At the Open Space List, there has been an interesting little discussion about the evolution of Open Space Technology. Michael weighed in with a lovely observation and then Harrison Owen himself summed it all up:
Michael You said, ” i would say that i think there is *definitely* a next generation of ost… and another and another… but it’s not the *process* that’s changing — it’s the facilitator!”
I think that is a marvelous insight! It is certainly true for me. The essentials of OST, and the way I “do” them has changed so little in 20 years (with the exception of some omissions — several things I thought of NOT to do) that it seems almost frozen. Had it been anything else, we would have now been on version 22.5 — and the truth of the matter is that I am really at 1.0. Well maybe 1.2 or 3 🙂
But the same cannot be said for me. Still feels like me, but hardly the person I saw in the mirror 20 years ago. Bigger, broader, spacious, comfortable — I like it! Was it all OST? Probably not, but much of it happened in, or thanks to, OST.
It is journey I would covet for anybody. And truth to tell setting new people on that journey, at least getting them to the head of the trail, is probably the only reason I still “do” Open Space. Sounds odd I guess, but turning people on to themselves and their world is magic — hopefully for them, and definitely for me.
This is such an eloquent summation of my whole career too. If you are a facilitator looking to deepen your practice, heed this lesson: it is not the tools that need changing and constant improvement; it is you. Let your use of tools shape you to working with people in the ways which feel most natural. From that place, we develop the approach of inviting leadership. From inviting leadership we develop excellence and ease in making good.
Peggy Holman and I were talking about this the other day. She is in the final stages of completing the second edition of The Change Handbook, which will be a mammoth collection of tools and processes. And despite this “last word” on the tools of dialogue and deliberation, we agreed that even that tome is simply the proverbial hand pointing at the moon.
Immerse yourself in these tools, practice and then see how YOU change. That is the secret, the golden elixir, the pearl. Master practice, practice mastery.
[tags]inviting leadership, michael herman, harrison owen, peggy holman[/tags]
I was in a conversation this morning with people who work in a big systemic field: early childhood education. It is one of those fields that is rife with research telling us what all the problems are. We have more information than we could ever use about childhood obesity, drug addiction, abuse, longitudinal studies on literacy and employment, links between diet and capacity, intergenerational issues of dependence and parenting…this list goes on. We know everything about every problem but one.
The one problem we don’t know about is how to solve all of these problems.
My suspicion – and this will not be a huge surprise – is that the answer to that one lies in a couple of key things. First, we need each other. No one person can solve that one. Second, we need to learn how to converse in a way that is generative and not destructive. We need to take the opportunities of our time together in conversation to be deliberate about making things better, and not get too wrapped up in the shadow side of our work even though we can see our heart in the shadow sometimes, and it draws us there very easily.
In truth, I’m not interested in answering the question of how do we solve this biggest problem from the outside. I think the best we can do is to get inside it and start practising, start to find ways to bring to life the integration we sense is needed.
[tags]shadow, problem solving[/tags]
Photo by .serena.
From Walt Whitman’s Song of the Universal
In this broad earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
Nestles the seed perfection.By every life a share or more or less,
None born but it is born, conceal’d or unconceal’d the seed is waiting.…
Lo! keen-eyed towering science,
As from tall peaks the modern overlooking,
Successive absolute fiats issuing.Yet again, lo! the soul, above all science,
For it has history gather’d like husks around the globe,
For it the entire star-myriads roll through the sky.In spiral routes by long detours,
(As a much-tacking ship upon the sea,)
For it the partial to the permanent flowing,
For it the real to the ideal tends.For it the mystic evolution,
Not the right only justified, what we call evil also justified.Forth from their masks, no matter what,
From the huge festering trunk, from craft and guile and tears,
Health to emerge and joy, joy universal.Out of the bulk, the morbid and the shallow,
Out of the bad majority, the varied countless frauds of men and states,
Electric, antiseptic yet, cleaving, suffusing all,
Only the good is universal.
I am feeling the strong work of noticing patterns in everything: the patterns in my work with groups and organizations, in the family, in training and in reading. The patterns and languages that keep us at the rim of our experience but that also lead us to the centre. I have much more to say about this, but for the time being, suffice to note that Whitman articulaes my foundational premise in this: “Only the good is universal.”
[tags]walt whitman[/tags]
I’ve just finished co-hosting the Art of Hosting training with my mates Tenneson Woolf, Teresa Posakony and Brenda Chaddock, We spent four days with 27 people learning the art of hosting and convening meaningful conversations. There is much that I learned in that, as I always do when I am teaching, but what seems most present for me this morning is Tenneson’s persistent quest to find the simplest way to host meaningful conversations.
As a facilitator, I believe strongly that we should meet only when there is a need. It is best to hold a meeting when you don’t know what to do. And when you are at that spot, a meeting serves to help you and your colleagues find the wisdom, however large or small, to make good decision and act smartly.
In the Art of Hosting we teach the “chaordic stepping stones,” essentially a collection of things to pay attention to as you think about designing meetings, projects or organizations. These include knowing the need, knowing the purpose of the meeting and knowing who should be there.
