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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Dear Yoav<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Thanks for sharing your story and your
passion – it did inspire me, so thanks for that!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>I am, with some colleagues, working to
invite schools in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Sweden</st1:country-region></st1:place>
to find more life nurturing ways – which of course includes opening space
to the great potential that is sleeping...<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>I think that may be one key – is to
really understand what great potential is available. If the whole community
around the school would become involved, just imagine what resources would be
available (not to mention the potential sleeping within the actual school). So
let them make a mindmap of everybody who has an interest in that school
becoming fabulous! And most schools (over here anyway) often complain about no
resources...<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Another key is that they know what/where
they are and where they are heading, preferably before they start thinking
about how to get there. Those of us working with The Genuine Contact™
Program know about the Medicine Wheel Tool – which builds on ancient
wisdom – and is used to invite conversation and development around the
basic foundations – purpose, leadership, vision, community, management
and relations (in that order). An organization that continuously looks after
its balance amongst these aspects stands, I think, a better chance to go out
surfing in open space. End of June Birgitt and Ward Williams are coming to <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sweden</st1:place></st1:country-region> offering
the learnshop “Deeper work with the Medicine Wheel Tool”. Would be
good to see you here then! Let me know if you (or anyone else) would like an
invitation sent!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>I wish you all the best of luck, and
remember ... whenever it starts...<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>Thomas Herrmann, Sweden<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span lang=SV style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>Från:</span></font></b><font
size=2 face=Tahoma><span lang=SV style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>
OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] <b><span style='font-weight:
bold'>För </span></b>Yoav Peck<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Skickat:</span></b> den 19 februari 2008
13:09<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Till:</span></b>
OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Ämne:</span></b> Not Open Space</span></font><span
lang=SV><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span lang=SV
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><b><font size=4
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:14.0pt;color:navy;
font-weight:bold'>Not Open Space <o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><i><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy;
font-style:italic'>“No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better”<o:p></o:p></span></font></i></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><i><font size=2
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:10.0pt;color:navy;
font-style:italic'>
Samuel
Beckett<o:p></o:p></span></font></i></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>I am
co-chair of the central parents’ committee at my daughter’s
elementary school here in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Jerusalem</st1:City></st1:place>.
We are a relatively young school that began with a handful of kids and now
numbers 400. Since losing the intimacy of the school’s early years, a
plethora of questions and issues has appeared: about the running of the school,
the nature of the parents’ community, educational emphases, student
violence, etc. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>Having
participated in several OS experiences and then reading <st1:place w:st="on">Harrison</st1:place>
and obtaining coaching from experienced folks, I led three successful OS
events. I am in love with Open Space, the “technology” and the
world-view that underlies it. So I quite naturally saw a school-wide Open Space
event as something that could respond beautifully to the widely-perceived need
to give the parents a chance to express their concerns and to gather them
together on the way to voluntary, passion/responsibility – motivated
activism in the school. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>Along
with the curiosity and openness of some folks, I encountered stiff resistance
from others, including the two co-principals. It was expressed in
people’s difficulty envisioning what would follow the chaos of the
marketplace, and the opposition to “wasting time at an event with no
agenda.” I explained, I described, I brought in an outside OS facilitator
to explain, I gave out written material. The two principals were particularly
nervous about it, and I called other principals who were willing to share their
successful OS experience with our principals…. all to no avail. Perhaps I
wanted OS too much. Perhaps I was sounding righteous about it. I was even
accused of belonging to some kind of OS cult!! Picture me holding out <st1:place
w:st="on">Harrison</st1:place>’s book to my accuser and him refusing to
touch it, as though there were worms crawling around the pages. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>What
was wrong? Avner Haramati urged me to accept that people could not be
“persuaded” to do Open Space. That I had things upside down…
that the proper order of things would be reached when people would own the idea
to the point that they would be persuading me that OS was right for us. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>The
Parents’ Committee decided to devote an entire evening to deciding what
to do. As I listened to the various points of opposition, and along with them
the deeply-felt need for some kind of event to take place, I yielded. People
wanted structure, they wanted the class representatives to go out to the class
parents and cull the central issues people wanted discussed, and then to build
an agenda around these issues. They were clearly not prepared to be surprised. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>So
that’s where we are now. In early April, we will hold an event that will
not be Open Space. I somehow do not feel “defeated…” An
organizational consultant, I know that we have to “start where the client
is…” I wrote to <st1:place w:st="on">Harrison</st1:place> and now I
am curious about how to build on his advice: <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><i><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy;
font-style:italic'>Open as much space as you can, and when the walls close in,
take a pause until the next opportunity. It will come. The other thing is that
Open Space (for me) is less about “doing a program” – than a
way of being. It is a style of approach that just opens space for people to
share and grow. You don’t even have to sit in a circle! I think that is
what you have been doing, and I say keep opening.<o:p></o:p></span></font></i></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>So
this now seems to be the challenge: opening space without Open Space. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>It
is exciting to me in a special way, since this feels like living in the real
world, a world where suspicion, fear of losing control, skepticism and cynicism
reign… this is where we live, and learning to uncover the keys to opening
a closed space feels like an important journey. As we build our non-OS event,
there will be countless opportunities for opening space, for making use of the
OS distinctions, for softening our fear of the unexpected. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>As
Rabbi Yitz Greenberg says, I prefer Succoth to Passover. On Passover, we herald
liberation from slavery. Trumpets and glory! But on Succoth we celebrate the
dreary tasks entailed in wearily plodding our way through the desert, as we
daily build and take apart our little huts on the 40 year schlep to the
promised land. At Succoth we celebrate the secrets of living our way through
the desert with the promised land in our hearts, sometimes slipping to longing
for the fleshpots of slavery, but steadfastly confronting what arises along the
way from an inner place that resonates with our vision of what can be. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>I’d
be grateful to any of you who have thoughts about any of this. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>Thanks
much, <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoPlainText style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:50.4pt;
margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:50.4pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><font size=3
color=navy face=Arial><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;color:navy'>Yoav
Peck, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Jerusalem</st1:City></st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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