[OSList] Open Space and Boundaries

Tue Apr 29 03:26:19 PDT 2014

Bhav and Glenda,

Thanks for sharing that writeup.  It really struck me, especially about
multiple containers that are existent and emerging in every situation.

I had been taking a passing interest in this conversation and this
stimulated to reread what had been written.

Mark

-- 
Mark Pixley

LEADERSHIP INC
Facilitating Organizational Change in Greater China

86-755-8211 1366
86-186 8895 0841
skype: mjpixley

On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 5:09 PM, Bhavesh Patel <bhavmail at gmail.com> wrote:

> Glenda Eoyang from Human Systems Dynamics uses a model based on Container,
> Exchanges, and Differences - here are her thoughts on Containers:
>
> What a fabulous cluster of questions about containers.  Harrison, thanks
> for the inquiry and Bhav, thanks for passing it along.
>
> I think these questions fall at the intersection of two ways of
> thinking/talking about containers.  One is from the Shambala tradition and
> we see it at ALIA and other places. The other is the HSD way of thinking
> about containers.  There is a big overlap between the two, but the kind of
> challenge you see in this question don't emerge in the HSD container
> conception.  I'll try to explain why.
>
>
>
> While ALIA and others consider the context for a meeting to be its
> container, we in HSD assume that any human system involves an infinite
> number of containers at any given moment.  We think of any bounding
> condition as a container.  Some can be designed and intentional.  Others
> are native to the environment.  Some are healthy, some are not.  Some are
> explicit, some are not.  The trick is to SEE what the relevant containers
> are in any moment, to UNDERSTAND how useful or functional they are, and to
> TAKE ACTION to shift them toward greater healthful coherence.
>
> So, in any Open Space experience you have many types and within each type
> many different containers:
>
> The EVENT:
>
>    - The time of meeting
>    - The place
>    - The calling question
>    - The community invited or the list of invitees
>    - The opening circle
>    - Evening news
>    - Marketplace
>
> And so on. The wonderful technology establishes these to set conditions
> for the self-organizing processes to come.
>
> The ENVIRONMENT or COMMUNITY:
>
> There are also containers that exist in any community in which the OS will
> happen:
>
>    - Institutional bounds
>    - Communities
>    - Cultures
>    - Politics
>    - Religious affiliations
>    - Families
>    - Tribes
>
> And so on.  These are containers that have set conditions for the
> self-organizing processes that led to the patterns that need to be
> re-thought and re-worked using the SO technology.
>
> PERSONAL:
>
>    - Passion
>    - Responsibility
>    - Fears
>    - Experiences
>    - Stories
>    - Identities
>    - Assumptions
>
> And so on. These are the raw materials that each participant brings into
> the circle with them.
>
> The OUTCOMES and IMPACTS that emerge:
>
> Finally, and most important, there are the containers that emerge during
> the OS. These are the questions that emerge and bring small groups together
> in exchanges about what matters to them in the context of the calling
> question.  The power of OS, in my view, is that it allows these new
> containers to emerge, be manifest, allow for individuals and groups to
> realign themselves to create new patterns and/or challenge existing
> patterns in the world at large.  Then, in the closing circles, it
> reintegrates all of these new-found containers back into a pattern of the
> whole that is different in kind (when it works) than the patterns of
> individual, event, and community that existed before the OS began.
>
> Does this make any sense at all?  I hope so because I think it is core to
> both the theory and practice--the art and science--of facilitated
> transformation.  It is Harrison's genius to have seen and manifested
> conditions for individual and group transformation in the moment and to
> have embedded those in such a simple and elegant technology.
>
> I'm not on the OS listserve, so I hope Bhav will continue to carry
> messages or to move the conversation over into our linkedin space.  Looking
> forward to the continuing conversation in this container or any other.  g
>
>
>
> On 7 April 2014 04:33, Michael Wood <michael.wood at uwa.edu.au> wrote:
>
>> Thanks, Harrison, for your response to my question on 'boundaries',
>> particularly your paraphrasing of my question - which was spot on.  One
>> thing I've taken from this brief conversation is that although considering
>> the boundaries can be useful, we also need to accept that boundaries are
>> never entirely clear, always moving on a spectrum from clear to
>> uncertain/murky and if we, as a sponsor or facilitator, get overly bound up
>> with boundaries then we might have moved, once again, into being too
>> controlling.
>>
>> Michael Wood
>> Perth, Western Australia
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 12:01:40 -0400
>> From: "Harrison Owen" <hhowen at verizon.net>
>> To: "'World wide Open Space Technology email list'"
>>         <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>
>> Subject: Re: [OSList] Open Space and boundaries
