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Evolution
at Work:
A Personal
Journey
and Public
Invitation to
Open Space
by
Michael Herman
_______
Comments and
Questions to:
mherman@
globalchicago.net
or
312-280-7838
_______
For Reprints,
Electronic Copies
and Permissions:
reprints@
globalchicago.net
_______
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| ... |
| What Open Space Does |
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Invites collective awareness and organizes
individual action to:
- Resolve important
or difficult issues and get the workflow back on track;
- Rally people
and resources around new opportunities, or into new situations;
- Move strategic
projects forward with broad, cross-functional wisdom and support;
- Re-energize
everyone's contribution to achieving strategic objectives and
realizing most desirable futures; and
- Channel the
power of existing, organic systems into fast, effective results.
Sees work clearly and gets it done quickly with the simple, organic power of self-organization
and self-direction. Open Space meetings and conferences can be
as short as 3-4 hours, or as long as 2-3 days, with groups of
5 to 500 (or more). They can be organized in a matter of just
days or weeks, depending on their size and scope. They are, however,
always rooted in four basic goals and intentions, all aimed at
best work:
- Personal Insight
- identify, share and leverage the abundance of everything we
already know and care about doing best work
- Open Invitation
- involve all (and only) those people who care enough to take
responsibility for doing best work
- Interactive Forum
- get out and go beyond everyday routines and traditional structures
that often get in the way of real flow and best work
- Integrated Practice
- help everyone do more work with less effort by linking individual
ideas and actions to larger pieces of best work.
Deals directly and easily with the reality
of rapid, swirling change...
when the way it's always been really
runs out of gas. An evolutionary perspective and a little Open
Space help leaders (at any level) deal openly and directly with
four challenging realities:
- High Complexity
- when no one person or group has the whole story or the perfect
solution;
- High Passion, Concern, or even Conflict - when the issue or opportunity is of real importance
to people, when it really counts;
- High Diversity
- when a variety of different stakeholders, skills, styles or
opinions must contribute to one collective best effort; and
- Urgent Situations
- when the time to make wise decisions and take effective action
is NOW, if not sooner.
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| Evolution at Work: A
Personal Journey and Public Invitation to Open Space, by Michael
Herman (www.michaelherman.com) |
| © Copyright 1998-2000 Michael
Herman. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reprint or distribute
without permission and full attribution, including web address
and copyright notice. Permission will be granted gladly if you'll
just say what you'd like to copy and where you'd like to share
it. [email protected] |
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