AW: How can we foster sustainable outcomes?
douglas germann
76066.515 at compuserve.com
Sat Jun 27 09:15:43 PDT 2009
Reinhard--
I like the picture (!) of participants themselves doodling on the cards
and these going into the graphics at the center. We have seen some of
this work done by Chris Corrigan in various settings.
It seems to me the outside artist has the same problem you point out for
the participant who only attends 10% of the conversations: while the
artist might visit all groups, it is only for a slice of each
conversation, dipping his or her toe into the various ponds as it were,
but not experiencing every deep pool nor every shallow sand bar. So it
is probably not possible for anyone to get a picture of the whole group
dynamics. That's why I like your idea of the participants doing the
work, perhaps supplemented by the outside artist, who can also have the
benefit of all those doodles to help make the larger picture.
Reinhard, this is also the first time I have had the picture of the
artist drawing on cards--I had pictured flip chart sized or larger
papers, or whole wall murals--that is what I have experienced in
settings where artists were active. Thank you for this new (to me)
picture.
So now we are on the cusp of Doodle Space Technology!
:- Doug.
On Sat, 2009-06-27 at 07:00 +0200, Reinhard Kuchenmueller wrote:
> Dear Catherine,
>
> it seems t get a dialogue between you and me - and Harrison defending
> his turf - while all the others are busy discussing Paris Stammtisch
> and some problems of dogma and exegesis in the holy principles.
>
> My focus lies on the os meeting. My heart belongs to the
> paricipating people, my head to the client behind everything. In a
> meeting of lets say 200 participants everybody can choose between lets
> say ten group themes in every time slot. If it goes for two days, with
> five time slots, that makes 50 groups of which the everage participant
> chooses five groups. All the other groups, their themes, their
> surprising developments, their exitement, their outcome, does not
> exist for him. All the groups make some protocols, but in the worst
> possible way, in handwriting, and some typed short version. Our
> everage participant does rarely read the outcomes of other groups. The
> facilitator made himself invisible and is of little help. So his
> horizon is built from 10 percent of the whole meeting. He goes home
> with a beautiful experience of team building and self organisation,
> and some memeory of 10 percent of the meeting. The client goes home
> with some written excerpts, and if he is lucky !
> he will be confronted with some ideas afterwards, of people who want
> to ontinue their threads. Who is helping him to build the bridge
> between his basic theme, his exspectations, and the outcome? The
> facilitator? By which means?
>
> I would wish all the os people could take part just once in a
> visualized os event. Some witnesses, fair minded, impartial, are
> moving from group to group, gathering process, results and atmosphere
> on small picture cards. Nobody is noticing them. They put these
> picture cards into a big picture wall, all the time, so that everybody
> who passes can get all the procedures in some seconds time. And in the
> evening all the picture cards, digitalized in the meantime, are shown
> to the plenum as a slide show with some music, for about 10 minutes
> The participants not only increase the memory of their own group from
> 20 to 60 percent, as scientists can proove, but at the same time they
> get an overview about the whole big theme in all its complexity. As if
> they can suddenly see the whole tree, of which they were busy handling
> some branches so far. I experienced a deep satisfaction among the
> participants every time we did that work. Of course all that is
> against the old os dogma, but that d!
> oes not bother the people at all.
>
> And the client? He gets a detailled insight into all the groups. The
> little images can be used in many ways to foster sustainable outcomes,
> as you say. They can be clustered, regrouped, with atonishing results,
> showing what people really said and mean.They can be used as material
> to work with in smaller groups who continue with some items, they can
> be put into the intranet, printed as leaflets, little books,
> calendars, posters, hang in the corridors ... As means to take the
> results really seriously.
>
> AND NOW THE BIG QUESTION: is that worth the extra costs of extra
> people, who visualize the event? Some clients say yes, it is. It makes
> the difference between a beautiful experience of self orgsnization and
> the welding of a tool for the organization.
>
> I myself would not propose to visualize every os meeting by external
> visualizers. I would like very much to experiment with internal
> visualization. We developed different ways of visualizing by
> participants. Once we made 800 union people in vienna draw in little
> groups, 72 images, with an amazing result.
>
> I can imagine, that in every os group two or three people start to
> doodle, to draw what they experience, on little cards. A bit like
> world cafe (I propose to the world cafe people to use little cards as
> well). And then like said before, the cards can be hung into the
> picture wall, group by geoup, and shown in the evening as slide show.
> I would very much like to develop this method and to make it available
> to the whole os community.
