[OSList] The Question

Sun Jan 31 10:12:10 PST 2016

This whole story about a split between OST and opening space, this bit
about unchanging dogma is a big mystery to me.

There is what is written in the User's Guide.  And then there is what all
of us do.  I can remember exactly one instance, almost twenty years ago,
when anyone said to me "that's not open space cuz it's not what's written i
the book."  That was in person, but i've never actually heard any such
thing on the list.

And I see LOTS of changes and adaptations.  What was written as 3 days has
been experimented down to 3 hours or even less.  Convergence still happens,
but non-convergence happens probably more, and other convergences, too.
John Engle taught us to open with skits instead of posters, and oral
reports instead of typed notes.  We've mixed OST with appreciative
inquiry.  I once sprinkled six breakout sessions into a formal,
powerpoint-heavy corporate top leadership retreat week.  Ralph Copleman
came to the list once for ideas on how to open space or do OST on a beach
without walls.  Anne Stadler and friends experimented with ongoing,
quarterly open space practice.  Others of us have run OST-like tracks
inside of traditional conferences, sometimes as part of the conference plan
and at least once as a totally emergent experiment that ran on nametags
that said "ask me about open space" and a pop-up community bulletin board
wall in a hallway.  Daniel Mezick has opened a new frontier in adapting the
practice of open space tech to agile adoption.

Brian Bainbridge, who once told me that he read a little bit of the user's
guide before every time he facilitated an open space meeting, also came to
this list with a report about how he'd just stood at a podium, on a stage,
looking out at decidedly-not-a-circle sitting in cushy fixed seats, given a
little opening invitation briefing and had people streaming across the
stage to post their topics on some sort of temporary wall.  And that was
it.  No breakouts, no proceedings, no open space?  Not a chance.  The group
buzzed about those topics through the rest of their conference, in lots of
standard sessions and the usual coffee breaks.

The thing that stands out for me about these things, other than that they
never got written up in any of harrison's books, is that they happened --
they weren't hypothetical, mental exercises we did on the list.   They were
real live practice stories first.   This tells me that, true to the intro
of the original user's guide, anyone can go and experiment and bring the
story back for conversation and learning.  When we talk in theories and
generalities, including about dogma, dogma arises.  When we talk about the
real things we did and what seemed to happen as a result, there is no room
or need for dogma.  There is only the work of understanding what's
happening(ed).  And then everyone in the conversation can choose whether to
repeat or adjust that experiment, in any other situation that might show
up.

There are all these new things that have been tried and shared, and there
are also many common threads and practices.  I see no benefit in or need
for tagging the common ground as dogma OR for things differently only for
the sake of novelty.  In practice, the only thing that matters is what we
actually do and how it works.  What we think is happening, what we believe
might work, and all manner of intellectualizing and theorizing is just so
much distraction, until somebody actually puts it on the ground in the
center of a circle or flashmob or stage.

As you're describing these two apparent sides, Paul, I really can't figure
who's on what side.  It seems to have something to do with being older or
newer in the practice, but that doesn't really explain it.  I know I have
been called at various times both purist and heretic.  I think that might
be true for many of the folks i've learned from, my elders, and also many
of those I call peers in the practice.  I wonder if what you're labeling
dogma isn't really more about depth of experience and rigor of reflection
and analysis.  When the conversation is focused on practice, more than
theory, those with more experience have more stories to share.  As long as
we keep focused on practice, there's nothing wrong with that.

I think it might be that when we wander out into questions like "What is
Open Space Technology," and get away from what anyone is actually doing, in
practice, experience ceases to count and those with more experience are
seen as just dominating the conversation with their old stories.  "What is
Open Space Technology" is a groundless conversation.  Nothing wrong with
that, but in removing itself from the ground of practice, it leaves us no
way to evaluate anything that comes in response.  In this way, it
invalidates lived experience.  If, instead, we ask "How are we explaining
the practice of open space to clients we want to hire us?"  ...or something
like this, past experience is valued again, to show us what's worked and
not worked.  We can see patterns in how the things we've said and how they
worked have been able to change and evolve.  We can make guesses, choose
from the options and go test each and all of them directly, for ourselves.
History and new experiments are equally needed and valuable.

