On "Failure"

Thu Jun 3 11:40:34 PDT 2010

i have a teacher who likes to put little reminders on pencils and pass them
around.  one of my favorite pencils says:  "really easy is often quite
difficult."

i think this is true of open space.  i've seen a number of situations where
the facilitator or the process itself was assumed to be a bit of magic, so
nobody needed to do much else to make it happen.  this makes all kinds of
large and small "failures" possible -- all owing to some lapses in the
quality of attention, awareness, relationship.

somebody once told me that carl rogers (some sort of psychologist, i think)
used to listen so intently that he would often break out in a sweat -- just
listening to someone.  sometimes i think open space takes this sort of
quality or intensity of attention... or maybe of awareness.  that the heart
is this active, even if the body is apparently doing nothing.  like when so
many muscles are engaged in walking a balance beam, or timing a jump.
actively pulsing, checking, on and off, holding and releasing, inviting and
reporting.

i'd guess a fair number of "failures" have their roots in forgetting that os
is this sort of active practice, even if a lot of the action is not
outwardly visible or dramatic or difficult.  weirdenss seems to flow from
gaps in clarity, in attention, in awareness, in relationship.  not so much,
i think, from gaps in actual outer logistics.

m

--

Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates

http://www.michaelherman.com
http://www.ronanparktrail.com
http://www.chicagoconservationcorps.org
http://www.openspaceworld.org

312-280-7838 (mobile)

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 12:07 PM, VISUELLE PROTOKOLLE <
mail at visuelle-protokolle.de> wrote:

>  Harrison and all,
>
> Another example of an OS that went terribly wrong:
>
> It was a factory producing printing machines, both in Eastern and western
> Germany, and the participants were mixed from both areas. We had the o.k.
> from the four directors, to whom we had illustrated what to expect, and a
> final conference after the OS was already determined. One of the directors,
> the one who seemed to be the most employee-oriented, was choosen to say some
> words at the end of the OS. Our partner in the company was a young man from
> HR, very active, with good contacts to the directors. So he insisted that he
> should brief the director what to say at the end of OS.
>
> Everything went fine. The groups worked with joy and enthusiasm. We
> accompanied the whole OS with 3 people visualizing everything, and that was
> a big success, because  everybody could see what had happened everywhere.
> After we had shown the pictures in a final slideshow, the director stood up
> and destroyed everything within 5 minutes. He said that he was disappointed,
> had expected other outcomes, and that the managers wood have a hard time to
> use some of the results.
>
> That was the end of the project for us, but much worse all the participants
> were angry and a big chance was lost for the company.
>
> Of course the mistake was to let the young HR-man brief the director.
>
> Reinhard
>
> Reinhard Kuchenmüller
> Dr. Marianne Stifel
> VISUELLE PROTOKOLLE
> Kuchenmüller & Stifel
>
> +39-0566-88 929
> www.visuelle-protokolle.de
>
>
>
>
> Am 03/06/10 18:12 schrieb "Ralph Copleman" unter <rcopleman at comcast.net>:
>
> Harrison and all,
>
> I've had a few that sort of fell flat.
>
> One involved a group concerned about availability of services for senior
> citizens across an entire US state.  Two-thirds of the room consisted of
> seniors themselves and, frankly, a lot of them ran out of energy about an
> hour after lunch.  So they sat around, a number slumping in chairs with eyes
> closed.
>
> Another involved an exploration of customer service issues for an airline.
>  Lots of corporate leaders from the airline present, along with their
> booking agents (this pre-dates internet booking sites), frequent flyer
> customers, and corporate travel execs who make travel policy for their
> companies.  A great mix, actually.  We were set to go from 8:00 a.m to 4:00.
>  About 2:00, a group of participants more or less seized control of the
> meeting somehow (I wasn't in the room when it occurred) and got everyone to
> agree to shorten the meeting by a full hour.  When I returned at 3:00,
> someone simply informed me, and asked that I begin the closing circle.  So
> that's what I did.  I never found out what actually happened.
>
> Not sure how to think about that last one, since I never found out how it
> all developed, but the following one is more like a true failure.
>
> I was asked to convene a two-day open space gathering for about 200 folks
> from around the US.  It would be the annual meeting of an association of a
> certain type of public health officer (cannot recall the details).  The
> whole thing was pretty dead from the outset –– I mean 200 people posting a
> total of only 15 sessions for two whole days!?  I found out the theme was
> all wrong.  The planning committee chose an idea that turned out to have no
> juice for the association's members.  I had spent hours in conference calls
> with the leadership group and the planning committee, and they'd assured me
> that the idea they chose was at the heart of the challenges facing them and
> their organizations.  Turns out that was dead wrong.  Nobody else cared.  I
> don't know how I might have seen through this situation ahead of time.
>
> I essentially agree with you, H.  If the conditions are appropriate, it
> will work.  But, if the three experiences above teach me anything, it's
> clear that stuff can always happens.
>
> Ralph Copleman
>
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