<html><div>At 11:46 PM 1/25/00 -0500, you wrote:</div>
<div>>Hello Kerry,</div>
<div>>and thank you for your story. I am eager to hear a bit more and
wonder if</div>
<div>>the action follow up was actually followed up with. And how did
the</div>
<div>>multi-language situation work out with the follow up.</div>
<div>></div>
<div>>I have not had successful multi-language open space event. The
multi</div>
<div>>language events I have done have appeared successful at
the time because</div>
<div>>people of all languages understood the process (with the help
of</div>
<div>>translators), posted topics and had discussions. However,
deep</div>
<div>>disappointment was happening underneath. I live in Canada where
the</div>
<div>>predominate language is English, a second official language of
French, and</div>
<div>>then many, many other language contributions with clusters
depending on</div>
<div>>geographic area. The problem which came clear in every multi
language Open</div>
<div>>Space I have done as reported at the end or after the fact is
that the</div>
<div>>people of languages other than English (English was the
majority) attended</div>
<div>>sessions in any language including English and found ways to
make it work.</div>
<div>>English speaking persons, almost always attended only sessions
conducted in</div>
<div>>English and made no effort to participate in sessions conducted
in other</div>
<div>>languages.</div>
<div>*************************</div>
<div>I can certainly see the problem, but I wonder whether it has more to
do with the politics of Canada than the capacity of Open Space to
function well in a multi-lingual environment. It occurs to me that the
experience I have had, which has been largely positive, occurred in
situations where: a) Language was not politically "loaded." b)
No single language held total dominance. c) Where the issue at hand was
of sufficient concern that folks just naturally ploughed through the
language barrier. They were more concerned with the resolution of issues
than in how somebody talked. As an example, ACCOR Hotels did an
Open Space several years ago. The company is French, and we were working
in France. but the participants were drawn from all over the world.
Language represented included, French, English, German, Dutch,
Portuguese, and Spanish. I did not do a careful analysis -- but as near
as I can tell, sessions were done in all languages and combinations. To
be fair, this was a very international crew with multiple languages
available to each person. But the point is that the language of choice
was always the one that worked to advance their collective interests, and
nobody seemed hung up on using "their" language.</div>
<br>
<div>Perhaps, in a situation like Canada some headway could be made by
simply owning the problem to begin with and challenging folks to cross
language barriers, even as they might cross political, institutional, and
personal barriers. Which I guess is what Open Space is all about. Above
all, Be Prepared to Be Surprised. Who knows, people might learn
something.</div>
<br>
<div>Harrison</div>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<div align="center">
Harrison Owen<br>
7808 River Falls Drive<br>
Potomac, MD 20854<br>
USA<br>
phone 301-469-9269<br>
fax 301-983-9314<br>
website <br>
<a href="http://www.mindspring.com/~owenhh" eudora="autourl">www.mindspring.com/~owenhh</a><br>
Open Space Institute websites<br>
<a href="http://www.openspaceworld.org/" eudora="autourl">www.openspaceworld.org</a><br>
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