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Birgitt Bolton, Dalar Associates
Both of us, Birgitt and Larry, are assisting organizations to make the most of the high energy and spirit that appears in an Open Space event. We have seen the possibilities of using Open Space Technology as an ongoing management style and are in the process of further developing this work. We have written this paper to stimulated our thinking and prepare for a workshop. We hope it stimulates you to engage in the discussion with us. We know there is much to learn.. We invite you to contact us with any comments, stories, and insights of your own. We acknowledge the inspiration provided by Harrison Owen, discoverer of Open Space Technology and a “discerner” of the Millennium Organization. Open Space Technology is being used to help organizations all around the world enhance the Spirit of their place and people. It is used to solve complex business problems, develop strategic plans, develop new products and solve community problems. It consistently leads to successful meetings. It takes very little up-front planning. With it even hundreds of people can self-organize in less than an hour, accomplish the seemingly impossible and walk away from the event feeling energized and empowered. In Open Space, people realize more of their potential for exercising leadership and responsibility. Leadership emerges from those who care, regardless of title or position. The whole group organizes the agenda and manages the process. Having done what they thought was impossible, spirit is enhanced and high performance is demonstrated. It is now clear that productive, spirited self-organizing can happen. The key question is when and where to do it again. Harrison Owen sees Open Space Technology as a navigational tool that
can enable organizations to sustain success into the next millennium, to
become a “Millennium Organization”. According to Owen, a new kind of organization
is emerging in the chaotic and fast paced change that is now the norm.
Constantly clarifying its purpose, meaning and identity, that organization
has the following characteristics:
We believe that Open Space Technology is a simple, effective, and relatively inexpensive way to manifest those characteristics. The “learning organization” need not take forever to introduce. It is happening now in most organizations, but in the informal spaces around the current structures and processes. Open Space can better leverage that learning and productivity into the ongoing life of organizations. Call it the management style for the Millennium Organization. The best way to get the journey started is to have a large, three-day Open Space Event for a critical mass of the whole organization. Open Space Technology makes it possible to include as many as 750 people in one room. Through “cyberspace” many similar events can be linked. Some organizations are very careful about including all stakeholders including customers, while others choose to make it a staff only event. Either way works depending on the organization's needs. What is critical is that attendance is voluntary and that a real issue for the organization is addressed. The question posed in Open Space is often, "What are the issues and opportunities for the future of this organization that you have a passion to pursue and for which you will take responsibility?” The space is open and held for the participants to self-organize the agenda given the Principles and Law of Open Space. Before the event is over, a book of the proceedings is in everyone’s hands and priorities have been identified. Everyone has had input and everyone has a copy. (For a more detailed description of the process, see “Open Space Technology a User’s Guide”. For some examples of its use, see “Tales from Open Space”.) "So now what? It was a great meeting, but do we now go back to business as usual?” Executives, management and most participants do not want to lose the energy and possibilities that have emerged from the event. However, they are often not clear how to fit it into the way “we do business”. In Open Space the hierarchy is suspended and initiative comes from unlikely places. Upon returning to work, there is often dissonance between the new energy and initiative and the old structures and patterns. For those “in charge”--be that boards, executives or managers--this
can be quite disconcerting. They are accountable for end results and they
now recognize they are not in control. There are two kinds of reactions.
One is to panic and attempt to get the whole thing back under control and
go back to the old way of doing business. In so doing, management has stopped
the journey to the Millennium Organization. It has very likely done serious
harm to the future of the organization. The other choice is to ride the
wave of the new and evolving organizational culture, even if it is terrifying.
