Passion and Responsibility for Self-Organisation – Entering into Open Space

I have run about 12 Open Space meetings in the past 2 years, as part of Large Group Interventions and am thrilled to see how the process surfaces these 2 vital attributes that support self-organisation in groups. It’s pretty amazing to hear participants reflect and revel in their re-discovered creativity, rapport and engagement with each other after the meeting.

Passion provides the motivation as seen in the following behaviours:

• having the courage to convene a burning issue,
• facing up to the realisation of the degree to which that issue resonates (or does not) with others, when people sign-up for issues
• working through intense discussions
• bringing the discussions into reality which may mean modifications to one’s own earlier perspectives or thought patterns on the issue

Rather, than seeing Responsibility merely as the obvious counter-weight to Passion (eg I moderate the expression of my views, and respect others’ right to their own views etc), it can also be understood as another overlay to the group dynamics:

• being present in all senses of the word encourages others to do the same
• being accountable and connected to the group
• being diligent to see through the agreed actions emerging from discussions
• being able to see that the Law of 2 Feet at another level prompts me to ask how I can even participate more when walking away is the easier thing to do

Both attributes are necessary for Self-organisation to emerge – if Passion is absent, then nothing is raised/aired, nothing is changed; where Responsibility is absent, then we exhibit selfishness and have not allowed our perspectives and actions to be as Open as they possibly can.

Here’s a Youtube video that an Open Space practitioner in Germany has put together to show the process in action.  Seeing is indeed believing.

Noel E K Tan

Reflections on a day with Sandra Janoff

 

"Don't Just Do Something, Stand There!" workshop

I had the opportunity of attending a 1-day workshop for facilitators, led by none other than Sandra Janoff, co-originator of Future Search (the other being Marvin Weisbord, of course) last Wednesday.  Based on the principles that underpin Future Search (FS), as captured in the book “Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There!”, the workshop was insightful as much as it was refreshing (I was facilitating just 2 days before with a senior management team).  Working with Open/Whole Systems participatory methods in Large-Scale Change settings, it was a valuable experience to be able to learn from Sandra and with my workshop colleagues.

 

Insofar as key learnings are concerned, I have 1 thought-stream that’s going through my head still.

Here it is – Juxtaposing “Getting the Whole System into the Room” and “Whoever comes are the Right People”

For those who work with Open/Whole Systems methods, the above are instantly recognisable:  The first being a FS principle, and the second, being one of 4 principles of Open Space Technology (OST).  The importance that FS places on getting the Whole System in the Room is based on the value of having the necessary inputs from all agents, so that the decisions and plans emerging from the Big Meeting are embedded in the common ground gained during the meeting.  This calls for an intentional consideration to invite all affected by the potential Big Meeting outputs to join the dialogue, as valued partners in the System’s emerging future.

OST’s principle that “Whoever comes are the Right People” seemingly turns the FS principle on its head.  At one level, the value of this principle is in relieving Big Meeting participants, design group and facilitators of the burden that the meeting was not effective because so-and-so was not able to be present.  (This principle sets up another OST principle – “Whatever happens is the only thing that could have” – but that’s another story in time).  In so doing, participants are liberated from thinking that they are not good enough to solve the issues they face, because they are not the ‘appropriate’ audience.  Indeed, it empowers people to start recognising that they have an impact on the system and their first such empowered action is to take responsibility, because they do have the resources to make the meeting effective.  From this perspective, OST is quite different from FS because of its ‘apparent’ lack of intentionality in terms of audience selection.

These 2 principles within their respective methods seek to link audience selection participation to meeting effectiveness.  In essence, the tension between the 2 is only skin-deep; both look at the said connection from different perspectives.  FS views an effective Big Meeting as one that has the intentional invitation and participation of all affected parties.  This is intuitive because of what we know of open, complex, adaptive systems and their self-organising, emergent qualities.  (To me, the question of who to invite is more easily answered than the participation of all invited parties)  OST views an effective meeting as one where people start to see their place in the System, coming into Open Space to engage different perspectives and realising that the one resource available to solving ‘wicked problems’ is themselves.

If the question of an Open Space meeting as being ineffective arises, then the deeper question is to see if more Space be Opened to include whoever said so, because that perspective has assumptions of the System that need to be engaged…with, dare I say it, another meeting that will truly matter for all concerned.