A Thanksgiving Story with a link

Wed Nov 25 12:17:28 PST 2009

I hesitated before sharing this story but as I have found it to be so often
the case, it is just a way for me to pay it forward sharing my questions,
vulnerabilities, fears and joys. I owe so much to this wonderful community.
Its generosity, depth of insight, truth telling, healing, passion,
spiritedness, etc. makes me just happy to be alive.

Now to my story. A few months ago, I had the opportunity to participate in a
university/community leadership program over a six-week period with 6
seventy-five minute sessions featuring Margaret Wheatley's work with the
University of South Florida, St. Petersburg on community. Sharon Joy
Kleitsch who heads up The Connection Partners in Florida had asked if I
could help, indicating there might be an opportunity to do Open Space. The
program involved close to 50 students, 25+ community leaders and a dozen or
more faculty/staff members.

The first week was a chance for the group to engage with Margaret Wheatley
by Skype, second week was World Cafe and the third to fifth week, we did
Open Space closing in the 6th week by spending 4 hours with Meg Wheatley on
site in Florida.

When I was in Taiwan, I spoke to some experienced OS facilitators about the
wisdom of facilitating an Open Space in 75 minutes with this group. Gently
they suggested it might not be such a good idea because of the limited time;
perhaps I could engage the opening of conversations some other way.   Well,
I'd already committed so I decided we'd go ahead with it anyway.  Michele
Young (a co-facilitator) and I worked like crazy to imagine everything we
could do to give the participants maximum time during those 75 minutes. It
meant hours and hours of pre-work to have everything ready in order to
maintain the invisibility and intention of Open Space to self-organize and
for people to find their passion. Initially we didn't know we'd be doing 3
sessions of Open Space.

In 10 minutes, each in our separate classrooms, Michele and I had introduced
attendees to the basics of Open Space.  We called it a "Mini Taste of Open
Space". Next they were writing their topics (nearly 50 in total; 25 in each
class); shopping the marketplace and before we knew it, there they were
intensely engaged in conversations.  In those 30 minutes or so, they shared
and even managed to summarize a few key points on flip chart sheets that
were immediately posted on the wall. We closed the circle and the comments
were touching and validating. We decided to repeat the experience the
following week allowing them to deepen their discussions.

In the second week with the entire group in 1 room, we re-opened the
marketplace, more topics were added and two more rounds of conversations
happened. Because the participants had not connected as a larger group yet,
there were fewer topics but the discussions did not appear to be less
spirited or intense.

In week 3, we did a convergence giving everyone 3 tickets asking them to
identify which topics/projects they had the most passion for and which might
be most feasible and have the most impact in creating a Sustainable Tampa
Bay community which was our theme. Ten top topics emerged and from this more
discussions and some quick action plans.

In summary, three weeks of Open Space created opportunities for connecting
with others on community issues that people were passionate about,
generating 60 topics, 25 summary reports and 10 action plans.

The final week, Margaret Wheatley spent face-to-face time with the group
engaging them in personal leadership conversations and inspiring them with
examples of community leadership work around the world .

How do I feel today looking back at this Open Space experience?  Mixed. Yes
it was magical to have people get so engaged, so fast and to see them in
diverse groups sharing and talking.  Yes the feedback from the participants
was heartwarming. But then, how hard it was to see them have so little time
even though I know they were moved and touched by the opportunity they had
to connect, no matter how short.

Having just spent two and a half days as a participant in Open Space in
Taiwan before this work and then another two and a half days in Toronto
afterwards, I was able to compare how and what it felt like to have more
time. Each of these experiences, in their purest intention and utter
simplicity, taught me so much. I realized that to change a world, create
real passion, drive action requires time: time to connect, time to discover,
time to think, to share and to celebrate, to trust and to take personal
responsibility.  Our intentions were good with the university project but
now I feel I owe it to myself and this wonderful Open Space community to
shoot for the moon and try my best to invite people to give themselves this
precious gift of time -- helping them choose to open space in their lives.
It's not easy to do especially when we know that we can never truly
understand what Open Space is all about until you live it therefore hard for
leaders and others to commit time and money. Yes, I will continue to settle
for less sometimes but as sure as can be, I will try harder to offer more.

Hopefully by continuing to share our stories, capture the images and
speaking with courage what we believe to be true, more people will see the
benefit of opening space in their lives so we can enjoy life and not be so
stressed by life. Then it will truly be a joyful "dance"  -- this dance of
chaos and order.

Again sorry for being so long winded! Felt it was a "harvest" story worth
sharing on this Thanksgiving eve.

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/daigle_Suzanne-268460-usf-sp-wheatley-leadership-series-connection-parners-education-ppt-

<http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/daigle_Suzanne-268460-usf-sp-wheatley-leadership-series-connection-parners-education-ppt-%C2%A0>

<http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/daigle_Suzanne-268460-usf-sp-wheatley-leadership-series-connection-parners-education-ppt-%C2%A0>

Suzanne

-- 
Suzanne Daigle
NuFocus Strategic Group
7159 Victoria Circle
University Park, FL 34201
FL 941-359-8877;  CT 203-722-2009
www.nufocusgroup.com
s.daigle at nufocusgroup.com

*
*
==========================================================
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/20091125/5e231a48/attachment-0015.htm>