On "Failure" / Coaching

[Harrison Owen]

Ilja -- Understanding that the whole world is self organizing (in Open
Space, as it were) -- including all human
activities/organizations/institutions is useful to me because it keeps my
efforts in perspective. In opening space I don't bring something new to the
table. My effort and intent is simply to help what is already there work
better. As I think I said, all organizations/meetings are already in Open
Space. They just don't do it very well, and in fact as Michael points out,
they often do everything in their power to shut everything down. Odd!
However, even in the most repressed environment/conference -- there is still
Open Space. You know that because the people are all looking forward to the
Coffee Breaks, and once they get there (coffee break) it is very hard to get
them back in the meeting room. Could be the folks are telling us something?

Harrison

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Dr.
Potomac, MD 20854
USA
Phone 301-365-2093
www.openspaceworld.com
www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)
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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Ilja Preuß
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 3:26 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: On "Failure" / Coaching

Hi Harrison,

> Doing an Open space is one thing, but
> building upon that experience in an ongoing way to the profit and
betterment
> of the organization/group is the next level up, as far as I am concerned.
I
> am not talking about, “becoming an Open Space organization” if only
because
> I sincerely believe that all organizations are already there.

I share the notion that the whole world basically is self-organizing.
But taking that to the final logical conclusion, we also need to say
that every single conference, every single meeting is an "Open Space".
And while there is something to it, I don't find this to be a very
helpful notion.

While it's true that the whole world is self-organizing, it also seems
very obvious to me that very different things happen once we
deliberately open the space for this self-organization to happen,
instead of deciding to impose a limiting structure. So much different,
in fact, that I dread conferences that don't make that space. So I
find value in only labeling those conferences and meetings as "Open
Space" where there is deliberate action taken to open the space, and
I'm assuming that something similar holds true for "Open Space
organizations".

Cheers, Ilja

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