[OSList] Management and Organization

Sun Aug 3 19:49:32 PDT 2014

Thanks, Harrison. I probably feel the same way about rational analysis as
you do about golf -- may be fun for some, but definitely NOT my cup of tea!
:-)

Judith-Kate, good to reconnect!  Applied Improvisation and Liberating
Structures -- good stuff!

all best wishes,

Rosa

*Rosa Zubizarreta*

*Diapraxis: Facilitating Creative Collaborationhttp://www.diapraxis.com
<http://www.diapraxis.com/>*

On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 11:31 AM, Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net> wrote:

> Rosa said – “Of course we work too hard, Harrison. Yet we have a *lot* of
> fun doing it! :-)” Rosa, God forbid that I become a Kill-Joy! Fun is fun
> and I am all or it. It is also true that what’s fun for some is perceived
> differently by others. Golf, for example is the funnest thing in the world
> for millions. Personally, I have never been able to generate much
> enthusiasm for whacking a small white ball, but there you go.
>
>
>
> But I think the conversation here may need to go to some other levels –
> starting with the question, “Why do we do what we do?” Certainly I would
> hope that we enjoy what we are doing. I certainly do. But my personal
> enjoyment (fun) would not be my primary reason for my efforts. I would
> hope, as I am sure you do too, that my efforts would yield some good. At
> the very least that they would do no harm. And further that these efforts
> might accomplish their task in the safest and most effective manner.
>
>
>
> Some years ago I found myself in deep conversation with a precocious 10
> year old. We were solving most of the problems of the world, as only a 10
> year old can – when she paused, looked me in the eye, and asked, “What do
> you do?” I tried to explain to the best of my ability how I endeavored to
> help organizations, and the people who constituted them to be more healthy,
> productive, and useful.  She listened patiently... and then said, “Oh I
> see. You are a doctor for organizations.” Truthfully, I’d never quite
> thought of it that way, but if it worked for her, it worked for me.
>
>
>
> Putting aside whatever difficulties I may have with the so called “medical
> model of consulting,” which are several ... in this case I think the
> analogue may be apt. The job of the physician is to enable people to “get
> their life back.” In pursuit of this goal, they use (or should use) the
> safest, simplest, most effective means, and once the objective has been
> achieved, they leave. To use methods of treatment that are known to be less
> effective than alternatives, is at the very least sloppy medicine, and at
> worst fraud.
>
>
>
> Applying the same template to our situation can be instructive, I think.
> Speaking just for myself, I will say that if I knew of any other approach
> to the enhancement of organizational life (getting their life back) other
> that Open Space, I would be the first to use it. Frankly, I don’t know of
> any, and I have looked hard, but nothing can approach the ease of use,
> economy of effort, or effective result to be found in Open Space. That is a
> pretty blank statement, and it may well be true that there is “something”
> out there – which would just wonderful. But I have yet to see it.
>
>
>
> Over the years I have worked with groups large and small who have been
> treated to the very best practices of the times. They have been Quality
> Circled, Process Engineered, Sig Sevened, and still life as they wanted it
> remained beyond their grasp. Then, perhaps by desperation, they found
> themselves in Open Space – and as one AT&T executive mumbled – Magic! I
> don’t think it was magic at all. It is simply what happens when people
> accept the invitation to be fully what they are. Seems to work every time.
>
>
>
> Did it last? In most cases, No. And the reason, as I see it is quite
> simple. Having experienced a burst of life, they made the choice (actively
> or passively) to return to the same conditions that got them in trouble in
> the first place. They simply forgot the old dictum that if you do more and
> more of what you’ve always done – you will definitely get more of the same.
> Yes it is true that some of these organization thought to “capture the Open
> Space experience.” This usually meant creating the Open Space Model of
> Organization, replete with all the appropriate rules, positions, policies,
> and procedures. And guess what, after a time, short or long, they found
> themselves right back where they started. Maybe even worse because they
> were now burned twice.
>
>
>
> Organizing a self organizing system is not only an oxymoron it simply
> doesn’t work. But more importantly, there is no reason to try. The emergent
> system is already there, operating at a level of complex interaction that
> totally boggles the human mind, even very bright, well trained minds. Under
> the circumstances, rational analysis is always interesting, and may even be
> fun (I always thought so), but I think a better place to start is with some
> deeply appreciate non-knowing. With that as a starting point I do believe
> that the way will emerge. It always has.
>
>
>
> Harrison
>
>
>
> Winter Address
>
> 7808 River Falls Drive
>
> Potomac, MD 20854
>
> 301-365-2093
>
