[OSList] The OST Game
Daniel Mezick
dan at newtechusa.net
Sun Oct 6 17:30:55 PDT 2013
Michael,
Thanks for your reply; I like this conversation.
My current beliefs summarized:
1/ The culture of the org is a game. It is goal-seeking, it has rules.
It delivers feedback. It is opt-in, because you can quit the org. (See
www.TheCultureGame.com)
2/ OST is a pre-fabricated meeting format with excellent game
properties. It is well formed. It is optimized on manifesting up-spirit,
as described in the SPIRIT book. Spirit is a topic beyond the scope of
this thread
3/ Leaders choose to play OST. Or not. If the Facilitator stays true to
OST, the leader opts-in-or-opts-out to occupying the Sponsor role and
actually going all the way with OST (self-selection, all issues on the
table). This amounts to opting-in to play the OST game.
4/ Org culture is a game. Games in orgs are nested. Thus a meeting is a
small finite game bounded by time and space inside the org's wider
culture-game-space. Orgs contain collections of meetings. As a general
rule, most meetings reflect the containing ambient culture; authentic
OST meetings are a notable exception. An OST meeting has at least the
potential to change the culture in the culture-game-space of the org.
5/ There is no 'real' and 'game' distinction. All real work is a game.
The real work and the meeting are one and the same: games.
However, the game of the org (per McGonigal) is not well formed. Goals
are unclear. Rules are not uniformly applied. Self-selection gets
"managed". Spirit gets dampened. Meetings are not opt-in. Disengagement
becomes a rational response and a grave consequence of the poorly formed
game. Etc. OST has none of these warts. It's a good game, one that's fun
to play.
www.gaminghappiness.com
On 10/6/13 2:28 PM, Michael Herman wrote:
> what your quoting suggests to me, dan, is a distinction akin to what
> i've already shared about tools/techniques versus practice.
>
> in another message you've suggested rules, feedback etc, and defined
> ost as a game. what i hear harrison saying in the quoting here,
> though, suggests that organization is the game.
My current belief: The culture of the org is a game. It is goal-seeking,
it has rules. It delivers feedback. It is opt-in, because you can quit
the org. (See www.TheCultureGame.com)
> ost is a strategy, a style of play, a gambit, or something inside of
> that game.
My current belief: It's a meeting. Good meetings are well-formed games
according the McGonigal definition found inside the book REALITY IS
BROKEN, page 22.
> it's a way we choose to play. (when i go look it up to be sure, i
> think when you're calling ost a game, i think gambit might be the
> better word.)
My current belief: Yes, leaders opt-in to occupying the Sponsor role and
actually going all the way with OST (self-selection, all issues on the
table)
>
> this helps explain, at least to myself, why calling open space itself
> a game seems too small. it seems to remove open space from the larger
> context, and in doing so, the practice loses it's reason for being.
> it never exists on its own, for it's own sake... always we "do it"
> for some purpose. the chasing of that purpose is the game. if we
> make open space a game, we give up our license to comment on the
> larger game that is organization, software development, or whatever.
> in other words, my sense is that if the languaging of these things
> makes ost a "game" and organization/software/whatever is "real" --
> then ost becomes significantly limited in what it can do to change
> what i see as the real game, the bigger field of play.
My current belief: Games in orgs are nested. Thus a meeting is a small
finite game bounded by time and space inside the org's wider
culture-game-space. As a general rule, most meetings reflect the
containing ambient culture, authentic OST meetings are a notable exception.
>
> i don't know this for sure, but this is my hunch. it also may be that
> this story works better in software circles, where the actual work,
> much of it done by people glued to computer screens, looks more like
> some kinds of gaming. this context would make the split between real
> work and gaming less pronounced.
My current belief: All real work is a game. However, the game is not
well formed. Goals are often unclear. Rules are not uniformly applied to
all. Self-selection gets "managed". Etc.
>
> i'm all for it, if and wherever it works. and my guess is that it
> doesn't translate immediately, cleanly, and effectively to all kinds
> of work. but then again, almost story does translate easily and
> effectively to every/any context.