For all the talk about dogma, I have no idea what any actual dogmatic
definition of OST might be.  The user's guide is a historical artifact, a
concept paper, and by it's own admission only a restating of a sort of
older, universal concept.  It's a beginning point for our community that
needs neither abandoning or sanctifying.  We just need to keep proving it
out, in practice, in the space we open here, between experience and
experimentation -- neither one better or more important than the other.
It's the going back and forth, in practice, that has made and can/will
continue to make us stronger.

Learning and contributing, passion and responsibility, breathing in and
breathing out, four principles and one law, and now, if you will...
experience and experimenting.  another slice of "mutuality" -- the
co-existent, inter-informing play of apparent opposites -- arising in open
space.

Michael

--

Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
312-280-7838 (mobile)

http://MichaelHerman.com
http://OpenSpaceWorld.org

On Sun, Jan 31, 2016 at 10:11 AM, paul levy via OSList <
oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:

> This was my attempt at this a while back. It still feels relevant to
> Daniels's question...
>
> best wishes
>
> Paul Levy
>
> Open Space Technology opens space. That might sound a bit strange, or even
> a bit obvious, but bear with me.  I’ve said that for a reason.
>
> In the Open Space Technology community of practitioners and fans I’ve
> encountered over the last twenty years, there is a strong behavioural
> pattern of not changing the first and original version of Open Space
> Technology. Harrison Owen called it a technology – it is a way of doing
> something that does this: opens space. SO why change it? If it ain’t broke,
> don’t fix it.
>
> Open Space Technology, as you’ll find it taught today, is just about
> exactly the same as it was back in the ’80s.
>
> Now, back to “Open Space Technology opens space”. What on earth does that
> mean?
>
> It opens space for a conversation. It opens space for self-organised
> exploration of an issue of importance to a community. It opens space for
> getting things done. And often a hell of a lot of things do get done from
> an Open Space event.
>
> There sits a group in a circle, and when the space opens and they
> self-organise, using the minimal structure of the Open Space Technology
> process (marketplace, principles, rules etc), all kinds of stuff then
> bursts into the physical space from the previously hidden world of Spirit,
> (Or Potential, if you prefer), realising all kinds of action in space and
> time. In other words, practical, useful and usable action results. Open
> Space Technology has achieved that again and again and again and again and
> again and … (insert tens of thousands of ‘agains’ here). No, it really has.
>
> So, as I said, Open Space Technology er… opens space.
>
> Over the years, this hardly changed technology has added a new principle,
> and tinkered with the wording here or there. Anticlockwise “walking of the
> circle” has crept in, and the odd talking stick has popped up, and an
> Eastern gong brings back attention to the circle. But, at its core, Open
> Space Technology is a technology that has never had (nor, according to its
> fan base) needed, an upgrade.
>
> Indeed, whenever an upgrade has been suggested, the elders in the Open
> Space movement tend to sigh knowingly and then kindly offer “Aw, shaddup
> and open some space already!”. If that sounds like a generalisation, I
> invite you to read the Open Space discussion list over the years and you’ll
> find plenty of evidence of “don’t change a thing”.
>
> Suggestions for change will come and go with the passing of mortal
> facilitators, but Open Space technology is either as timeless as love, or
> will pass away, unchanged, in its own good time.
>
> At recent OSONOSes (What is THAT?, I hear you ask – it’s an Open Space
> meeting ON Open Space!), I discovered that a lot of people like the fact
> that Open Space Technology is largely still below the radar of mainstream
> organisational intervention and meeting theory. It quietly piles up its
> tally of successfully opened spaces without much care for detailed research
> into its practice and efficacy. It lies largely outside of journal based
> scrutiny, and, most of all, it lies beyond innovation and tinkering with
> its own process. Yet at two recent OSonOses I met a significant number of
> people who do adapt it, change it, innovate it, and they still find that,
> not surprisingly – space still opens! They feel as bit sad that its a
> golden field of practice that doesn’t seem to want to lovingly question its
> foundations. As a result, what should have been a changing, organic
> building, has turned into a temple that moves only its pot plants around.
>
