[OSList] Is it true that Open Space does not really work when there are many internal conflict?

[Harrison Owen]

Pernilla -- The big secret is -- Be totally present and absolutely
invisible. Sounds weird, but that is the fun part!

Harrison

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Dr.
Potomac, MD 20854
USA

189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)
Camden, Maine 04843

Phone 301-365-2093
(summer)  207-763-3261

www.openspaceworld.com 
www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)
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-----Original Message-----
From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Pernilla
Luttropp
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2012 5:20 PM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Is it true that Open Space does not really work when
there are many internal conflict?

Harrison!
I love the way you keep insisting on "staying out of the way" or to take a
nap. And still you are constantly here on the list, keeping me aware of what
I do when I open space, interfering if you like, but very much present.
And that makes a difference, your presence makes a difference. And I like to
think that kind of presence makes a difference in any open space.

Thanks!

Pernilla


Den 2012-12-20 21.33, skrev "Harrison Owen" <hhowen at verizon.net>:

> Lisa The Body Worker! I like that!! And I have no question that you do 
> what you do with great enthusiasm, heart, skill -- and all to positive
effect.
> That said, my question (quest) really goes in another direction. It is 
> not so much about doing something wrong. And certainly not that YOU 
> are doing something wrong. But perhaps we are all doing the wrong 
> thing. Or maybe doing anything at all. Put somewhat differently, I 
> find myself coming to the conclusion that much (perhaps most) of what 
> we do, even with the best of intentions, produces results that are the 
> very antithesis of what we hope for. And there is an alternative.
> 
> In your earlier message you said, "Sometimes it is as simple as 
> helping an organization look at who does what tasks and re-arranging each
role's tasks.
> Or doing an assessment of what is reasonable pay. Or giving the 
> organization some sample structure for how to hold supervisor-staff 
> individual meetings or quarterly evaluation." Nothing problematical 
> here, indeed I think most people would see all of this as good, 
> standard practice. The "right" thing to do, as it were.
> 
> But I think there may be an implicit assumption that can lead us in 
> the wrong direction with the net result is that we "do the wrong 
> thing." The assumption is that when we confront a floundering 
> organization, we are engaging a structured entity that we (or 
> somebody) created (organized), which for whatever reason is 
> malfunctioning. The "fix" is obvious: Adjust the system so that it works
better.
> 
> However, were the object of our attention (The Organization) something 
> quite different than we presumed -- our well intentioned "fix" is 
> likely to be irrelevant at best, and possibly destructive. It is a 
> good idea in the wrong situation (doing the wrong thing). I think that is
our situation.
> 
> An alternative view would look something like this -- The organization 
> we confront is actually the product of Self Organization, and while we 
> may have some part in its initiation (our passion and responsibility 
> created the space in which the emergent organization appeared), the 
> manner and mechanisms of its growth come from a very different 
> place--not us. It is an organism, and like all organisms it emerges 
> and evolves in response to multiple, complex, interacting forces -- 
> some of which are observable by us, but the vast majority simply pass us
by. Too much, too fast, too subtle.
> 
> When we, in spite of our obvious limitations, seek to impose our 
> understanding of design and function upon that organization, we are on 
> very thin ice, I think. Indeed, I would make the case that were we to 
> set out to create a powerful system that would limit creativity, 
> eliminate emergent leadership, destroy self respect, prevent 
> communication and reduce morale to zombie levels -- I really don't 
> think we could do any better than the current corporate/government/NGO 
> model. It does one hell of a job, and when we set out to strengthen 
> that system with yet more organizational structures and strategies, even
with the best of intentions...
> 
> The truly amazing thing to me is that our organizations function as 
> well as they do in spite of our best efforts to constrain their space 
> and force them along paths of our choosing. However, I suppose this 
> amazing fact is the strongest testimony to the power of self 
> organization. And one of our (or certainly my) major learnings from 
> the OST Experiment is that even brutally conflicted and constrained 
> organizations perform brilliantly when the space is opened. It is not 
> about doing anything new or different, it is quite simply about STOP 
> DOING all the things that inhibit superior performance. No new 
> structures, procedures, tweaks, trainings, programs -- just fully be 
> what you already are: Self Organizing! There is really no preparation 
> needed for Open Space if only because everybody is already there. It is
just that a lot of us are doing it badly, or trying desperately not to do it
at all.
> Weird!   
> 
> Once in existence, we may surely observe the organization, learn about 
> its function, and perhaps most importantly, learn how we may 
> effectively live with it, and in it. And if we are careful and 
> attentive, we may even learn how to enhance its growth and nurture its 
> development (Good Body Work!). But our efforts will always be of 
