Moving along with OST in Indonesia (longish)

Mon Dec 13 05:50:16 PST 2010

Suzanne

My thoughts, prayers and spirit are with you as you grieve the loss of your
father.  You provided a wonderful eulogy for your father and reflection on
the miracle of open space.

Larry

Larry Peterson & Associates in Transformation

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

 <mailto:larry at spiritedorg.com> larry at spiritedorg.com   416.653.4829
<http://www.spiritedorg.com/> http://www.spiritedorg.com

From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Suzanne
Daigle
Sent: December-13-10 6:41 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: [OSLIST] Moving along with OST in Indonesia (longish)

Dear Alan and all in the Open Space family,  (long and personal....!)

Where to start, how to start and what to say.  On many fronts Alan, I have
much to say and share. 

First and most important, is this work in Health Care, globally, nationally,
regionally and locally that you are connecting us to.  In the past 10 years
or so, I have spent weeks and months in the hospital accompanying my aging
parents undergoing various medical interventions. When you live and sleep in
the hospital, you see and feel many things. You see the kindness of staff,
you know the deep intention to do good and you feel the powerlessness and
sheer exhaustion of many overwhelmed by a system that is struggling most
days: struggling at how complicated medicine has become, with so many
procedures and processes, advanced technology that saves lives and extends
lives and yet often crashes with the "day-to-day basics" when we often lose
sight of and the loving care that is such an important part of Health Care.
Big business with its fervor to manage, predict and control often intervenes
in ways that are not helpful. If we could only trust the human spirit more,
I believe costs would be better managed and care would have its noble place
thus making us all "healthier" and "happier" in the long run. 

Alan I applaud what you are doing;  I applaud the conversations you convene
between human beings with human beings in so many places, in so many ways.
I honor Open Space and all that it does. I know that Positive Deviance,
though I am not deeply familiar with it but plan to be, offers a path to
change and transform health care and so many other areas in a way that lives
and breathes the very principles of Open Space. And then finally, I know
that Conversare is a gift from the heart, a gift to say that in life it is
okay to have fun, to enjoy being together and simply revel in this place
called life. We often forget that to "save the world" and "address all the
problems",  the simple act of "enjoying each others' company and just "being
ourselves" goes a long way to get things done. When we appreciate each
other, we stop fixing and we start creating. 

Now this is where my story becomes more complicated and personal.  I share
it with you because it is through Alan that I met Joelle Lyons Everett, a
great source of comfort and friendship these past weeks, and it is through
Open Space that I met Gail in Taiwan, Lisa from San Francisco who is also
living parent care, and of course Harrison and so many others in the Open
Space community.  As I have often done in the past, I will share vulnerably
with you again now.  

A week ago tonight, my father passed away in hospice at the hospital. A few
short months ago, he was the picture of health pushing my mom's wheelchair,
racing up stairs and still the guy very much in charge.  Those who know me
and have read me on this Open Space international list, know my close
relationship with my dad, this man, the doctor who revered facts, data,
science and medicine, the rebel at heart always battling the system, the one
who did not always understand the "emotional and spiritual ways" of his
daughter or large system change achieved not through "force and might" or
"right and wrong" but rather using Harrison's Wave Riding words through an
understanding that "high performance is the productive interplay of diverse,
complex forces, including chaos, confusion and conflict, characterized by
wholeness, health and harmony." These past few years, dad and I found each
other through Open Space. What fun he had reading the Italian Version of
Open Space Technology and then grilling me as a stern teacher would a
trembling student. 

What I also know now is that on the other side of pain lies a brand new
life, one where I will be released from this desire to please and appease
that happens so often between daughters and fathers, between sons and
fathers -- something that often gets carried into the rest of our lives.  I
will know "freedom" and "choice" no longer seeking approval, passionately
engaged in this important work of Open Space. But first I will rest and sink
into this complicated grief work realizing perhaps for the first time that
in death as in life, all is not always as it appears. Soothed by re-reading
what Harrison has written in many books including Spirit
(http://www.openspaceworld.com/Spirit.pdf) about  the process of grief work
which was inspired by the late Elisabeth Kubler Ross, I will know that I am
like so many others, just human and by knowing this, I will be better in the
future at "opening, holding and closing" space. 

