<font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><b>The Chief Leader.</b>
Leadership happens everywhere, but it is essential not to minimize the
critical role played by the chief leader. Needless to say, control style
leadership doesn't fit this role. Stories of most tribal chiefs, medicine
men. etc., usually reflect that they pay a high personal price in fulfilling
their role - if they are any good at all. It takes a lot more personal
energy to enable than to control. Being present and being true over the
long haul is very difficult. For me to achieve and sustain this I must
be very intentional about nurturing my own Spirit. My life experiences
and learning and my faith commitment have taught me how to do this. I
believe that for an organization to sustain Spirit, supporting the "chief"
to sustain his or her Spirit is the most essential ingredient.<i> <br>
</i></font>
<p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><b>Appropriate Structure.</b>
I have found that in organizations where people focus on consensus decision
making, shared power, putting all their energies into process - the organizations
eventually are filled with conflict and dysfunction. It is not politically
correct to say this, but I rather suspect it is because these organizations
are not built on truth - some members are hungry for power and control,
but won't say so, others have their "secret agenda" in their
breast pocket, but won't clearly put it on the table. In an organization,
most power (even to hire and fire) is with the senior staff person, who
must claim that power (women have a hard time doing this) and use it. This
translates into acknowledging that hierarchial structure for some purposes
- formal responsibility, accountability, authority, formal communication
at the same time that we have and grow an appropriate structure for the
actual work of the organization to take place. Both support the other,
enable the other, and both are essential and interface with each other.</font></p>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><i>-- Birgitt Williams, Chapter 5, Tales from Open Space (edited by Harrison Owen)<br><br>
</i></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><i>so...
what are we learning these last few days about being and supporting
leaders in open space? about ownership, control and authority? </i></font><br>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><i><br></i></font>---<br>
<font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><br>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">for those of
you whose only experience of me is the last few days of kaliya and tree
telling you who i am, i feel compelled to offer an alternative view of
who i might be and how i think about openspaceworld.org...<br>
<br></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">first, i am sorry to have
posted so frequently these last few days. i rather
prefer invisibility. it's a fine line indeed between letting go on the
one hand and letting you know that <a href="http://openspaceworld.org/" target="_blank">openspaceworld.org</a> really is my
invitation, not my empire. think what you will about
me, but rest assured that if there is something you want to contribute
online, i'd be glad to help you find a place for it, at
<a href="http://openspaceworld.org/" target="_blank">openspaceworld.org</a> or elsewhere.<br><br></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">and
yes, i guess it is my site. i didn't think that was a big secret. i
bought the name, hacked the code, invited the
stories, posted them, and tried to keep them organized -- with
help from many others along way. i think it's fair to say that i've
been the chief leader of the site. it's been me personally inviting
contributions,
it's been my gift, my practice and one of my ways of honoring the
generosity
of harrison and so many others in this community. <br>
<br>
at the same time, i have never called it "my site" because
that is not how i think of it -- and not how i wanted anyone else to
think of it. it is something i give away every day i
work on it. it's your site. you've seen the thing and how it's
developed over the years.
what you haven't seen is the many questions that have come, and the
many emails i have sent back, teaching, inviting, encouraging. i'm not
the only one doing this, of course, but the site is part of my
practice, it's
not my asset. i have my own personal/professional site for business.
openspaceworld is my gift to all of you, and even more, to all those
who will never join the oslist. and because my gift is itself merely
an invitation, an offer to post what you send, i don't feel
particularly "in control" of anything. but i do feel it is my duty to
defend what is posted there -- because those postings and linkings are
your gifts. <br>
<br>
when the site started, i wrote a two-page executive summary description
and a few paragraphs of welcoming text. later i wrote a four-page
article. most everything else of any consequence was
submitted by somebody else, including more than a dozen translations of
my original text. yes i've done some cleaning and organizing, but open
access? my god, it's been nothing but one big open bulletin board all
along! indeed, the rule in the blog is that i can't actually post my
stories about my own work. if i have a story about myself to post, i send that to
somebody else -- so we *all* need to ask somebody else to post our
stuff on the site. <br>
<br>
if i speak about my journey very easily in openspace-isms... it is
because everything i do in connection with the sites is measured
against what i know about the story and practice of opening space. i
think about this stuff a lot. i don't experience your messages,
kaliya, as non-violent communication and i don't know why any of this
had
to be said in order for you to do what you are now beginning to
organize.
you say you've been telling me these things for years, but i honestly
don't recall a single call or email to me directly, to inquire, discuss
or offer any of this, except those three lines when i emailed you to
ask about your ideas. i've already changed the out-of-date description
you've flagged as offensive. <br>
<br>
for all the talk about open,
accessible wiki... what some of you may not know is that the last time
anybody got really upset about the site, it was because it *was* a
wiki. at that time, i was criticized for too much wiki and too messy.
but the fact is that i rather like the mess. i think it's true to our
process. so are the 22 languages on the homepage. the site is not
controlled. i am not really in control of anything -- except that for
three years of running it as open, accessible wiki format, i got up
every morning and
deleted spam postings. <br><br>thanks to everyone who's emailed and called off-list. and to everyone who's read this far.</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><i><br></i><br></font><font face="Verdana" size="-2"><b><i>Special thanks... </i></b><i> to the authors, editors, translators, wiki gnomes, donors and other helpers who've contributed to this site <br>
since 1999, especially Raffi Aftandelian, Tova Averbuch, Brian
Bainbridge, Ashley Cooper, Chris Corrigan, Artur Ferreira da Silva, <br>
Carol Daniel Kasbari, Koos de Heer, Gerardo de Luzenberger, Gabriela Ender, John Engle, Ted Ernst, Wendy Farmer-O'Neil, Doug <br>Germann,
Diane Gibeault, Elwin Guild, Beck György, Michael Herman, Thomas Herrmann, Peggy Holman, Sheila Isakson, Tim <br>Lannan,
Jean-Yves Lord, Christy Lee-Engel, Elena Marchuk, Esther Matte, Gerard Muller, Ingrid Olausson, Funda Oral, Barry Owen, <br>Harrison Owen, Michael M Pannwitz, Stanley Park, Brian Rogers, Véronique Dos Santos, Mikk Sarv, Agneta Setterwell, Filiz Telek, <br>
Siona van Dijk, the Open Space Institute USA, and the photographers who've shared 6000+ photos at Flickr!</i></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><i> <br><br>
<br>
<br></i><i><br><br>
</i></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><br>
<br>
<br></font>--<br><br>Michael Herman<br>Michael Herman Associates<br><br><a href="http://www.michaelherman.com/" target="_blank">http://www.michaelherman.com</a><br>
<a href="http://www.ronanparktrail.com/" target="_blank">http://www.ronanparktrail.com</a><br><a href="http://www.chicagoconservationcorps.org/" target="_blank">http://www.chicagoconservationcorps.org</a><br><a href="http://www.openspaceworld.org/" target="_blank">http://www.openspaceworld.org</a><br>
<br>312-280-7838 (mobile)<br>
*
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