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One of the great things about OSLIST is the way conversations start
at multiple points and then ebb and flow to form a common theme. Not
unlike what happens in Open Space (because it is Open Space, I guess)
this phenomenon appears to be but one more example of what we have been
talking about. Emergent order. And John, I guess that makes us all
"anarchists" ... although I have a little trouble with the
word. I concede that the literal sense is correct, but the associations
lead to some directions I would rather not go. I found myself getting
into the same sort of trouble when I used the word <i>
metastasis</i> to describe what seems to happen when space is
opened in an organization. It can simply be closed down, but more often
than not it subtly spreads rather like a cancer. Correct idea. Nasty
thought. Oh Well.<br><br>
I suspect we may be one the edge of some new territory here in this
discussion. The ideas have certainly appeared before, but I detect the
possibility of a rather elegant formulation just hiding out at the edges.
Way back in the Dark Ages (<i>Riding The Tiger, 1991)</i> I found myself
thinking and writing about what I called then, The InterActive Learning
Organization (aka The Open Space Organization). By '94 the same idea
appeared in glorious new nomenclature with the arrival of <i>The
Millennium Organization.</i> Looking back over those efforts, I have to
confess that it may have been the right idea, but definitely looked at in
the wrong way. Both the InterActive Learning Organization and The
Millennium Organization (same thing by a new name) seemed to be something
we might "do" -- as in "creating the Open Space
Organization." Lovely idea, but fatally flawed, or at the very
least, a waste of effort. Why create something that already exists? The
problem was, we just didn't know it.<br><br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>So where
do we go from here? I suggest starting with the basics. Really basic. It
seems to me that certain fundamental forces pretty well account for our
present existence. Gravity, for one, makes it possible to walk around on
good old planet earth and do what we do. Perhaps we may chafe at the
constraints, but truthfully there is not too much that we can do about
it. The forces of self-organization provide a reasonable account for our
progress from the moment of the Big Bang until this present instant. and
please note, we didn't have to do a thing. It happened all by itself, or
as Stuart Kaufmann would say -- Order for free. <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Add in one
other "force" -- the power of Griefwork -- as it enables us to
navigate the sometimes rocky terrain thrown up at us as we go on our
self-organizing ways. The problem here is simply that as we, our
organizations, and our world move along the path of self-organization,
things come and go, they end. They die. Seen from some cosmic vantage
point, this ending, this dying is simply a part of the natural process of
things. However, when it becomes our end, or our death, cosmic vantage
points become a little hard to find, and in fact everything becomes very
personal. Fortunately for us, there appears to be hardwired within each
one of us another natural process, which like the process of birth,
brings most of us through the hard places, and that is Griefwork. At
least that seems to be the story for the last 13.7 billion years
(according to latest calculations, but what's a billion here or
there?).<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Jumping to
conclusions, it appears that if everything is self-organizing, everything
is Open Space Organization! We're already there. We can stop working so
hard trying to create what already exists, and better spend our
time understanding what we already are. How do you like those
bananas? <br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>And what
do we say about Open Space? For those of us who may have thought we
created this wild, wonderful, novel critter -- it is doubtless time to
eat a large amount of humble pie. We did not create a thing. In fact Open
Space by other names had been doing just fine, thank you, for billions of
years. But Open Space is not without its value, for it provides us with
the opportunity to consciously and intentionally be what we already are.
And who knows, we might just become better at it????<br><br>
The practical applications? Well for one thing, the next time a client
asks, "Does Open Space always work?" -- we might answer,
"Truthfully we don't really know, but it seems to have done pretty
well for the past 13.7 billion years." I am not sure that I would
recommend this approach, unless undertaken with a very large
smile.<br><br>
Harrison<br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<div align="center">Harrison Owen<br>
7808 River Falls Drive<br>
Potomac, MD 20854 USA<br>
phone 301-365-2093<br>
Open Space Training
<a href="http://www.openspaceworld.com/" eudora="autourl">www.openspaceworld.com</a>
<br>
Open Space Institute <a href="http://www.openspaceworld.org/" eudora="autourl">www.openspaceworld.org</a><br>
Personal website <a href="http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm" eudora="autourl"><font color="#0000FF">http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm</a><br><br>
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