An interesting rabbit hole was opened for me thanks to Tim O’Reilly’s cheeky claim that the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt created the “unconference” in 1828.
Through a link on the OSLIST provided by Rolf Schneidereit I’ve just read Humboldt’s opening address at the “Meeting of German Naturalists and Physicians” held over several days and several locations in Berlin during September of 1878.
The invitation was to break down barriers between scientists from multiple disciplines to explore diverging opinions and ideas. As Harrison Owen did a century later when reflecting on his development of Open Space Technology, Humboldt drew his inspiration from the natural world for a conference that was primarily based on the exchange of oral ideas in small groups, across disciplines, in dialogue. Here are some remarks from his opening address:
The terms naturalist and doctor are therefore almost synonymous here. Chained by earthly ties to the type of lower structures, man completes the series of higher organizations. In its physiological and pathological condition, it hardly presents a class of its own. Anything that relates to this high purpose of medical studies and rises to general scientific views belongs primarily to this association. As important as it is not to loosen the bond, which embraces the equal exploration of organic and inorganic nature; yet the increasing size and gradual development of this institute will make it necessary to give section-by-section more detailed lectures on individual disciplines, in addition to the communal public meetings to which this hall is dedicated. Oral discussions are possible only in such narrower circles, only among men, who are attracted by equality of study. Without this kind of discussion, without a view of the collected, often difficult to define, and therefore contentious bodies of nature, the frank intercourse of truth-seeking men would be deprived of an invigorating principle. also to give more detailed lectures about individual disciplines in sections. Oral discussions are possible only in such narrower circles, only among men, who are attracted by equality of study. Without this kind of discussion, without a view of the collected, often difficult to define, and therefore contentious bodies of nature, the frank intercourse of truth-seeking men would be deprived of an invigorating principle. also to give more detailed lectures about individual disciplines in sections. Oral discussions are possible only in such narrower circles, only among men, who are attracted by equality of study. Without this kind of discussion, without a view of the collected, often difficult to define, and therefore contentious bodies of nature, the frank intercourse of truth-seeking men would be deprived of an invigorating principle.
Humboldt, Alexander von: Speech delivered at the opening of the meeting of German naturalists and physicians in Berlin, September 18, 1828. Berlin, 1828. p. 7-8.
So I don’t know that Humboldt invented the “unconference” as O’Reilly claims, but it is certainly an interesting early record of break-out groups being used to discuss findings and ideas in the spirit of Open Space and current good dialogue practice.
A few months ago, I was immersed in teaching complexity within the framework of the Art of Participatory Leadership program (AoPL). Essentially, AoPL is the application of the Art of Hosting within leadership contexts, extending beyond traditional facilitation and hosting scenarios. With a strong emphasis on personal practice and the use of complexity tools, AoPL encourages a deeper exploration of the connections between the Four Fold Practice, complexity, and dialogic containers – topics I’d previously addressed in my chapter for the book ‘Dialogic Organizational Development‘. My recent revisit to these subjects has sparked fresh insights.
In one of these sessions, a spontaneous thought emerged: “Leadership is all about managing interactions to get results.” This notion, inspired by Dave Snowden’s idea that culture is the product of interactions within a system, made me reflect upon the history of my own fascination with containers.
Throughout my life, I’ve found myself drawn to the concept of containers, primarily, I believe, due to an aversion to controlling interactions between people. This leaning was what initially attracted me to open space technology as an empowering meeting process. It didn’t dictate how people were going to interact, but instead provided conditions conducive to fruitful and creative connections. It left agency with the participants rather than centralizing control with the facilitator – something I’ve always preferred to avoid. Open Space is built on the ideas of self-organization and is therefore a natural method to use in complex environments, to invite groups to organize around important conversations and ideas for which they have the energy and agency to host.
This interest in open space led me to the realm of complexity science and various writings on self-organization, including work on networks, emergence, and community organizing. These concepts strive to vest power in the hands of those actively involved in the work, a principle that resonated deeply with me and steered me towards anthro-complexity and the application of complexity science to human systems.
It was in this field that I discovered William Isaacs’s seminal book on dialogue. Isaacs was among the first to describe the dialogic container in the context of organizational life. This deepened my interest in the topic, leading to my connection with Gervase Bushe in the early 2010s. Our collaboration eventually resulted in an invitation to contribute a chapter to the book he was editing with Bob Marshak, a key text in introducing dialogic organizational development to the world.
Interactions, containers, patterns, and emergent outcomes are all characteristics of complex systems. Both Snowden and Glenda Eoyang offer valuable, and different, insights into how constraints create conditions for emergence. However, the lesson that resonates most with me is the idea that, in complex situations, we can only work with the constraints to increase our chances of creating beneficial patterns.
