Interpretations of Open Space

[Harrison Owen]

I was really struck with Chris Weaver's piece about Indigenous Science - if
only because (as my twisted mind saw it) it fit right in with a wonderful
extended conversation I have been having with some Japanese colleagues.
These are the self same people I wrote about some time ago who promised to
introduce me to a Zen Master who never showed up - except that it turned out
the Master was already present in the person of the company's President. We
are going to talk a lot more next Fall, and in preparation for that
conversation I sent them the following. The note is actually addressed to
Yumiko, a daughter of the president who has been acting as the go-between,
given my total lack of fluency in Japanese.

*****************************

 Three Days of Dialogue: When I met with your Father and your colleagues at
your "other" office what intrigued me the most were the parallels and
convergences between my observations of the evolution of human
consciousness/Spirit and those of your Father. I could see (or perhaps
better "feel") many possibilities coming out of this discussion in terms of
a deeper understanding of the power of Open Space as a consciousness
enhancing experience and also the role of the facilitator in Open Space. The
time was too short, and we could not go deep enough, but it was definitely a
start. 

Thinking back on that experience and looking forward to our time together,
it occurred to me that while the conversation was definitely great, it
perhaps started at the wrong point. Let me be specific.

As you all know, I believe that one of the ways of understanding why and how
Open Space works is to see it as an expression of self-organization. The
real point is that there is no particular "magic" in the method (OS), it is
just that I just happenstantially (my two martini story) found a way of
enabling groups to quickly and easily self-organize around issues of
concern. But self-organization has been around a lot longer than Open Space,
and for sure I did not invent it! What this suggests is that the starting
point of our conversation should not be Open Space, but rather that which is
behind or beneath Open Space - self-organization. Or put in slightly
different terms, Open Space becomes a very handy laboratory environment in
which to observe and experiment with the force of self-organization.

One of the things that we have noticed over the years with Open Space around
the world is that no matter the culture of the participants, the actual
behaviors are almost identical in all cases. Which might lead to the
conclusion that all human beings respond to the power of self organization
in an identical manner on the level of discrete behaviors. This would make
sense if only because self-organization has been an operative force in the
universe well before the arrival of human beings. In a word we all started
from the same place. But what we have never really looked at (thought about,
questioned) is what do different groups of people think about their
experience, and how do they make sense out of it? 

This is getting a little complicated I am sure - but my thought is this.
Just as all human beings have made certain accommodations to Gravity in
terms of their behavior (nobody wants to jump off a cliff, for example) -
how they think about Gravity, the story they tell about it, is probably
quite different from group to group. In the case of self-organization, I
suspect that something similar may have taken place.

At a behavioral level we all respond to self-organization in the same way, a
response which is largely automatic and unconscious. But different
cultures/traditions will have interpreted our responses and the forces which
instigated them in many ways. For example in the Chinese tradition it seems
to me that one might understand the writings of Sun Tsu / "The Art of War"
to be such an interpretation. I have no idea what the Zen interpretation
might be, but maybe you do? In the Native American traditions, I do know
that the people spend much time, thought and energy seeking alignment with
the "flow of mother earth." There always seems to be a Spiritual dimension
to all of this, or more exactly the distinction between the Spiritual and
the material is blurred, eliminated, or simply reversed in terms of priority
or "realness." (Hindu/Buddhist story is that consciousness is primary and
matter only an "illusion.") All of these traditions are united by a common
fact - they are old, very old. At least they are very ancient when compared
with the "Modern, Western Scientific Tradition."

Until very recently, Western Scientific Tradition had absolutely no story
about Self-Organization. In fact it had never even noticed
self-organization. It is only within the last 20-30 years that the awareness
of self-organization has forced itself into the world of Western Science. Up
to this point, this has been a very uncomfortable and even traumatic
experience, and at some level, the emerging stories/theories have been
dedicated to containing, or even invalidating the "reality of
self-organization." A small, but interesting example of this is the general
reaction to Open Space in the West. Even though it has been used thousands
of time with similar results, OS is treated as an odd, surprising exception
which really should not even happen. Contrast this reaction with the typical
reaction I have encountered in Indigenous Societies in Africa and the United
States where I have been privileged to "Open Space." There is no sense of
surprise except the surprise that I as a westerner would "know" how to do
such a thing!

Well I have gone on, perhaps too much. But my thought for our
conversation/dialogue might be this. That we start with the ball in your
court and ask the question: How would you interpret Open Space (and
therefore self-organization) in terms of the Zen tradition? How would you
tell the story? What sense would you make out of the experience? What
special things can we learn about Open Space and self-organization when
viewed from Zen eyes?

In preparation for all this, it would obviously be helpful if you all could
have done some Open Spaces with yourselves and/or with some clients - so
that the experience is your own. And I, of course, will be pleased to add
whatever I can from my own experience. 

I have no idea where this would take us, but I am positive that the scenery
on the journey will be most interesting. And who knows, if something really
works, maybe someday we could expand the conversation to include others who
will bring different traditions?

Just some thoughts - and Yumiko if this doesn't work, there are all sorts of
other thoughts.

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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