[OSList] Follow-Up and Flow in Open Space

[Harrison Owen]

Paul - Interesting thoughts! But I am wondering how you might have handled a
client situation I once had. The gathering was convened to explore "their
future" - with lots of action expected. All under the heading of what they
were going to do for the rest of their life. However, by early afternoon on
the first day everybody pretty well agreed they did not have a future. They
dissolved the business. I guess you could call that an action? J

 

 

Harrison

 

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From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of paul levy
Sent: Saturday, March 23, 2013 8:56 AM
To: oslist at lists.openspacetech.org
Subject: [OSList] Follow-Up and Flow in Open Space

 

Dear colleagues

 

Someone suggested I post this and I'd be delighted with some reflections on
it...

 

warm wishes

 

Paul Levy

 

Follow-Up and Flow in Open Space...

 

"Time runs backwards in the spiritual world."

No, don't stop reading. Not yet.

There's a lot of debate in the field of emergence focused on "when things
open up, how do you close them down?".

In the realm of Open Space, often the textbook reply is not to close down at
all but simply to open some more space for closing down...

In other words, if we are worried about outcomes from an open space - what
will happen back at base, the actions, the commitments in practice, then all
we need to do is to follow up with an invitation to another Open Space that
focuses on the question of action. So you need at least two open spaces to
get stuff done.

Another view is that one should trust the open space itself - whatever
happens of course is the only thing that could have. And many open spaces do
self-organise sessions about action so... just trust the process. It always
works.

A third view is that these are paying clients we are usually talking about.
As facilitators we can't just leave the organisation "up in the air", walk
away and let them do what they will with the space we've opened up! Many
facilitators then reach for the post-it notes, often in the last hour, and
start to draw out (or bleed?) actions from the meeting. All kinds of clever
prioritising and voting ensues. Elsewhere I've suggested this might be a
counter-productive way of going about things.

Now, here's an alternative view and its based on the idea that time runs
backwards in the spiritual world. No! Stay with me. Just for a bit longer.
Imagine you put what went "before" you (past), before you (in front of you.

For those of you still here, read on...

I am going to suggest that follow up is often best at the start, not after
the event. I've tried it. It works. If the client is very concerned, even at
the planning stage, that action must result, then, of course, include the
invite to decide and commit to actions in the invitation to the open space.
Make that call to action explicit and that will help to set the path for the
right people to come. Some open space invitations are very "theme" focused
and it is easy when we immerse in self-organising conversation, to forget
the element of our will that sometimes sleeps a bit when we go into the head
space of sitting in circles, self-organising the content of what is often
talk, talk, talk.

So, build the reminder of action in the invitation before the event. Put
action before the event, not after it.

Yet even then it is easy to forget when the space opens. Not always, but
often.

Now, stop reading if you don't like apparent craziness.

Try this. Before the event, invite those coming to share what they think the
actions should be arising from the Open Space. Ask them to come up with
actions before the event has started. This can be done online or at a
pre-meeting. Get the actions out. When an open space is commissioned, it is
often because a critical issue or challenge in the organisation or community
has given rise to it. It is born out of restlessness. And restlessness is
often takes the form of blocked flow. People often know (or think they know)
what the actions and priorities are. Not everyone, but some. They may not be
correct, but they sit there, bubbling behind the damn of "not yet" or "no".

If certain actions have already been fixed and decided by leaders, be open
and transparent and build them into the invitation. If the actions are to be
arrived through community and organisational input then use a method to
surface them - but not after the open space - BEFORE it. The reason is
because a lot of the future already sits as potential in the word, hidden,
waiting to emerge. Human beings often tap into this and know what needs to
be done, before they explore how, and verify why, sometimes deciding against
anyway. The bubbling potential underneath is the potential for "realisation"
and it is mostly about action. The release of potential is often
exhilarating. Often at open space events, that potential for action gets
lost in the self-organising gorgeous chaos of of emergent head-talk.
Especially in the West.

Get them out on the table BEFORE the event. Put them up on the wall. THEN
open the market place. The suggested "follow-up" actions will then be
"incomes" not "outcomes" of the event. They will be there, not bubbling
underneath, but instead shared consciously, and they will irritate and
inspire. And often sessions well self-organise around them. By the end of
the day, what we put "before" us, before the event started, now stand
"Before" us as commitments after the event.

Trust the self-organising nature of open space and also trust the inherent
knowingness of the human collective and individual will. There's often no
need to worry about actions not arising from an event, if we accept that
those actions were largely already there in the collective story and flow
AND genius of the community.

Some of those actions going in will be thrown out, others re-affirmed,
others changed and played with, and new actions will also come into being.

I'm not suggesting this for all Open Spaces. Actually it works best where
action forms the main part of the invitation, is vital to the sponsor and
the community and also where there's an intuition that many of the actions
are already known and the open space overall theme is really more about the
who, when, where, why and how.

Put the ending at the beginning, the imagined actions as the inspiration and
input. Then space will open around what we already think and feel needs to
happen. It might not. But then, again, it just might.

But please, ditch the post-its and the after-event prioritising. It has
nothing to do with opening space.

I believe that when we start an emergent conversation we may well have a
blank page. But usually organisations and communities travel along timelines
of past into present into future that are more like tapestries than lines.
Linear is but one way we experience life. Yet past is always playing into
the present, the future in the form of the unrealised and the potential
inspires us in the know. Often something in the future will be a direct
transformation or culmination of something that began in the past. We are
also past, present, AND future, which is more of a picture rather than
something linear. In open space, the action often precedes the word.
Allowing those actions to speak in the past of the open space often creates
a marvelous alchemy of flow where past and future meet in open space in the
present.

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