>
>
> mit freundlichen Grüßen
> best regards
>
> Reinhard Kuchenmüller
>
> VISUELLE PROTOKOLLE
>
> tel. +39-0566 88929
> www.visuelle-protokolle.de
> ________________________________________
> Von: Catherine Pfaehler [c.pfaehler at bluewin.ch]
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 25. Juni 2009 17:15
> An: Reinhard Kuchenmueller
> Cc: 'OSLIST'
> Betreff: How can we foster sustainable outcomes?
>
> Dear Reinhard
>
> You have a very interesting point there. I have often wondered how the
> sustainable implementation of visible results can be fostered "better"
> by
> me, as in the post-OS-meeting, I often find my clients to focus on
> different
> things than what I would have expected.
>
> Then, again, on the other side, I am well aware that a most important
> side
> result of an OS event is always teambuilding, communication and a
> stronger
> commitment to their organisation by many participants. And if I
> succeed in
> allowing the client to really be responsible for what happens with the
> results, then I need to let go after having asked the evaluation
> questions
> and some others like "Does anything need a vessel for coordination
> now?" and
> "What has been developing since the OS event?".
>
> Other opinions??
>
> Heartfully, C.
>
> 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
>
>
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Reinhard Kuchenmueller [mailto:mail at visuelle-protokolle.de]
> Gesendet: Montag, 22. Juni 2009 19:12
> Betreff: AW: [OSLIST] Anti Laws of OST - Foundations of OST?
>
> my two cents:
>
> a principle is defined as a law superordinated to every other law.
> Condition: A certain effect can always be retraced to the same
> constellation
> of facts. (wikipedia).
>
> In this sense Harrison's principles are definitively no principles at
> all.
> But he was really clever: two martinis and four mundane sentences -
> and the
> whole world is repeating them like a mantra. Mantras, as the east
> knows
> since thousands of years, don't have to have a meaning, the essence
> lies
> behind them. It only gets painful, if you start to worship the mantras
> instead of the essence.
>
> Why is open space so effective? Certainly not because of the mantras.
> As I
> see it, we have to dig deeper:
>
> I could think of principles like:
>
> People are basically interested - to engage themselves
> - to take responsibility
> - to interlink themselves
>
> That happens as soon as one stops to treat people like obstinate
> mules.
>
> And there exist conditions, which foster that, which support this so
> called
> self organisation.
>
> Certainly open space technology, as it is practised worldwide, is an
> excellent condition for self organisation.
>
> And your 'foundations' define it well.
>
> Rather often a client spends money for an open space event, and for
> the
> facilitator who proposes open space as a tool for the clients'
> purposes.
> This aspect seems to be underestimated in the debate.
>
> In my view the facilitator is responsible to link the proposed and
> choosen
> form of the event, in our case open space, with the system and the
> purpose
> of the client. What the client pays for is not the self organisation
> of his
> people, that is only a beautiful side effect, and a bridge to engage
> people
> in the affairs of the client - and more often simultaneously in their
> own
> working conditions.
>
> I cannot understand the disinterest of many open space facilitators
> towards
> the outcome and its linkage with the system of the client.
>
> That, in my eyes, is also the reason for the disinterest towards
> optimal
> forms of recording the outcome - and as a visual facilitator I of
> course
> propagate a visual form of protocol.
>
> The discussions in the os list are mainly conducted with the back to
> the
> clients, and that is a pity.
>
>
>
>
>
> mit freundlichen Grüßen
> best regards
>
> Reinhard Kuchenmüller
>
> VISUELLE PROTOKOLLE
>
> tel. +39-0566 88929
> www.visuelle-protokolle.de
> ________________________________________
> Von: OSLIST [OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] im Auftrag von Artur
> Silva
> [arturfsilva at YAHOO.COM]
> Gesendet: Sonntag, 21. Juni 2009 18:25
> An: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> Betreff: Re: [OSLIST] Anti Laws of OST - Foundations of OST?
>
> Larry:
>
> I am sorry but only today I had the time to answer you.
>
> We certainly need foundations or principles to Open Space.
>
> But I prefer the word "foundations" instead of "principles" because,
> due to
> the man of the hat, this word is connected forever (only) with "the 4
> principles". And I think that that there are other principles
> (foundations)
> as important as, or even more important than, the 4 so called
> principles.
>
> Indeed I think (sorry Harrison) that the expression "The 4 principles"
> was
> badly chosen.
>
> Because it they are "what always happens" they are not principles at
> all.
> And because we think that we must state the principles in the
> beginning of
> every session (I myself to that the majority o the times - but not
> always")
> and I am more and more convinced that they are useless. You can state
> them
> or nor, and the same things will occur. They are probably "one less
> thing to
> do/state".
