[OSList] A Question About Safety

Thu Aug 23 05:23:40 PDT 2018

There is something in this that might be of interest 

“Too much hierarchical control, and participants become passive and dependent or hostile and resistant. They wane in self-direction which is the core of all learning. Too much co-operative guidance may degenerate into a kind of nurturing oppression, and may deny the group the benefits of totally autonomous learning. Too much autonomy for participants and laissez-faire on your part, and they may wallow in ignorance, misconception and chaos”  Heron, J (1999) The Complete Facilitators Handbook (p11)London

mary price-o'connor
the moving theatre lab
BA ( Hons) Dartington 
 Dalcroze Certificate Institute Jaques Dalcroze Geneva. 

https://www.facebook.com/Themovingtheatrelab

07773072479

> On 23 Aug 2018, at 12:08, Marai Kiele via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
> 
> Hello Sarah,
> 
> I followed your links and browsed through the reports.
> What it brings up in me is:
> 
> a) Some of these questions seem to belong to a preparation meeting, where a subsystem of those who are going to gather looks at: 
> the intention / the invitation / who should participate and how that can be made possible / is OST the right format for what is intended to achieve?
> 
> b) I also wonder about the impact of the length of an OST event. Longer events (with a night to sleep on things in between) can allow a community to go through more of a transformational process. 
> 
> c) Last not least: Doing OST doesn’t mean it’s all roses and butterflies, but that whatever is there within a system becomes visible. That may not always look pretty.
> 
> d) Daniel Mezick shared links on „psychological safety“ two days ago. A topic very dear to my heart.
> 
> There is a huge difference between a group and a team. In my understanding, your OST experience brings together a „group" of people. 
> „Teaming“ = the capacity to build a team that achieves something together, and that might evolve into a high-performance team with all the ingredients as described in the Google study, needs much more than just gathering once within an OST.
> After I had fallen in love with OST in 2003 I came to the realisation that I am desiring more connection, collaboration and deeper conversations than I experienced in several OST events I participated in. My experience is that people don’t turn into great listeners, appreciative speakers and mature human beings just by participating in a 1 day OST event. There are skills to be learned and capacities to developed that may take years or a whole life-time...
> There are great things that OST makes possible, but it’s not the cure to everything.
> 
> e) Last not least, allow me to gently express something that just crossed my mind while writing. I may be completely off road with it. It’s just a hunch… 
> I just wondered about the team who organises these events and the level of safety within in? I am a great believer in the world matching / mirroring us what’s going on inside of ourselves.
> 
> I believe asking for more rules and regulations is an expression of a true need, but without having reached the core issue, yet. That’s why I love facilitating team explorations where we go beyond quick fixes, coming from the mind, and go deeper. Until we have found the hidden treasures...
> 
> My 2 cents,
> Marai
> 
> https://about.me/maraikiele
> 
> 
>> Am 23.08.2018 um 12:04 schrieb Sarah Grange via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>:
>> 
>> 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  and there was considerable disagreement, with some participants calling for rules or stronger guidelines on how to hold conversations and others (including me) 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 wrote:
>>> 
>>> Send OSList mailing list submissions to
>>> 	oslist at lists.openspacetech.org
>>> 
>>> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>>> 	http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
>>> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>>> 	oslist-request at lists.openspacetech.org
>>> 
>>> You can reach the person managing the list at
>>> 	oslist-owner at lists.openspacetech.org
>>> 
>>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>>> than "Re: Contents of OSList digest..."
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Today's Topics:
>>> 
>>>   1. Re:  (Rolf F. Katzenberger)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> 
>>> 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
>>> -------------- next part --------------
>>> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
>>> URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20180821/1913ef75/attachment-0001.html>
>>> 
>>> ------------------------------
>>> 
>>> Subject: Digest Footer
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 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
>>> 
>>> ------------------------------
>>> 
>>> End of OSList Digest, Vol 88, Issue 12
>>> **************************************
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20180823/2e33b1f9/attachment.html>