Open Space in a Social
Service Setting
(Keeping the Spirit Alive)
By Birgitt Bolton
As published in Tales From Open Space, 1995
Harrison Owen
says:
"Birgitt lives on the edge. Why she chooses to do so is a mystery,
but nonetheless that is where she chooses to live. Her work at the Wesley
Urban Ministries in Hamilton, Ontario, is nothing short of inspiring,
as she ans her colleagues provide the slim, but critical, difference between
making it marginally and going under for many of the lost and forgotten
in the Steel City of Canada. With little if anything to take the sharp
edge off a far from pleasant reality, Open Space has become an essential
part of their organizational life. No longer a luxury, it appears as a
much needed lift to the spirit of the place."
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 20 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 language.
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.
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