leverage points

[Pat Black]

Date:    Tue, 24 May 2005 12:50:38 -0600
From:    Masud Sheikh <masheikh at COGECO.CA>
Subject: Re: leverage points


<That humans are self revealing in all their actions and communications.

Masud asked
<Thank you Pat, but is that all?

Well for me yes that is the only assumption I can make about individuals
or corporations for that matter.  I mentioned once on this list that I
came form a family with language issues.  I had a severe speech
impediment that limited people's ability to understand my words and
their is a history of generational illiteracy.  So living in a cultural
where competency is dependent on speech and reading you have to learn to
demonstrate competency in other ways.  I watch actions more than
listening to words.  Actions describe the entities making them whether
they are people, fish, bear or corporations.  They can not help but be
themselves.

When you mentioned IBM I would be watching to see what they did to accomplish this decree.  That would reveal to me who they are.  These words have no real meaning to me without the action that follows.
        For instance, with my long-time employer IBM - with which I worked through
        its best and worst phases - an unsaid assumption seemed to be "We have got
        it right so often; as has happened before, we will win in the end".

I can't speak to Therese's statement about what she thinks the assumptions are.  I live in my box and the only thing I know is that people are always revealing themselves to me in every word and action if I look and listen.  I don't have to put any kind of spin on anything, it will all spin on its own.


I do personally emabrace the principles and the law.  They both resonate truth for me. I would agree with you that Harrison's description of whoever comes are the right people is judgemental. Caring implies that is possible to not care and that all requires judgement to me.  So I understand your hit on that. I don't find the language in the stated principle a problem so much although I phrase that principle Whoever comes are the only ones who could come.  And that would seem to fit with Harrison's blinding flash statement that they are the only ones there.  I totally believe that but I find the word care to be judgemental and I don't find caring the only crtieria for entry, although I think I get the intention of Harrison's words. For me, caring denotes a cognitive experience and I don't think cognition is the only thing that can get you there.  I actually think it can keep you from "there" at least as often as it gets you there.  Serendipity is not caring it is more like placement.  And I believe serendipity can provide entrance.  I think the arrival does signify something about the person.  It does tell me something about the person.  It tells me at least that they are there and it tells me nothing of those who are not present.

<Actually, I don't think it is as much of an "assumption" as a blinding =
<flash of the obvious. Those  who came are the only ones there! And the =
<reason they are there is that they cared enough to come. That does not =
<make all those who didn't come bad, immoral, or terrible -- but the fact =
<of the matter is that they didn't care enough to come. Now maybe the =
<next time they would feel differently -- care more. Make the necessary =
<arrangements, or sacrifices!  But for this particular Open Space -- =
<those who care came. And CARING is the sole criteria for entry. That =
<alone makes them the "right people." No Caring -- no come...

Therese's story or one of Harrison's experiences speaks more to me of the serendipity aspect.  Actually, I believe in the intelligence of creation to call into the mix those that should be there.  In my believe system creation is ongoing and creation itself has the intelligence to create itself.

< This principle embraces anyone who stumbles in from the cosmos, such as the janitor at a <strategic planning session for a shoe manufacturer who gives the company an idea
<that leads it to developing an entirely new product line (this is a
<true story Harrison tells):  in such an example, the janitor was not
<invited, he was crossing the room.

<I love this principle more than any other.  I do not consider it a
<mere assumption but a core paradigm.

I do not come to open space from any kind of professional facilitator or corporate background.  I have done social justice, kind of grassroots community organizing for close to 40 years and I am a visual artist.  I understand open space through that lens.  What I can say for certain based on my own experience is that being in open space is like making art.  I may enter with assumptions, ideas and passions but I must be willing to let all of that go so that "it", the expereince can become what it has come to be and I will experience the awesomeness of creation.  I can participate in the becoming or not but I never feel like I can control it or even know it really.  I am only a channel for the physical manifestation of creation becoming itself.  I do think about being an ingredient in that becoming and decide what flavor I want to contribute.  Do I want to be the emulsion that provides a matrix for all the flavors to suspend themselves in or do I want to be a chili and heat things up while I flavor the broth.  The flavor I add is up to me. I don't always like the soup so sometimes I chose to get out.  I don't always like my own art work, clearly, it has not come in to being to communicate something to me.  I try to be present in a way that will allow the work to get to the person who has the capacity to work with it.

<So? I am still stuck
<Masud

I wonder if you are stuck or floating around in search of a mooring place?  I let my own heart be my mooring place so I can float without concern.  Know your own heart, you were given a good one.
So Masud I don't know if that helps to clarify what I meant by my original statement or made it even more muddy but it is what I could respond.
pat

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