An Experiment in Closing Space

Wed Jan 21 08:01:44 PST 2009

Pasture...
Right.

But there some places where there are less physical spaces available...
Then we become a space of Mind... How to become the space...I don't know...

...

S

Spark (Stanley Park)
Open Space Institute of Korea
218-8 Gusan-dong, Eunpyung-gu
Seoul, Korea
spark at openspace.kr
Phone: 82-2-353-6356
Mobile: 82-10-7247-0636
www.OPENSPACE.kr
LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Harrison- http://www.openspaceworld.com/index.htm
OS World in USA- http://www.openspaceworld.org/
'Let the Nature Work in Our Field'

  _____  

From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Craig
Gilliam
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 12:17 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: [OSLIST] An Experiment in Closing Space

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

* * ==========================================================
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 *
* ==========================================================
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

  _____  

Windows LiveT: E-mail. Chat. Share. Get more ways to connect. See how it
works.
<http://windowslive.com/howitworks?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t2_allup_howitworks_012
009>  * * ==========================================================
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/20090122/53404097/attachment-0008.htm>