Evolution
at Work:
A Personal
Journey
and Public
Invitation to
Open Space
by
Michael Herman
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Talking About Opening Space in Organization |
More than anything, this entire collection
is intented to help more people talk more easily about opening
space in organization. That said, I can hear my friend, colleague
and teacher Harrison Owen, the originator of Open Space Technology,
echoing deep in the back of my mind..."Don't talk about
it, just go do it."
What we certainly agree on, is that it's not
always easy to talk about space. There are a lot of things it's
not, but helping other people see what it IS can be a challenge.
Harrison is right, of course. The easiest and most effective
way is to simply write an invitation and send it out -- to do
it rather than tell it. This is because the purpose of your meeting
is always going to be more important than the method. Even so,
we often get questions and sometimes real resistance about method.
For these moments, I offer the following options.
To begin with, any of the articles in the
"Organizing in Open Space" section are appropriate
as handouts to groups considering the use of Open Space Technology.
Many practitioners tell me that they are using the Executive
Summary and Guided Tour pieces together as their only Open Space
handouts. The Executive Summary piece is, in fact, being used
in eight or nine different languages now.
In addition to these, the following list of
story seeds is what I sometimes use to guide the conversation
about Open Space as a method, which is different from (and quite
secondary to) the conversation about the results that want/need
to happen inside of the organization. Sometimes I've handed clients
this list and we talk through them. Other times I sneak them
into the results and event-planning conversations.
- the energy of a good coffee break
- finding what works and growing more of it
- passion bounded by responsibility
- productivity guaranteed
- simple, transparent, replicable, scalable
- how inviting is your organization?
- the four principles are about spirit
- the one law is about learning
- cyberspace is open space
- blowing bubbles at work
- appropriate structure, genuine community
- the evolution of organization
- can catholics do this?
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Each bullet point refers to a different story
or set of stories about how Open Space works. Most of these stories
are told somewhere in this volume and most of the bullet points
could be replaced with your own favorite stories from Open Space.
The first story is the story of where Open
Space Tech came from, as told earlier in Harrison's article.
The second story is of my own introduction to Open Space, as
told in the Introduction of this volume. And, yes, the last bullet
point "Can Catholics do this?" is a question that was
actually asked in the planning of my first Open Space event.
In fact, this question comes up in lots of
settings, about lots of different 'kinds' of people. It sounds
like: "Yeah, okay, now I/we (the leader/planners) really
do get it, but can our engineers, sales people, kids, nurses,
drivers, staff, participants, etc. do this?" And the answer
is always, YES! Open Space runs on some really basic human mechanisms:
circle, bulletin board, marketplace, and the ups and downs, ins
and outs, back and forth or breathing and conversation.
Beyond these story seeds, I've used the bullet-pointed
material that follows here as handouts and notes for talking
with clients. Perhaps most important in this set of materials
are the bits about when NOT to use Open Space. Taken together,
the bullet-pointed lists below do a pretty good job of setting
the context for opening space, without getting into the technicalities
of facilitation.
For technical issues and resources, including
sample invitations, preparation checklists, sample opening script
and templates for producing event proceedings, visit the Invitations Collection at <www.michaelherman.com>.
Of course, all it really takes is an issue
that matters, written up in a simple invitation, distributed
to a list of those you think do or should share your passion
for this issue, a space and time to gather, and some way to capture
the story so it can be shared beyond your initial meeting. It
really can be that simple, almost anywhere, especially if we
remember that we this first event need not be a 300-person, company-wide,
strategic-direction-setting sort of event.
You know, in the spirit of Open Space being
a practice in finding one more thing NOT to do, the obvious starting
place would be NOT using any of this handout material at all.
If your issue doesn't matter, all these handouts won't prove
anything. And if your issue really does matter, and your passion
for it is real and strong, all this other stuff won't matter
anyway.
And so, enough! Good luck, know it works...
and don't forget to breathe. <grin>
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What Open Space Does |
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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Where and Why to Open Space |
Open Space IS APPROPRIATE for:
- Planning and completing special projects,
with or without formally organizing a special project team;
- Resolving cross-functional questions, with
or without formally organizing a cross-functional team or task
force;
- Design and development projects, related
to new products, services, processes, customers, standards, or
other strategic change or improvement projects;
- Exploring and addressing a range of cultural
issues, including diversity, learning, support, orientation,
quality, and the like;
- Rapid response to business surprises, whether
to seize an opportunity or pick up the pieces and get back on
track;
- Creating strategic plans that everybody understands
and cares about accomplishing and...
- Staying on track with strategic check-ins
that ensure that the details of the plan are still appropriate
and still moving toward successful execution.
