Cross Cultural Facilitation

Harrison Owen hhowen at comcast.net
Sun Oct 2 04:59:11 PDT 2005


Marvelous discussion! I take all the points raised about the necessity for
sensitivity to the way others may see us and the baggage (historical,
genetic, etc) that we carry. That said, I find it interesting (wonderful?)
that despite multiple blocks, that in other circumstances would render the
services of some particular facilitator non-useful, it remains possible for
the most unlikely person to open space in an effective fashion - provided
that person shows up in an authentic, centered and focused manner, and
quickly passes into the shadows of "space holder" as soon as the space is
opened. It was from that perspective that I suggested to Brendan that,
should the sponsor decide that he should open the space, there would be no
problems. Indeed, there might even be an added bonus (as Lisa points out) -
that perhaps for the first time - the participants might encounter a caring,
supportive male.

 

In my previous example about me facilitating the YWCA gathering (500 women
and me) I in fact suggested to the organizing committee that they might want
to have a female do the honors, and further that I knew many such females
who could do all that with distinction. For whatever reason they decided to
go with me, and off we went. And as far as I can tell there were no
problems, at least in terms of the effective function of the group in Open
Space. They did what they came to do, and two years later introduced a
constitution and structure that confirmed the radical transformation of the
YWCA. At least that is what they said. 

 

I do have to admit, however, that at the conclusion of the gathering several
of the participants came to me with the question, "Couldn't a woman do
this?" To which I replied - Of course, and the next one is all yours. As I
heard the story, they accepted the challenge and have been opening space
ever since.  Good on them!

 

My real point was to underscore how, at least in my experience, Open Space
apparently operates well below the levels of culture, ethnicity, gender,
economics, etc. I find this to be both strange and wonderful.

 

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
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU 

To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Judi
Richardson PONO
Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2005 6:46 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: Cross Cultural Facilitation

 

Hi Brendan - I read your message here and the replies and have taken some
time to breathe with it.  I acknowledge the frankness your client expresses
is very touching.  I've been involved in many cross-cultural and
cross-gender experiences and have no ready answers as I think each one asks
to be taken individually.  It would be wonderful to have an Aboriginal woman
who stands in her fullness of self as a role model and facilitator for this
one, eh?  Anyone you know you could refer to them?  I note that the client
states her confidence in having you hold the space - should they choose to
retain your services, I would suggest they introduce you in the invitation -
that way everyone will know ahead of time that you will be there?  My next
question is to you - do you feel you could hold the space?  There have been
a few times when I've referred clients to someone else as I felt I was too
passionate to "stay out of the space"!!

 

Hope this helps even a little bit!

 

Judi

 

Judith Richardson, MA, BA, BEd, MEC

PONO Consultants International

Optimizing Performance, Potential and Profitability

Phone: 902.434.6695

Fax: 902.435.1085

Winner International Coach of the Year 2004

www.ponoconsultants.com

 

  _____  

From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Brendan
McKeague
Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2005 12:22 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Cross Cultural Facilitation

 

G'day folks in the OS global community
A new client has asked me about facilitating a one-day OS for a group of
stakeholders and others about the creation of a refuge/hostel for indigenous
women - she has only minor concerns about using Open Space having recently
experienced her first event with me - her major concern is about using a
non-Aboriginal white male as the facilitator - see honest and forthright
comments below - and this event would be in a different part of the country
from where I live and where I'm not known locally in the indigenous
community - any thoughts on this query? Any stories of this sort of
cross-cultural/gender scenario?
Cheers
Brendan 

We have an opportunity with the new site being built in ----- to devote some
of our resources to responding to the plight of indigenous families.  Having
a different focus away from the mainstream site gives our service an
opportunity to explore, with the assistance of indigenous stakeholders, a
different way of responding to women and children from indigenous families
escaping violence.  I don't know what this will look like and it will be
difficult and we won't always get it right.  It will be a process of
learning and experimenting with new ways of responding to families. 

  

This is like a leap into the unknown for us because it will change our
service.  It has not been undertaken by any other service to my knowledge,
so there is no blue print to how we should proceed.  Having said this, I do
think it is possible and I believe it will have a positive impact on our
service as a whole. 

There would be about 35-40 people invited to this gathering which would
represent all of the key groups that would have an interest in a mainstream
organisation taking on and providing a service to Aboriginal women and
children. 

There has been a positive reaction so far to the proposal from Aboriginal
organisations but I am sure we will face some resistance/perhaps hostility?
(I will probably know this before we enter an open space) - and in a sense
that is one of the reasons why I think an Open Space forum will be good so
that we can hear and respond to people's concerns. 

One of my concerns Brendan is how they will receive you as a facilitator of
this process.  I am confident about you holding the space for us to discuss
these issues but I also don't want to set you up in the process either.  I
am worried that there might be some hostility to a man facilitating the
process and not a woman (you may be the only man there).  I would love your
thoughts around this and whether you have done anything similar before.
Part of me says be courageous and go with what you think will work and
another part of me is scared stiff!  

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

*
*
==========================================================
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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20051002/54bd0a03/attachment-0016.htm>


More information about the OSList mailing list