>> Message-ID: <000301cf4f56$00776480$01662d80$@net>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>>
>> It has been common for us to speak of Containers and Boundaries as
>> somehow essential to Open Space. I can't quite find the place, but I do
>> remember saying something like that myself, as in, "The role of the
>> facilitator is to create the container..." It certainly made sense at the
>> time, but I always felt a little uncomfortable with the image. Too
>> mechanical, coercive... too something. And Michael has brought the subject
>> up again. "So...here we have a situation where the 'boundaries' are
>> actually in a state of complex flux and uncertainty. The financial 'givens'
>> are ambiguous; there is no 'locum'
>> pastor in place because of legal uncertainties with the existing
>> pastor...etc." You might call it "messy boundaries" -- and he raises the
>> question whether one should press ahead with Open Space, or wait until the
>> "mess" is settled down. On the one hand, Michael "hunches" that one should
>> press on -- Open Space. But his hesitation comes, I suspect, from the prior
>> notion that fixed boundaries/containers are necessary for an effective Open
>> Space. What to do?
>>
>> Some thoughts (new ones for me): Containers are great for cooking soup,
>> but are unneeded and maybe even problematical in Open Space. It is all
>> about holding things together. In Open Space groups of people come together
>> to deal with their issues. At the very least that would mean gathering in
>> some common time/space, be that physical or electronic. It would seem that
>> this co-location could be facilitated were some suitable "container"
>> provided, presumably by the sponsor/facilitator. This certainly makes
>> sense, and as a rough way of speaking, it seems to describe what is going
>> on. But as I think about it, I think we may be missing a most important
>> point. Coming together in Open Space happens because people care to come.
>> And they continue their connection as long as they care to do so. (Law of
>> two feet)
>>
>> >From the "outside" it might look as if they were held in place by a
>> container, but that is illusory. The actual dynamics are centripetal, the
>> force is mutual attraction... people are "there" because they care to be
>> there and not because they are contained by some external structure. In a
>> word, we as facilitators really don't do a thing, and creating a container
>> is the least of what we DON'T do. The people, from the beginning, do it all.
>>
>>
>> Of course, there are situations where groups come together under orders,
>> mandates, whatever. And they are definitely "contained." It is also true
>> that the tighter that container, the less likely self organization will
>> take place. If true, providing a container is not only unnecessary but also
>> destructive. In the name of Opening space, we effectively close it. Or so I
>> suspect it might be. Just thinking...
>>
>> Anyhow Michael, should my mental peregrinations lead anywhere useful, it
>> would seem that your "hunch" was spot on. Forget the boundaries/container.
>> Just invite the space to open.
>>
>> Harrison
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Harrison Owen
>> 7808 River Falls Dr.
>> Potomac, MD 20854
>> USA
>>
>> 189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)
>> Camden, Maine 04843
>>
>> Phone 301-365-2093
>> (summer)  207-763-3261
>>
>> www.openspaceworld.com
>> www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)
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>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
>> [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Michael Wood
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2014 9:59 PM
>> To: 'oslist at lists.openspacetech.org'
>> Subject: [OSList] Open Space and boundaries
>>
>> A Case Study....
>> One of the principles that I have generally worked with in Open Space is
>> helping the client get clear on the 'boundaries' of the space that's being
>> opened. For example, helping people who come into the space to know 'what
>> up for grabs here and what isn't? What decisions have already been made?'
>>
>> So picture this (purely hypothetical of course)....a church community in
>> which the pastor has (in many peoples' opinion) run off the rails and the
>> main church body is in the process of trying to dismiss him; the church is
>> in compete disarray and completely conflict ridden, many people have left;
>> the pastor who holds all the keys, banking passwords; church telephone
>> connections etc etc, has taken legal advice and had hunkered down in the
>> church owned house where he continues to hold the reigns of power (via some
>> of his 'allies' in the church) despite not formally being the Pastor of the
>> church anymore....
>>
>> So...here we have a situation where the 'boundaries' are actually in a
>> state of complex flux and uncertainty. The financial 'givens' are
>> ambiguous; there is no 'locum' pastor in place because of legal
>> uncertainties with the existing pastor...etc etc.
>>
>> So in terms of 'Opening Space', do we wait a bit longer until some of the
>> legal boundaries are clarified, OR open space right away in the midst of
>> the mess....my hunch is the latter, but any thoughts from anyone?
>>
>> Cheers
>> Michael
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