> secondary importance. The organization will have its own structure, 
> its own flow, its own unique way of being. That, after all, is the 
> nature and definition of self organization. It is said that the body 
> is its own best healer, and under most circumstances it needs only the 
> space and time to heal. Oh sure, a little help and encouragement along the
way is great, and a good massage is Nirvana!
> 
> Harrison
> 
> 
> Harrison Owen
> 7808 River Falls Dr.
> Potomac, MD 20854
> USA
> 
> 189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)
> Camden, Maine 04843
> 
> Phone 301-365-2093
> (summer)  207-763-3261
> 
> www.openspaceworld.com
> www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of 
> OSLIST Go 
> to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.or
> g
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
> [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Lisa Heft
> Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2012 8:07 PM
> To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
> Subject: Re: [OSList] Is it true that Open Space does not really work 
> when there are many internal conflict?
> 
> Harrison my friend, that is the beauty of it.
> We see things in different ways at times, at other times we see / feel 
> / do exactly what the other would do - always rich for co-learning.
> 
> I do not see it as 'nasty details' - I see it as wonderful stuff rich 
> with learning - as people telling the stories to inform what may help.  
> Also the stories help me know how to work with the client on 
> clarifying the task / focusing question / objective for the Open Space 
> day. It also draws out who else to invite perhaps, rather than the 
> original small circle the client or community may first have been 
> thinking about. Or a way to adjust the form of documentation to match 
> how they might wish to use the information, ideas and relationships
post-event. Things like that.
> 
> And I do not see actions / systems / conversations / meetings that 
> might be useful to groups as 'interventions'. I see them more as 
> nutrition. I see myself more as a body worker, helping the system 
> breathe and access its greatest resources: its human resources.  I 
> like to ask about the whole chain of things because there are some 
> things the organism has capacity to do for itself (exercise, 
> nutrition, reflection) and some things I can help with (acupuncture, 
> massage, if you will). I feel there is value in telling the story and
being witness to the story, as well.
> 
> Just some thoughts playing off your thoughts...
> 
> Thanks for sparking my thinking,
> Lisa
> 
> 
> On Dec 19, 2012, at 12:48 PM, Harrison Owen wrote:
> 
>> Good one, Kari! ("Is Open Space not working when there are many 
>> internal
>> conflicts?")
>> 
>> For me the place to begin is with a clear understanding of "working,"
>> and I find that there are at least three questions (meanings) here.
>> You have to make sure you which one you are asking and answering.
>> Specifically, do you mean, Does Open Space work in formal terms? -- 
>> i.e. people sat in a circle, opened a market place, etc -- The answer 
>> in my experience is, Yes at the 100% level. If you mean Does Open 
>> Space work as a productive activity? -- were critical 
>> issues/opportunities raised, clarified, and usefully dealt with? 
>> Again the answer in my experience is Yes and pretty close to the 100%
level.
>> However, if you mean "works" as in "solves all problems forever and 
>> ever..." it gets a little more complicated, and depends greatly on 
>> the situation and context.
>> 
>> There are multiple examples of Open Spaces involving large groups of 
>> very angry and/or confused people resolving major complex issues by 
>> the end of the closing circle. I wrote up one of the earliest in the 
>> opening chapter of the User's Guide. In that situation 240 people 
>> consisting of Federal, State and Local officials along with a equal 
>> number of Native Americans had the task of writing guidelines for the 
>> expenditure of $1.5 billion for Highways on Tribal lands. This group 
>> had been fighting for 2 years, and absolutely nothing had been 
>> accomplished. When the meeting began the group had only 2 months 
>> additional time before the whole $1.5b would disappear back into the 
>> US Treasury. In the course of the gathering the discussion was indeed 
>> hot and heavy, putting it mildly. However, by the closing circle, the 
>> task had been accomplished, the guidelines had been created. To be 
>> sure, those guidelines had to be put in formal, legal language -- But 
>> by any reasonable standard it can be said that Open Space worked in 
>> and through intense conflict.
>> 
>> In a different situation and context the question becomes more 
>> nuanced and complicated -- but the answer, simply put, is the same. 
>> Open Space works.
>> For example, I am currently working with a relatively large 
>> organization (2000+ employees) which was described to me by several 
>> of the senior folks as "dysfunctional." When I asked what that meant 
>> they said something to the effect that the anger, low morale, missed 
>> communication, games playing, etc.
>> was so severe that nobody really even knew what the problems were, 
>> and for sure the productive output of the organization was seriously 
>> compromised.
>> They wanted to do an Open Space for their Washington people and did I 
>> think it would work?
>> 
>> I had no problem saying, Yes. At least it always had worked so long 
>> as the participants fell somewhere within the genetic pool of Homo 
>> sapiens.
>> HOWEVER, that is only the beginning of the story. The truth, it is 
>> really quite easy to enable any group of people, who share some 
>> common concern, albeit in highly diverse and conflicted ways -- to 
