[OSList] Critiquing a WOSonOS - [formerly titled 'Peggy plus OST Linkedin'] -1

[Lisa Heft]

I smile because some of you are so eloquently sharing in one or two  
lines and here comes another one of my long messages.
So long in fact that the automatic OSLIST response told me it was too  
long to post.
So here you go - in two parts.

Enjoy if you will, the Law of De-Leet.

Part 1--

It seemed to me useful to change the title of this post thread to  
better reflect the content.
I am not sure what exactly else to call it so of course feel free to  
use this title or go on with the previous title.

As you are all welcome to do when you are participants in an Open  
Space - whether it is a WOSonOS or another sort of OS meeting: each  
participant is invited to engage in what they individually feel is  
most productive for and useful to them. Each participant is valued for  
their uniquely individual ways of thinking.

A WOSonOS is not a client meeting - which means it is often designed  
differently than how any of us might design a client meeting.
Though it is a bit like any of those OS conferences I have facilitated  
that have the objective of knowledge-sharing amongst diverse  
colleagues in a particular field or profession.

I am fascinated by several things.

Our internal and external responses when watching a colleague  
facilitate Open Space:

We do not often get to see each other facilitate. An OSonOS or WOSonOS  
is a special opportunity to see how someone else does it - to try on  
whether we ourselves might explain the principles and law that way or  
not; whether we ourselves would design one-hour sessions or 1.5 hour  
sessions, whether we ourselves would have an Evening News be about  
sharing observations, just announcements, or both. The thing I am  
fascinated by is the level of irritation I sense from some people  
about why another facilitator did or did not do it in the way we  
ourselves would. I think that Phelim and his colleagues have been  
amazingly welcoming to peoples' sometimes kind, sometimes not-so-kind  
comments (including during the event) on how he and his team did or  
did not do it they way they want it. At the grace with which Phelim  
invites and receives difference, opinion. even anger. I am interested  
that some of these comments come out in a way that sounds to me like  
anger - but then, I have to assume that each of us communicates in the  
best way we can and some of us are communicating across language and  
culture, as well. However in these events we have been attending -  
nothing is changed about the basic and complete form of Open Space -  
just how things are said or what happens in the evenings. Why not say  
'oh that is interesting and different from me' or 'oh that is  
different from me and I think I shall try that in my own next OS  
meeting'. Why make it about that facilitator at all - why not cherish  
the learning experience and explore one's own feelings and ideas as  
just that - a learning experience?

A WOSonOS' host team's decisions about design, culture and celebration:

A WOSonOS is indeed a celebration - and for any host team who wants to  
do it that way - a sharing of one's home culture while welcoming  
diverse colleagues from nearby or around the world. If a WOSonOS host  
team wants their welcome reception to be about theatre - because they  
themselves are of the culture of theatre - or about a Chilean  
welcoming to the land from the indigenous spiritual leaders and  
stewards of the land - because they themselves cherish and wish to  
share that culture and that land - how could anyone critique that as  
being appropriate or not appropriate? That is interesting to me. Why  
not simply enjoy it?  And what is stopping us from expressing our own  
forms of creativity as well? I saw movement groups, dancing, play,  
singing, lovely little conversations outside, on the steps or on the  
swings in the park... with us all knowing that anything is possible in  
Open Space - how could we not as participants do whatever we want to do?

(to be continued, in Part 2...)

Lisa




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