This approach to working with containers and constraints can be challenging and risks verging into manipulation, especially when massive amounts of power and data are involved, such as in large social media companies. There is an ethical imperative to maintain transparency when working with constraints, a principle fundamental to this work.
In my chapter for Bob and Gervase’s book, I discussed the Four Fold Practice as a guiding framework. It helps leaders focus on four key patterns that make conversations meaningful, while also nurturing an environment that fosters the emergence of these patterns.
This practice grew from the observation that presence, participation, hosting, and co-creation are essential elements of meaningful, productive conversations. Importantly, these patterns should not be imposed but rather fostered through well-crafted containers.
Rather than dictating “be present now!”, we can shape spaces where presence naturally occurs and feels appreciated. Instead of compelling participation, we aim to cultivate processes that promote deep engagement through authentic and impactful invitations.
The same principles apply to hosting and co-creation. We shouldn’t impose facilitation roles onto individuals; instead, we should craft environments in which people comfortably host each other on various scales – from open-space, world café, circle to intimate one-on-one interactions.
Similarly, forcing people into co-creation isn’t the right approach. Instead, we must provide them with the necessary tools, conditions, constraints, and challenges to stimulate collaborative creation and achieve desired outcomes.
I strive to uphold these principles from the Four Fold Practice in every facilitation – to create conditions where the patterns of presence, participation, hosting, and co-creation naturally emerge.
This exploration into the realm of leadership, complexity, and dialogic containers has been a journey of discovery, reflection, and evolution. My fascination with containers and how they impact interactions, outcomes, and ultimately culture within a system continues to grow.
The intersection of complexity and leadership in the context of dialogic containers is a rich tapestry of insights and practices that can greatly enhance our effectiveness as leaders, facilitators, and change-makers. The journey is ongoing, and the learning never stops.
How do these reflections resonate with you? I’m thinking of writing more on the idea of containers, and would welcome your thoughts and questions about the topic.
Four things conspiring here today.
- I had lunch with a friend/student, and we had a long conversation about what it means to “hold space.”
- This post from Michelle Holliday in which she finds herself Rethinking Self-Organization.
- Working with Cynthia Kurtz, who published Confluence a couple of years ago, which is a framework that helps create a thinking space for the intersections of organization and self-organization.
- Getting ready to teach our next cohort of Complexity From the Inside Out.
So before you dive into this post, go play Horde of the Flies at Complexity Explorables. Play with the sliders. Find a way to lock all the dots in one super stable state. Find a way to ensure endless randomness. Find a way to have the dots self-organize such that patterns emerge, persist for a while, and then change. Play with trying to control the system. See if you can get desired results.
Now, what’s going on here?
There is a relationship between organization and self-organization. Systems self-organize within constraints. Without constraints, anything is possible, which makes it far more likely that complete nonsense will occur, utter chaos. But with too many constraints in a system, nothing will emerge, and the system will be locked into one steady and stable pattern with no possibility for emergence, adaptation or evolution.
This intersection between organization (the deliberate application of constraints) and self-organization (what happens inside a constrained space) is really the whole world in which facilitation and leadership play. It is the world of complexity. As Dave Snowden and Cynthia Kurtz wrote with a nod to Alicia Juarerro in “The New Dynamics of Strategy” back in 2003:
Humans are not limited to acting in accordance with predetermined rules. We are able to impose structure on our interactions (or disrupt it) as a result of collective agreement or individual acts of free will. We are capable of shifting a system from complexity to order and maintaining it there in such a way that it becomes predictable. As a result, questions of intentionality play a large role in human patterns of complexity.
Kurtz, C & Snowden, D (2003) “The New Dynamics of Strategy: sense making in a complex-complicated world” in IBM Systems Journal Volume 42 Number 3 pp 462-483
This remains one of the critical insights about anthro-complexity that is the basis for how I look at facilitation and leadership.
Practically speaking, the implication here is clear. Anyone working with a group will find themselves creating a temporary space inside of which some degree of self-organization will take place and outside of which one’s influence is limited. The job is to manage the constraints in the system, which means primarily creating a container formed of boundaries and catalyzing attractors, which creates a context for connections and exchanges between people inside the container. Once the container is set, one monitors it and, if possible, works with the constraints to take what is happening in a positive direction of travel.
THIS IS A PERILOUS UNDERTAKING. It is fraught with power dynamics, ethical questions, moral quandaries, conflicting value judgements, surprising results and crushing failures. There is always a chance that people will have a peak experience of their life, and it’s also possible that someone will experience traumatic and lasting harm. Along the way, you might even get good work done, if the existential crisis doesn’t eat you first. If you think leadership (or facilitation, parenting, or being a citizen) is easy, you haven’t lived.
