a field report (way long)

Raffi Aftandelian raffi at BK.RU
Tue May 13 15:29:31 PDT 2008


Dear fellow spaceholders,

Fresh back from a little over a month in Moscow and St. Petersburg working
with OST and related approaches, I’d like to share a little of my
impressions and questions. Overall, not sure there is much here to add to
the larger Open Space conversation, but I feel it is important to share
nonetheless. I’m also sharing here not just on OST but related approaches in
part because I think all of this work spoke to creating and experiencing the
larger Open Space of life.

I arrived in Moscow the evening of April 2nd and the morning of April 4th
conducted a one day Introduction to Dynamic Facilitation (DF) workshop for a
group of corporate trainers at the invitation of a trainer development club
called the Mark Kukushkin Open Trainer University (otumka.ru) I’ve only been
working with DF for six months and most of that experience has been one on
one phone work. So, it was definitely a risk to go ahead and offer this
workshop to a group of 15. 

It helped to frame this workshop as an experiment and also to invite people
to set aside all their knowledge about training and learning aside for the
purposes of the workshop. Even though- as I expected- DF did not deliver a
breakthrough or aha!- 1 ¼ hours is just not enough time in the space of a
daylong workshop to experience that- the short time they had to practice and
also to reflect on the process. Open Space principles using a Whole Person
Process Facilitation container
(http://genuinecontact.net/mtg_whole_person.html) informed the design for
this and all the other workshops conducted during my stay. By the end of the
workshop even the most skeptical saw value in the approach and seemed
interested in trying it out even (or especially?) as it challenged most
directly the whole Change Management paradigm. 

Inspired by the example of Thomas Herrmann, I’ll be following up with this
(and the other groups) 4-6 months from now to evaluate the effectiveness of
these workshops.

April 5th was a full day Introduction to OST workshop at the same trainer
club, with a few of the same participants, altogether a group of 15. Olga
Zolotareva, previously a corporate trainer with Beeline, one of Russia’s Big
Three cellular providers, co-held the space within the workshop for a 4 hour
OST meeting “My growth edges as a trainer/coach: issues and opportunities.”
Among the 10 topics: 

“How to win a corporate tender”
“What benefit is there in corporate learning programs?”
“The coach/trainer at the summit: what does she/he think about?”
“Different applications of OST”
“Knowledge management in trainings”

A mini-non-convergence was held – if I’m using the term correctly- where
participants were invited to develop action plans, announce a new topic, or
further discuss a previously announced topic.

This was perhaps a first time in my experience in really being able to
discern what words in explaining how they would be invited to work would
best serve the group. And special attention was given to reduce the Magic
Charm Effect in part by pausing and having silence in the opening only so
much and not to a point that could cause discomfort among the participants.
It has really helped to listen over and over to disk one of “Understanding
Open Space” and to hear how Harrison subtly invites the shamanic in the
opening..

Part of what was emphasized in the context of this OST meeting was:
a) an invitation to consider what personal successes they were embarrassed
of- a way of considering perhaps that sometimes success is really a time
when one held back and didn’t take the full risk and did something well but
not terribly differently from before; in other words control was not let go of

b) an invitation to consider which personal oops, failures, catastrophes,
and fiascoes they have to celebrate as delicious indications of growth
opportunities, road signs which scream loudly “take risk here!”

This seasoning in the opening really seemed to help the group to get
straight to work as if they’d taken part in OST many times before (they hadn’t).

The overall design for the OST one day learning workshop was:

Introductions (a process-facilitated “transfer-in” using illegally imported
into Russia natural objects from San Diego, Florida, and Iran. Participants
took an object from the center and were invited to ask themselves what the
object told them about what brought them to the workshop)

A little about the workshop- with an invitation to set aside everything they
know about training, facilitation for the duration of the workshop to
maximize their own benefit from the workshop

Hopes and fears- work in groups of four on identifying their own hopes and
fears regarding the workshop

A break

Then the 4 hour OST meeting

Another short break

And then five questions were posted around the room – drawing on the core
questions, as I understand them, in the Genuine Contact Program’s three-four
day OST learning workshop -

- what do the participants, sponsor, facilitator feel during an OST  meeting? 
- what is OST?
- what are key elements of OST’s form?
- what are key elements of OST’s essence?
- what does the facilitator do to prepare the sponsor, facilitate the OST
meeting, and to follow up?

