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We've been reaching for the space beyond command
and control for some time now. In many business organizations,
we've come as far as 'the learning organization,' but as often
as not this means preach and teach, plan and sell, ask then tell
-- all watered-down versions of command and control. The literal
meaning of 'education,' however, is 'to draw out' -- which starts
to sound a lot like invitation to me.
I have been working, at various levels and
in various ways, on this notion of managing (or just plain living)
by invitation for some time now. I suppose it really started
when i first encountered open space technology, through harrison
owen's OST: A User's Guide, about four or five years ago. In
January, 1996, I met Harrison at a conference and attended the
OST training workshop he did in Chicago later that year. For
the last two years, I have been the lead organizer and host of
the Chicago Open Space Tech workshop. To date, I've worked with
corporate, church, community and youth groups in open space.
In short, it's the simplest, most effective work i've ever done.
For me, Open Space has always been much more
than a facilitation technique. I came to Open Space Technology
from a background in business finance (healthcare finance and
leasing) and experiential education (wilderness/adventure with
outward bound schools). As a facilitator of team learning and
experiential teambuilding activities, I immediately saw Open
Space as a way to make the 'real work' the teambuilding initiative.
Forget the ropes, blindfolds, metaphorical framings, color-coded
t-shirts and the coffee mugs emblazoned with gung-ho, all-together-now
cliches. Open Space Tech was a simple, powerful way to walk into
any size of group or organization, focus attention on the most
important business issues, and invite everyone to learn and contribute
as much as they could to their successful resolution. For me,
it eclipsed the need for teambuilding altogether and made organization-building
a practical, powerful reality.
About the same time I discovered Open Space
Technology, I came to understand that I was most productive,
most effective and most happy on those projects where clients
had called to invite me into their work, rather than because
I had called them and sold a project. Seeing this, I resolved
to make invitation the central focus of my personal and professional
practice. I practiced listening for invitations -- from the little
intuitive pulls we all get to the more explicit "why don't
you come to Philadelphia with me... we could co-present at this
conference there!" It quickly became clear that invitations
come to those who also invite, so I practiced this as well. Open
Space Technology was essential in this practice, as it allowed
me to invite everyone (literally) in my personal and professional
circles into conversation and action on the issues and questions
most important to me. even when we didn't have enough time in
these gatherings to do formal action planning, it was clear that
everyone present had been touched, moved, changed by our time
together. How then, could they not act differently going forward?
Indeed, in these times of rapid, even swirling
change -- with complexity, urgency, diversity and the potential
for conflict already high (and still on the rise) -- making sense,
making meaning, making conversation qualifies as real work and
creates real value. Invitations raise the awareness, speak the
truth, gather the resources needed to get real results. invitations
communicate intention, even to those who won't or can't be present.
invitations offer new language for describing the truth of what's
happening. Invitations get people moving in the same direction,
at the same time -- because those people WANT to move that way.
In this way, invitations turn managers into leaders, and invitees
into managers. If we see Open Space Tech as one way to practice
the leadership art of invitation, is it any wonder that this
technique has produced phenomenal results all over the world?
When all else fails, it seems clear that everyone still works
better and happier when they are invited into their work.
For me, the power of Open Space lies in its
ability to invite invitation throughout an organization or community.
It starts, simply enough, with one invitation extended by an
individual or small group, to everyone and anyone they think
will learn from and contribute to breakthrough progress on an
important issue or set of issues. This invitation touches everyone
who receives it and begins to inform their work. Those who choose
to accept the invitation and attend the meeting are invited to
post their own invitations to breakout sessions. This gives the
original invitation a new level of detail and sets up the next
conversations. After each breakout conversation, the participants
document their conclusions and next intentions. The issues raised
in these proceedings are clustered and prioritized, creating
the next degree of detail, next set of invitations, and next
round of working conversations. And in every conversation, participants
automatically invite each other to see more, say more, and do
more. Every round brings more people, more understanding, more
alignment, and more action -- toward leadership and action everywhere.
An inviting story, for sure, but how do we
DO it? (Did you ever notice that OD is the opposite of DO???)
The answer, it turns out, is deceptively simple. First, name
your issue and say something about why you think it matters.
Second, make a list of "guests" which includes everyone
you need to REALLY deal with the situation at hand. Third, get
a time, a space and some materials, including such technical
items as an empty wall, chairs, markers, masking tape, and perhaps
a few computers if you want to be fancy. Fourth, prepare for
the care and feeding of the success story that you will create
during this meeting. This might include plans to distribute proceedings
copies, create a website, allocate funding, meet with senior
managers, or hold followup meetings -- whatever it will take
to keep this work moving forward. Summarize all of this in a
crisp, clear and creative way and send it out -- and always,
always, always -- be prepared to be surprised. Which is to say,
try not to get your heart set on specific outcomes or solutions
that are almost certain to be less than what the inspired creativity
of your group will produce. Expect them to blow away expectations
-- yours and theirs. This actually happens quite often in open
space!
