<div dir="ltr">Glenda Eoyang from Human Systems Dynamics uses a model based on Container, Exchanges, and Differences - here are her thoughts on Containers:<br><br><p>What a fabulous cluster of questions about containers. Harrison,
thanks for the inquiry and Bhav, thanks for passing it along. </p>
<p>I think these questions fall at the intersection of two ways of
thinking/talking about containers. One is from the Shambala tradition
and we see it at ALIA and other places. The other is the HSD way of
thinking about containers. There is a big overlap between the two, but
the kind of challenge you see in this question don't emerge in the HSD
container conception. I'll try to explain why.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>While ALIA and others consider the context for a meeting to be its
container, we in HSD assume that any human system involves an infinite
number of containers at any given moment. We think of any bounding
condition as a container. Some can be designed and intentional. Others
are native to the environment. Some are healthy, some are not. Some
are explicit, some are not. The trick is to SEE what the relevant
containers are in any moment, to UNDERSTAND how useful or functional
they are, and to TAKE ACTION to shift them toward greater healthful
coherence. </p>
<p>So, in any Open Space experience you have many types and within each type many different containers:</p>
<p>The EVENT:</p>
<ul><li>The time of meeting</li><li>The place</li><li>The calling question</li><li>The community invited or the list of invitees</li><li>The opening circle</li><li>Evening news</li><li>Marketplace</li></ul><p><span style="line-height:1.5">And so on. The wonderful technology establishes these to set conditions for the self-organizing processes to come. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height:1.5">The ENVIRONMENT or COMMUNITY:</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height:1.5">There are also containers that exist in any community in which the OS will happen:</span></p>
<ul><li><span style="line-height:1.5">Institutional bounds</span></li><li><span style="line-height:1.5">Communities</span></li><li><span style="line-height:1.5">Cultures</span></li><li><span style="line-height:1.5">Politics</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height:1.5">Religious affiliations</span></li><li><span style="line-height:1.5">Families</span></li><li><span style="line-height:1.5">Tribes</span></li></ul><p><span style="line-height:1.5">And so on. These are containers
that have set conditions for the self-organizing processes that led to
the patterns that need to be re-thought and re-worked using the SO
technology. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height:1.5">PERSONAL:</span></p>
<ul><li><span style="line-height:1.5">Passion</span></li><li><span style="line-height:1.5">Responsibility</span></li><li><span style="line-height:1.5">Fears</span></li><li><span style="line-height:1.5">Experiences</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height:1.5">Stories</span></li><li><span style="line-height:1.5">Identities</span></li><li><span style="line-height:1.5">Assumptions </span></li></ul><p><span style="line-height:1.5">And so on. These are the raw materials that each participant brings into the circle with them. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height:1.5">The OUTCOMES and IMPACTS that emerge:</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height:1.5">Finally, and most important, there are
the containers that emerge during the OS. These are the questions that
emerge and bring small groups together in exchanges about what matters
to them in the context of the calling question. The power of OS, in my
view, is that it allows these new containers to emerge, be manifest,
allow for individuals and groups to realign themselves to create new
patterns and/or challenge existing patterns in the world at large.
Then, in the closing circles, it reintegrates all of these new-found
containers back into a pattern of the whole that is different in kind
(when it works) than the patterns of individual, event, and community
that existed before the OS began. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height:1.5">Does this make any sense at all? I
hope so because I think it is core to both the theory and practice--the
art and science--of facilitated transformation. It is Harrison's genius
to have seen and manifested conditions for individual and group
transformation in the moment and to have embedded those in such a simple
and elegant technology. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height:1.5">I'm not on the OS listserve, so I hope
Bhav will continue to carry messages or to move the conversation over
into our linkedin space. Looking forward to the continuing conversation
in this container or any other. g <br></span></p><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 7 April 2014 04:33, Michael Wood <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:michael.wood@uwa.edu.au" target="_blank">michael.wood@uwa.edu.au</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Thanks, Harrison, for your response to my question on 'boundaries', particularly your paraphrasing of my question - which was spot on. One thing I've taken from this brief conversation is that although considering the boundaries can be useful, we also need to accept that boundaries are never entirely clear, always moving on a spectrum from clear to uncertain/murky and if we, as a sponsor or facilitator, get overly bound up with boundaries then we might have moved, once again, into being too controlling.<br>
<br>
Michael Wood<br>
Perth, Western Australia<br>
<br>
<br>
----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>
Message: 1<br>
Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 12:01:40 -0400<br>
From: "Harrison Owen" <<a href="mailto:hhowen@verizon.net">hhowen@verizon.net</a>><br>