Many of us get into facilitation because we want to help create a better world. Creating the conditions for good creative work, productive dialogue, and good relations is one way that can happen. The shadow side of this is that we often get VERY attached to what happens in the containers we create. More attached than we think we are. We want things to go well, we want people to be safe, we want a good outcome, and we want every voice to matter and for people to exercise their power and leadership. We cannot guarantee any of those things, let alone that any of them will go the way we want. Too often, facilitation and leadership situations fail on the reefs of good intentions. Things grow very controlling and prescriptive. And yet…
And yet, the work of holding space is not a flakey woo-woo concept. Holding space means two things. First, it is about creating and holding a boundary, or as Dave Snowden famously puts it when describing the complexity approach to hosting a children’s birthday party: “We draw a line in the sand known as a boundary…and we say to the children ‘cross that you little bastards and you die.'”
Second, it is about creating probes inside this container that influence how people behave inside it. When it appears that one of the probes has become a beneficial attractor, we find ways to stabilize it. And when one starts producing non-beneficial behaviours, we destroy it right away because emergence and self-organization can make bad things worse, and as any parent or gardener knows, you need to learn to nip things in the bud.
That’s what facilitation is. And it’s a lifelong practice where you will get that balance wrong a lot of the time. In fact, I would say that MOST of the time, I get it “wrong” because no matter where you start, as soon as the people enter the room, shit gets real, as the kids say. It’s all about how one adjusts to the situation. Hence, you need to build flexibility and adaptability into the process design, and keep a careful watch on what is going on, both in the container around you and in the container inside you, because THAT one is often the one that creates the most trouble.
Buy and read Cynthia’s book if you want a guided tour through the very deepest implications of this simple intersection of organization and self-organization. I’m going to bring the essence of her ideas into this upcoming cohort of Complexity Inside and Out because I think it really helps us explain the terrain upon which leadership, management, facilitation and coaching all take place. And I think it also presents an honest take on facilitation and leadership and how those roles are related to issues of control, constraint, creativity, emergence and self-organization.
The Paul Klee Centre in Bern, Switzerland. An amazing room, even though it lacked natural light.
Many of my meetings involve being in both a circle configuration and gathered around small tables. It is possible to move table in and out, but for most meetings (and full day or more workshops) these room requirements will be ideal:
- The formula for an ideal room size is 100 square feet per person or 10 square meters per person. the more square the room the better. This allows us to set up a circle and a cafe space. If we are only doing one process (a world cafe OR an Open Space), then we can go with 75 square feet or 7.5 square meters per person. But more room is always better, especially in pandemic times.
- Good air filtration is important.
- Natural light is ideal. Windows on two sides of the room with empty walls on the other two sides is perfect.
- Room set up is a circle of chairs in one half of the room and a cafe space in the other side. The tables in the cafe space should be ideally 3×3 feet or 1×1 meter with four chairs around them. For a group of 40 people, we need 10 tables. Square tables work best. if squares aren’t available, 6 foot (2 meter) long rectangular tables work well too, and we can get 6 people around them if need be. Round conference tables are not helpful as people are too far apart and it increases the noise in a room.
- It is ideal to be able to tape posters on the wall using painter’s tape.
- Projection optional but useful.
- For groups larger than 40, and depending on the acoustics, a handheld microphone is helpful. I always assume there are folks in the room with hearing issues. 30-40 is the maximum for unamplified sound, and even then some people have very soft voices.
Typical materials we use in workshops and participatory events include these:
- Mr. Sketch markers, one marker per four people.
- Crayola markers, one package of these per 20 people.
- Plain white flip chart paper for the tables so people can write on it. One pad of 50 sheets per 30 people.
- Post it flipchart pads optional (these are expensive and not as useful as plain pads, but we do use them)
- Post-it notes Packages of 3×5 and 6×4 and assorted 2×2 square sizes are useful too. Important that these have the “Super Sticky” symbol on them which means they will stick to walls and hang vertically.
- Basic office supplies: Scissors, painter’s tape, ballpoint pens and name tags.
- Additional decorations for the circle centre, important organizational artifacts, nice fabrics, flowers.
- A portable bluetooth speaker for music.
For local events, I usually bring the markers and post it notes, letter sized paper, tape and bluetooth speaker, and ask the client to bring flip chart pads, office supplies and the organizational artifacts.
Put all that together well and you get a beautiful space with lots of room to move around and lots of materials to work with.
What is your essential list?
Years ago I wrote a little book called the Tao of Holding Space which was an interpretation of the Tao te Ching as applied to Open Space Technology and the facilitation of other participatory practices.
Annick Corriveau is an Open Space Facilitator and she interviewed me a couple of months ago about my nearly 30 year history with Open Space Technology and the origins of this little book. She has a series of interviews with OST practitioners that are well worth checking out.
You can download the book for free from the Internet Archive in English or in Chinese or be in touch directly to purchase a copy of the published version that my friend Mark Busse championed.