Keepin' Busy

Thu Jan 12 18:17:20 PST 2006

Dear Harrison,
You should have said you were working at the White House :-). At least I
believe that is the organization you must be describing. So, maybe a
small space, claustrophobic as it might be, might be an opening for
peace. There is a Leonard Cohen song that I love that says that in
everything, there is a crack where the light can get in. Possibly, you
could see it that way instead of seeing it as a claustrophic space. And
then be prepared to be surprised.

Okay, it was a joke about the White House but you could have been
describing it. And it is certainly my hope that with all your Practice
of Peace work, that you do get a chance there since you are, after all,
neighbors. (This current client might just be a practice run).

Birgitt

-----Original Message-----
From: Harrison Owen [mailto:hhowen at verizon.net] 
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 6:41 PM
To: birgitt at dalarinternational.com
Subject: RE: Keepin' Busy

Birgitt -- all good points, but I might take a wee exception :-) when it
comes to really "pushing" clients. You are obviously correct, they will
do
what they will do -- and that is fine. But you do add a condition about
"authenticity." No question, your General was ready for limited, but
authentic open space. Not everything, just here, just now. Fine! But in
the
case of my client I found that they were saying one thing (open it
all!!)
and acting in a way to limit the territory surveyed. I could say that
they
were talking out of two sides of their mouth -- but to be honest, I am
not
at all sure that they were even aware of what they were doing. And since
most of them had never been involved in Open Space previously, I was
pretty
sure of it. In the case of this particular Open Space, the participants
all
come from a very volatile, explosive, dangerous (to themselves and many
others) environment where trust levels are measured in minus quantities.
Getting them all together is a minor miracle. Getting them to talk
freely to
each other could be a major miracle. But should that conversation begin
and
then somebody smells a rat (Moose?) -- we could have a major issue. So I
felt constrained to surface that rat -- or better make sure that it did
not
exist. Your notion of "givens" can be very helpful, but in this case the
"givens" once listed by everybody involved would leave us with such a
small
space that claustrophobia would feel good. So my option (I
think/thought)
was to push -- and say quite simply, if we are going to open space -- do
that. And if not -- Not. You choose. We'll see how they come out.

Harrison   

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, Maryland   20854
Phone 301-365-2093
Skype hhowen
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com 
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website www.ho-image.com 
OSLIST: To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the
archives Visit: www.listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of
Birgitt
Williams
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 12:43 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Keepin' Busy

Possibly, there is no occasion to even do a sales pitch, much less give
up on one. And possibly there is no occasion to push a client to the
wall in terms of intentions and degrees of freedom.

The client opens the space in the organization for the facilitator to
then do his/her thing with facilitating an OST meeting. Sometimes the
space that the client chooses to open is quite big, sometimes it is very
small. The key in the prep work and working with the givens is whether
the space is stated truly, is authentic. I have never found an
organization that couldn’t open a little space for some conversation.
For example, in the military, it was not about the whole military, it
was only about a master plan for the landscape of the military college,
however it was truly open space for the OST meeting to take place. One
of the givens, stated by the Brigadier General who was also the
commandant was ‘democracy ends on Thursday at 5pm’. He didn’t pretend
that the space was more open than it was. It was very specific to get a
specific job done. And it got done well. Follow up even years later is
that the whole plan was financed and has been implemented. 

Blessings,
Birgitt

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of
Harrison Owen
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 11:11 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: Keepin' Busy

Hey Folks -- I wasn't just giving a report of current activities (I am
alive
and breathing). I was also hoping to spark a little conversation about
such
things as -- when do you give up on the sales pitch and push the client
to
the wall in terms of intentions and degrees of freedom? And what are our
obligations to the client and the participants? And to our selves?

Harrison  

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, Maryland   20854
Phone 301-365-2093
Skype hhowen
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com 
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website www.ho-image.com 
OSLIST: To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the
archives Visit: www.listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of
Harrison
Owen
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 10:22 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Keepin' Busy

I guess I fibbed a wee bit. Yes I am working on a book (or the book is
working on me) - and there are a few other things coming down as well. I
have also been working with a really neat organization which is seeking
to
open some space in a very critical area. And they are more than a little
worried about really opening space. We have been going on and on until I
felt constrained to send the following message. I share it here because
I
thought it might be of interest. As I was writing this about 5 this
morning
I thought fondly of Lisa and her speech about "only the highly
evolved..."
But I didn't think that would work in this case. Needless to say I have
scrubbed all the identifying details.