To: "'World wide Open Space Technology email list'"<br>
<<a href="mailto:oslist@lists.openspacetech.org">oslist@lists.openspacetech.org</a>><br>
Subject: Re: [OSList] Open Space and boundaries<br>
Message-ID: <000301cf4f56$00776480$01662d80$@net><br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII<br>
<br>
It has been common for us to speak of Containers and Boundaries as somehow essential to Open Space. I can't quite find the place, but I do remember saying something like that myself, as in, "The role of the facilitator is to create the container..." It certainly made sense at the time, but I always felt a little uncomfortable with the image. Too mechanical, coercive... too something. And Michael has brought the subject up again. "So...here we have a situation where the 'boundaries' are actually in a state of complex flux and uncertainty. The financial 'givens' are ambiguous; there is no 'locum'<br>
pastor in place because of legal uncertainties with the existing pastor...etc." You might call it "messy boundaries" -- and he raises the question whether one should press ahead with Open Space, or wait until the "mess" is settled down. On the one hand, Michael "hunches" that one should press on -- Open Space. But his hesitation comes, I suspect, from the prior notion that fixed boundaries/containers are necessary for an effective Open Space. What to do?<br>
<br>
Some thoughts (new ones for me): Containers are great for cooking soup, but are unneeded and maybe even problematical in Open Space. It is all about holding things together. In Open Space groups of people come together to deal with their issues. At the very least that would mean gathering in some common time/space, be that physical or electronic. It would seem that this co-location could be facilitated were some suitable "container" provided, presumably by the sponsor/facilitator. This certainly makes sense, and as a rough way of speaking, it seems to describe what is going on. But as I think about it, I think we may be missing a most important point. Coming together in Open Space happens because people care to come. And they continue their connection as long as they care to do so. (Law of two feet)<br>
<br>
>From the "outside" it might look as if they were held in place by a<br>
container, but that is illusory. The actual dynamics are centripetal, the force is mutual attraction... people are "there" because they care to be there and not because they are contained by some external structure. In a word, we as facilitators really don't do a thing, and creating a container is the least of what we DON'T do. The people, from the beginning, do it all.<br>
<br>
<br>
Of course, there are situations where groups come together under orders, mandates, whatever. And they are definitely "contained." It is also true that the tighter that container, the less likely self organization will take place. If true, providing a container is not only unnecessary but also destructive. In the name of Opening space, we effectively close it. Or so I suspect it might be. Just thinking...<br>
<br>
Anyhow Michael, should my mental peregrinations lead anywhere useful, it would seem that your "hunch" was spot on. Forget the boundaries/container.<br>
Just invite the space to open.<br>
<br>
Harrison<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Harrison Owen<br>
7808 River Falls Dr.<br>
Potomac, MD 20854<br>
USA<br>
<br>
189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)<br>
Camden, Maine 04843<br>
<br>
Phone 301-365-2093<br>
(summer) 207-763-3261<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.openspaceworld.com" target="_blank">www.openspaceworld.com</a><br>
<a href="http://www.ho-image.com" target="_blank">www.ho-image.com</a> (Personal Website)<br>
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST Go to:<a href="http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org" target="_blank">http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org</a><br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: <a href="mailto:oslist-bounces@lists.openspacetech.org">oslist-bounces@lists.openspacetech.org</a><br>
[mailto:<a href="mailto:oslist-bounces@lists.openspacetech.org">oslist-bounces@lists.openspacetech.org</a>] On Behalf Of Michael Wood<br>
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2014 9:59 PM<br>
To: '<a href="mailto:oslist@lists.openspacetech.org">oslist@lists.openspacetech.org</a>'<br>
Subject: [OSList] Open Space and boundaries<br>
<br>
A Case Study....<br>
One of the principles that I have generally worked with in Open Space is helping the client get clear on the 'boundaries' of the space that's being opened. For example, helping people who come into the space to know 'what up for grabs here and what isn't? What decisions have already been made?'<br>
<br>
So picture this (purely hypothetical of course)....a church community in which the pastor has (in many peoples' opinion) run off the rails and the main church body is in the process of trying to dismiss him; the church is in compete disarray and completely conflict ridden, many people have left; the pastor who holds all the keys, banking passwords; church telephone connections etc etc, has taken legal advice and had hunkered down in the church owned house where he continues to hold the reigns of power (via some of his 'allies' in the church) despite not formally being the Pastor of the church anymore....<br>
<br>
So...here we have a situation where the 'boundaries' are actually in a state of complex flux and uncertainty. The financial 'givens' are ambiguous; there is no 'locum' pastor in place because of legal uncertainties with the existing pastor...etc etc.<br>
<br>
So in terms of 'Opening Space', do we wait a bit longer until some of the legal boundaries are clarified, OR open space right away in the midst of the mess....my hunch is the latter, but any thoughts from anyone?<br>
<br>
Cheers<br>
Michael<br>
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