An Experiment in Closing Space

[Steve Engle]

Hello, my name is Steve Engle, I am a recent graduate of the Lisa Heft
school of Open Space facilitation, having happily attended her December
workshop in San Francisco.

During our practice Open Space in Lisa's class, one of the sessions
discussed the problem of dealing with personalities that were too big for
the Open Space.  By this we meant people who would overpower or otherwise
possibly negatively affect the container.  One of the strategies we came up
with was from some reading in some of the OS materials where a facilitator
spoke of Closing Space on potentially destructive personalities to the
container by simply standing near them.

Last night I was attending my daughters High School basketball game, and
near us was a parent who found it necessary to comment loudly and negatively
about the quality of the refereeing.  While we could have easily taken on
the burden of ignoring this annoying person, I decided to conduct an
experiment, and I "closed space" on this person by reseating myself right
next to him.  I never established eye contact, or spoke to this person, I
merely sat next to him.  The result was very successful, and the person's
negative comments ceased.

love and light,
Steve

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