{"id":1422,"date":"2008-07-15T11:10:10","date_gmt":"2008-07-15T19:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/?p=1422"},"modified":"2008-07-15T11:10:10","modified_gmt":"2008-07-15T19:10:10","slug":"can-groups-look-after-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/can-groups-look-after-themselves\/","title":{"rendered":"Can groups look after themselves?"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the OSLIST, Marc Steinlin posed a few questions that I took a stab at answering:<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n
What means “holding space”? What is the function, if demonstrably one can do without?<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nThe $100,000 question! \u00a0 Several of us over the years have written things on it (I wrote a whole book trying to understand it)<\/a> but it is an elusive process. \u00a0 And I think it changes with the scale and size of the group AND most importantly with the pre-existing depth of their own relationship.<\/p>\n

If I was to generalize I would say that holding space means helping the group find its highest potential realized. \u00a0 For some groups, in some contexts this might be a very controlling kind of thing and for other groups not so much. \u00a0 In my expereince where there is a deep underlying and pre-existing architecture of relationships and collaboration, there is very little an individual can do to control the outcome, so getting out of the way seems the best option. \u00a0 Lately I’m learning a lot about working with fields of learners or people engaged in large scale and longer term change. \u00a0 What I’m learning is that it takes a field to hold a field, as my late friend Finn Voldtofte once said. \u00a0 In other words, at large levels of scale within organizations or communities, the act of holding space is actually all about attending to the relationships of the group of people that are holding the deepest intention for the work. \u00a0 In an organizational development context this means that the core team spends a great deal of time working on its own relationships and in so doing, they are able to hold space for the bigger field of learning.<\/p>\n

And then having said all of that, I think there is an art \u00a0 to intuitively knowing how much or how little to “hold.”<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Or is it really that the group as a whole can hold space (which seemed to be the case)? Any group?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\nYes a group can hold its own space, but not any group. \u00a0 My hunch is that we can let go into groups like this when there is at least a minimal form of relationship in place. \u00a0 How much or how little is immeasureable, but you can sense whether a group has that capacity or potential if you let go of your expectations for the role of facilitator.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Why do we really need any facilitator throughout the event?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\nI am working a lot these days with the chaordic path, the idea that there is a way forward if we dance between chaos and order. \u00a0 In that respect I think the facilitator can play a valuable role in brining minimal elegant structure to chaos so that the conditions for self-organization might be met. \u00a0 At it’s most basic level, this structure looks like or is an invitation, a calling question that taps passions and responsibility \u00a0 Once passion and responsibility are tapped, the group can look after itself.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
And consequently under which conditions can we dispense with it?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\nMost of our lives are spent without facilitators helping us be around other people. \u00a0 We can learn a lot from those situations. \u00a0 If you engage in a little appreciative inquiry project on your own life, you might remember stories about times in your life when you experienced great strides without a facilitator.and then harvest the key conditions from those stories.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
What is the risk? Can this go totally wrong?<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The risk is always that it won’t work, that a group won’t discover its highest potential. \u00a0 And although whatever happens is the only thing that could have (and that means you need to pay attention to the space to hold at the outset), if there is much at stake and the group finds itself unable to work without some form and leadership, the stake will be lost, as will the opportunity. \u00a0 But in complex living systems, there is no such thing as totally wrong anyway – everything that happens is food for everything else. \u00a0 If however you have an expectation that there is a right and a wrong result, there is always the risk that a group might acheive the wrong result.<\/p>\n

In my experience, it pays to create the conditions in which the host team and the group itself understands this approach to complex systems and self organization. so that you are operating with a learning environment rather than a right\/wrong dichotomy.<\/p>\n

That’s the extent of my thinking this morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the OSLIST, Marc Steinlin posed a few questions that I took a stab at answering: What means “holding space”? What is the function, if demonstrably one can do without? The $100,000 question! \u00a0 Several of us over the years have written things on it (I wrote a whole book trying to understand it) but it is an elusive process. \u00a0 And I think it changes with the scale and size of the group AND most importantly with the pre-existing depth of their own relationship. If I was to generalize I would say that holding space means helping the group …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[6,20,5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facilitation","category-invitation","category-open-space","category-organization"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piBp1-mW","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}