[OSList] From linkedin today

Fri Jan 24 14:33:35 PST 2014

I so enjoy reading about your different perspectives on "self-organisation",
most of them makes perfect sense to me.

Still, when I have a room full of
men/white/adults/heterosexuals/professionals - pick the majority of your
choice - and one or maybe two single voices of
women/black/youngsters/homosexuals/amateurs, where the tool for contact is
spoken and written words, often well formulated on what is considered
"relevant" for the group, I feel uncomfortable.
That doesn't necessarily mean that I as the facilitator need to fix anything
and there is always the opportunity for the minority to leave the room. But
I still feel uncomfortable.  I've seen that "natural" behaviour in a group
many times; the majority either ignores the minority or makes a big thing
out of their "otherness". The minority don't get to be individuals, just
representatives. And the individuals in the majority group easily become an
unreflected "we", very comfortable in what is considered to be "normal". To
me that's another "natural-or-it's-been-around-forever" behaviour. And I'm
not comfortable when I see it being reproduced over and over again. When
someone from the minority brings this up with me, I usually remind them of
their two feet. But it makes me sad to see them leave the room. Something
else could have happened and I was there, both as a human fellow being and a
facilitator, feeling uncomfortable.

But feeling uncomfortable isn't necessarily bad, there's movement in that
feeling. And I'm not sure it has to be fixed. But I'd like to hear if anyone
else shares this feeling and your thoughts on it.

Pernilla
from Sweden

Den 2014-01-23 21:55, skrev "Michael Herman" <michael at michaelherman.com>:

> 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 ³gospel
>>>> truth² 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 ³opponents,² 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, ³If we can hold our theories in the same
>>>> fashion as "a likely story", maybe we'll start being able to tell better
>>>> stories (theories).² Actually, my words for this are High Play. I¹ve 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
>>>>  
>>>> 7808  River Falls Dr.
>>>>  
>>>> Potomac,  MD 20854
>>>>  
>>>> USA
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>> 189  Beaucaire Ave. (summer)
>>>>  
>>>> Camden,  Maine 04843
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>> Phone  301-365-2093 <tel:301-365-2093>
>>>>  
>>>> (summer)   207-763-3261 <tel:207-763-3261>
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>> www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com%20>
>>>>  
>>>> www.ho-image.com <http://www.ho-image.com%20>  (Personal Website)
>>>>  
>>>> To  subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of
>>>> OSLIST Go 
>>>> to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
>>>> <http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org>
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>> 
>>>> From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
>>>> [mailto: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 ³knew,² 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 ³understanding.² 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 ³understand² 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 somebody¹s formulation was good, but not crazy
>>>>> enough to be true. Or something.  I think we may be at a similar
>>>>> paradigm/shift point. We¹ll see how it all turn out.
>>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>>   
>>>>  
>>>  
>>>  

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