>
>
> Summer Address
>
> 189 Beaucaire Ave.
>
> Camden, ME 04843
>
> 207-763-3261
>
>
>
> Websites
>
> www.openspaceworld.com <http://%20www.openspaceworld.com>
>
> www.ho-image.com
>
> OSLIST To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives
> of OSLIST Go to:
> http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
>
>
>
> *From:* OSList [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
> <oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org>] *On Behalf Of *Rosa Zubizarreta
> *Sent:* Saturday, August 02, 2014 4:34 PM
>
> *To:* World wide Open Space Technology email list
> *Subject:* Re: [OSList] Management and Organization
>
>
>
> Bhav, you wrote "...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."
>
>
>
> I agree that in many complex situations, OST can be a great way to draw
> out and make room for people's natural creativity and motivation. and that
> little else may be needed.
>
>
>
> In other complex situations, I've seen OST work well with other methods
> that are also well-suited for complexity. For example, at the Surfing
> Democracy conference in Batschuns, Austria, our hosting team offered the
> option of having Dynamic Facilitation for those OS sessions that wanted to
> make use of that method. It worked quite well -- the only difference being
> that participants who offered DF OS sessions usually booked a double time
> slot, to allow for the greater in-depth exploration that we do in DF. (Of
> course we work too hard, Harrison. Yet we have a *lot* of fun doing it!
> :-)
>
>
>
> with all best wishes,
>
>
>
> Rosa
>
>
>
>
>
> *Rosa Zubizarreta*
>
>
> *Diapraxis: Facilitating Creative Collaborationhttp://www.diapraxis.com
> <http://www.diapraxis.com/>*
>
>
>
> *Celebrating my new book, "From Conflict to Creative Collaboration: A
> user's guide to Dynamic Facilitation"
> <http://www.amazon.com/Conflict-Creative-Collaboration-Dynamic-Facilitation/dp/1626526117/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394491921&sr=1-1&keywords=from+conflict+to+creative+collaboration>*
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 2, 2014 at 12:04 PM, Chris Corrigan <chris.corrigan at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> What a fantastic post. It has summed up much if my own thinking about
> Dave's dismissal of Open Space.
>
>
>
> My take on this is that I have used Open Space to address complexity
> within the constraints if the cynefin framework and it works well. I have
> seen OST help with conflict and create innovation. I have never seen a
> silver bullet that says that "if we do this everything will be perfect". So
> we have to be sensitive to things like power and resources and such.
>
>
>
> I don't know what evidence dave makes his assumptions upon but it's
> entirely possible he has been around poor facilitation for a lot of his
> career.
>
>
>
> And then what else is valuable about his analysis is that it causes me to
> look at my own practice and see where I have been guilty of some of the
> things he says. It's useful to have a critical view.
>
>
>
> I've known about Dave's dismissal of these ways of working for a long time
> and he's known about my championing of these ways of working. It hasn't
> stopped us having conversations online about our work and it hasn't
> prevented me from using his tools.
>
>
>
> Chris
>
> --
>
> CHRIS CORRIGAN
>
> Harvest Moon Consultants
>
> Facilitation, Open Space Technology and process design
>
>
>
> Check www.chriscorrigan.com for upcoming workshops, blog posts and free
> resources.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Aug 1, 2014, at 11:02 PM, Harold Shinsato <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
>
> 7808 River Falls Drive
>
> Potomac, MD 20854
>
> 301-365-2093
>
>
>
> Summer Address
>
> 189 Beaucaire Ave.
>
> Camden, ME 04843
>
> 207-763-3261
>
>
>
> Websites
>
> www.openspaceworld.com <http://%20www.openspaceworld.com>
>
> www.ho-image.com
>
> OSLIST To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives
> of OSLIST Go to:
> http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> OSList mailing list
> To post send emails to OSList at lists.openspacetech.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to OSList-leave at lists.openspacetech.org
> To subscribe or manage your subscription click below:
> http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> OSList mailing list
> To post send emails to OSList at lists.openspacetech.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to OSList-leave at lists.openspacetech.org
> To subscribe or manage your subscription click below:
> http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> OSList mailing list
> To post send emails to OSList at lists.openspacetech.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to OSList-leave at lists.openspacetech.org
> To subscribe or manage your subscription click below:
> http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20140803/90da3780/attachment-0004.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
OSList mailing list
To post send emails to OSList at lists.openspacetech.org
To unsubscribe send an email to OSList-leave at lists.openspacetech.org
To subscribe or manage your subscription click below:
http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org