[OSList] The grief process in my new venture

[Kári Gunnarsson]

Last week has been wonderful for my start-up Open Space consultation
businesses. With new clients that have ambition to get out of the way for
self-organization to take place.

A small private school and kindergarten system invited the leadership and
key-employees of the 17 institutions to discuss how we can prepare for the
future now that the first generation of visionaries will no longer be as
active in the organization. We had two-day open space filled with learning
and longing. Extremely positive comments from participants, two of my
favorite were:
1. Why did we not meet like this many years ago?
2. We need to meet like this for a full uninterrupted week.

The sponsors are seeing the grief process at work within the leadership of
the institutions and I told them a wonderful story of Icelandic myth. It is
a story about a man named 'Fúsi', he finds himself at crossroads during
midnight at the changing of times. He knew that the elves travel the roads
at these times and will offer their gifts to anyone sitting at the
crossroad. But one should be careful accept any one gift from the elves or
one would go mad. Many elves came and offer him gifts of gold and pleasure
and laid them at his feet. And as the night grew, he became hungry. One
elven maiden came with a dish full of eatables, a dish called "Flot" and
offered to him, he said to the maiden, "Sjaldan hef ég flotinu neitað"
(Rarely have I 'been a' "Flot" naysayer), and he became mad from the day he
ate from that dish, then I add that we should not jump to conclusions with
easy solutions and let the emerging open space take its place, for
otherwise we rob ourselves from the leadership development that is
necessary for a healthy organization.


My little story on grief is a follows.  It goes like a berthing exercise,
first there is something that happened, we lose our breath and freeze in
out track. It is good stop if there is danger, but we can't do much without
breath. Anger helps us recapture our breath and move away from danger.
Anger lets us draw our breath and drop whatever we are doing so that we can
react promptly. Now that we are out of anger and other tasks like feeding
the children come to the agenda, then the Denial is like gold. Now as we
move in our daily tasks the memories of what happened come to us and we
negotiate them into our personal and organizational life stories. As our
stories have changed so have our prerequisites for our hopes and plans, it
can be a painful process to let go and disconnect from them, but as we do
this, we find new space open up in our lives. The methodology of Open Space
draws its name from this stage of the grieving process. When here, it is of
value to learn from the Story of Fúsi and the elves, and not fill up the
space with old ideas, but to let the gifts of the open space unfold. For
the next stage holds the promise of a new hope, a new power, a vision for
the future. a common direction that is essential for effective strategic
planning.

With love from Iceland
Kári Gunnarsson
kari at openspace.is
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