>> reach a point of intense, meaningful, and productive interaction and 
>> solutions. But that is just a start, albeit a good one -- and never 
>> to be confused with eternal salvation.
>> What next?
>> 
>> The simple fact of the matter is that if a group of people, having 
>> experienced deep, meaningful and productive joint activity (in the 
>> Open
>> Space) are simply thrown back into the situation which caused all the 
>> dysfunction in the first place -- they are twice damned. They have 
>> seen the lights of Paris, and are definitely back on the farm. Now 
>> they know, as perhaps they never did before, just how really 
>> miserable they are, and worse yet -- they know it could be better. In 
>> an odd way, this is real progress, but very painful and not conducive 
>> to a long term, positive outcome.
>> 
>> Right here we run head on into all the "nasty details" so well 
>> described by my friend Lisa H. ("...without looking at the whole 
>> ecology of communication, history, context, resources, differences, 
>> internal and external reasons for issues that feel like conflict, 
>> communication styles, what happens before and after the event, how 
>> the event fits into the ongoing work of the community or 
>> organization, and so on....").
>> 
>> But when it comes to finding the way forward, I have to take a 
>> different path than friend Lisa seems to be suggesting. If I 
>> understand her correctly, the critical next steps involve careful 
>> analysis of all the "nasty details"
>> (I think we call it Systems Thinking) combined with strategic 
>> interventions (re-organizations, etc) to achieve the fix.
>> 
>> This is a great idea and Grand Theory -- but frankly it gives me a 
>> massive headache. I simply can't think all that and I seriously doubt 
>> that anybody else can either. It is simply too massive, too complex, 
>> too interconnected, too fast moving. Mind boggling -- and I really 
>> don't think I am stupid, just finite human. And when it comes to 
>> designing useful solutions, the stakes have just simply gone off the 
>> charts. I don't think we can do that!
>> But more
>> to the point, my experience tell me, we do not have to.
>> 
>> If we have learned nothing else in the 27 year Natural Experiment 
>> Called Open Space it is that Self Organization is powerful and 
>> effective.
>> Left to
>> its own devises, the organization (any group of people gathered 
>> together to do something) will in short order manifest orderly 
>> patterns that enable their efforts. Those patterns (structures) may 
>> be minimal, but they work.
>> And if we provide some minimal initial focus (sit in a circle, create 
>> bulletin board...), what happens naturally appears to happen with 
>> even greater dispatch. All we have to do is stay out of the way. This 
>> is not a process we do, as in run, create, even facilitate. It is 
>> what we are, and it happens all by itself.
>> 
>> Perhaps it is an unjustifiable leap -- but I absolutely believe that 
>> the only difference between the Organization of a group of people in 
>> Open Space and Organization of any other sort is a matter of size and 
>> duration.
>> It is
>> all self organizing. And in all cases it remains true: Organizing a 
>> self organizing system is not only an oxymoron, but stupid, a waste 
>> of time, and ineffective. Truth is the organization (organism) can 
>> and will do a much better job -- and virtually every effort on our 
>> part slows things down and effectively thrown a "spanner" in the works.
>> Putting it in the baldest of terms, our efforts to organize the 
>> system and create the "fix"
>> actually
>> create most of the pain and dysfunction we seek to resolve. Self 
>> inflicted wounds.
>> 
>> So when we follow the path that Lisa suggests, which of course is 
>> also the path that most all of contemporary management theory and 
>> practice supports, we are essentially adding fuel to the fire and 
>> creating new levels of potential dysfunction. Our "fixes" may seem to 
>> work for the moment, but in all too short a time we hear the magic 
>> words - Re-Organize! Re- Organize! The good news is that it does keep 
>> all managers, consultants, and I'm sorry to say, facilitators employed.
>> But it is an odd situation: Seems we create the very problems we are 
>> then paid to resolve.
>> 
>> Total heresy I know, but on the off chance that some grain of truth 
>> may reside therein -- what is the alternative? My experience says 
>> that the alternative is a simple one, and one we already know: Open
Space.
>> 
>> This might mean "doing an Open Space"--but more usually it would mean 
>> applying the lessons learned from our Natural Experiment in our 
>> everyday world of life and work. The lessons have been multiple, but 
>> we might start with the simple ones. For example, when starting a 
>> project INVITE participation -- DON'T Order it. And guess what, the 
>> right people will turn up. And when they do show up, get rid of the 
>> tables and work in a circle.
>> And forget about the Program Plan; elicit the passions and 
>> responsibilities of those who cared to come. Well you get the idea.
>> 
>> All of this is really the heart and soul of the 5th Principle 
>> "Wherever it happens is the right place." And we will learn, I think, 
>> that it can and does happen anywhere and everywhere.
>> 
>> Goodness me, I have gone on. And indeed there is a lot more to go.
>> If you
>> are interested in my best shots to date, check out my last two books, 
>> "The Practice of Peace," and "Wave Rider." But better yet just start 
>> with your own experience and let it grow. It could really get 
>> exciting.
>> 
>> So Kari -- Does Open Space work in conflicted spaces? You bet! And 
>> everywhere else as well.
>> 
>> Harrison
>> 
>   
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