Bad experiences - was Proximity and Open Space after presentations

Fri Nov 17 14:27:34 PST 2006

Eva – I beg to differ. In no way can I see that either you or Open Space
failed. You clearly opened and held the space, or “they” never would have
found the “dead moose.” And Open Space did what it always does, initiate the
process of self organization so that the people could experience themselves
as they actually are. In short, be authentically present. The problem occurs
when people don’t like what they are! But that is their responsibility. Not
yours. Yes things might have been better if you had been able to have a
“proper pre-meeting.” However, if the “leader” in question was as unable to
face the facts of his (and his organization’s) life as you indicated, I am
not at all convinced that any sort of a meeting would have done much good.
Basic character flaws are rarely cured with a single meeting. Now maybe you
would have seen that the emperor had no clothes, and declined to do the Open
Space – but that would also have been a loss for all those who did
experience “really talking to each other.” No matter what else may, or may
not, have happened, those people will never forget their experience in Open
Space. My bet is that for some (many?) that was a high point in their work
experience – and showed them what they really were and could be. The
frustration occurred when they had to settle for something less, much less.
But as the old saw has it, it is better to have loved and lost than never to
have loved at all. They now have a new benchmark – and some of them will
pursue it. In similar situations I have been surprised with a phone call
later (maybe even years later) from a participant in the group – who starts
the conversation with something like, “You remember that Open Space. . .
some people thought it failed. But for me it was the beginning of my new
life. Let me tell you. . . “

Harrison

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Drive

Potomac, Maryland   20854

Phone 301-365-2093

Skype hhowen

Open Space Training  <http://www.openspaceworld.com/> www.openspaceworld.com

Open Space Institute  <http://www.openspaceworld.org/>
www.openspaceworld.org

Personal website  <http://www.ho-image.com/> www.ho-image.com 

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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Eva P
Svensson
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2006 1:52 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: SV: Bad experiences - was Proximity and Open Space after
presentations

Catherine asked;

Do any of you have experiences which didn’t turn out to be safe – and what
happened next in the organization? Do you follow up and ask what happened in
your client’s organization, e.g. half a year later?

I hear some people saying they had one experience in Open Space which wasn’t
well embedded in the organization and then got frustrated and decided they
would never go for it again. This of course is the worst case and bad
publicity for our passion, Open Space

Please share your bad experiences, we can all learn tremendously from them.

I am late in on this tread – way behind reading e-mails but here is what I
could share , if I hadn’t done it before and if so – here it is again

It was in a public organisation here in Sweden and I and a colleague who
worked with “meeting efficiency” was appointed to work with this
organisations meeting efficiency.. The organisation has offices on different
places and they where not happy with how their meetings used to be
conducted. 

And not to make the story to long -  I will go right to my analysis’ of what
and why it went wrong. Of course the Open Space meeting was not wrong –
everything went well :-) 

The “trouble” begins afterwards when it comes to action and working with the
high prioritized topics. Then it came up that there was “a deed mouse” ~ an
employee problem that no one had touched for years. This woman was not
participating in the meeting for some reason that I don’t know of. So when
it came to make the action that they had decided to work on – if I remember
right it was about “climate” and trust in the groups, the leadership team
was not willing to go forward. – This was clear in the follow up meeting I
had with them after the OS meeting. They had also felt alone – “that it was
all on their shoulders” to do, (and of course they had not gone to action
planning – they did not wanted that) so yes – it was in the leader teams
knee..

So they shut down the process, which was schedule to a series of OST
meetings.  In my eyes this was lack of leadership – to much fear to go into
the real problem and a very hierarchical organisation. We tried to follow up
and report our view with the head of the HR department but he was not
willing to hear what we thought and had seen. So they put the lid upon the
top of every thing and shut the space down. 

So – what I did wrong -->I took the theme we had talked about before for
granted and did not do a proper preparation meeting. I have always before –
and certainly after :-) done a proper preparation meeting, and if I had done
that – for example the story line I think there had been a better chance
that that problem had come up. And the manager “that had the problem” in his
department couldn’t make it to the preparation meeting. So that is another
part of it.

My lesson --> always does a proper preparation meeting, I would never again
say yes to have an OST meeting without that. 

So I guess this will counts as a “failure but, then – who am I to decide
what is failure – it sure was a failure for me, my reputation and Open
Space, but I don’t know if it was a failure for the people who really liked
the process

All the best from west coast of Sweden

:o)

Eva

Bästa hälsningar

Eva P Svensson

EPS Human Invest AB

"Verksamhetsutveckling genom människor skapar långsiktigt välmående företag
och organisationer!"

Anåsbergsvägen 22, 439 34  ONSALA

Tfn: 0300-615 05, Mobil: 0706-89 85 50

 <mailto:eva at epshumaninvest.se> eva at epshumaninvest.se,
<http://www.epshumaninvest.se> www.epshumaninvest.se

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