[OSList] From linkedin today

Michael Herman michael at michaelherman.com
Thu Jan 23 12:55:22 PST 2014


well, i've managed to catch up on quite a heap of oslist emails without
typing even one peep, but here i am at the last message of the last thread
and i can't resist chiming in, if only to help make sense of all this for
myself...


david said along the way something about holding space for coherence.  i
think we hold the space for both coherence and fragmentation.  we never
really know which one will come up more strongly, or when.  both are just
stories or labels or guesses we wrap around the aggregation of a the
various two-feet decisions that participants make and make and make all
through an event.

in this way, what we're really holding space for is individuals' right or
opportunity to choose for themselves.  we can invite them to come together
and be quiet, but some linger in side conversations in hallways or
corners.  sometimes everyone lingers, and evening news happens later than
we thought.  sometimes we suggest that morning news is over at 9:30 and the
circle lasts until 10, because many people choose to stay in the circle
together.  it's always the sum of everyone deciding at once.

if anyone would try to control this, invade the space of individual
choosing, sometimes the best we can do is leave the room, as harrison has
described many times, modeling a choice.  in that case it's pointing to
fragmentation in the face of an attempt to force coherence.

anyway, the other question that caught my eye was christine's something
about how to help organization stay healthy and alive.  it reminded me of a
quote i carried in my wallet for about 10 years or so, from francisco
varela (a scientist, among other things):  "if a living system is
unhealthy, the way to make it more healthy is to reconnect it with more of
itself."

stories and invitations and questions (are these really different or
separable?) seem to be a very common way to connect, and then truth must be
what bubbles up in the spaces, between the words, as harold mentioned, and
between the people, between the breakouts and the plenaries, and so on that
peggy described in the physical movements.

so i think where i end up here is that self-organization is already always
happening because everyone is always moving and deciding, and the "big"
decisions in any "organization" can only ever be the high peaks, visible
from some distance, that sit atop the many many individual moves and
choices, piled up over any length of time.

so maybe stories are the words we wrap around piles of choices, and
organizations show up as the people who choose to wrap themselves around
various stories?

michael h



--

Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
312-280-7838 (mobile)

http://MichaelHerman.com
http://OpenSpaceWorld.org



On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 7:11 AM, Daniel Mezick <dan at newtechusa.net> wrote:

>  Yes, and play is fun. Play is invigorating. Play brings action. Play
> brings movement. Life is action. Life is movement!
>
> An entertaining example of play ... action and movement from some
> surprising players, in open space:
>
> http://youtu.be/Iqmba7npY8g
>
> "Let us play"...
>
>
>
>
>
> On 1/11/14 3:03 PM, Harold Shinsato wrote:
>
> Harrison,
>
> I was going to ask you to say more about "High Play", but it was easy to
> learn more about your ideas here with a quick google search. From
> http://www.openspaceworld.com/Opening%20Space%20for%20The%20Question.htm.
> The emphasis is mine.
>
> High Play denotes the manner in which the people involved approach their
> task – playfully. Quite often play is understood to be a trivial incidental
> compared to the real business of living. I think this is a profound error.
> Play for me may be the most serious (important) of our many undertakings.
> The importance of play derives from the fact that when we experience
> reality in different and unexpected ways, *we seek to understand (develop
> knowledge about) **our new experience by telling likely stories, or in
> more formal terms, creating theories*. We take the available evidence,
> combined with our prior experience and try to construct reasonable
> explanations for the newly observed phenomenon. Almost inevitably our first
> attempts are flawed, and it is often the case that there are as many
> theories (stories) as people telling them. If everybody treats their
> version as the “gospel truth” it is not long before the dead hand of dogma
> descends, and the search for understanding degenerates into a fight amongst
> ideologues.  On the other hand, when people treat their new adventure in a
> playful fashion, there may well be serious competition, but there is also
> deep respect for the “opponents,” and a real joy in the game. In Open Space
> it is very common to see the game of knowledge building played with real
> skill and enjoyment – even by people who have never done anything like that
> before.
>
> I really like the presence of "real joy in the game" of finding the best
> likely stories (theories). I also love the value you express for "deep
> respect for the 'opponents'".
>
> Game on!
>
>     Harold
>
>
> On 1/11/14 11:58 AM, Harrison Owen wrote:
>
>  Harold – I like your last line, “If we can hold our theories in the same
> fashion as "a likely story", maybe we'll start being able to tell better
> stories (theories).” Actually, my words for this are High Play. I’ve found
> that good theory building is best done playfully, which does not make it a
> trivial activity, but it does guard against dogmatism. Good theory,
> playfully created, and playfully held is always open to revision – or just
> plain discard.
>
>
>
> Harrison
>
>
>
> Harrison Owen
>
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>
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>
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>
> *From:* oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org [
> mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org<oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org>]
> *On Behalf Of *Harold Shinsato
> *Sent:* Friday, January 10, 2014 7:55 PM
> *To:* World wide Open Space Technology email list
> *Subject:* Re: [OSList] From linkedin today
>
>
>
> Harrison,
>
> It seemed like you were having a problem with understanding when you wrote
> the following:
>
> "When I was confronted with what was happening in Open Space (25 years
> ago) it made absolutely no sense to me at all. And what makes no sense does
> not lend itself to understanding. I “knew,” as did everybody else of my
> age, background and training – that what seemed to be taking place in Open
> Space simply could not happen. Organization was something that we created,
> managed, and controlled."
>
> There are so many theoretical frameworks that have begun to embody the
> more adaptive systems thinking required maybe not to fully understand, but
> to start to improve our models of organization not something as something
> we impose - but something that we can nurture, cultivate, or just open
> ourselves to experience.
>
> It seems like this thread has been about understanding self-organization.
> I love that you brought something from Quantum Mechanics that "somebody's
> formulation was good, but not crazy enough to be true." This reminds me of
> the Tao Te Ching. The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.
>
> It reminds me a lot of what you wrote in Spirit, and which you mentioned
> in your TED talk. Story tellers don't tell the truth. But in the story,
> truth emerges. Probably between the words.
>
> If we can hold our theories in the same fashion as "a likely story", maybe
> we'll start being able to tell better stories (theories).
>
>     Harold
>
> On 1/10/14 5:08 PM, Harrison Owen wrote:
>
> Harold – I have no problem with “understanding.” Good and useful
> enterprise. Question is: Understanding of what? And in what frame or
> context. I think we have come to a point where we “understand” J that
> there are multiple logics, each appropriate to different senses of reality.
> Newtonian Physics really does work. AND Quantum Mechanics was/is crazy. In
> fact one of the framers of Quantum Mechanics (Heisenberg I think) remarked
> that that somebody’s formulation was good, but not crazy enough to be true.
> Or something.  I think we may be at a similar paradigm/shift point. We’ll
> see how it all turn out.
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Harold Shinsato
> harold at shinsato.com
> http://shinsato.com
> twitter: @hajush <http://twitter.com/hajush>
>
>
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> --
>
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>
> New Technology Solutions Inc.
>
> (203) 915 7248 (cell)
>
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