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<TITLE>RE: Very long story of a 1.5 day OST with deep conflict</TITLE>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>G'day Chris</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>Thanks heaps for your story. It was great to hear about it in detail. I liked your opening remarks, seemed to say, "hey if nobody believes this can work then I'll put my hand up and hold the belief until it does." Like a prayer of sorts.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>There is an earthy, kind of life and death quality to this workshop you have written of. I'm glad open space can work with this reality. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Really enjoyed your refocusing on the issues when things got out of hand on the second day. You read this dynamic well: </FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>"It felt very quickly like space was closing and with nowhere to go, people started going for the jugular."</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>This is the modus operandi around where I live too. I find it refreshing living in a place where people speak their minds. At least you know where people stand, but it can be devastating! </FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Glad to hear that even hardened "blokes," as we call them down here, can use open space. It obviously took courage and staying very centered on this one from you.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Chris, I have really enjoy your contributions on this server! You obviously have a good mind and like plumbing thoughts to their bedrock. I have used a number of your theories e.g." Freedom Shock" to help in my work. </FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Keep on opening that space!</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>All the best</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Mike Copeland </FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2> </FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>-----Original Message-----</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>From: Chris Corrigan [<A HREF="mailto:chris@CHRISCORRIGAN.COM">mailto:chris@CHRISCORRIGAN.COM</A>] </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Sent: Sunday, 6 July 2003 8:23 p.m.</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>To: OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Subject: Very long story of a 1.5 day OST with deep conflict</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>Colleagues:</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>It's been a while since I posted a story of a recent Open Space, but I have a few saved up, including this one, which I undertook with my erstwhile partner Chris Robertson.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>I just returned from northern British Columbia, in a region known as "The Peace," named for the mighty river that drains northeastern BC to the Arctic Ocean by way of Athabasca Lake and the Mackenzie River system. It's the edge of what is the true north in Canada; the northern horizon stays alight at night with a ribbon of pale yellow as the sun traverses Asia.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Ironically, we were called up to the Peace to help resolve a long standing conflict between contractors who work in the oil and gas sector. Oil and gas are the primary economic engines of the Peace region, and First Nations are big players in the field. Oil and gas companies have deals with the First Nations of northern BC to hire First Nations contractors for work out in the traditional territories. It's a cutthroat business and lucrative too, with a good contract netting over $1000 a day in profit from clearing seismic lines for oil and gas exploration, or opening up the forest for a gas or oil wells, or clearing corridors across the land for pipelines. But there is a</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>limited season for work, and there is not enough to go around. In an</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>area where a traditional way of life is still practiced and hunting and trapping feeds the family but only barely supplements the income, work in the oil patch is a ticket for independence and self-sufficiency, if you can get it.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>For ten years or more the contractors within one First Nation have been at each other's throats over the work in the oil and gas sector. The fierce competition within the small community has been devastating. The Chief and Council have tried over the years to assist the contractors in working out their differences, in creating fair systems for dividing up and sharing the work, all the while trying to keep the community together. They have met with limited success. Usually contractor meetings degrade into shouting and threats and folks storming out. Violent behaviour has been broached on a few occasions. It's tiring. For these guys, the fighting makes it feel like every dollar earned is worth a bucket of blood.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>It's pretty clear now that the contractors need to have a policy in place to settle their differences about how work should be divided up. There is a fledgling Contractors Association, but the infighting has made it ineffective and the oil and gas companies have only limited patience for getting dragged into the mess. Work is continuing all around this First Nation, with other Aboriginal contractors getting the jobs. Everyone knows that the fighting is costing big money, big stress and lost opportunity. The oil boom will only last another 35 years at the most. Every year lost to fighting is another year off the clock.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>We were invited to open space. The Council asked specifically for us to try something different with the contractors. They weren't sure who would show up, but they wrote up the invitation as "Seeking Agreement: Issues and Opportunities for meeting the economic challenges in the oil and gas sector." The contractors were told that they had to show up to pre-qualify for a big upcoming job. In fact the company representative was to meet with the contractors right after we finished on the second day.