[OSList] A Question About Safety

Thu Aug 23 03:31:22 PDT 2018

Hello Sarah,

Very good question!

In SoL (Society for Organizational Learning if someone doesn’t know) we have had the same dilemma (more rules to achieve higher levels of cooperation OR more self-organisation to achieve higher levels of innovation?) for the last 10 years. Just like you, Peter Senge also created a team to deal with it back in 2009 which was named "Group25 for the evolution of SoL”. In the team we created a governance sub-team (in which I was) to deal exactly and only with this dilemma. We worked for almost 2 years (if I remember correctly) studying all the various governance models that we could find (from Dee Hock’s Chaordic Design to the EU governance model) but at the end we were not able to provide an answer to this dilemma. The issue remains unresolved until today... 

Warm greetings and best wishes,
Anthi

Anthi Theiopoulou
MSc International Management

CEO &Principal Researcher, Organizational Learning Self Evaluation Tool (OLSET Ltd)
Innovation Warehouse, 1 E Poultry Avenue London EC1A 9PT United Kingdom, www.olset.org <http://www.olset.org/> 
President, Hellenic Society for Organizational Learning (SoL Greece NGO)
Od. Androutsou 22, 141 23, Lykovrisi, Athens, Greece, www.solgreece.org <http://www.solgreece.org/> 
Co-founder & Director, Dias Assets Limited
13 Herbert Crescent London SW1X 0HB United Kingdom, www.diasassets.com <http://www.diasassets.com/>

Contact details:
personal email: a.theiopoulou at acg.edu <mailto:a.theiopoulou at acg.edu>
p.a. mobile number: +306944138507

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> On 23 Aug 2018, at 13:04, Sarah Grange via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
> 
> The question of “Safe spaces” has come up recently in our regular OST programme, following some incidents where participants felt there was racism and transphobia at our big annual event. There was a request for more rules or guidelines, which we’ve resisted, but it’s a thorny old issue because not everyone feels strong enough to call out bad behaviour when it happens, and the natural reaction is to look to us as organisers to discipline or regulate behaviour. There’s also a tendency for people to report bad behaviour after the event, so we’re unable to support or facilitate a conversation in the moment. I don’t know what to do about this beyond keep on having the conversation with participants. We eventually held an OS specifically on the question of supporting people within Os <https://www.devotedanddisgruntled.com/Event/devoted-disgruntled-allies>  and there was considerable disagreement, with some participants calling for rules <https://www.devotedanddisgruntled.com/Blog/does-dd-need-rules> or stronger guidelines on how to hold conversations <https://www.devotedanddisgruntled.com/Blog/i-think-there-is-a-lot-of-assuming-prejudging-and-snap-comments-made-at-d-d-that-have-negative-impac> and others (including me) <https://www.devotedanddisgruntled.com/Blog/dd-producers-ally-to-do-list> feeling that would disempower people rather than support them, and was totally un-OST.  The issue remains unresolved, so I’d love to know if anyone has tried anything along the guidelines/participant-led codes of conduct etc and whether there was any success with that.. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On 21 Aug 2018, at 21:31, oslist-request at lists.openspacetech.org <mailto:oslist-request at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
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>>   1. Re:  (Rolf F. Katzenberger)
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>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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>> Message: 1
>> Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2018 22:27:04 +0200
>> From: "Rolf F. Katzenberger" <rolf.katzenberger at gmx.net>
>> To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
>> 	<oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>, David Osborne via OSList
>> 	<oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>
>> Subject: Re: [OSList] A Question About Safety
>> Message-ID: <AD226D32-0425-48E7-9A00-D630206BB9AE at gmx.net>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>> 
>> David,
>> 
>> Having read your later explanation of "safe", I feel it's also useful to look a bit closer at "self-organization".
>> 
>> From a systemic perspective, it is impossible for a complex system (like an org, or a group of people within) to *not* self-organize. It does not matter whether conditions are great, indifferent or lousy, groups of people will self-organize and adapt, as they always have.
>> 
>> So, while we may be unhappy about the *results* of it, self-organization in itself cannot be stopped by too much safety. It is a capability and power we can always rely on, for better or worse.
>> 
>> It seems we rather need to focus more on the desired results, i.e. on the words immediately following the word "self-organizing...". Like e.g. "... team". By stressing "self-organization" instead, and e.g. contrasting it to "passiveness" or "complacency" or "too much safety", we might simply be barking up the wrong tree.
>> 
>> So, coming back to your question, I'd reply with another question: If you're not happy about the current results of self-organization - what different results would you like to see, instead, and how could you modify the conditions so that it becomes more likely for self-organization to work towards the desired results.
>> 
>> Just my 2 cents,
>> Rolf
>> 
>> Am 21. August 2018 06:49:20 MESZ schrieb David Osborne via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>:
>>> Greetings all,
>>> 
>>> I have questions about safety related to self-organization I would love
>>> others thoughts on.
>>> 
>>> Is it possible for an environment can be too safe to support
>>> self-organization? Can safety be at such a high level that it inhibits
>>> or
>>> slows down the self-organizing process?
>>> 
>>> I'm very interested to hear others perspectives.
>>> 
>>> Best to all,
>>> 
>>> David
>>> 
>>> 
>>> *David R. Osborne*
>>> Organization and Leadership Development
>>> 
>>> 6402 Arlington Blvd., Suite 1120, Falls Church, VA 22042
>>> 703-939-1777   |   dosborne at change-fusion.com   |   change-fusion.com
>> 
>> -- 
>> ?If it works, it's right.? | ?Richtig ist, was funktioniert.?
>> http://www.pragmatic-teams.com | http://www.pragmatic-teams.de
>> http://fromthebackoftheroom.training | http://fromthebackoftheroom.training/de
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