M0TIVATION FROM CHAOS 
 

PROFIT SOARED WHEN THIS COMPANY DISCOVERED A NEW WAY TO HOLD MEETINGS 
 

By SRIKUMAR S. RAO 
 

Meetings are everywhere, meetings are dreary, meetings are time wasters- 
right? Not necessarily. Now there's a way to improve meetings that's even 
better than canceling them. Open space meetings cause excitement, flashes 
of business inspiration, and profound satisfaction. How many meetings do 
you hold that your people look back on fondly and ask when they can do it 
again? We're about to tell you how to hold an earth-shattering 
brainstorming session that will revolutionize your business. What's the 
catch? You have to play by the rules - or non-rules - of "open space 
technology," a meeting format devised by consultant Harrison H. Owen. 

 This was the situation that confronted Albany Ladder Co., a $25-million 
distributor of construction equipment in Albany, N.Y.: The year was 1985. 
The construction industry, which the company serves, was plagued by 
recession and stalked by bankruptcy. Management knew the company needed a 
new idea, an "unfair" advantage to help it survive the tough times. Then 
someone at a meeting (of all places) described a new kind of conference, 
one that flushed ideas into the open and drew brilliant insights about 
your business from the most unexpected people: the open space meeting. 
Open space gives all employees, from the janitor to the CEO, the nerve to 
suggest wild innovations. 

 The company called in open space's originator, consultant Owen of 
Potomac, Md., to lead its next annual strategy meeting. Managers and 
rank-and-file employees met at The Rensselaerville Institute in upstate 
New York for four days and nights. 

 An open space conference is held in a large room with no furniture to 
distract the participants - except perhaps folding chairs. There are wide 
expanses of bare wall suitable for pinning up notices or ideas. The ideal 
open space meeting site has smaller rooms off the main room to let 
interested parties pursue some of the ideas that will come up. 

 There is no agenda. That eliminates "meeting leaders" who stick to 
agendas mindlessly; and also leaders who deviate from them maddeningly. 
Meeting leaders are also eliminated: No one is in charge of the meeting. 
It is governed only by a theme and approximate time limits. 

The meeting begins when people decide to begin it - usually about an hour 
after arrival. All the registrants stand or sit in a circle so they can 
all see one another. Someone states the meeting's theme and invites each 
participant to identify some issue related to the theme for which he 
wants to take responsibility. He writes a brief title for the issue on a 
large piece of paper and announces it from the center of the circle. Then 
he posts it on a wall. This process continues until no one has more ideas 
to post. 

 Now the "idea marketplace" is open, in which everyone is invited to sign 
up on the large idea sheets to discuss as many issues as he pleases. The 
sponsor of each idea convenes the group of interested parties, leads 
discussion, and takes notes. 

 The open space conference formalizes and exploits a well-known 
phenomenon that is usually left to chance: Breakthrough ideas in any 
Field come from unexpected sources - usually outside the field of 
expertise itself. Open space deliberately fosters "ignorant comments" 
from people who are looking at business problems with fresh eyes. 

 This type of conference was first conceived by Owen in I982. Owen had 
spent months putting together a major conference, the first annual 
International Symposium on Organization and Transformation, laboring over 
the agenda and logistical details. Afterward, the attendees waxed 
rhapsodic -but not about the carefully planned presentations. What people 
loved were the coffee breaks, during which discussion groups formed, 
friendships took root, and networks were built. He thought, "Why not 
ditch the formal program and have only coffee breaks?" This was the germ 
of open space. Owen organized his first open space seminar in Monterey, 
Calif., in 1984. 

 The Albany ladder employees have had seven annual open space strategy 
meetings since 1985. "It's wild," says Jim Ullery, the company's director 
of training and vice president of sales. "People get so charged up, the 
meeting goes to 2 a.m. and starts again at 6 a.m.!" He reports that the 
following ideas have resulted: 

 A "breakout group" (that had left the main meeting) conceived a new line 
of scaffolding, which was ultimately merged with a training and safety 
program and presented as it new product: Scaffold With Care. Engineers 
O.K.'d the blueprints within 60 days, and the product was on the market 
in six months. Total investment: $3 million. "In the old days, it would 
have taken over 18 months and cost a great deal more," says Ullery. He 
expects the new scaffold to bring in over $5 million in sales this 
year. 

 Another group created a telephone prospecting program to open markets 
for a big-ticket item: a self-propelled hydraulic lift that helps a 
workman reach awkward, dangerous spots - like high ceiling light sockets. 
Six months after the idea was first proposed, five of the products had 
already been delivered, eight orders were being processed and several 
others were pending. That kind of speed is unheard of in the cautious 
industrial safety market.  Albany Ladder has also created a new company 
to teach open space to suppliers and customers. 

 The spirit and momentum of change that persists after a conference can 
prove a real bureaucracy buster. Over 300 employees of the U.S. Forest 
Service (which manages a land area bigger than the state of Texas) 
convened at a conference center in Minneapolis to brainstorm ways to 
improve performance. After the meeting was over, conferees kept in touch 
and came up with a new idea for improving the quality and experience of 
forest rangers - trading jobs to enhance their careers. A Vermont ranger, 
for instance, could broaden his experience by swapping with a ranger in 
the Arizona desert. The group wrote a proposal, ironed it out with 
headquarters in Washington. and got it put in place. In the 100-year 
history of the Forest Service, that's the first idea from the rank and 
file that's ever become policy. 

 What else can you do with the open space idea? When it's married to 
modem communications, you can drive the process across the globe: Use 
computer linkups to give everyone access to work group discussions; send 
and receive real-time messages and tap into a central data base. Lisa 
Carlson of Meta-systems Design Group Inc. in Arlington, Va., sets up 
computer conferencing systems for open space events,. She says that the 
communication channels you open can last a long time. 

 "People get back in touch to relive the conference," she says. "They 
call up the results of their discussions and send each other electronic 
mail messages." Electronic open space conferences spanning the globe, 
involving thousands of people, are happening now. 

 Doing what? Letting genius run wild. 
 

Srikumar S. Rao is chairman of the marketing department at Long Island 
University and a private consultant to entrepreneurial 
companies