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>I was worried. This was perhaps the most conflicted group I had ever worked with in Open Space, and I had my doubts about the local organization of the meeting and the motivations of the contractors in being there. As if to signify an omen, the meeting got postponed on the eve of us traveling up there due to a death in the community. We scrambled to find another date and rescheduled. When it turned out that the meeting room we would be in was too small, the local organizers tried to get us into the almost completed community centre, which was due to house the First Nations government offices, a gym and a preschool. As it turned out, the postponement of the meeting meant that the paint would dry in time for us to use the new building. With no furniture in the offices, and a wide open space to form a circle in, we had a tailor made facility, but I still wasn't comfortable.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Opening space on day one was nerve racking. I was up late into the night (watching the glowing horizon) turning my opening over in my head. These were heavy equipment operators, chainsaw wielding oil and gas industry workers. They were hard nosed, competitive and in deep conflict with each other. I needed to be very grounded to believe that we could actually make this work. My self-critic had a field day with my self-esteem until I managed to get him back in the bottle.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>We got started about a half hour late which was fine by me, and as the guys trickled in the air began to crackle. At about 9:30, the Chief and Council indicated that we could get to work with the 20 or so contractors that were there. I stood to do my opening.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>I can't remember exactly what I said, but I remember beginning by inviting everyone to follow me around the room with their eyes and make visual contact with each other. I said that I am no expert in oil and gas issues, in heavy equipment work or in the dynamics of their community. I am a process guy, and when the process goes sideways, sometimes I can offer something to straighten it up again.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>I continued by talking about what it's like to have to scrap with each other for bits and pieces of work. I acknowledged the feelings in the room, despair, anger, frustration and stress. I asked people to look ahead into the future and imagine themselves in this condition 20 years down the road. I offered the thought that sometimes the price to pay for independence can be too high. The cost is in shorter lives, miserable conflict and work that is drudgery. I invited them to think about what it would be like if it were different.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>There was lots of nodding in the room, so I continued on my little roll. I said that the only people who were going to solve these problems were the ones sitting around the circle. No one was going to parachute into this situation with the answer. I explained that the next day and a half was the opportunity people had been asking for to see if there couldn't be another way of doing things. I said that if we arrive at lunch time tomorrow and there is light shining through a door cracked open, then we will have done something really significant. Then I sat down.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>My partner Chris stood and explained the process, the principles and the law and then I rose again and reiterated the theme and ended saying that it was entirely possible that nobody here believes that what we are about to do is possible. I said Chris and I would hold that belief. We would stay in the belief that in a day and a half, there would be a new way of being together. I said I believed in the people in the circle and believed they could solve these problems and then I invited the issues.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>It was more than I expected. Guys were quick to come out of their seats and pen the big issues they needed to resolve. By the time the dust settled we had 23 issues. When the market place opened they immediately converged them in about 15 issues. Folks grabbed coffee and then we were underway.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>The first sessions were heavy going, but they stayed civil. Staff from the First Nation government provided some "facilitation" in a couple of small groups, ensuring that people took turns speaking and that the group stayed on topic. The contractors respected this leadership and the trend continued throughout the day. We were really pleased with this, because it showed the latent leadership in the community to help people be respectful with each other. For some reason, probably due to the climate of fear and anger, this kind of leadership had never come forward before. Several of the contractors remarked that this was the best part of the whole experience - talking to one another and each taking a turn and being respectful. This was a new way of communicating. No one got angry, no one stormed out, no threats were uttered.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>The small groups continued and as the big issues were being dealt with, those who had exercised the Law of Two Feet started in on the smaller issues. The agenda was chaos. Little issues convened by someone in the morning were dealt with by a small group of other people later on. It was as if the bulletin board had become a big shared "to do" list. Five minute groups sprang up with three or four people. Recommendations and one line reports were submitted on the "easy" stuff. And all the while, a handful of major issues kept most of the contractors engaged in deep dialogue.