[OSList] urgent need of your wisdom : how to reassure a political guy who fears that the OST format will not be inclusive enough ?

Sun Jul 5 06:11:28 PDT 2015

Dear Martin, Harrison, Lisa

Thank you very much for your answers. It helped !

I had the call with the guy, and we had a long conversation together. We
talk about the range of outcomes he wished for. Having Harrison's voice in
mind I told him that to my knowledge, there was no other way to have 90
people engage in 3 hours with the ability to act together soon and keep
connected on the long run in spite of divergent interests.  he insisted on
having 2  guys presenting briefly before I explained how it worked. We
ended up with the agreement of  5 people supposed to speak 5 mn  each,
including himself.

Of course they spoke 10 mn each, so I shortened the opening keeping it to a
minimum.
It was obvious that the sponsor was doubtful and his glances at me - and
his team- were  quite cold. But he played the game.
And guess what... of course it worked !

There were 30 sessions and about 20 action plans.
In spite of heat wave (and no chairs for breakout sessions , because of  no
chairs allowed in the huge hall...), people didn't leave during breaks, and
obviously were not in a hurry to leave after the closing... Everybody was
very happy.
During closing circle, all standing,  the sponsor admitted he was very
doubtful, then added quietly" today I learned a lesson about participative
democracy". Another guy said he was used to open space, and that this one
was very convivial.

:)

I'm glad I know how to breathe.

Lisa, you asked me why I am asking when I know the answers. Precisely for
these reasons. Knowing that there are other people somewhere that are as
crazy as I am and do believe the same,  help me breathe and open the space
the best I can.

Christine

On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 6:51 PM, Lisa Heft - <lisaheft at openingspace.net>
wrote:

> Hi, Christine -
>
> Several things come to mind. And I know you already had your phone
> appointment. And I am wondering what you sensed and did and what happened.
> But still I will share reflections if it helps in general or as you reflect.
>
> 1) What does your intuition / gut / sensing say? I imagine you know your
> own answer. Is there a reason you hesitate when you can feel inside exactly
> what to do and say?
>
> 2) I agree that it sounds like OST is a good approach if the issue is
> complex such as this. However there are huge power dynamics operating as
> well, right? So these next things come to mind:
>
> - if the sponsor
>
> fear that there it will not enough reflect the diversity of actions and
> timeframe  and the possibility to create a kind of frame to support long
> term action on the territory.
>
>  — then her/his intuition may be speaking loudly, not just her/his fear,
> no? If this all is so, does that not tell you both that it is more
> important to take more time to plan (rather than the rushed planning) and
> find a longer meeting time on another date? if it is so important?
>
> And SO many things support long-term action. Not a single short event by
> itself. Instead, relationships, infrastructure, time, ability, resources,
> partners, champions, desks and computers, ability to step outside one’s
> daily tasks to add in these tasks, SO many things. Are these in place
> before the event to support the actions that are being invited? If not, is
> asking for action appropriate for this particular event? Or is this for
> part of that strength, such as in ideas, relationships, and so on ? Does
> all that have to be accomplished by one short event? And if it is complex,
> why so short?
>
> 3) I always go with what is realistically achievable, given the
> circumstances which I may or may not be able to inform.
>
> - Without knowing more details, dynamics, ideas and emotions brought up
> during your pre-work conversations, I can only say that as an outsider to
> this my own intuition / gut / body says to take advantage of what a short
> OS meeting can =realistically= deliver - which is a highlighting of
> emergent issues, ability for people to notice who else cares about these
> things, ideas generated for opportunities and for describing challenges,
> and that’s about it.  With a documentation design that really captures,
> with another event scheduled after people can rest and reflect on their
> documentation (data), then going into the next step of mapping out (or even
> a small group having a conversation about) what are resources /
> relationships / realities for what in their systems can support actions,
> then inviting people who are really the people who have
> power-mobility-ability-relationship to identify and work on some actions,
> and so on and so on in a chain of meetings and conversations. Not just a
> quickie because (do I understand you correctly?) there was some meeting
> time within a COP21 event.
>
> - Also with these power dynamics I would pay attention to other things
> that can help as in: no introductions, no speeches, name tags only saying
> names (not organizations or titles), and maybe even more of an emphasis in
> the theme question on “I” to bring it into peoples’ bodies (mixed dynamics
> here can often bring in tension and words of ‘somebody should’) - things
> like that.
>
> Lastly, you asked what we did in a similar situation. I spoke to truth.
> Always. “This will not work if you do x.” “If you want to do x, I can
> support that by changing the process to do y but the Open Space process
> will not work if you do that.” “Are you worried about x.” “You know that
> will not fix x” “Then we need more time for inviting diverse people.” “Then
> we need more hours in the meeting to embrace that tension and possibility.”
> “That deliverable cannot be delivered in that short a time frame.” “Then we
> must change the objective / theme / goal.” “Then we must schedule
> additional meetings to accomplish each of these tasks over time.” “You know
> that that does not support sustainability - you have seen it before, I am
> sure.” And so on.
>
> He is such a busy man, you say. If so, it is essential to help him use his
> (and others’) time wisely and productively. Right? That is what you do,
> when you do your best, Christine…
>
> No doubt some of us may be sharing thoughts and experiences about these
> sorts of things when we gather for the Open Space Learning Workshop in
> Krakow September 8-10, and also during the WOSonOS on September 10-13.  I
> SO look forward to that...
>
> Lisa
>
> On Jun 29, 2015, at 11:32 AM, christine koehler via OSList <
> oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
>
> Hi
>
>
> of course, the way I put it sounds rather comic..
>
> I am supposed to facilitated a 3h 1/2 OST next wednesday with 90
> participants from a very diverse background (impact of local actions on
> climate change and COP21  -in Paris next fall- and they are all local
> actors : politics, technicians, companies, non-profit etc.. Host is the
> territorial entity via a  statesman with a territoral mandate.
> All has been organized in a few days, we have considered many different
> design to come back to OST because of simplicity and efficiency .
> But now the sponsor fear that there it will not enough reflect the
> diversity of actions and timeframe  and the possibility to create a kind of
> frame to support long term action on the territory.
> Diificulty lies in the goal : for the planning team, immediate need is the
> use of the space that the entity is willing to rent (and pay for) during
> COP21 BUT that has to be run collectively (and not as usual here « we do it
> for you ») , for the politics, the goal is « long" term with something that
> will be created and will last even after the COP21 event.
>
> I believe that OST s the only way that may reach all those goals in such a
> short time frame (at least set the first step) but obviously there is no
> control enough for him and now he want a few discourses speeches from a
> variety of actors before opening the space so that everyone knows about all
> this and that…
>
> What would help me is what you did in similar situation.. because I don’t
> know what to tell him (« trust the process obviously does not work…) My
> appointment (by phone of course, such a busy man) with him is in a few hours
>
>
>
> Christine
> --
>
>
>
>

-- 

[image: Christine Koehler, créatrice d'espace de Dialogue et de Coopération]
 Executive Coach, Médiateur
 www.christine-koehler.fr
 Tel :  06 13 28 71 38
  Fax :    09  72  32 36  65
<http://christine-koehler.fr/2013/formation-de-levenement-au-processus-avril-2013/>
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