[OSList] Pain and Anger

[Chris Corrigan]

Seconding this. Someone in a hat once told me that the way to peace was to have more time and more space. For resolving conflict time is your ally. If you cannot afford a large amount if time to deal with a large dynamic you will get a short fuse and few answers and maybe more cynicism. Tread deliberately and do good pre work here. 

Chris

-- 
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Harvest Moon Consultants
www.chriscorrigan.com

Art of Hosting - Participatory Leadership and Social Collaboration, Bowen Island, BC November 11-14,2013

> On May 11, 2014, at 6:37 AM, "Harrison Owen" <hhowen at verizon.net> wrote:
> 
> Sounds like business as usual, unfortunately. I fear the constraints you mention will render anything you do something less than useful. When you have real pain and anger with a senior management largely the cause (as I heard it) – gathering the troops for a few hours without senior management present just won’t make it. Open Space is wonderful, and miracles do happen – but I am afraid that neither wonder nor miracle will show up. If they really want to do something, at least make a good start, you will need 2 days and certainly a night in between. Finding ways around anger and pain usually require sleeping on it. And the senior management should be there for the whole time. If they are the problem, they have to be part of the solution.
>  
> 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)
> 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] On Behalf Of Bronwyn Pagram
> Sent: Sunday, May 11, 2014 8:39 AM
> To: oslist at lists.openspacetech.org
> Subject: [OSList] Pain and Anger
>  
> Hi there. I have quietly enjoyed os-list for a couple of months now - thank you for all the open sharing. Very valuable for a 'newby' to open space like me.
>  
> I have been asked to facilitate several regional open space workshops for an organization where there is a lot of deep-seated pain and anger behind the scenes. People feeling very unsupported by their hierarchy, lack of recognition by senior management that they are part of the problem, lack of responsiveness to past recommendations for action, and deep cynicism that anything will come from 'yet another talkfest'. The topic is staff wellbeing. The workshops are being done in the context of middle management concern for their people (they are the sponsors) as well as an organisational strategy refresh for which staff wellbeing will form part for the first time (senior managers are aware of concerns and also of several stress-related illnesses and staff leaving).
>  
> There is no prior experience of open space in this organisation, although the middle-manager driving these events has been exposed elsewhere. I would be grateful for any suggestions as to how to best structure the day (5.5 hours - limited by considerable travel time to come in/go home). I am thinking to include both talking/listening circles as well as traditional open space.
>  
> Ideally participants would take away some actions themselves... as well as there being some meaty inputs to senior mgmt for the strategy refresh.
>  
> Thanks a lot. Bronwyn
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
> _______________________________________________
> 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/20140511/efd71a43/attachment-0005.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