[OSList] OSList Digest, Vol 43, Issue 22

Mon Sep 29 14:10:55 PDT 2014

Anne - How wonderful to "see" you here. Spirited Work was a great experience
and experiment. We all learned, with many thanks to yourself!

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

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] On Behalf Of
Anne Stadler via OSList
Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2014 10:37 PM
To: oslist at lists.openspacetech.org; oslist-request at lists.openspacetech.org
Subject: Re: [OSList] OSList Digest, Vol 43, Issue 22

My observation: "authority in OS" soon rests with those who show "presence"
as defined by Otto Scharmer et al. You can see this appear particularly in
multi day OS sessions or when you use OS as a means of organizational
governance as we did in Spirited Work (see my writeup in
CollectiveWisdomInitiative.org about Spirited Work, an experimental OS
learning community of practice.) 

When people show up, listen deeply and take responsibility for selves and
the whole, authority emerges. 

(My version of Law of Two Feet supports that:  take responsibility for what
you care about, & use your two feet to move in and out of situations
accordingly.)  

Thanks Daniel for the interesting question.  Kind regards! Anne stadler

Your Self

Occupy

100%

A world that works for ALL is a world of love made visible

Phone: 206-459-0227

Skype: anne.m.stadler

Www.CompassionateSeattle.org  

www.CharterforCompassion.org

www.ProtecttheSacred.org

On Sep 28, 2014, at 4:57 PM, via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>
wrote:

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Today's Topics:

  1. wosonos2015 (Raffi Aftandelian via OSList)
  2. Re: Authority Distribution in Open Space
     (Daniel Mezick via OSList)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 19:14:19 -0700
From: Raffi Aftandelian via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>
To: OSlist <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>
Subject: [OSList] wosonos2015
Message-ID:
   <1411870459.93148.YahooMailNeo at web140803.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

ditto what chris said. as a co-org'r of a previous wosonos (in another
slavic country) happy to share my experience- the good, the differently
good, and the quite differently good- aspects of organizing such an event.

laramtsa,

raffi

******

I am the culturally White middle class American taxpayer,
up to my chin in hypocrisy, double standards, a sense of entitlement, and
choking on overconsumption,

blissfully in denial about how 60% of my federal income taxes go to a
military

that sustains genocide and ecocide the world over

...all in the name of democracy, freedom, and happiness for all

-- a riff off of Thic Nhat Hanh's Please Call Me By My True Names
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Message: 2
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 08:37:12 -0400
From: Daniel Mezick via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>
To: oslist at lists.openspacetech.org
Subject: Re: [OSList] Authority Distribution in Open Space
Message-ID: <542800F8.9070803 at newtechusa.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed"

Hi Harold,

You say:

/"..I struggle to translate is the concept of coercion and authority 
from the vantage of "it's all open space". Can we really be coerced? How 
are we all already "opting in" to empower the "authorities"?/

//

/"...Could we just be volunteering for the victim part of our stories?/

//

/"...I have some thoughts about this, but I wonder what you would say to 
such a challenge to the relevance of "authority" in OST?/

Hmmm...interesting questions for sure.

My current belief is that authorization dynamics are central to the 
general dynamics of Open Space. And if it is "Open Space all the time" 
then authorization dynamics as desribed in my essay are also there... 
all the time.

Regarding the Open Space meeting format: If we begin at the beginning; 
that is, at the start of arranging an actual Open Space event in an 
organization, we immediately work to identify and locate someone "duly 
authorized" by the organization, to do the things the Sponsor does, and 
say the things the Sponsor says. Someone to occupy the Sponsor role. To 
do that, the person occupying the role must have substantial authority 
in the organization, usually of the formal variety.

Right? Put another way: if the Sponsor is lacking in authorization, can 
they actually be effective? Larger question: Can the meeting still 
actually work? What about the post-meeting follow-through?

So here we see how /authorization shows up a the very start of any 
contemplated Open Space event inside an organization/.

One last thing: last time I checked, "victims" are kind of rare in Open 
Space. Something about the subtext of "the Law of 2 Feet...."

"...The Law of Two Feet concept was published in an article by Harrison 
Owen <http://www.openspaceworld.com/brief_history.htm>, a member of an 
organization advocating Open Spaces Technology, a model for organizing 
meetings that's based around open participation. Here's how Owen 
describes the rule:

"...Briefly stated, this law says that every individual has two feet, 
and must be prepared to use them. Responsibility for a successful 
outcome in any Open Space Event resides with exactly one person---each 
participant. Individuals can make a difference and must make a 
difference. If that is not true in a given situation, they, and they 
alone, must take responsibility to use their two feet, and move to a new 
place where they can make a difference."

http://opensource.com/business/10/8/darwin-meets-dilbert-applying-law-two-fe
et-your-next-meeting

Daniel

On 9/26/14 6:49 PM, Harold Shinsato via OSList wrote:

Fantastic essay, Daniel. I'm a bit freaked out by Harrison talking 

about his "translator" after diving into T.S.Kuhn's book where he says 

paradigm shifts require "translators" because new and old paradigm 

holders live in different worlds, where even common terms may be 

fundamentally different.

