Totally present absolutely invisible

Thu Jun 3 14:46:03 PDT 2010

Colleagues:

The worst Open Space I ever saw was more than 12 years ago, in the days before I was really opening space.  I was working for the Canadian federal government at the time leading consultation processes with third party stakeholders on the treaty making process between governments and First Nations.  One of our advisory committees wanted to try a different sort of community meeting and my provincial colleague suggested open space.  They thought they might give it a go and so we brought in a well known facilitator of Open Space within the federal government to lead the session (it was NOT Bob Chartier, for those who are wondering).  

This woman arrived without really knowing anything about what we were doing and I remember on the drive up to our venue I had an uneasy sense of things.  She hadn't been involved in the invitation or the preparation and was talking a lot about herself.  

The theme of the gathering was "What does treaty making mean for you?"  We wanted to get perspectives from people, bring them into the work of making treaties and make it personal.  I though it was a good question.

When we got to the venue -  a community centre gym - the room was set up with many rows of chairs in a semi-circle.  When I asked our guest if she wanted the chairs in a circle, she said not to bother.  About 100 people arrived for the evening which was a good turn out.  She began by standing at the front of the rows of chairs, saying nothing about the invitation and describing the process, with no life in her voice and with no enthusiasm at all.  I was shocked.  And then I was surprised.  Because it turns out that most of the people thought that the question we had asked was a rhetorical question and that  they were there to find out the answer.  And they thought that the government people would be giving them the answer.  Uh oh.

Our guest of honour flailed badly with the increasingly angry comments from the crowd, and she was having a hard time getting any space opened at all.  When the comments go too content heavy, I stepped in and took the mic, shaking like a leaf, explained what we were trying to do and invited people to post topics.  Three quarters of the room left right there, with a lot of noise and bluster.  About 25 people stayed behind and actually convened a few sessions and had some great conversations.  So, yes the process worked, but it was an abject failure from my perspective, the perspective of the client.  I never saw or spoke to the facilitator again so I have no idea how it was from her perspective.

In retrospect, I learned a ton about running OST meetings from that one experience.  I learned that the invitation is critical, that the room setup matters and that the facilitation has to be enthusiastic, energetic and possibility based.  As a facilitator it helps a lot if you embody the invitation.  It also helps a lot if you know something about what you are talking about.  

In the end, the advisory group gave us some really generous feedback.  At our next meeting we all acknowledged that the process had failed to do what we wanted it to do, and that it may even have set back our efforts to engage the community in our work.  But one of the advisory committee members summed up the group's feelings by saying something along the lines of: "we really appreciate you trying to do something different.  You're not like the usual government people we have come in here.  You;re willing to try new and challenging things to make this work, and although we screwed this one up, thanks for trying."

Cheers,

Chris

----
Chris Corrigan
chris at chriscorrigan.com
http://www.chriscorrigan.com

On 2010-06-03, at 1:49 PM, Phelim McDermott wrote:

> I'm Interested in this wonderful skill:
>> Being totally present and absolutely invisible
>> 
> 
> 
> It is what I aspire to every time I faciltate orvdirect a show and relates very closely to stage presence as It is what I have worked with puppeteers in training to do over the years. (it is especially useful dramatically when you want to disappear and appear as if from nowhere onstage at just the right time. A skill some of the best facilitators have or so I have heard!  
> 
> There is another aspect about this I am interested in which for me relates to what some cultures would call the dreaming aspects of reality.
> 
> So here's the question: Is it possible to be in this state of presence/invisibilty whilst on another space in the room? Or outside the room? Or whilst asleep? 
> 
> So can one be totally present, absolutely invisible and take a nap? 
> 
> Phelim  
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On 3 Jun 2010, at 21:23, Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net> wrote:
> 
>> Michael – it would be really interesting to hear some actual situations where what you are describing is true. I’ve never seen it, but I did hear of one. It happened in South Africa where a local consultant took Open Space as a license for absence. He literally left for most of the day. As it turned out (as I heard from one of the participants) the group really didn’t miss him, and was basically sorry to see him return. And that same participant was sure that there had to be something more than he had seen. As a consequence he came to a “training program” (back in the days when I used to do something like that J) and subsequently opened space all over the place. So I guess there was a happy ending after a rocky start. Or something.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> But you really put your finger on something – “active listening” – which is not so much about doing anything but rather Being intensely.  Definitely hard to describe but my best shot is the enigmatic phrase – Being totally present and absolutely invisible. In my experience this is a matter of intention and practice. And the best part is that it is all definitely rewarding, not only in terms of facilitating Open Space, but equally in terms of self understanding and personal presence. It feels good.
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Harrison
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Harrison Owen
>> 
>> 7808 River Falls Dr.
>> 
>> Potomac, MD 20854
>> 
>> USA
>> 
>> Phone 301-365-2093
>> 
>> www.openspaceworld.com
>> 
>> www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)
>> 
>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
>> 
>> http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Michael Herman
>> Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2010 2:41 PM
>> To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
>> Subject: Re: On "Failure"
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> 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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