And the participants were invited work with these 5 “sessions”
simultaneously for 30 minutes as if in OS. They were also invited to
announce any other sessions, which they did. Time was set aside to answer
any questions. And I did a little presentation about when to use/not use
OST, working with the sponsor, and the energetics of walking the circle
(sorry, Jack!, no meditations on the romantic quality of a Brighton bicycle
horn!) with a little bit of practice with the whole group in the last.

At the end of the workshop, I invited anyone who cared to to step forward to
conduct a week later a follow up meeting and a further meeting 4-6 months
down the line.  Doesn’t look like it will happen.

It was really refreshing to see how easily people for the most part took to
this kind of facilitation and to see how much ground could be covered in the
space of a day.

Overall, it was really palpable how in the space of less than a year and a
half- since the last time I was in Russia, living there- how time has
speeded up even more and space is even more compressed. On the one hand
there seems to be less space for grassroot initiatives and social change –
what with the continuing building by the Kremlin of the so-called Power
Vertical-, and on the other hand the soil, air, water seem even riper than
ever for Open Space. 

People just took to it like ducks to water, even if at the outset of the
workshop there was this energy of people sitting with crossed arms with a
look that seemed to say “What does this American have to show us?!”

The following day Sergei Shchepilov and Anna Bernikova who some met at the
Kiev or Moscow WOSonOS held the space for a daylong stammtische/mentoring
circle for about ten of us in Moscow. The romantic process-oriented in me
was magically charmed by the use of the jaw harp and a Russian jerry-rigged
version of the Tibetan temple bells- Sergei took the “tongue” out of two
Valdai bells and strung them together. Not sure there were any specific
business results from our gathering but it was great fun, OS storytelling,
and conversation held in a perfect space: an nonprofit art gallery
displaying paintings by children with disabilities.

A little over a week later conducted an 1.5 hour storytelling workshop at
Intertraining’s annual gathering of trainers and consultants. Just about
everyone – a group of 13- was surprised –almost uncomfortably so- how deep a
group of people who had never met before can get with a simple storytelling
circle. So many layers of meaning, so many questions elicited from the
stories told.

And before heading off for St. Petersburg, I conducted another daylong
workshop, an Introduction to Dynamic Facilitation with a nonprofit
organization that invited me to do an OST strategic planning session a
number of years ago and now was regularly using OST for its own strategic
planning and programmatic work. Aside from yet another set of aha’s! from
people participating in the DF workshop it was exciting to hear that they
were now interested in exploring becoming a Conscious Open Space
Organization. Indeed, when they first experienced OST, they exclaimed “Why,
we’ve always been in Open Space!” Looking forward to following up with them
on this.

The Coaching Institute (coachinstitute.ru) in St. Petersburg had invited me
to conduct a three day OST learning workshop (as part of the Genuine Contact
Program). Previously, on the list I’d mentioned their bimonthly initiative
in partnership with other organizations, the Director’s Club
(directorclub.ru), a three hour OST meeting for CEO’s of St.
Petersburg-based companies. Talking with them before, during, and after the
workshop, I really came to appreciate and admire their work deeply. 

The coaching they teach in their two year program is really something at the
nexus of coaching, psychotherapy, and facilitative leadership adapting
Western approaches to a Russian context. The Law of Two Feet – “the courage
to express what you want” in their parlance- carries through everything they
do. And I felt privileged to be conducting this learning workshop with one
of four organizations I have worked with in Russia that make an intimate
connection between Spirit and Practice. 

The structure of the workshop was essentially working with the same
questions as in the one day workshop, of course in more depth. Altogether
there were about 15 participants, including from the North Caucasus and
Siberia, about 1/3 were from the Coaching Institute, 2/3 were from other
(commercial) organizations or were representing themselves. Surprisingly,
some of the workshop participants had never even heard of OST before and yet
based on the workshop announcement had elected to come from thousands of
miles away!

As part of the workshop there was a four hour OST meeting on the topic of
“Creating Healthy Organizations: Issues and Opportunities.”

Seven topics were announced, and there was again a non-convergence. Among
the topics:

Russian business: Is it healthy? And to what extent?
The health of the CEO and the health of the organization- what is the
connection?
Using training and psychological workshops to introduce corporate standards
into a dealer network
Ambitious people, Grand goals: How can organizations avoid limiting them and
rather use them fully?
The consultant’s role in organizational renewal: what is he/she truly
capable of?

