Going underground as facilitator - Follow-up

Wed Jul 16 14:46:13 PDT 2008

Chris - I love the phrase: "I would say that holding space means helping the
group find its highest potential realized."But I am not quite sure how you
intend it. First of all who is to judge? What are the criteria? And whose
criteria are they anyhow? If the answer to all of the above is: The
Facilitator - that would require a deep understanding of the group, it's
potential and the context in which everything is happening (major success on
a truly bad day may be just keeping your head above water :-)). Possible I
suppose, but that is something I have never achieved, and wouldn't even know
how to start. If the answer is "The Group" - then my fog of confusion
lessens slightly, but only slightly. It feels better, but I don't see any
special role for myself - except to open more space and let the Folks figure
it out. And then we come to my real point of confusion. Apparently there are
times when you (as facilitator) just have to do the "Drill Sergeant routine
-- "For some groups, in some contexts this might be a very controlling kind
of thing and for other groups not so much." If so - what happened to the
open space? I confess. I'm confused! Help!!

Harrison

Harrison Owen

189 Beaucaire Ave

Camden, ME 04843

207-763-3261 (Summer)

301-365-2093 (Winter)

Website www.openspaceworld.com 

Personal Website www.ho-image.com 

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From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Chris
Corrigan
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 2:59 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: Going underground as facilitator - Follow-up

Great questions Marc!

On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 11:13 AM, Marc Steinlin (I-P-K)
<marc.steinlin at i-p-k.ch> wrote:

What means "holding space"? What is the function, if demonstrably one can do
without?

The $100,000 question!  Several of us over the years have written things on
it (I <http://www.chriscorrigan.com/ftp/Tao_of_holding_space.pdf>  wrote a
whole book trying to understand it) but it is an elusive process.  And I
think it changes with the scale and size of the group AND most importantly
with the pre-existing depth of their own relationship.  

If I was to generalize I would say that holding space means helping the
group find its highest potential realized.  For some groups, in some
contexts this might be a very controlling kind of thing and for other groups
not so much.  In my expereince where there is a deep underlying and
pre-existing architecture of relationships and collaboration, there is very
little an individual can do to control the outcome, so getting out of the
way seems the best option.  Lately I'm learning a lot about working with
fields of learners or people engaged in large scale and longer term change.
What I'm learning is that it takes a field to hold a field, as my late
friend Finn Voldtofte once said.  In other words, at large levels of scale
within organizations or communities, the act of holding space is actually
all about attending to the relationships of the group of people that are
holding the deepest intention for the work.  In an organizational
development context this means that the core team spends a great deal of
time working on its own relationships and in so doing, they are able to hold
space for the bigger field of learning.

And then having said all of that, I think there is an art  to intuitively
knowing how much or how little to "hold."

Or is it really that the group as a whole can hold space (which seemed to be
the case)? Any group?

Yes a group can hold its own space, but not any group.  My hunch is that we
can let go into groups like this when there is at least a minimal form of
relationship in place.  How much or how little is immeasureable, but you can
sense whether a group has that capacity or potential if you let go of your
expectations for the role of facilitator.  

Why do we really need any facilitator throughout the event?

I am working a lot these days with the chaordic path, the idea that there is
a way forward if we dance between chaos and order.  In that respect I think
the facilitator can play a valuable role in brining minimal elegant
structure to chaos so that the conditions for self-organization might be
met.  At it's most basic level, this structure looks like or is an
invitation, a calling question that taps passions and responsibility  Once
passion and responsibility are tapped, the group can look after itself.

And consequently under which conditions can we dispense with it?

Most of our lives are spent without facilitators helping us be around other
people.  We can learn a lot from those situations.  If you engage in a
little appreciative inquiry project on your own life, you might remember
stories about times in your life when you experienced great strides without
a facilitator.and then harvest the key conditions from those stories.

What is the risk? Can this go totally wrong?

The risk is always that it won't work, that a group won't discover its
highest potential.  And although whatever happens is the only thing that
could have (and that means you need to pay attention to the space to hold at
the outset), if there is much at stake and the group finds itself unable to
work without some form and leadership, the stake will be lost, as will the
opportunity.  But in complex living systems, there is no such thing as
totally wrong anyway - everything that happens is food for everything else.
If however you have an expectation that there is a right and a wrong result,
there is always the risk that a group might acheive the wrong result.

In my experience, it pays to create the conditions in which the host team
and the group itself understands this approach to complex systems and self
organization. so that you are operating with a learning environment rather
than a right/wrong dichotomy.

Thanks for the questions Marc.  Anyone coming to OSonOS that wants to
convene a session with me on this, to explore these conditions a bit
further?

Chris
-- 
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Facilitation - Training - Process Design
Open Space Technology

Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com

Principal, Harvest Moon Consultants, Ltd.
http://www.harvestmoonconsultants.com 

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