AW: Not Open Space

Tue Feb 19 09:14:49 PST 2008

Hi Yoav !

Thank you for sharing your story. I can relate to your experience very
much, the falling in love with Open Space, the disbelief that others
“don’t get it”, the being so sure that it would be just perfect in the
situation described.

You asked for thoughts / feedback, so here are mine:

To me, after falling in love with Open Space Technology in 2003 most
challenging has been to adapt the principles in every day life and fully
LIVE them. Furthermore, to adapt the whole structure of OST and fully
live it. Being able to do that is an ongoing journey. Today, when I
encounter something challenging in my life I invite myself to look at it
from an OST perspective.

Applying this to your situation:
Sounds like you posted the session “Let’s do an OST event” and nobody
showed up

Now you have several options, you can think: “It was a bad idea.” You
can think: “They are too fearful to get it.” You can think: “I can’t
have the session if they don’t come.” You can think: “I’ll start with my
own session ~ obviously I am exactly the right person at the right place
and time to work on this subject.” And let yourself be surprised who
else may show up at a later time. 
(Of course you can also have many other thoughts.) 

What I mean is that a very strong desire to do an Open Space meeting can
cause us to close the space for others (as you also mentioned yourself
in your posting). If you want you could choose to see OS as “the art of
inviting” and keep inviting and allowing those who are the right people
to show up. For myself I like the idea of having this be so delightful
that sooner or later other people come and say, “What’s going on over
there, they seem so happy with what they are doing, I want some of the
same stuff!” (like in the movie Harry & Sally).

A concrete idea: Can you think of any smaller issue with a smaller group
where an OST meeting could be useful?  This could help people build
trust ~ in the method and in you.

Many blessings,
Marei

-- 
Are you doing what you truly desire?

Holistic Facilitation ~ Ganzheitliche Begleitung
PSYCH-K®, PER-K®, Genuine Contact™, Open Space
Rolandstr. 12 • 33615 Bielefeld • Germany
tel:  +49 - 521 – 521 76 43 • mob: +49 - 171 - 810 71 61
info at mareikiele.de • www.mareikiele.de

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: owner-oslist at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
[mailto:owner-oslist at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] Im Auftrag von Yoav Peck
Gesendet: Dienstag, 19. Februar 2008 13:09
An: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Betreff: 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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