Fear in the face of an upcoming OST-meeting

[Harrison Owen]

Just tell your client to relax and take a deep breath. It's all going to
work. The people will be the people, and what you see is what you got. Could
be that they will collectively decide to destroy the company, but that is
probably not too likely. Of course I do remember a time when a small company
asked me for an Open Space on their future. We did it, and by lunch time on
the first day they had all concluded they didn't have a future.  The
President was a mite surprised, but nobody else was. The company was
essentially dismantled there and then - however by dinner time, there were
two new businesses. Time at the bar was beneficial. To the best of my
knowledge those two business are alive and doing very well, thank you. Like
I said - It always works, but sometimes not quite the way you might have
anticipated. I guess you could call all that "risky", but I fail to see the
risk. One way or another, that old company was done. That's the truth. The
truth was owned, and life went on.

Enjoy it. I always do.

 

Harrison

 

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Drive

Potomac, Maryland   20854

Phone 301-365-2093

Skype hhowen

Open Space Training  <http://www.openspaceworld.com/> www.openspaceworld.com


Open Space Institute  <http://www.openspaceworld.org/>
www.openspaceworld.org

Personal website  <http://www.ho-image.com/> www.ho-image.com 

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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Catherine
Pfaehler
Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 4:41 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: [OSLIST] Fear in the face of an upcoming OST-meeting

 

Dear all

 

Speaking of fear: I happen to prepare for an OST-meeting, in which the
participants want to find the new strategy of a small graphics and printing
company, which also offers workspaces for handicapped people. The head of
the company took part in an OST-meeting in November and decided to use the
same approach for his strategic planning task, thus involving all his main
employees (and some of the handicapped people as well). They created a great
invitation which states, amongst other things, that people will think,
discuss and act on that day as if the company was theirs. The theme is
"Impulse 2013", the goal is to find out what needs to happen until then to
secure the company's well-being economically and socially.

 

Now he tells me that about one third of his people are fearful about what's
coming up and creating alliances to prevent change. Some of them cling to
their machines and don't want them to become outdated, which however is
inevitable (no more spare parts available etc.).

 

What is a useful input I could offer him in this situation? The meeting will
be on March 27th. (He loves sayings and keeps publishing them inside the
company. I have asked if he knows one about fear. The one from A Course in
Miracles is a bit too far out for his people - so I asked if perhaps it
would be enough to post a question on the bulletin board stating "What is
fear?")

 

With love, Catherine

 

Catherine Pfaehler Senn

lic.oec.HSG

Open Space Begleitung

St. Alban-Vorstadt 15

CH - 4052 Basel

+41-(0)76 - 488 15 46

c.pfaehler at open-space-begleitung.ch

www.open-space-begleitung.ch <http://www.open-space-begleitung.ch/> 

 

 

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