self-organization and "conscious" Open Space organizations [was OST and PD (Positive Deviance)]

[Raffi Aftandelian]

Queridos todos,

I'm cross-posting a message that Birgitt Williams wrote to the Genuine
Contact list today in response to a request for examples of Conscious Open
Space Organizations.

I thought with the topic of self-organizing systems popping up again, I'd
share this here.

Perhaps, with us re-re-re-re-re-visiting the topic of self-organizing
systems and Conscious Open Space Organizations (Interactive Organizations?),
the conversation may take a new turn? Who knows, stranger things have
happened on OSlist...

abrazos,
raffi



Dear Alexander,
Warm greetings! I will get into this discussion a bit.

From my perspective, there are a few things to consider. I don't give out
the contact info of organizations that we are working with, as there are
many people who are doing research now on such methods. We had one client
some time ago who stopped using us as consultants because of too many
inquiries. Another consideration is that when we developed the Conscious
Open Space Organization, we never postulated that it was a self organizing
system. Open Space Technology, when I learned it, did not include the
concept of the self organizing system and at the time the emphasis was on
spirit. The concept of the self organizing system attached to OST came much
later...maybe around 1996. And finally, at the request of our clients, we
stopped calling this type of organization a COSO. 

The concept of the COSO was that members of the organization would be
Conscious of where the space was open in an organization and where it was
not open, thus not wasting time to change what was not open but using their
consciousness of where it was open to be innovative in that arena. 

Unfortunately, according to ourclients, the staffs chose to emphasize
everything as open, causing a lot of mayhem. And so, sometime last year I
sent a proposal to the Genuine Contact Co-owners for a vote to change the
name...and so it is now changed to the Genuine Contact Organization.

Birgitt

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist