On "Failure"

Thu Jun 3 12:25:06 PDT 2010

m

RIGHT ON!

b

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 1:40 PM, Michael Herman <michael at michaelherman.com>wrote:

> 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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