[OSList] Management and Organization
Michael M Pannwitz
mmpannwitz at gmail.com
Sat Aug 2 02:34:14 PDT 2014
Dear Bhav,
trying to think of you as a fluffy bunny gets me all wooshy-wooshy.
When I read about approaches that include such things as provocation,
getting folks to wake up and think, avoiding premature whatever, pushing
people to do this or that, increasing conflict... I know these are
various kinds of space invasions characteristic of the number one enemy
"control".
When I experienced, yes EXPERIENCED, these kinds of interventions in
os-events I facilitated I simply did nothing knowing that the system
(group, gathering...) will deal with this stuff as it sees fit...
usually expanding time and space for you-know-what...
Attempts to understand all this, make sense of it, designing whatever
based on the assumed understanding of all this is what I spend no time
on, as facilitator, knowing it will make me wooshy-wooshy and fluffy and
worse, all not good for my stance of "being utterly invisible and
totally present".
I see that it is a grand field of investigation for scientists of all
kinds and fun... ok, a real distraction from my facilitation practice
which I could get hooked on. In fact, I was hooked on this in my former
life...
See you in Belgrade (and all you others, too... I am so curious on who
all is coming... tension rising...)
Cheers
mmp
On 02.08.2014 10:12, Bhavesh Patel wrote:
> Hi Harold,
>
> I did 4 days of training with Dave Snowden. He is actually quite
> dismissive of a range of methods such as OST and AI, and calls the
> people who use them fluffy bunnies! His style is to be quite provocative
> because he wants people to wake up and think, he also calls six sigma
> sick stigma. He doesn't like people who he believes are relabelling
> existing methods as complexity methods.
>
> At the same time, he recognises that all these methods have value in the
> right context, and contextual applicability is a term he often uses.
>
> I asked him about Open Space, and within his
> paradigm/approach/understanding of complexity it does not fit in. His
> methods try to avoid premature convergence by breaking up moments of
> shared understanding or group think. His methods push people to scan
> more data and possibly unrelated data by increasing confilct, etc.
>
> So I think OST doesn't work for the way Dave Snowden wants to approach
> complexity, however that is different to the question of whether it is a
> method that does work in complex space. Personally I think it does when
> used appropriately.
>
> Hope that offers another angle.
>
>
> Smiles Bhav...
>
> I am grateful for ^
>
>
> On 2 August 2014 09:02, Harold Shinsato <harold at shinsato.com
> <mailto:harold at shinsato.com>> wrote:
>
> Chris - thank you again for the mention of the Cynefin framework. I
> very much enjoyed your youtube presentation about the framework to
> the Art of Hosting Community at
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRn3BM56W74. It was well worth the 55
> minutes. I especially enjoyed your questions and answers section.
>
> After I listened, YouTube presented a related video of a keynote by
> David Snowden to a Lean, Agile & Scrum conference in Europe. His
> talk is titled "Making Sense of Complexity".
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6RfqmTZejU
>
> I found his talk brilliant. I enjoyed the insights, but also the
> challenges. David called himself a "Constructive Irritant" or a
> curmudgeon. I'm not sure I'd recommend the talk to everyone in this
> group - but there is one piece that was particularly confrontational
> and important. I carefully transcribed it for you here. David
> Snowden makes these remarks while showing a slide of a dragon
> towering over two Knights, and one Knight says "Oh No! A big, evil,
> DRAGON!". The other says "Quick! Somebody hold a meeting". Here is
> what David says (it is at 49:05 in the talk):
>
> "This sort of hold a meeting mentality, or worse still, I mean if
> there was an Agile version of this, it would be 'Quick let's hold an
> Open Space', because we can all have a nice time and nobody will be
> challenged. Just to make a controversial statement: Open Space is
> the enemy of innovation because it enforces consensus. There are
> actually larger group techniques certainly which we and others have
> developed which actually increase conflict because if you don't
> increase conflict you don't get diversity and you don't get proper
> testing. So the Law of Two Feet is the *enemy* of innovation because
> it allows people to avoid confrontation where they need to do
> confrontation. Right, it doesn't mean it doesn't have value, but
> it's a contextual method."
