Conflict in community

[ORT MARIA]

Claudia re...Walmart story.. . 
Your way of being in that situation was authentic, pure, open, and BRILLIANT - "focusing on ....and holding the complexity long enough to be able to re-align and identify actionable steps." 
Maria Ort 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Claudia Haack 
  To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU 
  Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 9:44 PM
  Subject: Re: Conflict in community


  Chris,



  I had the doubtful pleasure to be the project planner (city representative) on a "Keep Wal-Mart Out" project many years ago.  People were very positional, to the point of threatening each other and on both ends of the spectrum.  At the time I didn't know about open space - or lets just say I didn't know that there actually was a thing with a name.  What I did know was that I had only 6 months (the time of the development moratorium) and not a clue how to deal with this.  So, I started with some public hand-wringing (as in : gosh, this is really complex, isn't it? ), basically feeding the "positions" back to everybody and letting each of them really "see" the other.  Open Space is much more elegant at this than I was then, but it is a similar concept.  I gave them a lot of "airtime", at the same time gently reminding them of the concept that indeed, we are all sitting in the same boat, this is as good as it gets, and if this group of talented, dedicated citizens cannot come up with a reasonable (or maybe even inspired) solution, who could?  Well, they did come up with a very inspired (award - winning) solution which was unanimously adopted by the City Council (!).



  More directly to your question, I think I would not focus on the positional aspects of this, but the complexity.  I believe that some of the frustration and anger in situations like this actually comes from not being able to "hold" the complexity long enough to be able to re-align and identify actionable next steps.  Sharing the acknowledgement that indeed, this is complex and that that is in itself frustrating is a great step forward and possibly a positive outcome for a "first" Open Space. 



  Claudia



  Claudia Haack

  KAIROS Alliance Inc.

  tel. 608.288.8315

  fax.480.247.4824

  -----Original Message-----
  From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Chris Corrigan
  Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 10:17 AM
  To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
  Subject: Conflict in community



  Hi Folks:

  An inquiry for you.

  I've had a couple of conversations this week with people involved with local school boards in the United States.  The common themes in these conversations include high degrees of local conflict, positional politics, an extreme lack of resources over which no one locally has any control and labour relations that are best described as toxic. 

  IN a conversation today, one man said that he wanted to try Open Space simply as a way to have all the parts of the system understand each other.  I suggested that this might not bring the peace he was looking for, as people who would come to that kind of meeting hoping to convince others of their righteousness would feel at the end of the day that they were either winners or losers.  I thought that result wouldn't necessarily be transformational.  When I asked him if instead we couldn't issue an invitation to invite people essentially to answer the question "how can we BE together differently in this system" he balked a little at the notion of a smaller group of "like minded" individuals.  Of course I don;t see this as starkly black and white, but nevertheless, he thought an "airing of the issues and a shared understanding" were most important. 

  So my question goes to people who have worked in this situation, with groups that are highly wedded to positions.  What are the kinds of invitations that allow for "airing," generated shared understanding, and perhaps lead to transformative relationships? 

  By the way, I told him I would do this for less than 1.5 days.

  Thoughts and reflections welcome.

  Chris

  -- 
  CHRIS CORRIGAN
  Consultation - Facilitation
  Open Space Technology 

  Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
  Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com
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