Follow up for an OS

[Tree Fitzpatrick]

Hi Bea,

It does not really matter, in my view, whether or not the initial OS event
for which you are now planning a followup, three-hour OS, had any action
planning.  What matters is what is present NOW, for you and your client
organization.

I gather from your question what you and the client (I realize you might be
a member of the client organization but I use the word client distinguished
from you because I assume that you seek to serve the needs of the client
org/system and not just your individual inclinations), that a perception has
arisen that a follow up might be useful and that, maybe (it is up to you and
the client to decide) action planning would be a good way to use the
three-hour, follow-up OS.

What matters is NOW. It doesn't matter what happened before.  What matters
what happens in the three-hour NOW.  And in this NOW, Bea, you and the
client are fully free to make this three-hour, follow-up anything you
choose.  I think your question is, in its essence, how can we get a lot out
of this three-hour, follow-up.

Here is how:  As the lead open space facilitator for the three-hour,
follow-up, Bea, you can be holding inside yourself a clear intention that
this brief followup will be plenty of time to get something real
accomplished.  Truly, as the open space facilitator/holder, your clear,
inner work around the intention for the brief followup is very important.
It is also important that your clients/colleagues that want this followup
meeting hold a similar intention.  I also invite you and your
client/colleagues to be holding a clear intention that the results you hope
to see, will, in fact, take place at the mini-followup.  Do some planning
work:  get clear within yourselves and as a collective team about what you
hope to accomplish.  Craft an invitation to the three-hour follow-up that
sets this intention clearly for everyone that is invited to join the
followup.  Open the space that day with your intentions clearly
communicated.

And, and this might just be me, talk a little bit about 'open space time'.
Lightly address and acknowledge that while there might not be as much time
as anyone would like, time is relative and open space time has an amazing
capacity to hold whatever needs to be held.

For me, the inner work of the planners around intention and invitation,
along with a skillful opening of the space always opens enough space.

I recently co-convened the closing day of a four day, evolutionary salon
that had been held mostly in open space.  We began our five days together
with a World Cafe, then we shared three days in open space and then we had
half a day on the fifth day.  Whew!  The salon planners had left the design
of this last day open.  This was a safe choice because Peggy Holman (along
with many other open space facilitators, as it happened) was holding space
at the event so we were in very good hands.  But that last day was designed
by the people who checked inside themselves on the final evening and were
asked to discern for themselves if they were the ones to do the following
day.  With much reluctance, I found myself called to design and lead the
final day.  It had been a rich, complex gathering.  The collective field we
had co-created was powerfully alive.  It did not seem possible that we
could, in the three hours and a half hours available to us,  open the day,
have something happpen, and still have a closing circle.  Well, of course,
we had to have all those elements:  open the day, have something happen
around action planning, close both the day and the five-day gathering.  How
could we do it with so little time?  Well, we did it in open space time.
We made a few abortive attempts to plan around midnight, even though we were
all so tired.  A big thing on our minds was time:  there was so much that
needed to be accomplished.  Action planning, closing the collective space,
handling administrative details.  Someone, maybe Peggy, reminded us that we
would be doing it in open space time. . . . I felt such relief.  I realized
that if I trusted that three and one half hours was enough time, then it
would be enough time.  To make a long story short, there was plenty of
time.  We got everything accomplished that we needed to accomplish and, I am
pretty sure most present would agree, the timing was one of the best parts.
We actually created an outline of the time:  five minutes for this, ten
minutes for that . . . and to our great amazement, everything got done in
almost exactly the timeframe we set.  The whole circle of eighty people, of
course, co-created that day, not just the four people who led the day, but
there was enough time for everything. . . AND it was a great day.  For full
disclosure, I want to also tell you that Ashley Cooper, who is active on
this list, was another one of the leaders of this short-but-full day.  There
were four of us and we were awesome but so was everyone else.

There will be all the time you need in your three-hour, follow-up, Bea, if
you yourself are clear that there is enough time.

--
Warmly,
Tree Fitzpatrick
Hearthkeeper for Evolutionary Salons

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