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<FONT SIZE="2" POINTSIZE="10" DEFAULT="SIZE">Dear Harrison,<BR>
trusting ones guts works from my experience, too.<BR>
What helps me is having had the chance to try out various "3rd day" procedures.<BR>
One thing that I added (very reluctantly at first) is a short (7 minutes) reflection before any of the various varieties of action planning are started under the heading "You have been together for x days, convened x issues, produced a book of proceedings, read it, found priorities or sorted all topics in "families of topics" (these last steps are not always part of the process)...now, facing the time after this event, what does all that mean for you, your work, your community,....? After the 7 minutes or so(usually a very intense, quiet seven minutes people jotting down notes) I invite for a 13 minute phase to exchange whatever they would like to with a neighbor with the aim to get their own stuff more sorted out with the help of the neighbor and vice versa (always a very active and intense exchange).<BR>
After these 20 minutes of intense and active reflection, I ask them to jot down the action they want to engage in (actually opening a round of action-issues), post them around the room (usually takes 10 to 15 minutes pretty irrespective of group size) and invite them to gather around the actionproposals for another 20 to 30 minutes, fill in a report sheet (name of action, participants, immediate next step, date of next meeting, coordinator) and gather for 1 minute reports on the actionplanning. While they are reporting, assistants hurry to get the report sheets copied so that after the closing circle everyone gets a set of the actionplanning sheets to take home.<BR>
Without exception so far, participants are amazed at their own productivity....one thing I do repeat at least 2 times during this phase is to remember the law of two feet, actively pointing out that there might be more productive places than this action planning.<BR>
The beginnings of this approach were developed with Felicia Schulz. We facilitated 4 consecutive open space-events for the 4 regions of the Church of Saxony last fall.<BR>
My point in all this, is that having experimented with various approaches (they can all be done within 3,5 hours, including a complete Delphi) I can pay more attention to my guts.<BR>
Greetings from Berlin<BR>
michael m p<BR>
--Original Message Text---<BR>
<B>From:</B> Harrison Owen<BR>
<B>Date:</B> Fri, 14 Jun 2002 08:33:26 -0400<BR>
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At 01:14 AM 6/13/2002 +0200, Avner Haramati wrote:<BR>
<BR>
<FONT FACE="Courier New">Starting the 3rd day with closure that enable people to work through what happened to them in the last 2 days was briliant. It freed the energies of the people to use all the afternoon, evening and some of the day after to take full responsibility and to plan very significant projects.<FONT FACE="Arial" DEFAULT="FACE"><BR>
<BR>
It is always nice to be called brilliant -- justified or not. In the moment it seemed like the only thing to do. And it represented perhaps my major learning from the whole affair, at least in terms of working in Open Space. It had been my intention to "do" the Open Space according to the book, by which I mean 2 days discussion with convergence and action planning on the morning of the 3rd day. However, as the second day ended, and I sat with all those feelings through the night, the "standard approach" seemed less and less adequate. The feelings were so deep and raw, and the the issues discussed so broad and still forming (with one or two exceptions) that any notion of convergence, prioitization and action planning seemed premature at the least, and possibly grossly insensitive to the real place the people found themselves in. I have no question that, good troopers as they were, had I started down the standard pathway, folks would have followed -- but I knew it would be an empty process. Just going through the motions as it were. Truthfully, I didn't really know where I was headed when the 3rd day started, and when last I had talked to my colleagues Avner, Tova, Carol and the sponsors the evening before I had indicated my intention to go straight ahead "according to the plan." However, when I saw the faces of the people that morning as they came into the circle, I knew we had to go a different way, and at that point I had no time for consultation with "The Team." Thus I began as I previously reported.<BR>
<BR>
My intention and hope was to totally open the space so that people could honestly choose where they wanted to go -- even if that meant simply hanging up the towel and going home in disgust. And frankly I did not have a clue what was going to happen when I left the circle, or what the situation would be upon my return. As it turned out whatever happens is the only thing that could have -- and as usual it was just perfect -- perfectly what it was. Given the space, the folks always know best.<BR>
<BR>
My specific learnings were several. First -- a radical confirmation of what we all know. Attachment to pre-determined, fixed outcomes, even something as broad as prioitization, convergence, and action planning, is a one way ticket to disaster. A second learning, and this was a surprise, was that extreme levels of anxiety, conflict and pain (which we had in abundance) can and will change the dynamical pattern of the Open Space, It still work as always, but not the way I had grown to expect. <BR>
To be more specific, I have noticed (as many others have as well) that in a troubled group, the first day is likely to be filled with angry bitching, and on the second day folks will get down to the business of solving what they were crying about the day before. <I>In Rome, the pattern was exactly reversed</I>. On day one, we certainly had intense conversations with some real, raw feelings, but compared to Day 2, it was pure "Love and Light." I think what happens is that the whole group is so constricted physically, mentally, and emotionally (probably spiritually as well) that when they first hit Open Space they find it possible to take a deep breath, perhaps the first one in a long time. The euphoric sensation of actually being alive, breathing freely, and being conscious of it is almost narcotic. I am not suggesting that the feelings are in some way "unreal" -- for the genuine presence and authenticity of that group on that first day was overwhelming. But it was not the whole story. Strengthened by that "breath of fresh air" the group could then do what it did -- take a real dive into all the shit of their common lives. The net result was as I described. Day I -- Real light. Day II Dark Hell. I felt at that point that it was critical to provide unfettered space with no expectations in which the group, individually and collectively, could make a judgement. Was Day I just a phantasm? And Day II the somber reality? Or were both truly what they seemed -- Real Light and Real Darkness. It was a moment of reflection and choosing.<BR>
<BR>
My third learning was yet another confirmation of what we all know. Trust your gut. Faced with the kind of stuff we were dealing with, the rational mind just spins out of control with possibilities and stratagems spilling all over the ground. Not useful. For me the only possibility was to take a deep breath (several), clear the battered mind, or better yet -- shut it down, and go to a quiet centered place well beyond thinking and knowing. And then do what you have to do. <BR>
<BR>
Harrison <BR>
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Harrison Owen<BR>
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