[OSList] celebrating 30 years of Working With Open Space Technology

[Birgitt Williams]

Dear friends and colleagues,
this month I am celebrating 30 years of working with Open Space Technology.
What a grand journey it has been, giving me a vehicle to be of help to
leaders and  their organizations...while simultaneously growing me. I
benefited a lot from in depth four day trainings in OST with Harrison,
attending, co-sponsoring seven training sessions in Canada. I continue to
facilitate in the ways that we were originally taught, with adjustments
made to adapt OST for the online environment. I refuse to facilitate an OST
less than four hours, with sessions never less than one hour.

My two favorite experiences of being a participant in OST meetings: the
first OSONOS in a hotel near Dulles airport in which just over 30 of us
gathered to explore our learning with OST and the excitement of
participating in what was then pioneering work with organizations. The
second of my favorite experiences was the Expanding Our Now event in Oregon
in the mid 90's sponsored and facilitated by Harrison Owen and Anne
Stadler. Five full days within an OST container, exploring and
accomplishing ways to expand our now. Again, about thirty of us came
together, from a number of countries, with profound experiences within
which each of us experienced personal transformation and the expansion of
ourselves, and the expansion of our NOW. We who gathered understood that
the bigger our NOW, the better we facilitated. The power of a multi-day OST
is not often the current offer...however, it is powerful beyond what can be
imagined.

In those early days, I experimented with how short an OST meeting could be
while still retaining what I believed was valuable about OST. Four hours
was the shortest I would go...and in those days I did so as a means for
following up from a multi-day OST for the purpose of moving topics forward
that had been prioritized from the multi-day OST. At the time, I believed a
short (ie 4 hour) OST was valuable only after a multi-day OST in the
organization. I believe that OST was initially devised for multi-day
meetings.

I also experimented with frequent OST meetings in the same organization ie:
monthly. The story goes that the first two monthly OST meetings were loved
by our staff and Board as the newly preferred way to have  our monthly
meetings. At the third meeting, I sat and said to those gathered (about
eighty people) that they need what to do so please post their topics.
Everyone stayed seated until someone said "we know what to do, however,
there is something important in this opening that you do that helps us to
determine what we want to post and to get on with it. We need you to do the
opening. It is not sufficient to tell us that we know what to do." And so I
learned that the opening, even with a well seasoned group, gave benefit
from the ritual and was to be included. At the fourth monthly meeting, as I
entered the room, a staff member stood up and said "we don't want to do
these kinds of meetings anymore. We come up with all sorts of ideas for
going forward but after the fact, we find out what the barriers are to
taking action and it is very disheartening to us". We sat together and
talked this over. Two gifts emerged from this. The first was the concept of
the 'givens', providing the shape of the OST meeting (defining the
playground to which people were invited) by clarifying beforehand any
non-negotiable barriers. Once we worked out the givens together, we
successfully had years of OST meetings. The second gift was the emergence
of another meeting method Whole Person Process Facilitation (WPPF),
designed to be used in between the OST meetings to examine what had come
out of the OST meeting and what would move forward into action..and how. By
alternating OST and WPPF for our monthly meetings, more actionable items
moved forward than would have moved forward with OST alone. And the
participants, with the addition of the givens, and the bi-monthly OST/WPPF
meetings were well satisfied that we had a new way of working...during
meetings and then into the daily life of the organization.

My favorite examples of facilitating OST meetings is difficult to narrow
down. One that stands out as dear to my heart is for Saving Newborn Lives,
a global project of Save the Children USA. Representatives from eighteen
countries participated in the OST that evolved into the strategic plan and
was a significant part of their organizational transformation from a
research program to a service delivery program.Another one that stands out
is an OST for the exploration of issues and opportunities for housing hard
to house marginalized people. In our Regional government at the time, the
idea of one-third of the spots designated for the homeless themselves was a
big challenge resulting in skepticism about it all working, one-third of
the spots were for government, and one-third of the spots were for
non-profit organizations. The people were in genuine contact with one
another, and a lot got accomplished, much to the surprise of many of the
participants. I heard just last week that one of the task forces developed
from that OST is still active and has been making a big difference for
almost thirty years in getting marginalized people housed. A testament to
sustainability of results from a single OST meeting.

If you know me, you know that I was attracted to the genuine contact that
is experienced in every OST meeting...genuine contact with self, with
other, with the collective, and with Creator/Spirit/Creation/Conscious
Energy. I developed the Genuine Contact Program and way of working, with
Working With Open Space Technology as one of the essential modules of this
program

I appreciate the journey, the blessings inherent in the journey, the
miracles I have witnessed with OST, and its role in my life,

in genuine contact,
Birgitt
[image: Picture]


*Birgitt Williams*
*Senior consultant-author-mentor to leaders and consultants  *
*Specialist in organizational and systemic transformation, leadership
development, and the power of nourishing  a culture of leadership.*
www.dalarinternational.com


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