Where did 2 1/2 days come from?

Harrison Owen hhowen at verizon.net
Mon Apr 5 09:10:56 PDT 2010


Good wonderings, Doug. But I might suggest that you turn things around, or
possibly upside down. Rather than  internalizing The Law of Two Feet (and we
might also add the 4 Principles), I suspect that it is more a matter of
remembering what we already know and for one reason or another have chosen
to repress. All of this goes with the idea that Open Space is truly not
something new and radically different. In fact it is a forceful
confrontation with a pre-existing condition. We are already in Open Space by
virtue of the fact that we have forever been in a self organizing world (the
usual 13.7 billion years stuff). The Law and the Principles are descriptive
of normative behavior in a self organizing world, and therefore Open Space,
I think. In short, we do all of the above all the time -- unfortunately we
usually feel guilty about it, and because of this, we tend to do it/them
badly, or at least awkwardly and grudgingly. Thus with the Law: when faced
with a nonproductive situation (no learning, no contribution) we always
leave (hearts and mind out the window) -- but the body remains feeling
miserable, and making others miserable as well. Once we get the picture,
things work better, and we feel a lot better. But it is not about doing
something new, or internalizing some new truth -- but rather remembering
what we already knew and doing what we should/could have been doing in the
first place.

Why bother with all this? Well if nothing else, I think it makes our job as
consultants and facilitators a lot easier. First of all we are not inviting
our clients to engage in risky behavior. Quite the opposite, we are opening
a space in which they can really be themselves. And the real risk is to
continue with the non-productive, guilt inducing, dependant behavior. The
old Marxist Battle Cry might have some application here (with modification):
People of the World Unite -- You have nothing to lose but your chains." In a
word -- Be yourself!

Harrison


Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Dr.
Potomac, MD 20854
USA
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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of doug
Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2010 7:35 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: Where did 2 1/2 days come from?

Peggy--

Thank you for restating what I had been trying to remember on what
happens after 1 day, 2 and 2.5.

It is interesting that people internalize the law after many days, that
a rhythm develops. I wonder about the collective unconscious and the
deeper things within the human species when we have longer observances,
and how that is perhaps parallel to what you are noticing here.

			:- Doug.

On Sun, 2010-04-04 at 15:32 -0700, Peggy Holman wrote:
> I remember a simple framing from Harrison when first learning about OST.
He said you can have a great conversation in one day.  A second day provides
time for a sense of direction to emerge.  In 2.5 days, there's time to set
priorities.  That characterization fits my experience.
> 
> I have either run or participated in a few OS's that were more than 2.5
days.  I find they are great for truly internalizing the law of 2 feet.
When explicitly invited to spend days and days in Open Space, people become
more facile at paying attention to their own internal rhythm.
> 
> Peggy
> 
> 
> 
> On Apr 3, 2010, at 1:27 AM, Michael M Pannwitz wrote:
> 
> > Dear Doug,
> > when I started facilitating os-events I was still employed by the
Protestant Church of Berlin as an OD-consultant. Most of my work was with
parishes and most of the participants were working folks who were able and
ready to follow the invitation to an event that started
> > -Friday afternoon (about 3pm and could go to 7pm)
> > -Saturday all day but not before 10 am so people could still do their
weekend shopping (the hours shops were open was much more regulated back
then, 1996, then today)
> > -Sunday, sometimes in the morning but often in the afternoon so that
participants could attend worship services, get a lunch at the event at
about 12:30 and stay until 16:30, enough to do a thorough Action Planning.
> > So, thats how a 16 hour event spread over 3 days became fairly common in
my first year (1996-1997) with 16 events in that year.
> > There were shorter events (4 hours, 6 hours, 8 hours, a day and a half,
etc.) but it was very impressive to see how "16 hours spread over three
days, sleeping twice" differed from shorter designs, even from 16 hours
(same amount of time) spread over 2 days, sleeping once.
> > (By the way, "16 hours spread over three days, sleeping twice"  has long
been the "formula" with the Future Search crowd).
> > Later, when I worked with os all over, and also facilitated two full
days and a half I could not really find those additional hours in the
morning of the first day adding much to the os...half a day, a whole day and
half a day seemed to work just perfect...it was also the only design where I
never heard anyone saying in the Closing Circle "we should have had more
time" or similar statements. These time related statements are always to
hear in shorter designs.
> > I have never been in an event or facilitated one that went over more
than 3 days BUT I have heard of such events and as I remember folks involved
in them felt that the additional time had not been needed.
> > This seems to be supported by remarks in Closing Circles where people
occasionally have said that now they are ready to go home and move on and
that the time was just right or that they didn't feel they could
continue..."happily exhausted", someone once said.
> > I have read about longer os events in a brochure issued by the Peace
Corps that used os in their trainings quite a while back...would not be
surprised if they still do.
> > The WOSonOS this year in Berlin employs a full 2,5 day design...and as
far as I know that has been its design regarding the length for many years.
The use of Action Planning in the last half day is now also being employed
every now and then but I think was not part of the early tradition...it will
be part of the design in Berlin.
> > I see you and another 10 folks from the USA are coming...great
opportunity to have a breakout session on that topic. Having a total of
presently 126 people from 25 countries attending will definitely provide
plenty of diversity not to mention High Play, High Learning und no small
amount of Productivity and Fun!
> > Here is the link for those of you wanting to see the updated
information:
> >> http://www.boscop.org/events/508-wosonos-2010
> > 
> > You are all invited to come!
> > Greetings from springtime Berlin
> > mmp
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > douglas germann schrieb:
> >> Hi--
> >> Where did the idea for 2 1/2 days come from? Why not 4 or 5 or 3?
> >> 			:- Doug.
> >> *
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> > 
> > -- 
> > Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg
> > Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
> > ++49-30-772 8000
> > mmpanne at boscop.org
> > www.boscop.org
> > 
> > 
> > Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 389 resident Open
Space Workers in 67 countries working in a total of 139 countries worldwide
> > Have a look:
> > www.openspaceworldmap.org
> > 
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