> Yet space still opens. Of course it does. You see, Open Space technology
> opens space. But so do a bunch of other gorgeous and eloquent processes.
> And sometimes (and I heard more than a few stories confirming this),
> dogmatically unchanged Open Space Technology limits the opening of space.
> The officionados would claim that it is never Open Space Technology that
> limits the opening of space, but a bunch of other factors. It’s the
> sponsor’s fault, or the facilitator should have done X or Y differently.
> They usually sigh at the facilitator and say “Get over it, and just stick
> to the knitting”.
>
> This is all very (annoyingly) general, I know. But I’ll keep to that and
> see if the generality resonates with anyone reading this for now.
>
> I’ve written in detail, elsewhere on this site, how and why dogmatic use
> of Open Space Technology can inhibit and limit the opening of space.
>
> I do believe there are archetypal elements in Open Space Technology that
> are pretty timeless or, at least, standing up pretty well in terms of
> relevance and applicability, to the test of Time’s passage. Archetypes tend
> towards timelessness.
>
> In Action Learning, for example, reflection on action is a pretty timeless
> archetype. As Action  Learning has evolved into a range of approaches, that
> core concept of the “learning cycle” of conceptualisation, experimentation,
> action and reflection,  seems to stay relevantly at the core of all the
> diverse developments. Yet how we do action learning has changed wonderfully.
>
> In dialogue work, as another example, the importance of active listening
> remains and pervades, even as the field of practice widens.
>
> In Open Space technology, the archetype of the circle remains and has a
> deep living quality, wherever space is opened. Equally, the spirit (if not
> the wording) of the principles remains vibrant and relevant. The notion of
> self-organisation sits at the heart of the natural world, and is a core,
> timeless quality of opening space. But “Breaking news”, and “Marketplace”
> and even the role of the facilitator, are not as fundamental as many of the
> elders think they are.
>
> At the OSonOses (including the World one) I met people who thanked me for
> challenging the status quo (which wasn’t in any plan of mine going in).
> Some said they didn’t feel they could challenge Open Space Technology at
> these events, nor share alternatives or share stories of how they has
> changed it in practice.  I myself got some hate mail from an Open Space
> elder a few years back when we ran an OSonOs exploring “Beyond the dogma”.
> I’m not sure how true it is that there’s a norm to stick to the technology
> like glue or feel like an outsider. It’s a big shame if it is true and if
> it becomes true at the WOSonOs in Florida in 2013. There’s certainly
> nothing formal to stop healthy challenge and questioning, but quite a few
> people pointed to a norm that exists in the Open Space Technology
> community, that critique marks you out as a kind of “misery guts”, even as
> a betrayer of a lovely elderly gentleman. Basically you are pooping on a
> party that is so benevolent is lies beyond that poop.
>
> Open Space Technology, in its classic form, opens space. Often, and
> beautifully. But it isn’t the only “technology” that opens space, nor is it
> always the best or right one. Also it isn’t only technology that opens
> space. Art also does it. Often, when a facilitator is truly in the moment,
> in an ego-free state of service to his or her community, space opens and
> NEW approaches emerge, sometimes beautiful hybrids of Open Space
> Technology, sometimes tiny adaptations, sometimes entirely new fusions,
> versions, forms. Sometimes something entirely close to Open Space
> Technology “escapes” into our practice entirely afresh, especially when we
> have forgotten it!
>
> At the heart of all these approaches I believe is nearly always the
> circle, the principle and love of self-organisation, the creative urge
> towards getting things done, and also a kind of acceptance of the rightness
> of who is there, where we are, whatever happens and also, the love of
> freedom to flow in and out of the open space as needed. These are the
> archetypal qualities that have led to Open Space Technology being so
> powerful and enduring.
>
> But there is no need for chapter and verse, no need for the technology to
> be so rigid in its core design. What is important is that potential that
> wants to be realised can find its way to space that has opened for it.
> Fractured communities that come together into circles and then
> self-organise into smaller circles, before reforming into bigger ones
> again, always linked to the strength of that “holding circle” can use the
> circle to achieve amazing things, notably synergy, where we are more
> together and where the circle gives us shared inner and outer focus.
