An Experiment in Closing Space

Wed Jan 21 07:17:13 PST 2009

I appreciate dealing with the challenge of difficult people in groups, the practical notion of closing space, and the story.

What I am hearing is--How do we or how does a group control or help regulate those who cannot seem to regulate themselves?

My first response is--What insight does the Eastern Wisdom shed on this--To give a cow or sheep a large, spacious meadow is the best way to control him.

More elaboration--If a sheep or cow is nervous or anxious, the temptation is to make the pasture smaller to control them.  The better way, that is more counter-intuitive, might be to give them more pasture, then they will become less anxious or less nervous.

What insight does this offer to the conversation, if any?  Is the need to close space about them or is it really about us and our inability to trust the group?  These are some random thoughts.

Thanks,
Craig

Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:21:27 +0000
From: marty at becomingme.com
Subject: Re: [OSLIST] An Experiment in Closing Space
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU

Steve

I love this story, and your insight. 

I will definitely remember this and try it
out.  

I have run some other kinds of workshops
(not Open Space), where it’s not unusual for people to get in touch with
strong emotion, such as anger.  My sense is that people who are very angry,
deep down, really just need a hand on the shoulder or a hug, but the challenge
is getting close enough to them -- without getting hit ;) .  Just standing
near them is a good starting point.

(I would probably one little touch …
that perhaps when standing next to a person in a difficult frame of mind, a
moment or two of silent meditation might be useful.  Something about
compassionate intent … and not seeing them as the ‘problem’.)

Your story reminds me of a familiar
scenario in Open Space:  Someone charges up to the facilitator, demanding
that some change be made to the format, and when the facilitator says, “Why
don’t you suggest it to the group,” the participant goes away and
does nothing.  

It seems that people have different codes
of behavior, depending on whether they are anonymous (e.g. internet chatrooms),
in public, being seen by someone in authority, seen by the group, etc.

Definitely something to keep in mind …

Thanks for sharing this,

Marty

De: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]
En nombre de Steve Engle

Enviado el: jueves, 15 de enero de
2009 02:50 p.m.

Para: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU

Asunto: [OSLIST]
An Experiment in Closing Space

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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