Fear of freedom

[Yoav Peck]

						31/10
Friends, 
I'd be interested in anyone's response to the following dilemma. 

I facilitated a one day Open Space with a group of 60 committed people who
ended the day thoroughly excited about the process we had begun and eager
for the continuation. The continuation they clearly want is to create a new
public organization. They were also clear about wanting the process to
continue to be open, a process that will afford access to all who want to
shoulder the doing. The day ended with ten people eagerly volunteering to
sit on the Steering committee that would plan the next steps. 

To the Steering Committee meeting, the sponsor arrived with a written plan
for the guidelines of the organization to be created, which she distributed.
Taken aback, I sought to reframe what she had done. I said that it would be
fine for people to arrive at the next OS with the sort of clarity about what
they want that her paper exemplifies, but I cautioned that space could not
open if the participants were asked to limit themselves to working on
fulfilment of an already-written plan. 

At the moment, the future of the project is in question. It seems that the
sponsor is threatened by the loss of control that OS represents, that she
cannot conceive of heading a process whose end product will not necessarily
jibe with her preconception. 
She believes that "Yoav wants to advance this organization in order to do
open space rather than wanting open space to enable the creation of the
organization." 

She is correct in her assessment of my conviction that a follow-up OS is
what is appropriate now. I also have evidence that tells me that this is
what the participants in the first OS and the Steering Committee want. 

I feel that I need to persuade the sponsor to consider what I see as the
call of the hour: to shift her conception of what leading this effort will
look like. 

She is uncomfortable with the letting go that OS represents. And yes,
freedom is frightening! When I was eighteen and life spread itself before
me, I had recurrent dreams about prison. Anything, my unconscious screamed,
but this awesome blank canvas!

How can I help to make this moment safe for this lady? How can I intervene
in this process, to defuse her need to control it? Have any of you faced
similar situations? 
					Distraught, 
						Yoav Peck, Jerusalem

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist