[OSList] No silence in opening

[Chris Corrigan via OSList]

Yes to this…

These days no matter what process I am doing, if I offer a minute of silence, instead of looking at a clock, I just count twelve slow breaths.  That way you don;t make people anxious and you get a little meditation practice in.  The longest I ever did this for was 15 minutes with a group of 180 theological educators.  I counted 180 breaths.  Many of them said they had never sat that long in silence with other human beings before.  We did it to allow people to reflect on an important and energetic conflict in the gathering.  It changed everything, and was indeed the simplest liberating structure I can think of.

C

> On Jun 15, 2015, at 10:37 AM, Michael Herman via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
> 
> i think you can build it in, as much or as little as you feel is right for each situation, harold, just in the pacing of your opening briefing, if you like.  you ring the bells, silence happens.  you decide when to bump that silence with walking into the circle.  you decide when to break it when you start talking.  you put space between sentences and the different parts of your briefing.  
> 
> i saw a video of myself in a circle of about 300, one big circle.  my pacing was, for me, excrutiatingly slow to watch.  but i also had what felt like a lot of ground to cover, to get around and engage with folks all along that circle.  when i finished, people literally ran to the center of the circle.  so i think it worked pretty well.
> 
> lisa kimball suggested to me recently that a minute of silence is one of the simplest possible liberating structure.  (liberatingstructures.com <http://liberatingstructures.com/>)  she describes taking a minute at the beginning of a meeting, not in a woo-woo way, but in a very practical way:  we're all busy people, coming from different places, let's take EXACTLY on minute to let brains finish where they've been and get ready for the work we're about to do here... will be long for some and too short for others, but promise it will be EXACTLY a minute... and then we'll dive into [the work].  her liberating structures materials might be posted somewhere at groupjazz.com <http://groupjazz.com/>
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> Michael Herman
> Michael Herman Associates
> http://MichaelHerman.com <http://michaelherman.com/>
> http://OpenSpaceWorld.org <http://openspaceworld.org/>
> 
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> On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 12:15 PM, Harold Shinsato via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org <mailto:oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>> wrote:
> The Open Space for the Jeannette Rankin Peace Center (http://civicrm.jrpc.org/rising-from-the-ashes <http://civicrm.jrpc.org/rising-from-the-ashes>) I facilitated this Saturday went extremely well. We had a full day of sessions and high levels of engagement, and the center's Executive Director said it way exceeded her expectations.
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> After sitting in the glow of so many thank you's, gratitude, and "good job" the day of the event and afterwards - I was surprised and quite annoyed by a bit of feed back second hand through email...
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>     "there should have been a 5-minute or so thinking time."
> 
>     "Some people needed more quiet time to gather there thoughts."
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> As people become more familiar with Open Space, my personal experience is that rather than a long awkward and anxiety filled pause as facilitators worry if anyone will post a session - instead, especially in public OST events, people launch and line up to populate the agenda. This has bothered me, but this is the first time I've heard the complaint of a *lack* of silence in the opening.
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> After my initial annoyance, and speaking with an Open Space colleague, my wife, and another space holding professional, I wondered if this weren't actually something that can help there be authentic open space, and not just a cargo cult going through the motions.
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> I'm pondering a way to help there be space before people come to the center to announce their sessions - but without doing some heavy facilitated silence or meditation process.
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> Any thoughts, suggestions?
> 
>     Thank you!
>     Harold
> 
> 
> -- 
> Harold Shinsato
> harold at shinsato.com <mailto:harold at shinsato.com>
> http://shinsato.com <http://shinsato.com/>
> twitter: @hajush <http://twitter.com/hajush>
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