Head on a Stick

Wed May 21 16:35:00 PDT 2008

Hi Doug,

I think lawyers love OS because they are free thinkers, ie, like artists,
they like to create things, be free to do their own search and thinking. At
least that's what I took from my experience when facilitating an OS meeting
on organizational change with 150 lawyers of a national organization a few
years ago. They just loved Open Space. I got the same reaction from
scientists. They are all loners in a way, who value their independence and
challenging conversations which they can have all they want in an OS event.

Thanks for sharing your experience,

Diane

From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Tree
Fitzpatrick
Sent: 21 mai 2008 18:33
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: Head on a Stick

THANKS, Doug, for this report. My goodness, lawyers in open space. What will
they think of next?

I used to practice law myself. I have heard it said countless times that the
legal profession might be the field most highly resistance to meaningful
dialogue, most highly resistant to any kind of org. development work or
process design. 

I am relieved to know there are groups of holistically-aspiring lawyers out
there.

On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 12:58 PM, douglas germann <76066.515 at compuserve.com>
wrote:

Hi friends--

                           Head on a Stick

The International Alliance of Holistic Lawyers held their annual
convention near Detroit, Michigan, for 3 days in mid-May, 2008. Gathered
were about 2 dozen lawyers with interests in collaborative law, a coach
approach to law practice, healthy practices, and so forth.

The convention started with a six directions circle ceremony and then a
viewing of the film, "One," on Thursday evening. Friday through Saturday
morning were a half-dozen presentations to the circle of lawyers.
Saturday afternoon was given over to Open Space.

The time allotted was from 1:00 to 5:30 pm. Two break out sessions of 90
minutes were invited. In the first half hour, 12 topics were posted by
the 18 or so people who were in attendance. Three of these sessions were
combined to one. The topics were:

    1. Holistic Lawyers doing their own inner work.

    2. Balance teaching.

    3. What's next-back rubs.

    4. I secretly wanted to be L-- and K-- in law school. How do they
       and others get to joy?

    5. Planning 2009 conference.

    6. Teaching other lawyers how to do what we do.

    7. Evolution of consciousness new physics and the coming legal
       profession.

    8. Languaging the movement.

    9. Grounding technique.

   10. Who sees clients' auras?

   11. How to market holistic law so the customer buys!

   12. Getting paid for doing good.

About 30 minutes into the second session time, one of the organizers
observed to me that the conversations seemed to be falling apart, that
several people had left, and asked me what should we do? Indeed, her
observation seemed accurate-people were milling about, speaking in
groups of twos and threes, some were working on their computers, a
couple were sleeping on large pillows in the middle of the floor. What
seemed to generate this state of affairs was that near the end of the
first session time, many of the hosts for the second time slot gathered
around another conversation not yet complete and were ardently engaged
in that conversation for another 20 minutes or more. I suggested we just
trust the people to work it out for themselves.

At the appointed time for the closing circle, 16 people showed up! One
said that he had gone to his room for a nap and felt quite refreshed.

The comments in the closing circle on "What has this afternoon meant to
you?" were rich and deep, more than many open spaces I have observed.
There were tears and laughter, a sense of coming together. The listening
stick was from a presenter the day before, an object she called "a head
on a stick." This captured the sense of the group that they wanted to
move beyond being a head on a stick to full human beings. Their
conversations seemed to have done that work.

Photos of the event are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8850949@N06/sets/72157605178783304/

Of course, this is now my classic getting down to work in OS picture:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8850949@N06/2512207700/in/set-72157605178783304
/

:- Doug.

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist

-- 
Love rays,
Tree Fitzpatrick

http://thecultureoflove.blogspot.com/

. . . the great and incalculable grace of love, which says, with Augustine,
"I want you to be," without being able to give any particular reason for
such supreme and unsurpassable affirmation. -- Hannah Arendt

1335 Montecito Ave Apt. 35
Mountain View, California 94043
(650) 967-9260 * *
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU ------------------------------ To subscribe,
unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of
oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about
OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist 

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20080521/788ae9eb/attachment-0016.htm>