FW: Is Anybody Home?

[Harrison Owen]

From: kiwipioneer at farmside.co.nz [mailto:kiwipioneer at farmside.co.nz] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 5:06 PM
To: hhowen at verizon.net
Subject: Re: Is Anybody Home?

G'day Harrison

Nice to receive your message. I'm in the opposite state here as the days
lengthen and warm up; which is bloody nice!

I have been doing an OST with our local council and with local body
elections this weekend I may be doing a workshop with the newly elected
council. The main reason really is to begin conversations between them and
seek greater cohesiveness. Elected councillors see it as their role I think
to be adverserial often to the detriment of common pupose; usual stuff of
egos and point scoring.

Anyway I am in the throes also of having chemotherapy which I don't have to
tell you allows me real vision as to what is important in my life!  The open
space I did with the council staff prior to the election went the best of
any I've ever been involved with. Ofcourse not because of me but inspite of
me. It was a salutary lesson in less is more and letting go the outcome of
the day. I think I made a giant leap to realising that other than ensuring
logistics were organised and holding the space whatever happens is out of my

hands. I can't tell you how freeing this has been and actually has increased

my confidence for my next workshops.

So chemo has been a gift of sorts. Me who thought I was God's gift to 
facilitation has stuggled to grasp the concept of  doing less. Maybe in 
action but not in what has been going on in my head.

I've actually had chemo therapy thirteen years ago and at that time found 
this quote which has more or less become the theme of my life:

I have been summoned to explore a desert area of man's heart
in which explainations no longer suffice,
and in which one learns that only experience counts

Thomas Merton - Hidden Ground of Love.

All the best
Mike Copeland
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harrison Owen" <hhowen at verizon.net>
To: <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 1:53 AM
Subject: Is Anybody Home?


Presumably, everybody is busy with useful stuff or just taking a nap (:-)),
but it seems a while since I heard from all my friends. Personally, I have
come back south from my summer abode in Maine and have started on the
Winter's chores. Not that it is really like work, but I find myself thinking
a lot about where OST has taken me. At the simplest level OST as become a
marvelous natural experiment probing a very different understanding of the
capacity of human beings for productive and fulfilling work, and the way we
might approach the work that we do. Several years ago I wrote a book, "The
Practice of Peace," exploring the work of Peace Making. Currently on my desk
is another effort looking at the ways in which we have sub-optimized and
underestimated the capacity for superior performance. Whether this actually
turns into a book or not, remains to be seen, but the interest is there. And
then there is the marvelous opportunity to do an OS with a large software
company designing a new major product line. I think we could learn just how
ineffective we have been in this area, and how one might radically raise the
level of performance. And I am wondering what you may have discovered???

For example, we have used OST quite a bit in an educational environment
apparently to good effect. But then my question is what have we learned
about the nature of education and how we might do it better. And of course,
here in the US we are totally enmeshed in the Political Season and I wonder
what we may have learned about the political process, and how to do it
better and more effectively. . . Just Wondering.

Harrison

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, Maryland   20854
Phone 301-365-2093
Skype hhowen
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/>

Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website www.ho-image.com
OSLIST: To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives
Visit: www.listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
<http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html>



*
*
==========================================================
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

*
*
==========================================================
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