>
> But there are other principles or foundations that are essential, in
> the
> sense that if they are not present different things will happen.
>
> In the discussion I opened in our wiki some years ago I proposed the
> following:
>
> 3. I would suggest, as HO wrote in the old User’s Guide, that OST
> begins
> with:
>
> * A THEME that is compelling enough, but also general and open
> enough to
> let people dream about and
> * A GROUP OF COMMITED PEOPLE (reason for the presences to be almost
> always voluntary)
> * Enough DIVERSITY in the group
> 4. To those foundations one can add others that are generally accepted
> by
> all practitioners:
>
> * The CIRCLE (even if, in some cases, some argue that a "virtual
> circle"
> will do)
> * The Bulletin Board
> * The Market Place
> * The "law of two feet" (one of the most, if not the most important
> feature, from where butterflies and bumblebees "germinate" and many
> conflicts "evaporate")
> * The "four principles" (as I have promised ;-)
>
> (http://www.openspaceworld.org/cgi/netwiki.cgi?FoundationsofOST)
>
> If I were to rewrite this today, I would surely suppress the last
> line. But
> all the other "foundations" (including the law of two feet) are
> essential.
> If you suppress one of them you will have a meeting; but not, IMHO, an
> OST
> meeting. But we may not talk at all about the "4 principles" and
> everything
> will happen as usual.
>
> Best regrsds to all
>
> Artur
>
>
>
>
> --- On Thu, 5/28/09, Larry Peterson <larry at spiritedorg.com> wrote:
>
> From: Larry Peterson <larry at spiritedorg.com>
> Subject: Re: [OSLIST] Anti Laws of OST - Foundations of OST?
> To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> Date: Thursday, May 28, 2009, 5:22 PM
>
> Maybe a “foundation” is another word for how I often describe the
> “principles”. I encourage people, when I open a space, to make some
> assumptions about the gathering to assume what are stated as
> principles and
> to act on that basis during the event. I think these only become
> “assumed”
> after some evolution of consciousness and I don’t experience most
> folks in
> organizations being there. I think it is important to articulate
> them, to
> influence the “social construction” of the boundaries of the OST event
> along
> with the most important part – the focus question or theme. Yep, it
> may be
> a bit of ritualized behaviour but I think it helps increase the
> possibilities what will emerge in the self-organizing process that
> will
> happen anyway. Besides, I (we as facilitators) are one of the
> “selves” in
> the self-organization.
>
> Larry
>
>
> Larry Peterson & Associates in Transformation
> Toronto, Ontario, Canada
> larry at spiritedorg.com<http://us.mc546.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=larry@spi
> ritedorg.com> 416.653.4829
> http://www.spiritedorg.com<http://www.spiritedorg.com/>
>
>
>
> From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Artur
> Silva
> Sent: May-27-09 5:54 PM
> To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> Subject: Re: [OSLIST] Anti Laws of OST - Foundations of OST?
>
> Harrison, Larry and all:
>
> I am afraid that I continue to read only the messages from this list
> from
> time to time...
>
> Today, I read this answer from Harrison to a reply from Larry to an
> original
> comment by Harrison. The 3 messages referred are listed below, and I
> ask you
> to first read the parts of those messages that I have transformed in
> bold.
>
> (...) Thanks for having done that ;-)
>
> Now, I am happy that Harrison agrees that "the 4 principles and one
> law are
> neither laws nor principles actually" and that there will come a day
> when
> The Law and The Principles can be assigned to that wonderful status of
> “One
> more thing not to do.”
>
> But Larry commented, very wisely as usual, about the importance of
> some form
> of “boundaries” or “container” for self-organization.
>
> So, maybe it is the appropriate time to reintroduce a discussion that
> I have
> tried to introduce many moons ago, about what are the foundations of
> OST.
>
> I mean,
>
> 1) if the principles are not "principles" after all, but only what
> always
> happens, and eventually even "one more thing not to do" (and I
> remember you
> that I have done some OST experiments without reference to the
> Principles -
> and all went well as usual), but
>
> 2) Some form of boundary or container is needed
>
> where this boundary or container does comes from?
>
> I have proposed to call that the "foundations" (not principles) of OST
> and
> proposed some ideas (that are only preliminary ideas) I would like to
> read
> (again) your opinions about.
>
> You can found my (preliminary) proposals, of some time ago, here
> http://www.openspaceworld.org/cgi/netwiki.cgi?FoundationsofOST
>
> and here
>
> http://listserv.boisestate.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0401&L=oslist&P=R23925&I=-3&
> X=6543D44B5D0A7C3BC4&Y=arturfsilva%40yahoo.com.