But, you say, breakthroughs happen all the
time without Open Space Technology. And, yes, this is true. But
if we look at what is really going on at the time of these breakthroughs,
we find a lot of the the same basic conditions that we create
naturally and intentionally with Open Space Technology. And at
the heart of every breakthrough, large or small, we find people
following their hearts, speaking their truth, opening to uncertain
outcomes, and working with a spirit of learning, contribution
and community. The energy of these people is inviting, without
their trying or even noticing, the resources they need to make
their breakthrough happen. It's only later on that they create
policies, procedures and position papers to defend their gains
and later still that their attention turns to strategic plans,
whole system change and maximizing shareholder value. Eventually,
however, comes burnout, turnover, restructuring, data overload,
and a need to create something new in organization -- a need
for an intentional return to the best of the old days, without
sacrificing shareholder value -- a real need to pull it all,
invite it all, together again.
This story is about pulling ourselves and
our organizations back together again -- beyond learning, through
open space, on our way to inspiration, along a path of invitation.
After command-and-control, after preach and teach, after plan
and sell, after ask then tell, we are discovering the simple
power of "post-and-host" -- as in post strategic invitations
and host strategic conversations. And in the open space beyond
the learning organization, a new kind of organization is emerging
-- the inviting organization, where inviting leadership literally
calls us to the work we really want to do AND manages the work
to be done, very literally, practically and effectively, by the
issuing of open invitations.
As we continue to shift from hierarchical
monologue through planning dialogue to dynamic and diverse multilogue,
everyone is invited to contribute and every voice matters. In
line with this emerging multilogue, this story is really a collection
of stories. I don't feel any desire to make them into one story
that I call mine. Indeed, even the parts of this story that I
have penned myself aren't really mine, as they merely
echo and extend the work of so many others. My point, then, is
that these stories, each one finished and whole in its own right,
are OURS. My intention is to pull them into OUR conversation
about who we are and where we're going next -- NOT to pull them
into my story, or worse yet, my argument for how things
should be. My hope is that these stories -- old and new, science
and religion, workplace and community, metaphor and checklist,
each and all -- when taken together, will give us fresh insights
and new languages for working together in the open space, the
grand uncertainty, the creative chaos, the passion bounded by
responsibility and the spirited universe that we all already
know as life.
These, then, are the stories that I come back
to again and again, to help me appreciate where we've been as
people and organizations, help me remember why i do the work
i do, and help me understand how i can do my work in easier alignment
with what is now emerging all around the world. The first section
offers a taste of some of my own most important guides and mileposts.
The snapshots included here are meant to suggest -- or should
i say invite you to imagine and remember -- that we're all part
of a flow that's bigger than we usually remember in the middle
of an average workday, that how and where we work need not be
kept separate from what we love, that what is most personal can
be powerfully universal, and that the future we are creating
is right now.
And now, even as all of this is starting to
sink in and flow together for us, the organization of our world
seems to be dissolving. We used to call it transition, as if
it would all blow over. When it lingered on, we started calling
it transformation and prepared ourselves for long-term consulting
fees. Now, as we look back at where we've been, we can see that
it's been evolution all along -- and we're beginning to see the
real possibility of doing it more simply, more quickly and more
intentionally. The second section, then, is all about
this evolution of organization and the emergence of inviting
leadership and inviting organizations. These, as we shall discover,
are the stepping stones to truly inspired work.
In the third section, we'll introduce the
practice of Open Space Technology. We'll see how opening space
is one very powerful way to invite leadership everywhere and
create inviting organization anywhere and how we can literally
invite more of what we want and need at work. This section provides
a wealth of reference materials -- from background stories to
preparation checklists, from guiding images to website links
to resources and practitioners around the world -- all in practical
support for opening space where you are. Finally, our fourth
section closes this story with a new opening -- a personal invitation
to become inviting leadership and to create inviting organizations
-- intentionally surfing on the edge of an evolutionary spirit
at work.
And so, you see, this story is itself one
grand invitation. This is a space for reflecting on and reconnecting
with our own most important stories -- and for preparing to invite
more of them. It's an invitation to explore, experiment, experience
and encourage others to join us -- in the open space beyond the
learning organization, where inviting leaders and inviting organizations
are evolving toward truly inspired performance at work. And in
the spirit of inviting leadership and the inviting organization,
it does what it is -- and is what it does. It is an opening,
inviting story. And the being and the doing are one, and everywhere.
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