Volunteers and conscripts

[Jack Martin Leith]

I've turned Bhav's question and Harrison's response into a blog post on the
Osuki website, and added a comment of my own.

Here's the link: www.osuki.net/?p=913

If you don't want to click on the link you can see my comment below.

Harrison and Bhav, I hope it's OK with you that I've posted this article. I
haven't named Bhav. I'll delete the post if either of you asks me to.

Warm wishes from Bristol, UK.

Jack

P.S. Harrison, can you please remind us of the exact date of the 25th
birthday of Open Space?

Jack Martin Leith
Innovation Next : An emerging hub for innovation next practice
Bristol, United Kingdom
Mobile: 07831 840541 (+44 7831 840541)
Skype: jackmartinleith
email: jack at innovationnext.org
www.innovationnext.org | www.jackmartinleith.com

Follow me on Twitter for innovation news: http://twitter.com/jackmartinleith
Join the management renegades at http://moon-shots.ning.com

---------------------------------

http://www.osuki.net/?p=913#comments

While I agree with pretty much everything Harrison says here, in the 20
years that I’ve been working professionally with Open Space Technology, I
can’t think of a single client that was seeking to create a self-organising
system. They simply wanted to get a job done, and OST was the chosen tool.

Many of the Open Space events I’ve co-designed and facilitated were not
organised on a voluntary participation basis, yet the respective clients
were happy with the results. Would voluntary participation have bettered
these results? Maybe … maybe not. We’ll never know.

What’s beyond doubt is that OST is a very robust process that can be
effective even when prevailing thinking suggests it’s doomed to failure.

In the early 1990s I co-facilitated, with Mo Cohen
<http://www.osuki.net/?page_id=530>of this parish, a two-day Open Space
event for the change management practice of a large management consulting
firm.

The client had a hidden agenda that was shockingly revealed at the end of
the first day of a two-day Open Space event. The secret plan was a radical
reorganisation of the change management practice that would have a big
impact on everyone in the room.

At the start of the second day the participants, conscripts one and all,
binned their agenda and created a new one focused on the implications of the
reorganisation.

My friend and collaborator Jean-Marc Le
Tissier<http://www.osuki.net/?page_id=126>(also of this parish) was an
employee of the consulting firm and a
participant in the event. Whenever we recollect those two days we agree that
Open Space was the right tool for the job. It shouldn’t have worked – but it
did.

*That’s all very well in practice – but will it work in theory?
**Unknown*

Open Space is an extremely resilient 24 year old. Let’s start planning the
25th birthday celebrations (early July 2010) now!

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