And then, once you are together, there are a few simple tools that come in handy:
1. Be present. Being present means simply turning off all of the distractions that take us away from the question at hand. If there is a more important place we need to be we should be there rather than in a meeting. And so, if this meeting is the most important place to be, be here in this meeting. This is a tough one to live in a world of cell phones, blackberries and wireless internet, but our best work requires us to be fully present to the task at hand.
2. Have a good question. It is harder than you think to find the most important question for the need. But a meeting that is called around a question that matters is a meeting that will work an be worthwhile. So even if it is a regular Monday morning staff meeting, drop a good question into it…”What is up for you this week?” “What challenge do you think we need to face together this week?” “How can we be a little smarter together?”
3. Use a listening piece. A listening piece is a physical object that helps slow down the conversation. When you hold the object, you speak, when you are finished speaking, you put the object down. For important conversations, there is a need to speak deliberately and listen deliberately. The listening piece focuses our attention on what is being said and causes us to speak wisely. I don’t use a listening piece all the time or even all the way through a meeting, but at least a meeting where we begin with it and end with seems to make the conversation that much more deliberate. And, if you find yourself getting off track in the middle when contention and struggle arises, return to the listening piece to slow it down so we can get back to the wisdom that is in the room.
4. Work with mates. It is always better if there is a friend working with you. Someone to hold your back, bounce ideas off and help to discern things. We are wiser when we are working together, not when we are striking out on our own. When we are stuck, having a team mate matters.
5. Harvest. Find a way to harvest what you are learning, Take notes, draw a mind map, make commitments, conclude with an agreement. Harvesting is an art in itself, but a good meeting is always judged by it’s ability to produce a good result, and harvesting, in it’s many forms, ensures that that will happen.
6. Be wise. Take wise decisions and act wisely. After all, the whole reason for meeting in the first place was to do things a little smarter and a little better, wasn’t it?
Yesterday, we were sitting in the forest, after the Art of Hosting was over and talking about this simple pattern and what it means to find a few simple practices to hone our skills. I had a strong insight about how one learns to do this. It’s quite simple really: practise. There are countless opportunities in a lifetime to meet people in formal and informal settings, in meetings, at work, on the bus, at parties, in families…If you really want to get better and better at facilitating and hosting conversations, practice the simplest tools everywhere. Next time you meet someone at a party get a little curious, and throw a question out there: “What do you do? Really? What is it like to do that in the world?”
Repeat as necessary.
[tags]artofhosting, Tennson Woolf, Brenda Chaddock, Teresa Posakony[/tags]
Last week I was working with a team of business school professors meeting in their annual retreat to plan their teaching for an integrated introduction to their MBA program. The professors themselves come from all facets of the business world: logistics, accounting, organizational behaviour, ethics, marketing. The often use the terms “hard” and “soft” skills, but only in reference to the stereotypes they are trying to confront in their students.
It’s always interesting to me to see where “hard” and “soft” skills blur, because in practice they truly do blur. In general “hard” skills refer to those practices in business that are about the external world: financials, accounting, finance, market surveys, logistics. “Soft” skills are associated with human resources, relationships, learning, personal development and ethics.
There is a false dichotomy in the business world between these two skill sets, and one of the professors obseved that one can be a good manager knowing hard or soft skills, but one can only be a good leader with both.
I have been thinking about this when today Rob Paterson posts an interview he did with the staff of silverorange, a tech firm in PEI. In the interview there was a great short summary of what it looks like in the real world when hard and soft skills blend:
Do you have a financial plan at all?
“Yes and no – most business plans are also based on a fantasy that you can predict the future in detail. Most also set tight goals when the environment is shifting that is also very risky. You can get trapped doing the wrong thing very hard when the environment has changed.
Instead, we set broad goals. (here is a link to Dan’s view of how best to plan for the future) In the context of never being able to know the future in detail we…(quote from Dan’s post) have no master plan at silverorange. The cat is out of the bag! We do however have broad goals and ideals that factor into our daily, monthly, and yearly decisions. We always have these goals and ideals in mind. We also make decisions the good old fashioned way. The necessary people sit as equals and hammer it out. Often the conversation becomes heated, in the good way. When we are done the best decision has been made for us.
When I look back over the past seven years of silverorange I see a route that has veered its way around tremendous obstacles, some we saw coming, and others we had no idea that we were dodging. Our process of quick, frequent, and small decision making has led us down a safe and secure path.
If I was an investor I would know that you pulled your cash flow projections out of your ass. I wouldn’t care. I would look for the following:
- What are the overall goals & ideals that you are striving for?
- Has you surrounded yourself with a team that can hammer out good small decisions?
- Are you willing to have your idea bend, warp, & mutate based on frequent, small, decisions?
I propose that we all change to process and people based business plans. One, maybe two pages at most.”
The religion of scientific materialism has privileged data over intuition, but the silverorange team is calling for a change, for a balance. It’s great to see this happening in business, and in business schools.
[tags]Rob Paterson, silverorange, business skills[/tags]