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

[Lisa Heft - via OSList]

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 
> -- 
> 
> 

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