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>By the close of day one, people were really surprised that they actually spent a day together with no fighting. There was a lot of work completed, a book of proceedings in the works and significant headway made on most of the major issues of conflict. Many people remarked in the evening news that although there wasn't agreement on everything, there was a new spirit of working together. I concluded the day by drawing their attention to the circle and remarking that as First Nations people we are lucky, because the Creator gave us the circle as our tool and we take it for granted. I suggested that if they just used the circle more, things would be different, let alone using Open Space. I was really tired at the end of day one.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>On the morning of day two, it was clear to me that the circle wasn't enough on its own to handle conflict of this magnitude. As we began and I invited morning news, one contractor grabbed the talking piece and launched into a tirade about one of the hot issues of the previous day, having to do with how work is divided up and shared. He thought that what looked like an agreement in the proceedings was unfair to him and he started in on the issue. He also managed to bring in another hot topic, the issue of work happening on his trap line, the territory in which he traps fur-bearing animals. He said that work that traversed his trap line should be done by him, regardless of how the contract was awarded. Accusations and heated words began to fly. Both these issues were central to the conflict, and even before we started on the second day, both threatened to derail the concord we had emerging.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>I did something I had never done before. I stood up and said that I thought morning news was over and why don't we get on with our day. I took back the talking piece and opened space again for action planning (using our non-convergence model, whereby we invite people to identify action based on their reading of the proceedings rather than prioritization). Six action items were raised, including trapline issues and the issue of a rotation list for contracts. Small groups met and the conversations got underway. They were heated and emotional, but the law of two feet applied and was used. I realized that the most valuable result of my intervention was encouraging them to put the issues on the wall and deal with them in different spaces. This accomplished two things.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>My partner Chris Robertson noticed that when the issues went up on the wall, they became de-personalized. This made it easier to attack the problems without attacking people. In the opening circle on the second day the attacks were getting personal before I invited the issues to go up on the wall. The other thing that worked was having somewhere to go. As the big circle broke up and the small groups got underway, people came back to the main meeting area when things grew too hot and heavy. Most often they gravitated to the coffee machine where light conversation was taking place. There was laughter there and people were more relaxed. When they felt ready, they could go back to the small groups and re-engage. It struck me that having many centres around the main meeting space, left the main space as a kind of sacred place where people could come to re-charge. The folks who were butter-flying around the coffee machine were holding a kind of positive space for anyone who needed it. In the larger circle we would never have had this safe space emerge. It felt very quickly like space was closing and with nowhere to go, people started going for the jugular. Small group space loosens the body of the conflict and allows for Spirit to show up in just the right ways.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>As we closed, everyone agreed that the day and half was well spent. There was substantial progress made towards a policy for the contractors and there was, at least for this week, peace in the Peace. Two oil companies came in to talk about work and they sat in the circle with the contractors and outlined the scope of the jobs. They were both big projects and the contractors were respectful with each other and quietly listened while the company reps sat in a circle with them and explained the opportunity. Everyone remarked that a previously unknown civility had permeated the room.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Now we are only two days away and it's impossible to tell whether this will have lasting effects on the contractors. But we have been asked to help draft the policy and to come train the First Nation staff and staff from neighbouring First Nations in Open Space so that they can hold a community meeting using OST. We got the light we were hoping would be there. One contractor said in the closing circle, that the door was opened a crack and he could see a new way of doing things. I reminded them that they were "in deep" now: there was no way to avoid that possibility except by choice, and who would choose the way things used to be?</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>It was good doing this with a partner that I know and trust. Holding space was really hard and having Chris there meant that we could both keep things supported. I'm hoping he joins the list here soon!</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>The contractors passed on their thanks to "the guy that thought this thing up" and I promised I would convey them to Harrison. If you've read along this far, thanks for indulging me.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2>Chris</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>---</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>CHRIS CORRIGAN</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>Bowen Island, BC, Canada</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2><A HREF="http://www.chriscorrigan.com/osweblog" TARGET="_blank">http://www.chriscorrigan.com/osweblog</A></FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2>chris@chriscorrigan.com</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2>(604) 947-9236</FONT>
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