Assisting executives, managers and staff to deal with the fear and to fully leverage the outcomes of an Open Space event is our goal. We start with our own experience. Larry has facilitated numerous Open Space events in various forms since 1990. Birgitt has recently left her role as the Executive Director of a service organization. There she discovered how to manage an organization in Open Space. Increasing the Impact As an external consultant, I (Larry) was invited to work with a unit of a financial institution that had been attempting to “empower” its staff. Within the strategic plan, senior management was looking for more staff initiative to improve performance and deal with problems as they arose. They believed that Open Space might be the appropriate tool to navigate toward that “empowerment” and contacted me. It was clear from the beginning of the discussion that the senior managers both wanted “empowerment” and wanted to control it. So, it did not happen. They understood what a customer focused and empowered team looked like, but did not know how to get there. I worked with the senior executives to clarify the theme for the one day Open Space event. It became clear that they were not open to any possibility or decision that would emerge. There were some parameters -- some things were to be constant. Thus, I worked with them to clearly state the parameters, encouraging them to make them as open as possible. They decided that as long as the proposals or actions that emerged were within the broad frame of the business plan, then participants would be free to pursue them. The other parameter was a cost limit. As long as project cost under a specified amount, it could be pursued without further approval. If proposals did not fit the plan or cost more than the specified amount, the senior group was willing to consider them. However, further action required their approval. We also discussed how other mangers might deal with the openness and initiative that would emerge. The senior group again was concerned. Middle management had blocked or stifled initiative in the past. So, we decided to prepare them for the larger Open Space with a smaller event. I met for a day with middle managers to discuss the perspectives behind Open Space and to engage them in a small Open Space. Even in the short time, the event was powerful and effective. This prepared them well for the larger Open Space event. There were 150 participants from throughout the unit who attended the one day event. The focus was on the next year of work, not the future of the whole organization. The meeting was highly productive with a number of critical operational issues addressed and strategies developed. For example, one topic was about fixing the relationship with one of the offices in another city. The group that gathered were able to clarify the problems and develop a way to solve them. This included a visit to that city’s office by much of the team from the Open Space event. In “normal” circumstances, that configuration of people would not have taken such a trip. However, they knew they were within the business plan and that they could take the trip within the allocated budget. They took the trip and improved the working relationship. The above action took place after a major change in the context. Within
two months of the Open Space event, the aforementioned unit and its parent
organization was the subject of a merger. The new parent organization was
not ready to use Open Space Technology at that time. However, after four
months, 80% of the topics that had emerged in the Open Space event were
still being pursued according to an internal consultant. They had identified
critical issues for the ongoing work and were producing results.
I (Birgitt) want to share with you my experience of using Open Space as a management style for three plus years in a social service setting. I was the Executive Director of a social service organization for ten years. In early 1992, I was trained in Open Space Technology and I introduced it into my organization. I led an Open Space meeting involving all staff (about 80) to determine what we saw as our issues and opportunities for the coming year. I then followed this by a series of Open Space meetings. The themes for those meetings were based on the topics that were identified at the first Open Space. The theme of first Open Space in this series was internal communication. As a result of that Open Space everyone took ownership and communication improved. Another Open Space was focused on our organizational structure. Many saw it as a barrier to doing business. The emergent consensus was to keep the structure as it was, especially for staff accountability and “serious occurrence” reporting and action. We saw more problems with the way we did business than with the structure. We agreed that authority and responsibility would be distributed in such a way as to assist us in our work, rather than being a barrier to us. Of course, this led back to more discussion of internal communications. As the Executive Director, I excitedly watched the evolution of the organization and the real leadership and empowerment of staff. However, I would not recommend that the Executive Director or CEO facilitate these initial Open Space events. They went well, but it was quite difficult for me. We ran into a real glitch about three months into our journey into the new. Not everything was open to change and this had not been clearly understood or identified by any of us at the beginning. Was this a little naive? I would say so now. For example, we had to follow provincial legislation and the health and safety regulations. A staff person would come up with a really great idea and then someone would say it could not be done because of this or that regulation. It then started to feel as if everything was controlled by all of these rules again. It occurred to me that the way to “unbog” this was to be really clear and honest about that which could not be changed. I referred to these as the "givens". What was not a "given" was open for change. So, we tried to clarify what the "givens" were. What really was non-negotiable? What we discovered was disconcerting. Every group of folks had a different list of "givens" and the size of those lists ranged from ten to fifty-four items. A lot of what were seen to be “givens” were perpetuated in the organization under the heading of "we've always done it this way". There was little consideration as to whether the “given” was truly necessary. We invested several staff meetings, which were not in Open Space, looking at the "givens". They were lively discussions and they prompted a great deal of healing in the organization. There was laughter as we finally posted a list of "givens" that contained only twelve items. There was a sense of release. Many rules or directives that were seen to be unchangeable were put aside, because they were choices and not “givens”. Following the laughter came the telling of the stories of how we had actually operated behind the scenes to get around what we thought were “givens”. The