[OSList] OSList Digest, Vol 43, Issue 22

Tue Sep 30 07:36:05 PDT 2014

Heres the direct link to Anne's paper about Spirited Work the open space learning community. Thanks Anne!

http://collectivewisdominitiative.org/papers/stadler_reflections.htm

Jeff

-------- Original message --------
From: Harrison Owen via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> 
Date:09/29/2014  2:10 PM  (GMT-08:00) 
To: 'Anne Stadler' <anne.m.stad at gmail.com>,'World wide Open Space Technology email list' <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> 
Subject: Re: [OSList] OSList Digest, Vol 43, Issue 22 

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-feet-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?

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