 Dear XXXX -- I am glad that you still think Open Space is the way to go
--
but I must confess that I am having some reservations. These
reservations
have nothing to do with the capacity of Open Space enable this group, or
indeed any group, to engage in meaningful conversation and come to
useful
conclusions. The issue for me is two fold -- First, Do the sponsors feel
sufficiently trusting and supportive to let the process run? There will
be
moments of high tension, and experience has shown that the people
themselves
can and will handle it all by themselves. The bottom line is that I just
let
it go. Once underway, we are gone, and there is no place for
intervention,
mid-course correction, the conference management committee doing a
re-design. It is all up to the people.

My second area of concern is whether or not what I might call "competing
interests" create conditions that are, to some real extent, antithetical
to
real Open Space. I am thinking particularly of the Press. I clearly
understand the need for press coverage -- just to get the word out. The
problem is that deep conversations can rarely be reduced to sound-bites.
Even worse, deep conversations which are only partially concluded are
even
less susceptible to being sound-bites. I think it is quite possible that
we
will reach the end of the first day in Open Space and there is nothing
to
report -- or at least nothing that anybody wants to report. It is
equally
possible that we will reach the end of the conference in the same
condition.
Several thousand years (well almost) of understandings,
misunderstandings,
ignorance, misperceptions, to say nothing of mis-trust and anger will
not be
resolved in three days. We can make a good effort, and things may well
move
along much further than we have any right to expect -- but expectations
of
any sort can be very problematical. The hard lesson of Open Space (and I
think life as well) is that firm attachment to specific outcomes is
usually
disastrous. When you don't get what you expected the temptation is to
think
that you achieved nothing at all. And if the expectation is that by the
end
we will have a neatly tied up body of conclusions combined with action
plans, all of which may be "briefed" to the Press, I think that is quite
unlikely. Possible for sure -- but unlikely. And should any of this
occur
(or actually NOT Occur) the press will leave frustrated and might well
report total failure. The fact that subtle, but important movement took
place in the building of relationships, the definitions of issues and
opportunities for future conversations (but not immediate resolution)
will
escape them because they were not part of the conversations. That would
not
be, I would judge, a desirable outcome.

An even worse scenario would be if we were to drive the whole conference
towards a final, definitive document with neat conclusions,
recommendations
and actions. That would effectively shut the space down, and the only
way to
assure such an outcome would be to have all of the conclusions,
recommendations and actions defined in advance. Obviously there are
multiple
international conferences that do just that. Such conferences have the
advantage of meeting expectations and maintaining the semblance of
control.
But that is not open space (or Open Space).

The crux of the matter, I think, is that everybody (certainly the
organizing
body) must be willing to exist in that wonderful Great Cloud of
Unknowing.
Something for sure will happen, but there is absolutely no way to
predict or
assure what that "something" might be. Personally, I have always found
that
the "something" we didn't expect was so much better than what was
predicted
as to make everything worth while. But you can never tell in advance.

I have written at such length because I think it is absolutely critical
that
all the responsible parties are totally clear about what we are getting
into
-- which paradoxically is that we really don't have a clue, and
certainly no
guarantees. Hope, desires for sure -- but we will not know what is
achieved
until it has happened, and even then we may not be too sure.

Personally, I also want to make sure that nobody mistakes me for a
salesman
or even an advocate for Open Space. I am delighted to share my
experience
and pleased to offer my services, but the choice on how to proceed is
not
mine to make. Truth to tell, I guess I am an advocate, not for Open
Space
Technology -- but rather for the people and their capacity to make sense
out
of the confusing and progress out of difficulty. But you can never tell
how
it will all work out.

Harrison

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, Maryland   20854
Phone 301-365-2093
Skype hhowen
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com
<http://www.openspaceworld.com/>

Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website www.ho-image.com 
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