Whoever comes and leaves are the wrong people?

[Harrison Owen]

Great discussion here! I have had (rarely) the experience of people leaving
- but truthfully I never saw it as a negative. Folks were doing what folks
needed to do, and using their two feet to get it done. The only true
negative, I think, would have occurred had they opted to "tough it out" -
sitting there being miserable and making other people feel the same way. I
guess there was some question about the clarity of the Invitation, which can
be a problem. I don't think there is ever any need to "explain" Open Space -
they wouldn't believe it anyhow. But there is a necessity to be clear about
what can happen. Of course you can't predict the specific
results/conclusions, but there are definite promises you can make to all
participants. Goes like this:



Every issue of concern to anybody will be on the table, if they choose to
put it there.

All issues will be discussed to the extent that anybody cares to do so.

Summary reports of the discussions will be created.

Hot issues will be identified and working groups established.



I find that most people don't care about the process (that caring is
reserved for strange people like us). What they do care about is results and
(perhaps most especially) the opportunity to contribute. I think the
promises above take care of all those concerns. And for sure once in Open
Space, those concerns will be met. At least that has always been my
experience.



Will everybody be happy? Probably not. Seems like there is some small
percentage of folks who are born complainers. No matter what, they take it
as their professional obligation to complain. And I say Go For It! But I
can't worry about it too much.



ho



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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From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Lucas
Cioffi
Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2011 9:37 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Whoever comes and leaves are the wrong people?



Hi All,



We've all heard that "whoever comes are the right people;" does that also
imply that "whoever comes and leaves are the wrong people" too?  I'm
wondering if any of you have experience with people leaving in anger?



Here's my recent experience...

My co-facilitator received this comment in response to a post-event survey:

"I for one was not impressed, I traveled 275 miles to attend, cost the
government quiet a bit of money and left after the first breakout group.
There was not even enough of an introduction to let people know what exactly
what was going on.  Had I known that this was going to break out groups
talking about whatever with no actual solutions to what the problem was or
no direction on how to overcome the problem I would not have attended.  With
the budget being what it is I feel this was a total waste of money."



Some more context:

*	This was a workshop about internal transparency, held at a typical
federal government agency in DC.
*	This person is well-known as an opponent to change at the agency.
*	The workshop was not an open space event nor advertised as an open
space event, but it did include break-out groups and participants did
populate an agenda wall for two breakout sessions.  Because of the
similarities in design, I think this episode may be of interest to the
group.
*	These breakout groups were announced on the RSVP site, so this
person had an opportunity to know what was going to happen at the event.  Of
course people are busy so often they don't know what they're signing up for,
and I'm not going to blame this person for that.

Anyway, has someone ever left your event completely frustrated?  Did you do
anything about it?  I look forward to your thoughts.



Lucas

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