[OSList] Original Harrison Owen paper on "Organization Transformation"?

Harold Shinsato harold at shinsato.com
Mon Oct 14 06:42:49 PDT 2013


Hi Artur,

I actually found a reference in a book by Beverly Fletcher, 
"Organization transformation theorists and practitioners: profiles and 
themes" published in 1990 which I was able to cite in rewriting to 
remove the questions in the article page - to give the time and 
conference - Boston Regional ODN in the spring of 1982. It's an 
interesting read as this part of the book is visible on Google Books 
preview - 
http://books.google.com/books?id=U79jGNETRKIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false.

I looked over the talk section of the Open Space wikipedia entry and I 
think I agree with some of the comments there about the tone of the 
article sounding too much like a promotion or advocacy of OST, and the 
most helpful comment was that the article could use benefit from looking 
at the format of the Wikipedia entry on Scrum. This seems like a lot 
more rewriting is needed to help legitimize the article. Too much work 
for me to do right now - but at least I answered those questions.

     Harold

On 10/14/13 4:39 AM, Artur Silva wrote:
> Harold: The idea of correcting the OST entry in the Wikipedia is very 
> valuable.
>
> But, in what concerns the initial part with issues (In the early 
> 1980s^[/when? 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers#Chronological_items>/] 
> , Harrison Owen wrote a paper on what he called "organization 
> transformation". He presented this paper at a traditional management 
> conference^[/which? 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words>/] . It was 
> well enough received that a number of people^[/who? 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words>/]  urged 
> Owen to organize a conference to specifically address the issues and 
> opportunities he identified in his paper.) as there was not such 
> paper, but only a presentation, can't this be explained on the "talk 
> page" and propose that the all sentence be supressed?
>
> Harrison: Even if you are not sure if you said that at the time, it is 
> still correct and I am sure that you wrote it now :-)
>
> So can I quote this:
>
> «I don’t know what Organization Transformation is, but I suspect that 
> it may be the successor to Organization Development, appropriate to 
> life in a transforming world.»?
>
> Regards
>
> Artur?
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sunday, October 13, 2013 4:57 PM, Harrison Owen 
> <hhowen at verizon.net> wrote:
> OK – got a clue. I did make a presentation at a regional gathering of 
> the ODN in the early 80’s. Actually David Belle Isle and I did it 
> jointly. The title of our presentation was “Myth and Ritual as the 
> Ground for Organization Transformation.” There never really was a 
> paper, just some notes, and we just talked. I vaguely recall the last 
> remarks – which I made – “I don’t know what Organization 
> Transformation is, but I suspect that it may be the successor to 
> Organization Development, appropriate to life in a transforming 
> world.” Or something.
> ho
> Harrison Owen
> 7808 River Falls Dr.
> Potomac, MD 20854
> USA
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> Phone 301-365-2093
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> www.openspaceworld.com
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> *From:*Harold Shinsato [mailto:harold at shinsato.com]
> *Sent:* Sunday, October 13, 2013 10:43 AM
> *To:* OSLIST; Harrison Owen
> *Subject:* Original Harrison Owen paper on "Organization Transformation"?
> Hey folks, an ongoing effort of many people on this list and of the 
> Open Space Institute U.S. has been to fix up the Wikipedia page. 
> http://wikipedia.org/Open_Space_Technology. It has had some of the 
> ugly warnings at the beginning removed, but there are still issues.
>
> The opening of the current version of the wikipedia article cites a 
> paper Harrison Owen wrote at "a traditional management conference".
>
> What was this paper and is it available anywhere?
>
> When was it published?
>
> What was the traditional management conference where it was published?
>
>     Thanks!
>     Harold
> -- 
> Harold Shinsato
> harold at shinsato.com <mailto:harold at shinsato.com>
> http://shinsato.com <http://shinsato.com/>
> twitter: @hajush <http://twitter.com/hajush>
>
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