>
> m
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Michael Herman
> Michael Herman Associates
> 312-280-7838 (mobile)
>
> http://MichaelHerman.com
> http://OpenSpaceWorld.org
>
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 10:44 AM, Skye Hirst <skyeh at autognomics.org
> <mailto:skyeh at autognomics.org>> wrote:
>
> I guess I want to play in this "game". Feedback implies
> mechanistic processes that have been identified through cause and
> effect responses. This is where we get into trouble. Life is not
> machine like, in any way. It is complex and not complicated as a
> set of gears and cogs can become if there are too many trying to
> interact. However processes of living require new metaphors to
> capture or even point to the "game" of living process where each
> entity and combination of entities initiate to form a group,
> organization or society and have formed to "experience
> satisfaction" or find effective actions separately and together.
> The constraints emerge from what the individuals and the
> collective discover as useful temporary rules of the moment - they
> can take habit if they are useful beyond the moment. Some where
> in the process someone decides to "name" the rule, the process
> and everyone nods in agreement to call what they have shared in
> common by "that word" (i.e. jargon) Then someone else comes along
> who perhaps was not in the experience and take up the name and
> they pass it along as the "rule" that must be the container for
> that process and try to create the same process starting with the
> rule instead of the initiating impulse to come together.
>
> Well I think you can see an ephemeral organic process that is ever
> changing gets bogged down with words, the names and with labels,
> however useful they may be for a bit. GAme on, as they say,
> yet, all I'm suggesting is that we stop trying to name, and
> control with naming a process beyond anything but pointers we can
> use to share a common experience - each of us forming it each time
> uniquely with both particular and universal operatives. Unique to
> the entities in the forming circle, the space time event forming
> the circle and so on and so on
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 10:41 AM, Daniel Mezick <dan at newtechusa.net
> <mailto:dan at newtechusa.net>> wrote:
>
> Hi Harold,
>
> In THE CULTURE GAME book I make the radical/heretical claim
> that culture is a game...and every meeting...a game.... and in
> fact every interaction... is a game.
>
> In the book there are examples that support the idea that all
> meetings are games.
>
> According to this theory, if OST is a type of meeting, then
> OST is a type of game.
> Games have: Goal, Rules, Feedback mechanisms, Opt-in
> Participation.
>
> The OST Game:
>
> The Goal:
> Explore the Theme-Question.
>
> The Rules:
> 1 Law, 4/5 Principles, some defined Roles, a few other
> suggestions. A supporting slogan...
>
> The Feedback Mechanics:
> Continuous, rich feedback via all of the senses, in real time
> for each individual and group-as-a-whole.
>
> Opt-In Participation:
> YES
>
> By these measures, OST is a beautifully designed meeting-game.
>
>
> Here is a specific quote from your message, below:
>
> "But I'd never heard anyone describe Open Space Technology as
> a beautifully designed game before."
>
> The reality is that Harrison mentions the word [game] when
> discussing High Play & High Learning as it pertains to
> self-organizing social systems... it shows up in the book Wave
> Rider. OST encourages a social system to reach higher levels
> of self-organization...Hmmm.
>
> Here is the quote (emphasis added...):
>
> "...High play is the antidote to dogmatic thinking & therefore
> an essential companion to High Learning. It is also fun. In
> 'X" Company, PLAY is strictly prohibited, for after all there
> is work to be done and it is always very serious. Even worse,
> PLAY, almost by definition, is out of control- which is what
> makes if fun. Can you imagine anything worse than PLAYING A
> GAME where the results are already known in advance? Boring! "
> -H.O., Wave Rider, page 132
>
>
> On 9/4/13 6:23 PM, Harold Shinsato wrote:
>> Dan,
>>
>> Thank you for forwarding that interview. I've worked with
>> your interviewer Amr Elssamadisy before in Dr. Christopher
>> Avery's "Leadership Gift" program. Great to hear his voice.
>> Thought he did a great job bringing forward your insights.
>>
>> It's hard for me to express how deeply your thinking aligned
>> with what I see as the essence of Open Space, and what I feel
>> emerging in my own psyche and that in the collective when we
>> spoke and I got to be present at your session in Nashville at
>> Agile 2013 last month. I continue to find your material to be
>> a critical piece in helping bridge the Open Space and Agile
>> communities - something Peggy Holman called "Sister
>> Communities" at the World Open Space on Open Space in St.
>> Petersburg back in May.
>>
>> I'd heard your thinking before and it continues to astound me
>> the relevance and power in getting these two communities to
>> work together.
