[OSList] Dealing with conflicts

Wed Jul 25 06:55:37 PDT 2012

Good point Craig. We always learn from the exceptions/anomalies. In 27 years
of opening space, often in genuinely “hairy” situations, I have never
personally encountered a situation where “it didn’t work.” “Working” for me
is a fairly pragmatic definition. Folks got together, dealt with their
issues, and either found solutions or recognized that for reasons totally
beyond their control, no solution was possible in the moment. All of this
was done with a high degree of civility, respect, and economy of effort.
More often than not, participants will report that they even “had fun.”

I have heard of situations that were less than positive. In every case the
fundamental problem seemed to be that the sponsor/facilitator tried to “play
it safe.” This could mean restricting the time/space for discussion,
limiting the issues to be discussed (placing them off limits), and/or
intervening along the way with some form of mediation. Some people tried to
prepare the way by sharing “Handy Rules for treating each other nicely.” I
don’t suppose that hurt, but I never saw that it made any difference. Truth
is in the heat of discussion folks don’t seem to pay much attention to
rules, except those that are generated internally and are integral to the
conversation – which is what I think happens in Open Space.

Harrison

Harrison

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

USA

189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)

Camden, Maine 20854

Phone 301-365-2093

(summer)  207-763-3261

www.openspaceworld.com 

www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)

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From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Craig Gilliam
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2012 7:49 AM
To: oslist at lists.openspacetech.org
Subject: Re: [OSList] Dealing with conflicts

I do a great deal of conflict work professionally.  I am a practitioner of
OS as well.  

Rather than hearing only success (and I know that the definition of success
varies) stories of OS and conflict, I am also interested in those times
when someone felt OS did not work in a conflict situation, or did not work
as well as he/she thought it would and what did you learn from those
encounters. 

Thanks,

Craig

> Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2012 13:13:58 +0200
> From: mmpanne at boscop.org
> To: oslist at lists.openspacetech.org
> Subject: Re: [OSList] Dealing with conflicts
> 
> Dear Marie Ann,
> the gathering Harrison describes (Israelis and Palestinians in Rome) got 
> him to write a book on why os events are so peaceful even in highly 
> conflicting situations.
> If you like, I will send you a copy of "The Practice of Peace"... of 
> course, you can also get the german version I was involved in: "Raum für 
> den Frieden".
> In my own experience there have been a number of highly conflicting 
> situations for which sponsors chose Open Space Technology. The biggest 
> job I had was to convince the sponsors that you need nothing but open 
> space and it worked every time (Israelis and Palestinians meeting in 
> Switzerland, Parish Board and church workers at issue with each other, 
> Board of Directors and Marketing Department of a Food Corporation at 
> issue, Welfare Organisation with all subsystems at "war", Highschool 
> with opposing factions of teachers...you name it).
> Come to think of it, at the beginning of my OSpractice after 35 years of 
> OD consulting, I actually had to convince mainly myself that highly 
> conflicting situations is what os-events run on (one of the five 
> preconditions)... unlearning the old approaches (still very much in 
> vogue!!) was the hard part.
> Greetings from Berlin
> mmp
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 24.07.2012 22:35, Marie Ann Östlund wrote:
> > Dear all,
> >
> > I just spent a week in a community in France that is divided by quite
> > a large conflict. Have anyone of you used OS with a group of people
> > where the conflict is at its hight and emotions are still strong? I
> > can see that OS can be used in complex conflictual situations, but
> > wonder whether you would first spend time bringing down their emotions
> > to a 'manageable' level before attempting to bring them together into
> > an OS.
> >
> > Do you have any experiences in this regard? I'd be very interested in
> > your reflections!
> >
> > Thank you,
> >
> > Marie Ann
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> 
> -- 
> Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg
> Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
> ++49-30-772 8000
> mmpanne at boscop.org www.boscop.org
> 
> 
> Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 388 resident Open 
> Space Workers in 67 countries working in a total of 143 countries 
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