| from Tales From Open Space
Harrison Owen says:
by Birgitt Bolton I have been doing considerable thinking about the everyday use of Open Space Technology as a means of keeping Spirit alive. Of course, one is constrained by "the givens" of organizational life, the things that have to be in place, but that leaves lots of room for other uses of Open Space. When we use Open Space Technology within our regular business, for example staff meetings, there are always comments about that being the best part, and there is always a new burst of energy life Spirit. Within the time-frame of a meeting, time for Open Space is reduced, but the results are the same and consistent. To have Spirit alive and well is an amazing phenomenon in an organization, such as my own that is chronically underfunded; has minimal staff in relation to the workload, terrible hours, and low wages; is the bottom end of the social safety net in our community; and exists in a time of serious recession/depression. Every individual who works within our organization has the Spirit and capacity for leadership (as they do in other organizations). But with us it percolates everywhere. Incidentally, this makes my own senior staff position almost unnecessary, while at the same time it challenges me at my own outer limits as I've never been challenged before. Long-term effects from Open Space may be limited by defensive personality types, normal behavior for blocking change (because of an individual's fears or desires), the dynamism/operating style/analytical ability of the senior staff persons. and continuing support for the senior staff person in maintaining the energy necessary to be the enabler or holder of time/space for the organization. All of these factors are not as critical in a limited Open Space event as they become in the ongoing work life of an organization. Now, I'm not saying that lasting change hasn't happened in short-term uses of Open Space because, in fact, people do come away knowing that a different way is possible. I'm even sure that the natural organization which organically emerges in the course of an Open Space event can continue in some way, if only minimally, for many months. But, what then? I think the What Then can be a continuation of what began in the Open Space event. But that does not just happen -it takes work and ongoing support. Growing Open Space At my place of work, chaos is embraced, change is an everyday part of life to be celebrated. We are always positioning ourselves to be ready for new opportunities and are thus able to mobilize quickly to take advantage of them. Anticipating the new with eagerness, we are collectively ready for the adjustments that need to be made to incorporate the change. We are an alive being. Everyone is interested in learning more and more and the net effect of expending so much energy in learning is that more and better work is getting done. We are talking and communicating more, and the most unlikely pairings of people are discovering common interests. When critical issues arise, the person or unit (we are organized by service units). extends an invitation to whoever can and wants to join the discussion. This has been an incredible way to problem solve, building ownership across the organization. This is a new experience for us, for we used to be very rigid and only know and care about what was happening in our own area of work. Chaos is normallv perceived as destructive to organizational life and therefore to be avoided at all costs. Total avoidance is probably impossible, but at the very least we strive for an alternation between chaos and order, life and death. Such alternation, however, presumes a clear distinction between the pairs. My experience suggests a rather different picture. Chaos and order never appear in purity or isolation, but each is always tending towards the other, and in some real way, includes the other. Organizations without chaos, life without chaos, are impossible, boring and nonproductive. I celebrate organizations in "living chaos." Chaos and order, death and birth, now happen so fast, in so many different piaces, that it all runs in together giving us the fertile field of chaos at all times. Open Space provides the jump-off point for this to happen. I don't believe that order and chaos alternate for life to progress. Rather than looking at this as some kind of cycle (something we can neatly diagram or chart), we need to look at it more like a hologram where formal hierarchial structure coexists with and supports informal structure. In this context, life progresses because order (expressed in the "givens" of an organization) and chaos (all the interactive creativity within our ever changing internal and external environment) are present simultaneously. Key Ingredients So... here is what I believe the key ingredients are to sustaining the new and ever renewing after an Open Space event. Storytelling. We take time, on an ongoing basis for storytelling. Telling client stories, stories of our work in relation to our Mission Statement, historical stories, present stories, future stories - this enables expressions of individuality, imagination, the promotion of myth. Permission. An Open Space event permits risk-taking at high levels. But then in getting "back to work" risk taking feels scary and some people start to apologize for their ideas. Being truthful about the boundaries is a useful antidote. This means being very clear about the "givens" (laws of the land, contract terms, board policy) and essentially being permissive when it comes to everything else. Given this approach, fear decreases, creativity and risk-taking increase, Spirit is enabled, and wonderful stuff happens. The Chief Leader. Leadership happens everywhere, but it is essential not to minimize the critical role played by the chief leader. Needless to say, control style leadership doesn't fit this role. Stories of most tribal chiefs, medicine men. etc., usually reflect that they pay a high personal price in fulfilling their role - if they are any good at all. It takes a lot more personal energy to enable than to control. Being present and being true over the long haul is very difficult. For me to achieve and sustain this I must be very intentional about nurturing my own Spirit. My life experiences and learning and my faith commitment have taught me how to do this. I believe that for an organization to sustain Spirit, supporting the "chief' to sustain his or her Spirit is the most essential ingredient. Spirit. It has become part of my organization's life to talk about Spirit and welcome Spirit with some common understanding of what it means. When we first talked about Spirit, because we are a church-based organization, people thought we were going "churchy" on them, which really offended some. We needed to work through this, and, in fact, many of those who thought that they wanted nothing to do with Spirit (as in Holy Spirit by their definition) are those who embrace Spirit the most. Chaos. We needed to articulate our understanding of chaos before we could celebrate it and use it, recognizing the difference between Chaos and disorganization. We needed to explore whether there was a difference between individual chaos and organizational chaos. In individual chaos, a person seeks meaning for their life. It was agreed that in the organization, it was the meaning as identified that keeps driving the organization through productive use of Chaos and that this meaning is fostered by critical people in the organization (keepers of the vision). Language. We found that many assumptions/miscommunications occurred because we didn't take the time to teach one another our "language." Most notable were differences in language of senior staff who kept referring to the global picture, supervisory staff who dealt with meeting goals and objectives, and front-line staff who talked about what faced them minute by minute. We all still are passionate about different things based on our role, but we've tried to teach each other our Ianguage. Appropriate Structure. I have found that in organizations where
people focus on consensus decision making, shared power, putting all their
energies into process - the organizations eventually are filled with conflict
and dysfunction. It is not politically correct to say this, but I rather
suspect it is because these organizations are not built on truth - some
members are hungry for power and control, but won't say so, others have
their "secret agenda" in their breast pocket, but won't clearly put it
on the table. In an organization, most power (even to hire and fire) is
with the senior staff person, who must claim that power (women have a hard
time doing this) and use it this translates into acknowledging that hierarchial
structure for some purposes - formal responsibility, accountability, authority,
formal communication at the same time that we have and grow an appropriate
structure for the actual work of the organization to take place. Both support
the other, enable the other, and both are essential and interface with
each other.
For further information: Birgitt Bolton
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