SV: Holding space in the small group

[Tree Fitzpatrick]

Doug's query reminded me of  a 4.5 day OS event in January 2006 that I
attended as a participant.

Someone on the planning team (not the event facilitator) asked people to
post not just the topic of the converation they offered in the Market Place
but to anotate the 'format' that would be used in that session. To
illustrate:  I might have posted that I wanted to talk about "Martians
Landing in Nevada" but, in order to comply with the request, I was supposed
to anotate, right there on my offering, "presentation and/or facilitated
dialogue and/or name-conversation-method-you-will-use.

I was not on this planning team, nor was I the OS facilitator, so I don't
know all of the backstory.  but I think that the person who insisted on
making this request simply hated OS and she wanted to be sure that she only
went to sessions that, in her mind, were better organized and conventionally
facilitated.  Her intervention, to ask people to explain how a topic would
be convened once one got to the breakout group, was clunky and awkward.  It
cast a pall on the day, if you ask me.

Having said that, though, I will also say that anyone convening a session at
any OS event is fully free to say "I want to have a XYZ kind of session". .
. .Speaking personally, I would stay away from such efforts to control the
dialogue.

Speaking as an OS facilitator, I try to do what Harrison has outlined:
remind people that if they don't like their experience, they are fully free
to do something to change it.

I agree with what Sheila said, too.

I think it is best when the space remains open in all sessions at an OS
event but whatever happens is. . .


On 3/5/07, Sheila Beauchemin <s.beauchemin at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> I recently held an open space in which some of the issues you mention came
> up - dominant individual, different facilitation styles/abilities of
> convenors etc.  I am new to facilitating in open space but I resisted the
> urge to jump in and "correct" what traditionally would have been viewed as
> poor group dynamics.  I remained in my corner seat, quietly avaiable as I
> had mentioned I would be.  Gradually, over the course of the morning,
> something interesting happened.  Every now and then, someone would stop by
> and sit down at my little cafe table.  One person said, "You didn't give
> any guidance on how to facilitate in the small groups and it is
> frustrating.  The convenor doesn't seem in charge and is not writing on
> the flip charts."  My response was to ask, how could you have contributed
> to the group to resolve what she saw as an issue?  Could you have offered
> to capture some of the ideas on a chart?  Being a convenor does not
> necessarily also mean responsibility for 100% of the facilitation of the
> group.  Faced with this notion, the individual seemed to look at the day
> very differently.  I had a couple of other questions of this nature
> throughout the morning but by the afternoon, those floating to my table
> were more interested in sharing their excitement and fascination with
> their experience then with any perceived facilitaion problems.
>
> I know this doesn't address your question specifically but perhaps it
> provides some food for thought.
>
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-- 
Love rays,
Tree Fitzpatrick

http://thecultureoflove.blogspot.com/

. . . the great and incalculable grace of love, which says, with Augustine,
"I want you to be," without being able to give any particular reason for
such supreme and unsurpassable affirmation.  -- Hannah Arendt

Phone:  650-967-9260
1335 Montecito Ave #35
Mountain View, CA 94043

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