Tuning the bass note: a story from an organization using Open Space in an ongoing way.

[Chris Corrigan]

Hi friends:

It's been awhile since I posted a story about a group I was working with,
but I thought this one might be interesting.

I spent the last week shuttered away in a lovely retreat setting on northern
Vancouver Island amongst eagles, sea lions and killer whales working with a
national organization who is helping indigenous communities to create
effective governance that advances their rights and land title.  The
leadership of the organization are old hands with Open Space; the President
and I worked together for many years using Open Space in communities to
galvanize leadership, and the interim CEO is a close friend and OST
confidante.  These two gentlemen have been wanting the organization to adopt
Open Space as their basic operating system for a year now, and they have
hosted a couple of OST meetings within.  Last week we did two OST meetings
and some training to get things grounded even deeper.

The organization's interest in OST is both as its operational system and to
use in communities to help leadership and community members do the work of
governance.  The community work is interesting, but what I learned this week
was more about how OST is used in a long term way within an organization.

For the last couple of years the organization has been in a developmental
mode and it has focussed much on its structure, roles and responsibilities.
Everything that is done is - technically - supposed to be in a workplan and
supposed to be budgeted and accounted for.  However, the staff of the
organization were finding that there was much work that needed to be done
outside the plans and budgets that would make their formal work more
effective - no surprise really but they discovered how critical this work
is..  In an Open Space last year, the staff got quite turned on to the
potential of the process to identify the "out of the budget" work that
needed to be done.  A number of important projects were proposed and started
but they had thin support from leadership and other pressing issues took
over their time and attention.  Action waned and pessimism crept in.

Last week marked the initiation for a new CEO who is very interested in
making sure there is time and space for staff to work on issues that support
the culture and the relationships within the organization.  This group is
spread wide and thin across Canada and so finding ways to work together
virtually is important, especially to support action planning and follow up
coming from what are becoming regular Open Space events.  So on Tuesday in a
full day OST meeting about the operations of the organization, there were
some excellent conversations on working as a network and supporting an
organizational culture that is both responsible to the plan and budgets, but
agile enough to be able to deal with unexpected opportunities.  Wednesday
and Thursday we did some in house training and then Friday, hosted by three
staff members, we opened space again for action planning on the sessions
that were held on Tuesday.  People got right down to action plans, some of
them creating gant charts and budget allocations.  All the action groups
made commitments for what I call "next first steps" and the new CEO,
recognizing the importance of what was unfolding in front of him invited the
staff to make sure that everyone prioritized the work that came from the OST
even over the other pressing issues they had waiting for them back at their
offices.  He wanted to be sure that the results of the OST had the best
possible chance for success even though they seemed not to be in the already
approved workplans.

I wondered why this was, and we had a conversation along the following
lines:

This group is using Open Space on a regular basis to take care of the work
that is not in the workplans, not in the budget and not necessarily even
directly a part of what their organization seems to be about. But what we
learned this week is that Open Space, used in this way, takes care of the
"bass notes" within an organization. There is a kind of deeper hum within
every organization - call it the culture if you like, but it's more like a
field - that supports the work, generates the working environment and
connects to the purpose of each person. People who are highly satisfied with
their jobs and organization will often feel connected to this deeper field.
They resonate with the bass note, the fundamental note of the chord. When
this note isn't present, it feels like work is not connected into a deeper
pattern. Understand here that I am talking not about organizational purpose
- it runs below that. It is more like organizational inspiration, operating
at the level of the spirit of the place. Making Open Space part of the
operating system of an organization results in tuning this bass note, or
perhaps sounding it again. We have a chance to open space to breathe a
little, get some distance from the mundane tasks of our job and ask some of
the bigger questions about who we are and where the organization is going.

The folks in this organization are lucky that the upper leadership wants to
see things working this way and has provided them with the time and
resources both to meet in Open Space and to carry out the small projects
starting next week that keep the bass note humming. And of course, we tuned
up relationships as well, brought familiarity and warmth to an organization
that is spread thinly across the whole country so that people can remember
how we were when we were together, something that helps them continue to
work virtually.
Thought you'd like to know.   I'll post updates here as they progress.

Chris

-- 
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Facilitation - Training
Open Space Technology

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

Principal, Harvest Moon Consultants, Ltd.
http://www.harvestmoonconsultants.com

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