Politically Correct and more

Mon May 31 16:27:36 PDT 2010

I must have missed the original post here.  

A couple of thoughts...

Be "unsafe" I'm not sure what is meant.  Certainly people have over the years spoken ill of one another here, been mean and rude and have slung names round.  But it seems to me that this has not happened in anything like the amount that it does elsewhere.  

Whether we are too nice with each other or not nice enough seems like a never ending discussion, and I don't know about safety.  Christina Baldwin once wrote that no single person can be responsible for the safety of a group, by a group can learn to take responsibility for it's own safety.  She also named a useful principle, which is ask for what you need and offer what you can, which seems to me a useful operating principle for being in community with one another. 

As for orthodoxy and evolution, I have a few thoughts.

First I think no story of Open Space Technology can be complete without talking about the way in which it has been developed in a gift economy.  Harrison refuses to be all that magnanimous about it, stating only that certifying or trademarking OST would have led to too much work, but the truth is that OST was and continues to be a gift to the world, and those of us who have made it our livelihood are very lucky to have received that gift.   There are many other methods that have been invented or discovered over the years that have been certified, trademarked and protected, and I have to say that they probably suffer the ravages of orthodoxy more so than OST.

The think about evolution is that it is only successful if it happens along a myriad of paths all at the same time.  Small mutations cause big changes, but you can never know beforehand which change will trigger a radical shift in form.  To that end, OST as a gift released into the world was guaranteed to do two things: 1. fail ALOT and 2. have a chance at producing some really interesting knowledge about how the world works and how groups and organizations operate.  the experiment proceeds apace, out of everyone's control and with a rich field of learning and compost to sift through.  This doesn't make it easy to work with, but it makes it robust and, well, just plain interesting to be a part of.  

The way I see it, what is taken for "orthodoxy" on this list is actually just a commitment to hold the core, like the heartwood of a tree.  Trees like cedars often rot out at their core making the subsequent structure weak and vulnerable to collapse.  But a tree with strong heartwood can grow for centuries, each ring adding to the shape suggested by the one before. If we are guilty of anything on this list, it is caring for the core, while the unbridled experiments swirl around us.

And as for being stuck with the man in the hat and his two martinis, well, I can think of a lot of other people that I would rather NOT be stuck with.  This dude, he's unique...irascible, prickly, committed to his story and fundamentally generous in his support, inquiry and musings about the practice.  I can think of no other field of organizational development in which the "founder" is so accessible to those who are getting started and to experienced hands alike.  For every new practitioner with a question, Harrison is there offering advice, support and a good story to ground the work.  Not such a big deal to be stuck with a guy like that!

Anyway those are my few thoughts, for what they're worth.

Cheers,

Chris

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

On 2010-05-31, at 3:07 PM, Raffi Aftandelian wrote:

> Jack, thanks much for:
> 
> 
>> With regard to your earlier email, I agree that PC is rife in the Open Space
> community, and that it is not safe to raise certain issues - not only in
> these posts, but beyond OSList.
> 
>> Two years ago, Paul Levy and I announced a discussion session, Open Space
> 2.0: Beyond the Dogma. The announcement triggered some hostility and a heap
> of defensive responses. Paul received an item of what can only be called
> hate mail from a prominent member of the so-called OS community (perhaps
> more like what Scott Peck would call 'pseudo-community').
> 
> 
>> Pseudo-community: Where participants are "nice with each other",
>> playing-safe, and presenting what they feel is the most favourable sides of
>> their personalities.
> 
> Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community
> 
> 
>> I've had similar responses to other posts, which is why I rarely post to
> this list these days.
> 
>> 25 years down the track, if they survive that long, most organisational
> concepts and tools have splintered and evolved. Open Space hasn't, and I'm
> not sure this is a good thing. It seems to reflect a degree of orthodoxy.
> 
>> I await howls of protest.
> 
> 
> and Michael thanks for giving a picture onto what happened at the one OT
> conference you attended.
> 
> You make OT sound more like a Rainbow Gathering or a Burning Man event than...
> 
> In any case, Jack, I'd like to express a howl of appreciation for saying
> that there are things you'd like to bring up on the list but don't feel safe
> doing so. 
> 
> What would it take for you to bring things up on the list?
> 
> As for the evolution of OST, hasn't it evolved?? Aren't Art of Hosting,
> Barcamps, unconferences, the Genuine Contact Program examples of the
> evolution of the technology? Now, we may quibble about the usefulness of
> these different paths of evolution, but...
> 
> And at the same time, when it comes to gathering together to get work done
> around something with great complexity, i haven't come across a better way. 
> 
> i'm afraid for now we're stuck with the Man in the Hat and the
> re-re-re-re-re-re-retelling of the Two Martini story...
> 
> if something could be different in the os community, jack, what would it be?
> and what would you need to make that happen?
> 
> i'll be the first to admit there are things about the os community that i
> find maddening at times. but when i ask myself how important it is to really
> address them- does it really matter- i find, well, no!
> 
> i think we are at a point where if we were to stop having stammtisches,
> wosonoses, osonoses, os "trainings," etc. ost would still get out
> there...we've reached a tipping point. 
> 
> if anything, i wonder if the history of our community in terms of how the
> technology has gotten into the world is a case worthy of study in and of
> itself (an example of how a good technology can get out there with minimal
> use of resources). ost got out there without a marketing plan, without
> research demonstrating its efficacy, heck without a - from what i can see- a
> central organization coordinating efforts and with rather limited rolling 
> out of an increasingly senile (his word, not mine) guru  for marketing
> efforts... 
> 
> yes, it was and is self-organizing at work...and at the same time, i wonder
> if it is worth looking more deeply at the question birgitt has posed--
> "what's the larger container in which self-organizing takes place?"
> 
> warmly,
> raffi
> 
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