space for the new had truly been opened. One thing that was seen as a "given" was the organizational structure. Lots of folks did not like our hierarchical structure. Everyone realized that while having a structure was a "given" the type of structure we would have was clearly open to change. This set the context for the previously mentioned Open Space on structure. When the consensus emerged that we had the structure that we needed at present, there was laughter and relief. We had navigated through some difficult water together. No one had made an attempt to control the process or the outcomes. We again demonstrated what was possible in our working together. It was after this event that I understood that the organization was actually operating in Open Space all of the time. Together, we were developing an Open Space management style. It was not easy. There were lots of scary moments when we did not know what would happen next or what we should do next. However, as long as I dealt with my own fear and my temptation to control we continued to grow and develop. When I trusted the process and held space safe for others to take leadership we performed well. We found a method that worked for us to deal with our "givens" and ensured that the necessary policies and procedures were in place. We discovered that we had previously allowed this work to take up most of our staff and management meeting time. Now it took up very little of our time. Basically, we did not deal with “givens” in "Open Space". We dealt with them as efficiently as we could. Then we wrote it up, communicated it throughout and got on with the task of our real work. Our primary energy went into our purpose. Everything but the “givens” was open to change. We had a continual Open Space "community bulletin board". A staff or volunteer would put forward a proposal outlining an issue or opportunity. We held monthly all organization staff meetings, with one of the activities being the prioritizing of the items on the bulletin board for discussion. Staff meetings were held using Open Space Technology. All staff were invited to those meetings where issues critical to the organization as a whole. The other topics posted on the bulletin board were prioritized. Staff initiated those discussions and decisions between the regular all staff meetings. All staff and volunteers were invited to these meetings a well. If necessary, staff were enabled to attend by others who covered their work for them. Leadership for these discussions came from everywhere in the organization. With this approach to “managing in Open Space” the seemingly impossible happened on a daily basis. Complex policies such as anti-racism and anti-sexism were developed with staff consensus. New services were developed and others were amalgamated. Public relations and quality assurance became ways of operating as everyone understood their role. None of this came as a directive, but grew within the organization. During this time, due to factors beyond our control, our client population doubled yet we had access to fewer resources. There were no salary increases for the entire three year period. And yet our productivity rose, our quality of service rose, morale grew and we experienced genuine community. Our efforts also became recognized as something unique in the community. The Association of Public Relations Specialists presented our staff with the Pinnacle Award for the best annual report achieved on a very low budget. We were in competition in for-profit as well as non-profit organizations. The Mayor’s Race Relations Committee gave us their award for Organizational Excellence. They are a tough group to impress. Even through the recession of 1992-94, we were able to increase our revenue base with all staff being creative and sharing ideas. However, we were not able to weather the election of a new Provincial government. Most of our funding was Provincial. The cuts had a dramatic effect, leaving only a few of the staff and the services. The loss is great. But the good news is that we know what the Millennium Organization feels like, we know how to get there. SOME REFLECTIONS We see some common themes emerging from our experience. Open Space events are usually terrific in themselves. They can manifest a new way of working. Birgitt held a “critical mass” Open Space to start her organization's journey. The one day event in Larry’s story did lead to some sustained effort. The preparation seemed to help. The merger seemed to prevent it from going further. From our experience, we are beginning to see the critical elements to keeping the spirit going. Givens and Structure All of our organizations have some “givens” within which they must work. They are legislated for certain functions such as financial accountability and personnel issues, particularly if there are unions. There are also regulations for various industries that require reporting and accountability. Return on investment over time is required of business. Non-profits must reinvest surpluses in programme, if they get any. Most organizations have also developed hierarchies to deal with ownership, legislation, compensation and to hold employees or staff accountable. There are increasing exceptions with the formation of “virtual” and network organizations. However, most existing organizations have at least two levels of accountability and the majority have many more. The initiatives that emerge in an Open Space event can challenge what are assumed to be “givens”. This creates an opportunity to clarify what is clearly a requirement and what is not. Many things have taken on the character of a “givens” when they are actually choices. It is not surprising in Birgitt’s example that front line staff saw many more givens that did senior management. Clarifying the degrees of freedom for all “opens the space” for spirited performance. An organization’s hierarchy (organizational chart) is a formal pattern of relationships. An Open Space event suspends those formal relationships for a time. It demonstrates that emergent relationship can lead to breakthroughs and high performance in a way that more formal patterns cannot. This is not new. In Birgitt’s story, they decided that there were some appropriate roles for the structure. However, these roles were limited. After the Open Space event, the formal accountability patterns will come back into play. Clarifying how the accountability relationships can enhance spirit is a critical part of the learning. If they only control, they become dis-spiriting, as we discuss in the next section. Larry finds it helpful to get senior leadership to briefly examine the
critical parameters or perceived givens before an Open Space event. This
helped one executive say that she did not see any limits. She trusted the
team that was gathered to take action supporting the theme, even if it
went against the current work plan. Others, like those in the case presented
here, were not as open. Stating those parameters at the beginning did free
managers and staff to pursue their initiatives after the event and
keep the spirit alive.