>>
>> Open Space truly is the "secret sauce" making possible
>> successful Agile adoptions. The science behind this awareness
>> goes deep. The timing of it feels like perfection. You seem
>> to be getting just the right audiences to engage with this
>> idea. And what you posted earlier in terms of a framework for
>> adoption involving interspersed Open Space events to help
>> promote agency and engagement - very exciting. Very simple.
>> Truly elegant. And phrased in a way the holders of the bottom
>> line can "get it".
>>
>> What's new about your stuff?
>>
>> Perhaps it's been mentioned before - but here are some points
>> I find most critical.
>>
>> 1) The Mandate. Perhaps Open Space Technology came out of
>> Organizational Development (and Organizational
>> Transformation). But most attempts to transform the
>> organization that I've seen have been "rolled out". Kind of
>> like a steam roller. It's definitely mandated. You went into
>> great depth in your Agile 2013 presentation how Mandated
>> Agile goes fundamentally against the values and principles in
>> the Agile Manifesto. Open Space can help us bring back the
>> original thinking of the signatories of the Agile Manifesto.
>>
>> 2) Games and engagement. Jane McGonigal's book "Reality Is
>> Broken", and the whole arena of Gamification, has become a
>> focal point of driving home ideas from positive psychology,
>> and is also driving many huge wheels of industry (and
>> dollars). Because getting people excited about using your
>> products is important. Getting employees excited about
>> contributing to your products - also critical. But I'd never
>> heard anyone describe Open Space Technology as a beautifully
>> designed game before. This perception I think plays directly
>> with the TOOL versus PHILOSOPHY debate in our community.
>>
>> 3) Agency. This might have been a significant idea as well in
>> Paolo Friere's book - "The Pedagogy of the Oppressed".
>> Without people feeling like they have some say in how they
>> apply their blood, sweat, and tears - engagement is not going
>> to happen. Open Space is a critical way to nurture agency in
>> people.
>>
>> I'm so thankful that you've started posting on the OSList and
>> I look forward to how things unfold. From what I see you
>> saying, and how I see people are hearing you, it seems as if
>> we're on target for a much more explicit chapter in the
>> relationship between the Agile and Open Space "sister
>> communities".
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Harold
>>
>>
>> On 9/4/13 2:37 PM, Daniel Mezick wrote:
>>> Here's a 16-minute video that explains the crisis of
>>> disengagement in Agile adoptions, and how the time to act
>>> was yesterday, and how Open Space can help...
>>> http://www.infoq.com/interviews/dan-mezick-qcon-new-york-2013
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Daniel Mezick, President
>>>
>>> New Technology Solutions Inc.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Harold Shinsato
>>> harold at shinsato.com <mailto:harold at shinsato.com>
>>> http://shinsato.com
>>> twitter: @hajush <http://twitter.com/hajush>
>
> --
>
> Daniel Mezick, President
>
> New Technology Solutions Inc.
>
> (203) 915 7248 <tel:%28203%29%20915%207248> (cell)
>
> Bio <http://newtechusa.net/dan-mezick/>. Blog
> <http://newtechusa.net/blog/>. Twitter
> <http://twitter.com/#%21/danmezick/>.
>
> Examine my new book:The Culture Game
> <http://newtechusa.net/about/the-culture-game-book/>: Tools
> for the Agile Manager.
>
> Explore Agile Team Training
> <http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-training/> and
> Coaching. <http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-coaching/>
>
> Explore the Agile Boston
> <http://newtechusa.net//user-groups/ma/>Community.
>
>
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>
>
> --
> *Skye Hirst, PhD*
> President - The Autognomics Institute
> /Conversations in the Ways of Life-itself/
> www.autognomics.org <http://www.autognomics.org>
> @autognomics
>
> New Phone Number:
> 207-593-8074 <tel:207-593-8074>
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>
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--
Daniel Mezick, President
New Technology Solutions Inc.
(203) 915 7248 (cell)
Bio <http://newtechusa.net/dan-mezick/>. Blog
<http://newtechusa.net/blog/>. Twitter <http://twitter.com/#%21/danmezick/>.
Examine my new book:The Culture Game
<http://newtechusa.net/about/the-culture-game-book/>: Tools for the
Agile Manager.
Explore Agile Team Training
<http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-training/> and Coaching.
<http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-coaching/>
Explore the Agile Boston <http://newtechusa.net//user-groups/ma/>Community.
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