>
> “Whatever” is more important than any Open Space Technology Dogma. But not
> the whatever of laziness and indifference. This is the whatever of
> emergence, of the space that reveals, the circle that opens into
> possibility and then turns possibility into free choice, and free choice
> into committed action in and upon the world.
>
> So, I’ve discovered there are now two overlapping (uneasily) communities,
> There is the Open Space Technology Community, employing a technology that
> Harrison Owen could have tried to patent or copyright but didn’t, but has
> instead offered it freely to the world, trusting its beauty and success in
> the world, to leave it unchanged and used as needed in the world. Then
> there is a larger community which is the Open Space community that uses the
> classic version of the technology but also adapts it, and also uses other
> methods, all of which, more or less, open space for self-organisation, for
> conversation and action. I think it’s a pity, and also a bit of an emerging
> tragedy that those at the core of the Open Space Technology Community (by
> no means all of them) are not more open to change and innovation from that
> wider community, to be enriched and inspired by it. Because of this, the
> Open Space Technology community now has its own underground where people
> ARE questioning its fundamentals and morphing it, but aren’t sharing that
> openly at its events nor on its discussion lists. When they do, there tends
> to be a benevolent and parental closing down by many of its supporters to
> just leave things as they are and put faith in the version that is never in
> need of an upgrade.
>
> Sometimes space needs to open without any stated principles, without any
> structure-polemic, no matter how minimal and well meant. Sometimes space
> needs to open with few if any words.  Sometimes space opens better in the
> language of the community and not the language of Open Space Technology.
> Sometimes space opens better through artistry, not technology.  Sometimes
> space opens without the need for a physical circle, and sometimes even
> without the need for a facilitator. Sometimes space opens with Open Space
> Technology in its original form.
>
> But sometimes that form becomes a wall. The stories where Open Space
> Technology has failed to open space tend to go unreported, part of a
> collusion of niceness. Those stories are there to be found, but they are
> below the radar of the community that has confused blanket positivity with
> the grittier, messier mission of Open Space to bring beauty to the world.
> Avoidance of our pain is often both fatal and ugly.
>
> Open Space Technology, when it becomes ossified, becomes arthritic. When a
> facilitator doesn’t just DO Open Space Technology, but becomes open space
> in their own inner activity, they will sense what needs to be done, not out
> of dogma, but out of the present needs of the situation. Often this
> situation will call for a traditional use of Open Space Technology. But not
> always.  Sometimes we need to open space. And it is beautiful that there
> are so many ways to do that.
>
> What am I suggesting? I’m suggesting it might be time for Open Space
> Technology to open the trap door – the trap door to its own beautiful
> critique. It needs to look more warmly and openly at what is growing
> consciously below its own radar. And it isn’t about defending the first
> technological model from a position of elder wisdom. It’s about inviting in
> the younger ones, the new generation. If Open Space Technology lies beyond
> an upgrade, then let that view survive a healthy Popper-esque conversation.
> But in 2012 I met some truly wonderful people who have upgraded it anyway.
> They are the right people, in the right place, at the right time, who dance
> with two wonderful feet into the future. Be prepared to be surprised by
> them.
>
> Something tells me it isn’t quite over yet, Harrison Owen!
>
> Welcome to the open space community. It loves Open Space Technology. But
> it loves so much more too.
>
> (Original article appeared here:
> https://rationalmadness.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/open-space-technology-and-open-space/
> )
>
>
>
> On 28 January 2016 at 17:55, Daniel Mezick via OSList <
> oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
>
>> What is Open Space Technology?
>>
>> --
>> Daniel Mezick
>> Culture Strategist. Author. Keynoter.
>> (203) 915 7248. Bio. <http://www.DanielMezick.com/> Blog.
>> <http://www.NewTechUSA.net/blog/> Twitter.
>> <https://twitter.com/DanielMezick>
>> Book: The Culture Game. <http://theculturegame.com/>
>> Book: The OpenSpace Agility Handbook.
>> <http://www.amazon.com/OpenSpace-Agility-Handbook-Daniel-Mezick/dp/0984875336>
>>
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>
>
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