[OSList] OS and Planning

Wed Feb 22 07:12:57 PST 2017

Michael's perspective that the planning ahead to have a really productive
event is a conclusion I heartily agree with. Basically it is about getting
the theme right, the right length of time for the meeting, and making
implied 'givens' explicit. There are always implied givens on the part of
the sponsor, especially in existing organizations with formal leadership.

When these are brought to the surface in planning, and communicated well,
the invitation to the event can be clearer so that the invitees who consent
to come can have a better chance for making informed consent...what the
space is being opened for in their organization and what it is not being
opened for. Of course, anything ends up open for discussion within the OST
as the facilitator's role is non-interventionist. The givens are much more
about what the space in the ongoing life of the organization is being
opened for..

I also agree that the elements that go into a plan after the OST can be
seen in the reports without taking the extra steps of 'planning'. The
design of the reports, what is captured, is important, and can be geared to
'what would be useful to go into a plan?'.

The first time I witnessed planning after an OST was when I was working
with Harrison, I think about 1995, for the first North American Breast
Cancer Advocacy conference. It was a multi-day affair. On the last day,
Harrison had set up flip charts all around the room with the different
reports, organized a voting process to capture what the energy was really
high about after all of the conversations, and developed further clarity
for actions via small groups convened for the purpose. I remember being
amazed and asking him 'why didn't we learn this in our OST training?'.
These extra steps and then follow on facilitation that I had the privilege
to do with the newly formed coalition had far reaching impact. I believe
that what is now known as the pink ribbon campaign for breast cancer
awareness began at that OST....although I am not sure how many of the
participants or the companies or world involved would know that.

After that I attempted to replicate what I had experienced as I thought it
was brilliant. It assisted in shifting the divergent/convergent/emergent
thinking into priorities and a greater likelihood of agreed upon action,
still based on what people felt high energy for rather than the mental
exercise of 'this seems like a good idea'. OST and its results are fueled
by passion. It is one of the reasons that plans, once made, usually get
implemented in record time.

In my own experimenting, I came to realize that the planning portion ahead,
and the planning portion after an OST event needed to be in a seamless
container with the OST event, and with congruent values to the OST event.
This led me to developing Whole Person Process Facilitation and eventually
the Genuine Contact program.

Warmly and with blessings,
Birgitt

On Sun, Feb 19, 2017 at 4:44 AM Michael M Pannwitz via OSList <
oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:

> Harrison mentions the "Rockport Shoes" story several times in his books,
> retelling it with specific twists as is appropriate for a real story
> teller...  under various headings:
>
> --- "Getting the Whole System in the Room"  (pages 132-133 in the 3rd
> addition of the Users Guide)
> --- "Appearance of the Stranger" (pages 128-130 in Expanding Our Now)
> --- "Who should be Invited" (pages 153-155 in Wave Rider)
>
> Planning, in the sense of carefully looking at various aspects that
> might be important to a really productive event, is perhaps more
> important than the Planning Part at the end of the event itself.
>
> In my practice I have not seen stuff surface in the Planning Part
> (almost always done in the format of an "Action Space") that had not
> "announced" itself in the breakout sessions/report sheets in some way.
>
> What I do run into regularly - and now always look for - are
> participants that tell me how wonderful an Open Space was that they
> attended (often years ago) and then proceed telling me what happend
> after the event. Its usually about stuff that action was taken on
> successfully which from the point of view of the participant came out of
> the gathering but did not find its way into the notes or the action
> steps... which are cluttering up my basement.
>
> How is that?
>
> Greetings from a sunny winter day in Berlin
> mmp
>
>
> Am 17.02.2017 um 16:38 schrieb Harrison Owen via OSList:
> > Eina wrote: thanks Harrison, could you give (or others) an example for
> > this sort of Planning in OS?” I suggested she put the question online,
> > but she seems to be having some difficulty. So I do it myself…
> >
> >
> >
> > I can think of many examples, but two have some write up – The first one
> > is Rockport Shoes where the whole corporation was involved in a 2 day
> > open space on the corporate future. The New York Times did a nice full
> > page story which you can reach in their archives. What  caught my
> > attention was not the plan produced but the positive actions that took
> > place before the 1^st day of Open Space had concluded. In a word the
> > merger of planning/doing. Specifically, one group created a whole new
> > product with manufacturing space reserved, finance available, marketing
> > plan in place – with an estimated ROI of $25,000,000. At the same time
> > another group did a fix to the inventory system with a net saving of
> > $4,000,000. In short $29,000,000 added to the bottom line – which
> > represented a 10% increase. Not bad for the first day! And the
> > significant thing for me was that there wasn’t a hair’s breadth between
> > planning and doing. Talk about reducing “time to market.”
> >
> >
> >
> > The second example was the AT&T Olympic pavilion. The final product was
> > the building design – which was complete in two days. No planning for
> > the Design. You can find descriptions of this in my book “Wave Rider” –
> > and a shorter whirl in my TEDX talk “Dancing with Shiva” which you can
> > find on YouTube.
> >
> >
> >
> > Harrison
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Winter Address
> >
> > 7808 River Falls Dr.
> >
> > Potomac, MD 20854
> >
> > 301-365-2093 <(301)%20365-2093>
> >
> >
> >
> > Summer Address
> >
> > 189 Beaucauire Ave
> >
> > Camden, ME 04843
> >
> > 207 763-3261 <(207)%20763-3261>
> >
> >
> >
> > Websites
> >
> > www.openspaceworld.com
> >
> > www.ho-image.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > OSList mailing list
> > To post send emails to OSList at lists.openspacetech.org
> > To unsubscribe send an email to OSList-leave at lists.openspacetech.org
> > To subscribe or manage your subscription click below:
> > http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
> > Past archives can be viewed here:
> http://www.mail-archive.com/oslist@lists.openspacetech.org
> >
>
> --
> Michael M Pannwitz
> Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
> ++49 - 30-772 8000 <+49%2030%207728000>
>
>
>
> Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 436 resident Open
> Space Workers in 68 countries working in a total of 144 countries
> worldwide: www.openspaceworldmap.org
> _______________________________________________
> OSList mailing list
> To post send emails to OSList at lists.openspacetech.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to OSList-leave at lists.openspacetech.org
> To subscribe or manage your subscription click below:
> http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
> Past archives can be viewed here:
> http://www.mail-archive.com/oslist@lists.openspacetech.org
>
-- 

Birgitt Williams

President & Senior Consultant of Dalar International Consultancy, Inc.

http://www.dalarinternational.com

Co-founder of the Extraordinary Leadership Network
http://www.extraordinaryleadershipnetwork.com

Co-founder of the Genuine Contact™program and author of The Genuine Contact
Way: Nourishing a Culture of Leadership
http://www.genuinecontactway.com

Co-owner of the Genuine Contact Co-owners Group Ltd.
http://www.genuinecontact.net

*Supporting leadership development for leading in a culture requiring
agility and flexibility in a performance environment of constant change.*

Leadership development at your own pace? Become a member of the
Extraordinary Leadership Network
http://www.extraordinaryleadershipnetwork.com to participate in an online
leadership development program designed to increase the leadership skills
and capacity you need to perform in a performance environment of constant
change.

PO Box 19373, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA 27619

phone: 1-919-522-7750
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20170222/dac022d5/attachment.htm>