>
> This statement from David actually interfered with my sleep. I made
> me question for a couple hours my deep emotional investment in OST.
> As mentioned earlier, I saw and still see Cynefin as a way to help
> promote the use of OST. Earlier in David's talk, when he described
> how to work in the complex space, his recommendations sounded a lot
> like an OST event. But quote I offer from him was clearly hostile to
> OST. My first reaction to his "irritant" statement was that OST does
> *not* enforce consensus. But other parts of his statement raise
> interesting questions. Is there value in setting up large group
> processes that don't allow people to avoid confrontation? Can OST
> prevent needed conflict?
>
> My take on Open Space as a method is that it has been traversing the
> chasm on the innovation cycle between Early Adopter phase, and Early
> Majority. I had expected Agile to help push Open Space over to Early
> Majority. It sounds like OST may already be in the Early Majority
> phase in the Agile community based on David Snowden's missive
> against it. I've also predicted that OST will start facing open and
> active hostility as it starts to break into Early Majority. David
> Snowden may be some evidence this is happening.
>
> I'm quite curious how others receive this statement against OST from
> David Snowden.
>
> Harrison, I quite enjoy what you've written, and I think there's
> something in OST that most consultants and organizational
> development experts are going to miss simply because the fundamental
> assumptions of their traditions go 180 degrees in the opposite
> direction of Open Space, wave riding, and the ancient mystery we
> might now call our self-organizing universe. For me, I don't think
> there is any end to the digging, because there is no way a "theory
> of everything" will ever be able to capture it all. And still, there
> are some of us that have not yet tired of digging. But my aim in the
> digging into game theory, Agile, Cynefin, brain science, Tavistock
> and group relations, sociology, psychology, etc. etc. is not "how to
> deal with massive complexity ... by ... making models, and gathering
> data." The joy in the digging is not to try to get to the bottom of
> it. There is no bottom. There will never be a theory of everything.
> But making maps, as long as we understand their fundamental limits,
> is a wonderful thing. As long as we don't confuse them with the
> territory.
>
> Harold
>
>
>
> On 7/31/14 12:59 PM, Harrison Owen wrote:
>>
>> Good thinking Peggy, and having spent no small amount of time,
>> paper, and ink exploring the world of emergence or self
>> organization – I can definitely appreciate the effort. Helping
>> people to develop an awareness of the flow of the enterprise is
>> definite plus. Having said that, I find myself needing to issue a
>> caveat. Producing a model, even a very good model, of the flow of
>> self organization as it relates to complexity, is not to suggest
>> that we can fully understand the process, even less that we could
>> predict or control it. My experience has been that the more I
>> know, in the sense of actual experience and perception, the less I
>> understand. Perhaps it is the advance of senility, but I find my
>> rational capacity totally overwhelmed and over-awed by the
>> magnificent mystery of our evolving cosmos. This is not simply the
>> majesty of infinite space/time – but equally the fantastic
>> complexity, diversity and connectedness of the smallest creatures.
>> The Hummingbirds, for example who feed at my window. The
>> Paramecium (single celled protozoa that swim in my lake). A single
>> snow flake.____
>>
>> __ __
>>
>> Some might take my statement as the despairing cry of an old man.
>> The “old man” part is dead on... but there is no despair. Just the
>> opposite, in fact. It feels just wonderful! I am reminded of
>> conversations over the years with various “Systems Thinking”
>> friends. Bright people all, with enthusiasm unbounded. They were
>> certain that if they thought hard enough, collected data long
>> enough – for sure they could design the perfect system, or at
>> least understand the one of which they were a part (their
>> business, etc.). They sensed victory just over the hill, and I
>> surely wished them well. For myself, inspired by their effort, I
>> tried to do the same. But for me, the harder I tried, the worse it
>> got. In fact it became an infinite regression into ultimate
>> complexity. One could call it an exercise in despair. But that is
>> not how it felt... Liberation was more to the point with the
>> realization that you just couldn’t get there from
>> here...Wonderful!____
>>
>> __ __
>>
>> But how to deal with massive complexity in real life situations if
>> not by thinking about it, making models, and gathering data? It is
>> not that thought, models and data were somehow evil or useless,
>> but in terms of my quest, they only led down a rabbit hole out of
>> which I could not come. And the harder I tried, the deeper I
>> sunk... It felt just wonderful to just stop digging! But the
>> complexity of life remained.____
>>
>> __ __
>>
>> Somewhere along the line an odd curiosity captured my attention.