So Alan, hopefully you will not feel that I high jacked your posting with my
personal life story. I never knew Alan that meeting in Taiwan at WOSonOS
with us raising our martini glass with a salute to our pal HO would lead to
this long distance friendship and collegial relationship.

In closing, it seems appropriate to shift away from my story or what Alan
described to what a few Sumatra participants said which speaks a common
truth that we hear all the time and in many ways are our "raison d'être" for
Opening Space and why we, in this wonderful Open Space community of ours, do
what we do:

"Until this experience I had always thought that only the most intelligent
members of a class were capable of coming up with ideas on a topic such as
the one we addressed. Now I know that anyone may do so." 

"When my colleagues and I do research we usually look at the negative side
of issues. I can now see that looking for positive aspects would be very
valuable." 

"I have never before imagined myself coming forward to talk to an audience
this large. Today I have done it."

Simple truths indeed!    

Affectionately and appreciatively signed, 

Suzanne Daigle

On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 8:55 PM, Alan Stewart <alanmstewart at gmail.com>
wrote:

Hello All

Further to my being in West Sumatra in May of this year to give a keynote
address at an international conference on ‘The Health Care Revolution in
Indonesia’ 
at which I suggested that OST is a very effective means by which
to enable communities to communicate their perceived needs for health care
services. See:

http://openspaceworld.ning.com/forum/topics/sewing-seeds-for-ost

The organizer of the conference was Prof Dr Elfindri (like many people in
Indonesia he has only one name) who was one of my PhD students when I was an
academic nutritionist in a medical school in Australia in the early 90s.
While his background is in economics he wished to better understand the
relationship between the nutritional status of communities and their
productivity. 

In the course of his studies I passed on to him the concept of Positive
Deviance (PD). He used this approach in the field work for his PhD thesis
and subsequently in further studies. So successful did this prove that he
published widely on the approach and also set up his own publishing company
to produce books on the topic. 

Elfindri is now a well respected and well connected person in Sumatra and
beyond in Indonesia. 

He invited me back late last month to present, jointly, a series of
seminar/workshops on OST and PD in several cities around this island, all to
audiences comprising mainly staff and students of private universities. My
role was to cover matters to do with OST, his on PD. We both also introduced
our respective perspectives on ‘soft skills’ or ‘people skills’

Here are brief points about these elements of our presentations:
‘Experiential' OST, PD, roles of Dania Pratiwi.  

1. ‘Hands on’ experience with OST

In only one of the four sessions was there opportunity to provide this,
given limitations of time and space. Nonetheless I touched on OST as a means
of communicating with communities and its potential significance for health
care practitioners wherever possible. 

In the first of the presentations, scheduled for a morning only, in Padang,
while 500 participants were expected 1300 materialised. No possibility! In
two others the time was even more limited and so no prospect either. 

In the one where there was an opportunity (a full day event in Pekanbaru, in
Riau province), the time allocated was two hours only. And with an audience
of some 250 - in a theatre with fixed seats that did not swivel - there was
no possibility of having a circle! This audience comprised staff and
students of nursing, midwifery and health education. 

Very briefly – the OST experience happened and happened well. I had
mentioned in a talk in the morning that it would take place, immediately
after lunch, and what the potential value to them could be. 

And had shown
<http://openspaceworld.ning.com/video/john-engles-short-sweet> John Engle’s
lovely video at the Mennonite Health Assembly Open Space. (Also to the 1300
strong audience earlier). John, even while you and your family are in a
precarious situation in Haiti your influence is percolating nicely in
Indonesia. 

In introducing the ‘hands on’ I:

. suggested to the audience that they imagine that they were in a circle! 

. walked up and back up the centre isle of the theatre, in lieu of the
circle, making eye contact with as many of the audience as possible. 

. spoke to the principles and associated ideas which Dania – see below – had
produced beautifully and which were on display on the front of the stage. 

. indicated that the theme was ‘How may health care practitioners improve
the nutritional status of children?’ 

. also indicated that there was time only for one breakout session of about
75 minutes. 

. invited everyone to come down to the front where there were paper and
pens, and write what they thought was important to explore. 

. encouraged those who had a topic to offer to come to the front again to
announce it. 