What I struggle to translate is the concept of coercion and authority 

from the vantage of "it's all open space". Can we really be coerced? 

How are we all already "opting in" to empower the "authorities"?

Could we just be volunteering for the victim part of our stories?

I have some thoughts about this, but I wonder what you would say to 

such a challenge to the relevance of "authority" in OST?

Thanks,

Harold

Daniel... You really did it! I think. Your language comes from a place 

I don't know... which is to say that I probably wouldn't say what you 

say in the way that you do (duh). BUT when I run my "translator" it 

comes out sounding pretty good! So... I can't help with the questions 

you have raised. Actually I think you are doing pretty well on your 

own, and (hopefully) will incite others to a similarly riotous 

performance. Thanks!

Harrison

Winter Address

7808 River Falls Drive

Potomac, MD 20854

301-365-2093 <tel:301-365-2093>

Summer Address

189 Beaucaire Ave.

Camden, ME 04843

207-763-3261 <tel:207-763-3261>

Websites

www.openspaceworld.com <http://%20www.openspaceworld.com>

www.ho-image.com <http://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 

<mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org>] *On Behalf Of *Daniel 

Mezick via OSList

*Sent:* Thursday, September 25, 2014 9:39 AM

*To:* oslist at lists.openspacetech.org 

<mailto:oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>

*Subject:* [OSList] Authority Distribution in Open Space

Greetings to All,

For the past several years I have attended conferences of the Group 

Relations community, and encouraged others to do the same. I've 

studied their literature, and harvested some important learning as a 

result. One of the things I have come to understand a little bit 

better is the role of "authority dynamics" in self-organizing social 

systems.

Link:

www.akriceinstitute.org <http://www.akriceinstitute.org>

Over the past several years I've been using Open Space with intent to 

improve the results of my work in helping companies implement Agile 

ideas in their organizations. We do an initial Open Space, then the 

folks get about 3 months to play with Agile (we carefully use the word 

"experimentation" with management,) then we do another Open Space 

after that, to inspect what just happened across the enterprise. The 

initial and subsequent Open Space events form a "safe" container or 

field in which the members can /learn/... as they explore how to 

/improve/ together by /experimenting/ with new practices, and see if 

they actually work. I call the process Open Agile Adoption.

Link:

OpenAgileAdoption.com

This seems to work pretty good. It seems to "take the air out of" most 

of the fear, most of the anxiety and most of the worry that is 

created. The key aspect is /consent/: absolutely no one is forced to 

do anything they are unwilling to do. No one is /coerced/ to /comply/. 

Everyone is instead respectfully /invited/ to help /write/ the story, 

and be a /character/ in the story...of the contemplated process 

change. Open Agile Adoption encourages a spirit of experimentation and 

play.

The spirit of Open Space is the spirit of freedom. Isn't it? In the 

OST community, we discuss and talk a lot about self-organization, 

self-management and self-governance. The Agile community also talks 

about these ideas a lot.

So I have some questions. What is really going on during 

self-organization in a social system? What are the steps? What 

information is being sent and received? From whom, and by whom? Is the 

information about /authority/ important? How important? Can a social 

system self organize without regard to who has the right to do what 

work? /How do decisions that affect others get made in a 

self-organizing system?/

Who decides about /who decides/? How important is the process of 

/authorization/ in a self-organizing system? Is self-organization in 

large part the process of dynamic authorization (and 

/de-authorization/) in real time?

What /is /authorization? Can self-organization occur without the 

sending and receiving of authorization data by and between the members?

Is Bruce Tuckman's forming/storming/performing/adjourning actually 

decomposing the /dynamics of authorization/ inside a social system?

The essay below attempts to answer some of these difficult questions. 

I'd love your thoughts on it. Will you give it a look?

Essay: Authority Distribution in Open Space

http://newtechusa.net/agile/authority-distribution-in-open-space/

Kind Regards,

Daniel

-- 

Daniel Mezick, President

New Technology Solutions Inc.

(203) 915 7248 <tel:%28203%29%20915%207248> (cell)

Bio <http://newtechusa.net/dan-mezick/>. Blog 

<http://newtechusa.net/blog/>. Twitter 

<http://twitter.com/#%21/danmezick/>.

Examine my new book:The Culture Game 

<http://newtechusa.net/about/the-culture-game-book/>: Tools for the 

Agile Manager.

Explore Agile Team Training 

<http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-training/> and Coaching. 

<http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-coaching/>

Explore the Agile Boston <http://newtechusa.net/user-groups/ma/>Community.

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-- 

Daniel Mezick, President

New Technology Solutions Inc.

(203) 915 7248 (cell)

Bio <http://newtechusa.net/dan-mezick/>. Blog 
<http://newtechusa.net/blog/>. Twitter <http://twitter.com/#%21/danmezick/>.

Examine my new book:The Culture Game 
<http://newtechusa.net/about/the-culture-game-book/>: Tools for the 
Agile Manager.

Explore Agile Team Training 
<http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-training/> and Coaching. 
<http://newtechusa.net/services/agile-scrum-coaching/>

Explore the Agile Boston <http://newtechusa.net//user-groups/ma/
<http://newtechusa.net/user-groups/ma/> >Community.

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