Certainly, the commitment and role of the most senior person, usually the CEO, is critical. In order to “ride the wave” of spirit and still clarify intent and directions the CEO or senior team members must be able to discern, lead and let go. As Birgitt stated in her story, it was a difficult learning process. The executives in Larry’s case said they wanted an empowered staff. Actually creating the conditions for that to happen required that they change. This is more than an issue of “training” or “skills”. It is a journey of the spirit for formal leadership that requires guides and breakthroughs. Our experience is that the formal leadership often has similar concerns before the Open Space event. Before the event, the biggest concern is whether or not it will work in their organization. If that hurdle was past, then their concern is with their role during the event. They often ask, “Do I participate, or does that just stifle discussion?” Our advice is to participate, like others. This is the best way to demonstrate that the CEO’s is not in control of the Open Space but one of the participants. When they are not that far along on their personal journey, we encourage them to use the Law of Two Feet to keep from dominating discussion. In a multilevel organization, middle management is often the most threatened by Open Space. In the past they have been charged with “making the plan”. The Executives can play with new ideas, but the middle managers have to meet the plan. As well, they have been working hard to move “up” an organization. When they experience that leadership comes from anywhere in Open Space, it is often quite frightening. Our consistent experience is that newer members or employees and the more senior executives are the most enthusiastic in their praise following an Open Space event. It is often middle management who wants to return to “business as usual” after the event. In Marlene Walker Daniels’ study of a large corporate Open Space, the old structure re-asserted itself after four months. The boundaries that had softened in Open Space, hardened again. “Some supervisors were not listening and were reported to block the efforts of clerical and production level workers, people who the executives viewed as having so much to contribute when unleashed.” (p. 151.1994. Daniels). Where freedom had been given in Open Space, managers were experienced as taking away the “accountability” for a project. The work of departments again asserted its dominance over the cross functional teams that had emerged. Executives continued to sing the praises of the event and the results. Middle management was not singing the same tune. We would assume that while senior management was “singing the praises”
it was not acting to give middle managers more openness. Birgitt’s vigilance
is keeping the space open was critical to enabling ongoing Open Space.
She enabled the clarification of givens and then learned to flow with the
emergent spirit. She led when it was appropriate and followed at other
times.
The best way to follow-up a “critical mass” Open Space event is to have more Open Space events. In Birgitt’s case, the themes for these events were based on the critical issues that emerged from the three day event. In a very large organization, many other large events are likely necessary. If there are 30,000 employees, it is hard to get everyone in the room. However, the story of a key large event spreads like wildfire. More events in different parts of the organization are critical to keeping the momentum to the Millennium Organization going. As stated earlier, the one day small Open Space that Larry led did not seem to catalyze the journey for that unit. However, the parent organization did eventually bring in Harrison Owen and that journey is now in high gear. There was no direct connection between the two. However, chaos theory helps us see that small changes can have impact beyond our expectations. Birgitt also used small Open Space meetings in shorter time frames with very positive results. As Larry states in Tales from Open Space, events lasting one day or even a few hours can lead to breakthroughs and high performance. Our experience suggests that a small Open Space can also prepare leadership for more fully leveraging the learning and initiative that comes from larger events. Clearly they can also carry on the momentum from those larger events. Birgitt was able to get beyond “events” to Open Space informing the ongoing management of her organization. Using the bulletin board and principles of Open Space, her staff began to flow with a new way of working. Some corporations use “cyberspace”, or their LAN, for their bulletin board. With computer technology it is possible for topics, leadership and teams to emerge on screen. The newest software is making this even easier. Even without the technology, a simple bulletin board will work once the openness is assured and the parameters or givens clear. This puts increased demands on the formal leadership or CEO. The focus and openness are daily activities. Dealing with accountability structures such as boards become a major concern. However, we are convinced that developing Open Space into an ongoing organizational style is both possible and necessary. Our fast changing context is requiring us to manifest Millennium Organizations. We have much to learn and discern about spirit in our organizations. How does it interact with complex hierarchies? How do you engage governing boards? How can leadership be best assisted in their individual spiritual journeys? However, it is clear to us that learning how manage, to lead and to let go in ongoing Open Space is the task at hand. It is an exciting journey. BIBLIOGRAPHY Daniels, Marlene Walker. 1994. “An Ethnographic Study of an Open Space Technology Meeting: Self-Organizing at Work.) Owen, Harrison. ed. 1995. Tales from Open Space. Potomac, Maryland. Abbott Publishing. (Now available from the Open Space Institute) 1994. The Millennium Organization. Potomac, Maryland. Abbott Publishing. 1993. Open Space Technology: A User's Guide. Potomac, Maryland. Abbott Publishing.
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