Facilitator must be part of the conversations

Thu Aug 2 12:55:09 PDT 2007

Doug wrote:

Chris and all--

Fields work...
Hosting...
living in open space...

You seem to have these evocative phrases swimming about you, Chris.
Would you be so kind as to wax a little more poetic about them, put some
more meat on the bones? They are, I think, getting to the heart of the
question that started this thread....

Well Doug, these phrases are sort of short descriptions of the work I do,
and there is a strange thing about them.  The more I try to define them, to
less important they seem.  To first phrase of the Tao te Ching is something
like, "The eternal Tao is the Tao that cannot be named."  So if you can
accept that anything I am going to say on these matters is actually NOT the
practice of these concepts, and that defining them somehow constrains what
they really mean, then we can proceed.

I'll also ask anyone reading here to excuse a couple of self-links to my
work, but I have been writing about these questions for about six years, not
only on this list, but on my weblogs, most notably, Parking Lot which is at
http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot.

In terms of "fields work", let me say this.  I don't know much about this
subject so I describe it more as experience.  I'm willing to be that most
have us have had the experience of arriving at a venue for a gathering
before everyone else, scoping the place out, senseing what it feels like and
imagining how our event will go.  Then we facilitate an open space meeting
and, being the last ones to leave we notice that the physical feeling of the
space is different.  I wonder why this is?

I think that it has something to do with the quality of our personal
experiences in these spaces.  When we are engaged in an amazing collective
experience, it creates some deep change, even to the point where a room
"feels" different.  We participate in these kinds of collective activities
all the time, but to do so consciously - not in a controlling way, just in a
more aware way - seems to be the essence of working in a field.  It is then
we become aware of things like the impact of our presence on the field
(Lisa's awareness of her power in a group) and we can do things with that
presence.  The essence of doing the right thing in Open Space with that
presence is of course, not doing anything at all, or rather to use the
taoist concept, non-doing.  That is we make a conscious choice about what we
choose not to do and in doing so, we help support a field that supports
emergence, self-organization and real empowerment.  Field working in this
respect is dependant I think on our ability to work on ourselves first,
hence when we adaopt as a practice, living in open space, it changes the way
we see every field of human endeavour, and it does bring us much more in
line with the essentials of running an open sapce meeting.

You ask about hosting as well.  I've been working for a few years now within
the community of practice gathered under the name "Art of Hosting" and, like
Open Space, I can't describe what it is very well.  I think my book, The Tao
of Holding Space (which you can have for free by downloading it from
http://www.chriscorrigan.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.Papers) is my attempt to
describe hosting from the perspective of "holding space."  Hosting has to do
with all of the capacities we use when we engage with clients around an open
space.  Some of these might include:

   - Seeing and sensing patterns in the organization that help to find
   "accupuncture points" for change,
   - Taking a courageous stand for clarity.
   - Encouraging others who are finding their own leadership.
   - Offering teaching where it is of benefit and having the humility to
   be learners in th every next moment.  Being "TeacherLearners."
   - Trusting in the people and holding helpful beliefs about the
   potential of the people.
   - Being prepared to be surprised, and delightedly hosting that
   surprise like a long lost friend coming to pay a visit.

These practices (among many others and we all have our own) are hosting, and
if we extend these into the way we live our lives, it becomes very much a
case of living in open space.  For me, the four principles and the one law
of opens spce (plus my friend Brian Bainbridge's "Be prepared to be be
surprised" and "It's all good :-)") are actually very useful principles for
life.  I really do consciously try to live my life this way, and in doing
so, I have stumbled upon the idea of fields, hosting and so on.  It has made
me no longer a facilitator per se but more of what John Abbe and others call
"a process artist," living as an artist, trying to find the art in
everything about process, including how I ride the bus and step into a venue
to open space.  Our family lives in open space: for example, our children do
not go to school, instead they practice - consciously and fully - the
principles which my partner and I share with our clients.  They work with
mentors aong the lines of "whoever comes..."  They explore the world along
the lines of "whatever happens..." and they are not constrained by
artificial timeframes on things like learning to read and write, creativity
or learning.

If we are in the world saying to clients that "If you are not learning and
contributing, go somewhere where you can" why would we not practice that in
our family and life?  It is my ten year old daughter's favourite principle
for her life - last week she wrote it out on a piece of paper and taped it
to the dining room wall.

Living in Open Space is a constant life practice.  It is about living in
alignment with an Open Space worldview.  It helps support "that feeling" we
get from a good open space meeting, and bringing it into other parts of our
lives.

It seems to me that when we live deeply out of that place, the role of
facilitator and participant seems somehow transcended, so that, while I
appreciate the distinction in some settings, and I honour it quite firmly, I
find that it is a distinction that in many other settings doesn't
necessarily serve.  Living in open space means living in that flow,
discerning the right time for the right view and being open to whatever
happens as a result.

Thanks for asking, Doug.

On 8/2/07, douglas germann <76066.515 at compuserve.com> wrote:
>
> Chris and all--
>
> Fields work...
> Hosting...
> living in open space...
>
> You seem to have these evocative phrases swimming about you, Chris.
> Would you be so kind as to wax a little more poetic about them, put some
> more meat on the bones? They are, I think, getting to the heart of the
> question that started this thread....
>
>                         :- Doug.
>
> *
> *
> ==========================================================
> 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
>

-- 
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

*
*
==========================================================
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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20070802/be880ba8/attachment-0016.htm>