SV: Not Open Space

Tue Feb 19 06:53:34 PST 2008

Dear Yoav

Thanks for sharing your story and your passion – it did inspire me, so
thanks for that!

I am, with some colleagues, working to invite schools in Sweden to find more
life nurturing ways – which of course includes opening space to the great
potential that is sleeping...

I think that may be one key – is to really understand what great potential
is available. If the whole community around the school would become
involved, just imagine what resources would be available (not to mention the
potential sleeping within the actual school). So let them make a mindmap of
everybody who has an interest in that school becoming fabulous! And most
schools (over here anyway) often complain about no resources...

Another key is that they know what/where they are and where they are
heading, preferably before they start thinking about how to get there. Those
of us working with The Genuine Contact™ Program know about the Medicine
Wheel Tool – which builds on ancient wisdom – and is used to invite
conversation and development around the basic foundations – purpose,
leadership, vision, community, management and relations (in that order). An
organization that continuously looks after its balance amongst these aspects
stands, I think, a better chance to go out surfing in open space. End of
June Birgitt and Ward Williams are coming to Sweden offering the learnshop
“Deeper work with the Medicine Wheel Tool”. Would be good to see you here
then! Let me know if you (or anyone else) would like an invitation sent!

I wish you all the best of luck, and remember ... whenever it starts...

Thomas Herrmann, Sweden

  _____  

Från: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] För Yoav Peck
Skickat: den 19 februari 2008 13:09
Till: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Ämne: Not Open Space

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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