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<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS" color=#000080>Dear Chris,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS" color=#000080>WOW - what a wonderful sunny sunday
morning news story.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS" color=#000080>My heartily congratulations!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Warmly,<BR>Gabriela<BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS" color=#000080></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000080 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=chris@chriscorrigan.com href="mailto:chris@chriscorrigan.com">Chris
Corrigan</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
href="mailto:OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU">OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, April 22, 2007 8:26
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Tuning the bass note: a story
from an organization using Open Space in an ongoing way.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>Hi friends:<BR><BR>It's been awhile since I posted a story
about a group I was working with, but I thought this one might be
interesting.<BR><BR>I spent the last week shuttered away in a lovely retreat
setting on northern Vancouver Island amongst eagles, sea lions and killer
whales working with a national organization who is helping indigenous
communities to create effective governance that advances their rights and land
title. The leadership of the organization are old hands with Open Space;
the President and I worked together for many years using Open Space in
communities to galvanize leadership, and the interim CEO is a close friend and
OST confidante. These two gentlemen have been wanting the organization
to adopt Open Space as their basic operating system for a year now, and they
have hosted a couple of OST meetings within. Last week we did two OST
meetings and some training to get things grounded even deeper. <BR><BR>The
organization's interest in OST is both as its operational system and to use in
communities to help leadership and community members do the work of
governance. The community work is interesting, but what I learned this
week was more about how OST is used in a long term way within an organization.
<BR><BR>For the last couple of years the organization has been in a
developmental mode and it has focussed much on its structure, roles and
responsibilities. Everything that is done is - technically - supposed to
be in a workplan and supposed to be budgeted and accounted for. However,
the staff of the organization were finding that there was much work that
needed to be done outside the plans and budgets that would make their formal
work more effective - no surprise really but they discovered how critical this
work is.. In an Open Space last year, the staff got quite turned on to
the potential of the process to identify the "out of the budget" work that
needed to be done. A number of important projects were proposed and
started but they had thin support from leadership and other pressing issues
took over their time and attention. Action waned and pessimism crept in.
<BR><BR>Last week marked the initiation for a new CEO who is very interested
in making sure there is time and space for staff to work on issues that
support the culture and the relationships within the organization. This
group is spread wide and thin across Canada and so finding ways to work
together virtually is important, especially to support action planning and
follow up coming from what are becoming regular Open Space events. So on
Tuesday in a full day OST meeting about the operations of the organization,
there were some excellent conversations on working as a network and supporting
an organizational culture that is both responsible to the plan and budgets,
but agile enough to be able to deal with unexpected opportunities.
Wednesday and Thursday we did some in house training and then Friday, hosted
by three staff members, we opened space again for action planning on the
sessions that were held on Tuesday. People got right down to action
plans, some of them creating gant charts and budget allocations. All the
action groups made commitments for what I call "next first steps" and the new
CEO, recognizing the importance of what was unfolding in front of him invited
the staff to make sure that everyone prioritized the work that came from the
OST even over the other pressing issues they had waiting for them back at
their offices. He wanted to be sure that the results of the OST had the
best possible chance for success even though they seemed not to be in the
already approved workplans. <BR><BR>I wondered why this was, and we had a
conversation along the following lines: <BR><BR>This group is using Open Space
on a regular basis to take care of the work that is not in the workplans, not
in the budget and not necessarily even directly a part of what their
organization seems to be about. But what we learned this week is that Open
Space, used in this way, takes care of the "bass notes" within an
organization. There is a kind of deeper hum within every organization - call
it the culture if you like, but it's more like a field - that supports the
work, generates the working environment and connects to the purpose of each
person. People who are highly satisfied with their jobs and organization will
often feel connected to this deeper field. They resonate with the bass note,
the fundamental note of the chord. When this note isn't present, it feels like
work is not connected into a deeper pattern. Understand here that I am talking
not about organizational purpose - it runs below that. It is more like
organizational inspiration, operating at the level of the spirit of the place.
Making Open Space part of the operating system of an organization results in
tuning this bass note, or perhaps sounding it again. We have a chance to open
space to breathe a little, get some distance from the mundane tasks of our job
and ask some of the bigger questions about who we are and where the
organization is going.
<P>The folks in this organization are lucky that the upper leadership wants to
see things working this way and has provided them with the time and resources
both to meet in Open Space and to carry out the small projects starting next
week that keep the bass note humming. And of course, we tuned up relationships
as well, brought familiarity and warmth to an organization that is spread
thinly across the whole country so that people can remember how we were when
we were together, something that helps them continue to work
virtually.</P>Thought you'd like to know. I'll post updates here
as they progress.<BR><BR>Chris<BR clear=all><BR>-- <BR>CHRIS
CORRIGAN<BR>Facilitation - Training<BR>Open Space Technology<BR><BR>Weblog: <A
href="http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot">http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot</A><BR>Site:
<A
href="http://www.chriscorrigan.com">http://www.chriscorrigan.com</A><BR><BR>Principal,
Harvest Moon Consultants, Ltd.<BR><A
href="http://www.harvestmoonconsultants.com">http://www.harvestmoonconsultants.com</A>
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