results can all be
blamed on the army of Facilitators. Sounds wonderful!

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 Gerard
Muller
Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005 4:04 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: multiple facilitator roles

Dear All,

Thinking about our thread "multiple facilitator roles" I wondered if
there could be a boundary issue here.

No doubt - as Michael's post makes very clear - the amount of work to
be done has some connection
to the size of the group. In terms of
hours-to-be-worked-on-plannable-things  if the group becomes a crowd
rather than a group, it is mosty practical in nature

When opening space I almost never have a co-facilitator - in terms of
one or more persons being involved in opening and closing the space.
When I do, it is typically an OSonOS with collegues, one of us taking
the role for each day.

However I have rarely felt I work alone - and the reason probably is
that cooperation with the sponsor tends to be rather different from
non-open space work.

I thought of the boundary issue when last week I was asked to help
co-facilitate an event with the top 30
managers of a large multinational. Open Space does not feature on the
program, and there will be a
team of five facilitators................... Do these 30 quite
experienced people need so much facilitation ?
No doubt we will work very hard (too hard, as we are likely to do lots
of things the group could well do
without us), and learn a lot from eachother while doing so. Will there
be the learning across the boundary
(client group and facilitator team) which there could be ? And
certainly it is unlikely that some percentage
of them will decide they want to learn facilitation - while some ten
Open Space sponsors I worked with have since taken a training in OST.

In working with Open Space, the client does not need all that much
help. Too much help may damage
the selforganising process. And if I manage not to do all the things I
might do (with the best of intentions)
but are not essential they may actually create the team which invites,
holds the space with me and feels responsaibility
  for the follow-up, as Lisa states quite beautifully. To me this also
means not taking any tasks they may do themselves.
  So after the first couple of years when I had an assistant along who
really knew how to make sure a copy of the report
would be there for everybody in time, I now almost always brief someone
who works for the client to do this.
I do not bring a talking stick, but ask the sponsor to choose one. And
so on.

So I guess in my practice there is as a rule one facilitator - who
never works alone.

Greetings from Denmark,




Gerard Muller
Open Space Institute Denmark
Phone: (+45) 21269621
Mail: gm at openspace.dk




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