>> As our marvelous natural experiment in self organization (AKA OST)
>> proceeded, it dawned on me that contrary to all of my preconceived
>> notions, multiple groups of people of all sorts and conditions
>> from every part of the world seemingly engaged their complex, self
>> organizing world in an effective and productive fashion without
>> benefit of prior instruction, models of whatever sort, intense
>> facilitation (handholding)... In a word it appeared to be a
>> natural act. Even more counter intuitive (counter to my intuition
>> and expectations) was the fact that in those (relatively few)
>> situations in which either I or some colleague had endeavored to
>> “prepare” the participants with conceptual models, exercises of
>> various sorts, or explanation of the process (other than the
>> normal OS invitation to sit in circle) there was no visible sign
>> of improved performance, so far as I could see, and in fact there
>> was some indication of a decline. Now, almost 30 years into the
>> experiment I also have to say that my most difficult groups,
>> without exception, were those composed of The Professionals. Those
>> people who made it their business to THINK about all the details
>> (facilitators, systems theorists, etc.). Eventually even these
>> folks “got with the program” and everything happened just as it
>> usually does in Open Space. But the shift occurred, as I saw it,
>> only when they stopped thinking about it.____
>>
>> __ __
>>
>> I think there may be a lesson here. Engaging complexity is not
>> primarily a rational act. Even though complexity is a basic
>> existential concern for all of us, right up there with Death – the
>> resolution to our dilemma will not be found through rational
>> enterprise (thinking about it). A major frustration for us all!
>> But the good news is that we do not have to travel that route.
>> Indeed we really don’t have to travel at all. We’re already there!____
>>
>> __ __
>>
>> Proof is a slippery word, but I think it fair to say that the 30
>> year Natural Experiment of Open Space has rendered a verdict
>> almost as good. Highly Probable. Given our experience of 1000’s of
>> groups effectively dealing with complex, conflicted, inflammable
>> issues prepared only by a 10-15 minute
>> invitation/introduction...It is highly probable that the essential
>> skills and mechanisms were already present within the group prior
>> to their arrival at the circle. In short they were “already
>> there.” No need to think about it. Just Do it!____
>>
>> __ __
>>
>> Once done, it is then time for rational reflection. In truth our
>> innate capacity for dealing with complexity, once awakened, flows
>> so seamlessly that most people hardly notice. At the end of every
>> Open Space in my experience the people evidenced some real sense
>> of joy, satisfaction, completion... and little appreciation of how
>> it all happened. It just was. That is all they know, and all they
>> care to know. That status may be more than sufficient in the
>> moment, but it is also true that rational reflection in all its
>> forms (model building, data collection, etc) can enhance the
>> appreciation, and deepen the experience. ____
>>
>> __ __
>>
>> As one who has spent a lifetime doing all that “rational activity”
>> from model building to data collection (well, story collection J),
>> I can truly appreciate and applaud the effort. Useful undertaking,
>> I think. BUT none of that can hold a candle to the profound sense
>> of wonder and awe that I experience in the silence of my
>> not-knowing. That is truly wonderful.____
>>
>> __ __
>>
>> __ __
>>
>> Harrison____
>>
>> __ __
>>
>> __ __
>>
>> __ __
>>
>> ____
>>
>> __ __
>>
>> Winter Address____
>>
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>>
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>>
>> 301-365-2093____
>>
>> __ __
>>
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>>
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>>
>> Camden, ME 04843____
>>
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>>
>> __ __
>>
>> Websites____
>>
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>>
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>
>
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--
Michael M Pannwitz
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
++49 - 30-772 8000
Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 395 resident Open
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