Not Open Space

Yoav Peck yoavpeck at netvision.net.il
Tue Feb 19 04:08:55 PST 2008


Not Open Space     

"No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better"

                                                                   Samuel
Beckett

 

I am co-chair of the central parents' committee at my daughter's elementary
school here in Jerusalem. We are a relatively young school that began with a
handful of kids and now numbers 400. Since losing the intimacy of the
school's early years, a plethora of questions and issues has appeared: about
the running of the school, the nature of the parents' community, educational
emphases, student violence, etc. 

Having participated in several OS experiences and then reading Harrison and
obtaining coaching from experienced folks, I led three successful OS events.
I am in love with Open Space, the "technology" and the world-view that
underlies it. So I quite naturally saw a school-wide Open Space event as
something that could respond beautifully to the widely-perceived need to
give the parents a chance to express their concerns and to gather them
together on the way to voluntary, passion/responsibility - motivated
activism in the school. 

 

Along with the curiosity and openness of some folks, I encountered stiff
resistance from others, including the two co-principals. It was expressed in
people's difficulty envisioning what would follow the chaos of the
marketplace, and the opposition to "wasting time at an event with no
agenda." I explained, I described, I brought in an outside OS facilitator to
explain, I gave out written material. The two principals were particularly
nervous about it, and I called other principals who were willing to share
their successful OS experience with our principals.. all to no avail.
Perhaps I wanted OS too much. Perhaps I was sounding righteous about it. I
was even accused of belonging to some kind of OS cult!! Picture me holding
out Harrison's book to my accuser and him refusing to touch it, as though
there were worms crawling around the pages. 

 

What was wrong? Avner Haramati urged me to accept that people could not be
"persuaded" to do Open Space. That I had things upside down. that the proper
order of things would be reached when people would own the idea to the point
that they would be persuading me that OS was right for us. 

 

The Parents' Committee decided to devote an entire evening to deciding what
to do. As I listened to the various points of opposition, and along with
them the deeply-felt need for some kind of event to take place, I yielded.
People wanted structure, they wanted the class representatives to go out to
the class parents and cull the central issues people wanted discussed, and
then to build an agenda around these issues. They were clearly not prepared
to be surprised. 

 

So that's where we are now. In early April, we will hold an event that will
not be Open Space. I somehow do not feel "defeated." An organizational
consultant, I know that we have to "start where the client is." I wrote to
Harrison and now I am curious about how to build on his advice: 

Open as much space as you can, and when the walls close in, take a pause
until the next opportunity. It will come. The other thing is that Open Space
(for me) is less about "doing a program" - than a way of being. It is a
style of approach that just opens space for people to share and grow. You
don't even have to sit in a circle! I think that is what you have been
doing, and I say keep opening.

So this now seems to be the challenge: opening space without Open Space. 

It is exciting to me in a special way, since this feels like living in the
real world, a world where suspicion, fear of losing control, skepticism and
cynicism reign. this is where we live, and learning to uncover the keys to
opening a closed space feels like an important journey. As we build our
non-OS event, there will be countless opportunities for opening space, for
making use of the OS distinctions, for softening our fear of the unexpected.


 

As Rabbi Yitz Greenberg says, I prefer Succoth to Passover. On Passover, we
herald liberation from slavery. Trumpets and glory! But on Succoth we
celebrate the dreary tasks entailed in wearily plodding our way through the
desert, as we daily build and take apart our little huts on the 40 year
schlep to the promised land. At Succoth we celebrate the secrets of living
our way through the desert with the promised land in our hearts, sometimes
slipping to longing for the fleshpots of slavery, but steadfastly
confronting what arises along the way from an inner place that resonates
with our vision of what can be. 

 

I'd be grateful to any of you who have thoughts about any of this. 

Thanks much, 

Yoav Peck, Jerusalem


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