Whoosh! Immediately I had finished saying these things about 15 people from
all parts of the audience ran (no leaped!) down, picked up their paper and
began to scribe furiously.  And then came forward to announce – through a
hand held microphone – their topics. Having done this they pinned their
papers to a board. 

What to do next? With only about 75 minutes for the break out session and
about 15 topics I suggested that we pick five of them, randomly, to become
the agenda items. These were then typed up by Dania and projected onto a
large screen. 

Once this was done I invited the proponents of each to come down the front
and allocated them a number from 1 to 5. I then asked them to follow me up
the centre isle, where I ‘deposited’ them - each holding a piece of paper
with their number on it- about 10 metres apart. 

When all were in position I invited everyone to go to join with the person
whose topic attracted them, find a place to gather and get on with it! 

(As an aside I would add that, while this was happening, I felt a totally
unexpected attack of diarrhea coming on. The food in Sumatra – similar for
every meal of the day – is very spicy, normally no problem for me.  Having
finally said ‘go to it’ I had to dash and only just made it!).

On my return, much relieved, to the hall I found that all the groups were
sitting on the floor between the stage and the first row of seats, and were
thoroughly engaged.When the time was up I asked them to hand in their
reports. At least one of these was ‘voluminous’ in that the scribe had
recorded several pages of notes.

And then invited anyone to come down to the microphone to express their
experience of being a participant. As this was all done in Bahasa Indonesian
I did not follow the details. What I did gather were three comments:

. Until this experience I had always thought that only the most intelligent
members of a class were capable of coming up with ideas on a topic such as
the one we addressed. Now I know that anyone may do so. 

. When my colleagues and I do research we usually look at the negative side
of issues. I can now see that looking for positive aspects would be very
valuable. 

.  I have never before imagined myself coming forward to talk to an audience
this large. Today I have done it. 

Who knows what the principals of this private university made of their
observations of this event? (The three of us had to leave immediately after
to appear in a live local TV program). In my experience the chances of
receiving direct feedback are not great. Nonetheless I always invoke my own
primary measure of success: It happened!  Being invited back would be
another indication of impact. 

2. Positive Deviance 

Referring to my post: ‘OST and PD (Positive Deviance)’ 11 Nov 2010 and the
comments on this:

While PD and OST are highly complementary they are different approaches. PD,
in my understanding, provides a powerful framework for conceptualizing what
is ‘working’ well, what to look out for and how to use insights and
knowledge of why some people do better than others in seemingly similar
situations. 

Implementing such knowledge in particular contexts requires a different
skill set from facilitating OST forums. Joelle Lyons Everett, in Seattle,
does both and says that her background in OST serves her well for her work
as a coach of PD in addressing MRSA infections in hospitals. I suspect that
Henry Lipmanowicz and Lisa Kimball would say the same, nes pas? 

3. Roles of Dania Pratiwi

Dania, a recent graduate from the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, was
the ‘logisitics’ person on this enterprise. See
<http://conversare.net/?p=448> http://conversare.net/?p=448 for more
information on how this came about and to gain a sense of who she is. 

She was the most personable and capable person imaginable to do this. She
took everything in her stride, mainly translating what I was saying but
plenty more, as an integral member of ‘The Three Amigos’.

Something which I learned during our several most enjoyable days together
was that Dania’s one and only experience of OST to date was at the Second
World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace
<http://www.imamsetrabbins.org/en/congresses/detail/1/10/7>  in Seville,
Spain in March 2006. This was as a 19 year old member of an organization
called ‘Children of Abraham.’ 

There she met Harrison who facilitated an OST session. And also, for the
first time in her life as a Muslim, Rabbis. “I met a lot of Great Imams and
Rabbis there and learned a lot of things from them. I learned that we can
always turn our enemies into friends. I also learned that we may be
different, but inside we are brothers.” 

This experience prompted Dania to join the OSlistserv, which is how she came
to offer her assistance when she saw that I would be working in Indonesia in
May of this year. 

As you may surmise doing this work with Elfindri and Dania was likely to be
eye-opening for many people, and certainly was truly wonderful experiencing
for us. The portents are that there will be follow-ups next year. 

Go well

Alan
Hong Kong 

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-- 
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
twitter @suzannedaigle

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