my work of tonight

Joelle Lyons Everett JLEShelton at aol.com
Tue Mar 21 21:09:24 PST 2006


Ted--

My first reaction is that there is always a certain awkwardness in 
facilitating a meeting of a group when you are also a member.

If the group had been a client (even a client I had agreed to work with on a 
pro-bono basis,) there would have been an informal, but written, contract, and 
we would not have been making the decision at the last minute.

I have had clients changing their mind several times in the week of the 
meeting.   I have had a co-client request, the night before, that we provide a 
podium and screen for her overhead presentation.   (We agreed on another way for 
her to offer her information.) In meetings that were not Open Space, I've had a 
keynote speaker cancel the night before a big community meeting, and in 
another meeting, a colleague came to me at lunchtime to tell me that he was leaving 
before his welcoming speech to check into the hospital for chemotherapy--but 
he had already asked someone else to speak in his place.

When reality surprises me, I just have to go from there.   In your situation, 
I might have gone ahead with what was already prepared, or turned the 
leadership over to someone else to do something different--in either case, reserving 
some time at the end for the group to discuss what the next meeting should be. 
  

There are issues about leadership here that need to be addressed, and maybe 
that is your next meeting.   Apparently at least two of you came expecting to 
lead the full group in a prescribed activity.

You may want some conversation about incorporating physical activities into 
Open Space, which is certainly easy to do.   If the activities are proposed as 
sessions in OS, the Law of Two Feet will be in effect, and ideas that are 
imposed on the group will just be ignored.   It also makes it possible for 2 or 3 
who are not interested in the group activity to spend the time productively d
oing something different.

I'm just thinking out loud here, no real solutions for you.   It is an 
interesting question.

Joelle


   


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