Highlights for the participants included the Whole Person Process design of
the workshop. Participants remarked on the surprising spaciousness of the
learning experience throughout and how the learning process seemed to be
markedly different from a typical training.

As a group we did return to and talk about the original invitation for the
workshop. Initially, people who’d signed for the workshop had been invited
to co-design and co-lead the whole workshop, including the prep work and
follow-up work connected with it. 

Seeing as this was the first time I’d ever extended such an invitation for a
workshop and that the group hadn’t apparently had prior experience, this did
not happen. What did happen, however, was planting of seeds and my sharing
some of my beliefs with the group that anytime we are in a learning
situation where there is a set program – even if it can be changed – the
open space for wonder and imagination, for giving birth to practical,
applicable situational knowledge is rather limited. That the deep learning
happens where the formal workshop leaders and participants are partners in
developing the workshop and its implementation and follow up. Who knows,
maybe next time the group might be able and willing to respond to this kind
of invitation?

Speaking of invitation, the personal practice of invitation and inviting
leadership (as elaborated by Chris Corrigan and Michael Herman) really had
people buzzing. It felt really liberating that they were being invited
throughout to engage in whatever was planned, no need to “manage” the
participants!

The Coaching Institute people really seem to take a ball and run with it.
Very curious as to where they take this further.

The group was invited to join the larger OS and Genuine Contact community
and looking forward to seeing them on an OSlist or a WOSonOS near you!

The following day I had the pleasure of working again with the Soldiers
Mothers of St. Petersburg
(http://www.soldiersmothers.ru/pages/english/presentation.htm) A number of
years ago I shared a little about working with them in OST. This time I
introduced them to Dynamic Facilitation, working with internal
organizational issues. One of the aha’s from our two days of work together
was that in this highly turbulent time the main thing the organization
should focus on at a minimum is just to remain open, continue operating. The
organization just by its existence plants many seeds and the day will come
when the Power Vertical will just shift by itself into the Power Horizontal.

We also continued an earlier conversation on how the organization might
potentially co-organize a series of public conversations using OST with
“problem” military bases – where a culture of torture and forced
prostitution of recruits is especially pronounced- on how they can work
together. This is not entirely a science fiction notion, it is doable.
Ideas, thoughts on moving this concept forward are welcome!

And lastly in the oops! department – and frankly, I share this to also
invite others on the list to share their oops!, however small; I think we
learn more from each others’ boo-boos more than from our glorious triumphs,
inspiring as they may be-: in doing a one day strategic session toward the
end of my stay with one organization, with a group of ten, I made a grave
error: one of the participants was there with her two year old. I’d seen the
child beforehand but it had not occurred to me to give thought to how the
child might invite an additional dimension during the opening. Needless to
say, during the opening, the child fell quite in love with the temple bells
(Magick charms again?) and dragged them across the floor making quite a
ruckus. It was a very messy, unclear opening for many of the participants.
And on top of that, many said they did not feel like I’d held the space.
They’d wished that I’d been in full view even if I was not party to the
conversations. And yet, my experience was that I was breathing with them the
whole time, sitting in the closest room, thinking of the group, and making
sure that I would not be too close to hear their conversations! Indeed, the
sponsor said he felt cheated. It was important to the group after the
closing just for me to hear them out, and for me to honestly acknowledge
where I felt I’d come up short…and where I hadn’t. And to honestly and
openly express my sadness about how things had not worked out as wished for.

I don’t think that’s the whole story, because others expressed privately
that this was a very productive meeting, with a chance to really get real in
a way that does not usually happen in their business meetings. Another
remarked that the meeting took their organization to a qualitatively
different level. Still much to chew on here!

At the Moscow WOSonOS in 2006 Birgitt (Williams) shared how she was – in her
words- probably a slow learner as she found something new in OST and OS
every time she invited Harrison for a learning workshop in Canada for seven
years in a row. Indeed, my key learning from that WOSonOS is that I know
(next to?) nothing about OS/OST.

I continue to make these huge, basic mistakes. If OS and OST has taught me
anything, however, it has helped me to be more forgiving of myself and others. 

One of the personally satisfying things to hear in the OST learning workshop
was a sense from the participants that the workshop leader really seemed to
live the principles of the approach. As I continue to wonder if I have a
personal practice of OS and what it looks like, it’s heartening to hear such
feedback for the first time!

Thank you for reading and letting me share this story. And continuing to
marvel and enjoy being part of the OS/GC communities.

In appreciative granularity,
raffi

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