Whilst Googling himself, Harrison Owen came across an old interview he gave to a German journalist on Open Space, leadership and self-organization back in 1998. It’s a neat summary of Harrison’s thinking at the time, and still refreshingly current to me even now. Here’s a taste:
I found out that one of the most interested things about “Open Space” gatherings is that dialogue is a sort of – formally considered – intense listening, this seems to be the coin of the realm, that is what happens. I suppose a whole mass of other behaviors, if you will, we may spend a lot of time training the people to do, self-managed work teams, real leadership, things like that. These seem to be automatic occurrences in “Open Space” environment, I don’t think it?s any tribute to “Open Space”. I find myself thinking more and more that self-organizing systems natural function as dialogue and human self-organizing system naturally function in a dialogue mode. They manifest leadership as necessary, they experience themselves as one community. In a curious kind of way, stuff whether it is community building, team building, dialogue teaching, empowerment or leadership development and all those sorts of things – they seem to happen in an “Open Space” environment with no prior training, without even mentioning the word.
Lovely. That has certainly been my experience, especially in the last two events I have facilitated, one for a global financial services company and one for a Native Friendship Centre. Two wildly different groups, and the same kinds of result. All of the management theories and sociological analyses one can muster falls away in the face of opening space, where anything is possible, and true, authentic manifestations of these things show up all the time.
We celebrated Pete’s life yesterday at the First Nations Longhouse at the University of BC. It was a lovely time, just the kind of party that Pete wanted, with stories, music, and food. There were prayers offered in the Secewpmec, Buddhist and Catholic traditions, a slide show of Pete’s life and the whole thing ended in a big drum circle facilitated by Pete’s partner in rhthym, Lyle Povah. It was a kick to see family, colleagues, students, and Scottish country dancers in full kilts pounding away on djembes while Pete’s wife Nola, my partner Caitlin and our son Finn pounded out a rhythm on a big buffalo skin mother drum.
As Merle Ace. one of Pete’s long time academic colleagues said, the greatest honour is to be remembered in the way in which you wanted to be remembered. Pete would have loved that celebration.
UBC has set up a site to collect stories about Pete and there’s information there on a scholarship that has been started in his name.
I’ve been working with the Sliammon First Nation up the coast a little ways for over a year now. Sliammon is in the process of reviving traditional governance structures and practices but they are giving them a modern day tweak to work with the existing Indian Act governance structures and the realities of governing a modern community in a resource rich territory.
The process we have been animating is called “Sijitus” which means “advisory” in the Tla’amon language. Traditionally Sijitus was a gathering of family heads who met to provide direction and advice for the community’s leadership. Sliammon has revived Sijitus using Open Space Technology. For the past year we have met about once a month in Open Space with representatives from the families of Sliammon to look at issues facing the community and to craft recommendations and advice to the various governing institutions of the community. Overall the process has worked well to create an inclusive forum for voices to be heard and for overcoming some of the differences that can deeply split small communities.
Today I note that Sliammon has revived its treaty society website and they have posted their tradtional teachings toolbox. This work represents years of interviews with Elders, studies of anthropological sources and work on the land to assemble a Sliammon history, a set of guiding principles and a very deep collection of Kwuth Ta-ow: traditional teachings. These teachings cover everything from leadership to medicines to the ways in which the community traditionally provided for itself, and they are fascinating to read. Sliammon families practice their culture today in a myriad of ways and so the toolbox is meant to capture the underlying values behind these practices. We have used this document for the past year to work with and shape our Open Space meetings to align them with the community’s culture and to bring this reincarnation of Sijitus in line with both the traditional and contemporary realities of Sliammon community governance, and now I really pleased that it’s available to a wider audience.
Have a read through the toolbox and ask yourself these questions: in your community or organization do you have a clear understanding of the origins of your governance and leadership proactices? Are they rooted in a solid historical foundation that informs but does not constrain their expression? Can you imagine doing something like this?
Pretty cool altogether.
Peter Frost 1939-2004, teacher, friend and my father in law.
My father-in-law passed away early this morning after a battle with melanoma. It’s very hard right now to write about him as I risk getting a shock from the tears falling on my keyboard.
You may have known or heard of him through his professional work and exceptional teaching at the University of British Columbia in the Sauder School of Business. Most recently he had devoted his professional life to the development of the idea of toxin handlers in organizations. He was immensely proud of the book he wrote last year, Toxic Emotions At Work, which was inspired in large part by his experiences dealing with cancer seven years ago, when his melanoma returned for the first time. During his healing he saw how important compassionate acts were in the life of people in pain. He began investigating compassion in organizations and, along with a number of colleagues at CompassionLab, produced some remarkable work.
At that time, surgery removed the cancer from his lymph nodes and we were blessed with seven more years with him, during which he got to know his four grandkids. In August he received test results that confirmed that his cancer had returned, and early this morning, he lost the fight.
We have lost a remarkable man, and such a generous friend, father and grandfather for my kids. I’ll write more about Pete later. Light blogging ahead for now.
“I found my way to you”
Just a few words I want to record here. Probably more to report on that later.