>
> Looking forward to hear from you all
>
> Warn regards from a warm night in Lisbon
>
> Artur
>
> ------
>
>
>
> --- On Wed, 5/27/09, Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> From: Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: [OSLIST] Anti Laws of OST
> To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> Date: Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 7:23 AM
> Right on Larry – and I found a very curious and embarrassing typo in
> my
> small piece. I said, “They (the Principles and the Law) are
> descriptive as
> opposed to descriptive.” I meant to say,”They are descriptive as
> opposed to
> prescriptive.” Point is neither the Law nor the Principles tell you
> what to
> do – they simply alert everybody to what will be taking place no
> matter
> what. I think that is a useful function, but it really doesn’t change
> a
> thing. In short – there will come a day when The Law and The
> Principles can
> be assigned to that wonderful status of “One more thing not to do.”
>
> Harrison
>
>
> Harrison Owen
>
> 7808 River Falls Drive
>
> Potomac, Maryland 20854
>
> Phone 301-365-2093
>
> Skype hhowen
>
> Open Space Training
> www.openspaceworld.com<http://www.openspaceworld.com/>
>
> Open Space Institute
> www.openspaceworld.org<http://www.openspaceworld.org/>
>
> Personal website www.ho-image.com<http://www.ho-image.com/>
>
> OSLIST: To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the
> archives
> Visit:
> www.listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html<http://listserv.boisestate.
> edu/archives/oslist.html>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Larry
> Peterson
> Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2009 9:44 AM
> To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> Subject: Re: Anti Laws of OST
>
> For me, there is more sense in the “Principles and Law” than
> non-sense.
> Stewart Kauffman explores the importance of some form of “boundaries”
> or
> “container” for self-organization, particularly that of cells. He
> believes
> (with strong scientific evidence) that real physical work only gets
> done
> within some “boundaries” or it dissipates. Cells, he asserts,
> co-create
> their “boundaries” with their environment through self-organizing
> relationships in every moment. The boundaries are permeable,
> constructs,
> open to interchange with their environment. (No such thing as a closed
> system!)
>
> Harrison, I believe you have articulated a set of socially constructed
> permeable “boundaries” for enhancing human self-organization –
> including the
> focus/theme, principles and law. These set a temporary set of
> “boundaries”
> or a “container” both focused and open that change the perceived
> conditions
> for self-organization at an event or meeting. Self-organization is
> happening all the time, in every moment. Our mental maps (in
> practice) and
> feelings shape what we do as we self-organize – what topics we propose
> and
> who we connect to. Are they necessary for self-organization (Open
> Space) –
> no, it is happening all the time as order emerges. Do they (or other
> similar statements about the social framework for our self-organizing)
> help
> people to self-organize in exciting and creative ways? I think so.
>
> Larry
>
>
> Larry Peterson & Associates in Transformation
> Toronto, Ontario, Canada
> larry at spiritedorg.com<http://us.mc546.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=larry@spi
> ritedorg.com> 416.653.4829
> http://www.spiritedorg.com<http://www.spiritedorg.com/>
>
>
>
> From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Harrison
> Owen
> Sent: May-25-09 2:59 PM
> To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> Subject: Re: [OSLIST] Anti Laws of OST
>
> Just to render the whole thing non-sensical, the 4 principles and one
> law
> are neither laws nor principles actually. To be honest they are just
> my (and
> others’) observations of what seemed to be happening in any case. In a
> word
> they are descriptive as opposed to descriptive – You could say it is
> all a
> joke. Rather like “technology” in the phrase Open Space Technology.
> The
> joke, however turned out to be outrageously funny – because somehow or
> another truth broke through. We are in serious trouble! Everybody
> knows that
> what happens in Open Space simply can’t happen. Unfortunately it does
> – and
> that makes a joke out of a whole mess of other stuff – like most of
> what we
> think we know about meetings, the management of meetings, and
> management
> itself. Double trouble!!
>
> Harrison
>
>
> Harrison Owen
>
> 7808 River Falls Drive
>
> Potomac, Maryland 20854
>
> Phone 301-365-2093
>
> Skype hhowen
>
> Open Space Training
> www.openspaceworld.com<http://www.openspaceworld.com/>
>
> Open Space Institute
> www.openspaceworld.org<http://www.openspaceworld.org/>
>
> Personal website www.ho-image.com<http://www.ho-image.com/>
>
> OSLIST: To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the
> archives
> Visit:
> www.listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html<http://listserv.boisestate.
> edu/archives/oslist.html>
>
> .org/oslist
>
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