Power, hierarchy and OS

Jon Harvey jon at jonharveyassociates.co.uk
Thu Nov 26 11:49:06 PST 2009


Hallo

I went to a meeting of community cohesion practitioners today (UK) and had a
really great time - lots of good ideas, research trails to chase and lovely
people. Of course it would have been better to have used OS as the process
of the day - which of course I suggested for the next meeting... 

But then we started a debate - with no time to explore it - as to whether OS
is always applicable to meetings where there are people present with very
different levels of power and authority. The presumption by one person was
that hierarchy would get in the way of the flat structure of OS - such that
the less powerful would not feel as empowered to have the conversations they
wished and needed to etc... He was advocating (although I may well have this
wrong) more structure & perhaps capacity building in adavnce to ensure a
level playing field etc where everyone's voice would be heard.

I was left frustrated - as this is a topic that interests me as I have some
sympathy for the point of view. Equally, I take the view that the law of
mobility means that the even the least powerful have vote with their feet /
wheels etc to move to other topics of conversation. And Open Space is what
it says on the tin - it is open to all - and part of our job as facilitators
is to make this abundantly clear.

So I promised to start a debate here on the OSLIST to see what others may
think. I have also just posted a link to here for people from the Community
Cohesion network (on the forum part of their website) so we may get some new
members too.. (if you want to check out the host organisation - here is the
link:
http://practitioners.cohesioninstitute.org.uk/PractitionersNetwork/About all
can join)

So to start the ball rolling:

1) Do less powerful people get less (or more) from Open Space?
2) How does hierarchy interact with the OS process - if at all?
3) Are less powerful people less inclined to go with / show their passion
and nominate topics for discussion - if so - what do you do about that?
4) If the subject is all about variable power (and in community cohesion it
often is...) - does that make OS more or less applicable?
5) Am I over complicating all this?!

I look forward to your thoughts.

Many thanks

Very best wishes

Jon


____________________________________________________________________________
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Jon Harvey
Director

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jon at jonharveyassociates.co.uk

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