Open Space yields IMMEDIATE BENEFITS, including:
- Experiential, Breakthrough Learning
- Appropriate Structure and Control
- Open Communication and a Genuine Sense of
Community
- High Play, High Creativity, High Efficiency,
High Productivity
- Shared Leadership and Personal Responsibility
- Inspired Performance and Growth from Within
- Elimination of barriers that get in the way
of doing work quickly, with excellence and pride
Open Space IS NOT MAGIC, benefits can evaporate
when:
- Leader(s) believe they already know the answer(s)
and are looking for ways to sell or impose those ideas on the
rest of the organization;
- Leader(s) believe that they are the only
ones responsible for, or really necessary for, the organization
to do its best work;
- Leader(s) are seeking the appearance of participation,
but are unwilling or unable to deal openly and directly with
high passion or concern, increasing complexity, real diversity
of people or opinions, and/or the urgent need to make decisions
and take action.
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An Open Space Workplan |
BEFORE an Open Space Meeting or Conference:
- Open conversation
and one-on-one interviews to explore the issues, opportunities,
intentions, appropriateness, scope, and timing;
- Set parameters
that determine just how open this should or could get; challenge
leadership to provide as many 'degrees of freedom' as possible,
including who needs to be invited for best possible results;
- Make logistical decisions, including drafting and distribution of the invitation,
choice of space, information processing plans, and other practical
matters;
- Clarify expectations
around questions of control, success, measurement, evaluation,
surprise, and support for follow-up, (which might include holding
a small 'dry-run' meeting, for key personnel, before a larger
conference).
DURING...
- Finalize preparations of meeting space (and establish communication with
on-site hospitality staff for conferences);
- Facilitate the opening of the space, initiating the processes for self-organization
and best work;
- Guide and support
data-processing activities (and hospitality activities during
conferences);
- Maintain conditions
for best work; every participant's right to determine what constitutes
their own best learning, best contribution, best work.
AFTER...
- Debrief conversation, revisiting questions of control, success, measurement,
evaluation, surprise and support for follow-up;
- Complete processing
of information into proceedings document, including formatting
document for electronic distribution/access;
- Establish interactive systems, including methods for electronic communication, that
will support follow-up learning and action; and
- Support emergence
of new issues, invitations, interactions and opportunities for
contribution.
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Open Space Outcomes |
Appropriate Structure
Open Space is a simple, dynamic, integrative
and expanding environment, that allows planning, learning and
implementation to occur simultaneously, in a unique and powerful
(self-organizing) combination of:
- Support Group
- where resources are shared, creativity nurtured, hunches confirmed,
decision-making supported, learning and risk-taking encouraged,
peers consulted, progress and accountability maintained, and
successes celebrated;
- Think Tank
- where events are reviewed, patterns and relationships identified,
experiences analyzed, theories critiqued, observations shared,
futures envisioned, scenarios sharpened;
- Learning Laboratory
- where assumptions are tested, issues explored, experiments
attempted, products design, plans drafted, possibilities discovered,
and new ways to work invented and practiced;
- Workshop/Working Model - where actions are taken, phone calls made, blueprints
finished, invitations issued, momentum experienced, contributions
made, services delivered, products delivered, and responsible,
intentional, self-organization demonstrated productively.
Certain Productivity
Opening Space may be the fastest way to get
an impossible amount of work done with any size of group, especially
with issues that are larger, more complex, more diverse or more
conflicted than your usual meeting. An Open Space meeting or
event can happen, literally, as fast as the sponsors can find
a meeting space and the invitees can clear their schedules. And,
while we never know exactly what solutions will emerge when we
ask a group to go to work on a really tough issue, we can be
sure that with just a few days in Open Space, any organization
or group can:
- Engage everyone
who really cares about the question, theme or situation
- Identify all
of the most important issues and opportunities related to the
question, theme or situation
- Create working
groups to address all of the issues and opportunities identified
as essential to success
- Practice effective
leadership, planning, teamwork, and implementation behaviors
without lectures, manipulation, or other external motivation
- Do everything
that can be done right now or immediately following the meeting,
in the normal course of business
- Make Plans
for those issues and opportunities that will require additional
study and review before implementation
- Refocus attention
on those issues and opportunities that require long-term or ongoing
monitoring, assessment and/or activity
- Document the
discussion, ideas, plans, commitments and other progress made
on every issue and opportunity identified
- Prioritize
all of the issues and opportunities raised, based on the best
judgment of the entire group
- Associate secondary
issues and opportunities with top priority items, so nothing
important gets lost in the shuffle
- Determine immediate
next steps in each high-priority area
- Distribute
the entire proceedings, priorities and action steps to every
participant before the end of the meeting
- Disseminate
the entire proceedings, priorities and action steps online, just
days after the meeting ends
- Raise the level
of awareness, conversation, learning and activity around every
aspect of the organization's most important business or community
interests
- Begin to raise
the level of learning and contribution, organization-wide
Growing the Bottom Line
Open Space is, far and away, the most cost-effective
way of getting people, information, and spirit moving in an organization,
alliance or coalition. The actual costs of holding a meeting
or conference in Open Space are low relative to other large-group
methods and a mere drop in the bucket when held up against the
very real costs of delayed projects and disheartened people.
Remembering that the Open Space approach can
be used with groups of 5 to 500 (or more) people, one rule of
thumb for estimating consulting/facilitation costs is it that
takes 3-4 days of preparation, meeting and follow-up time for
every day (or partial day) of the meeting or conference itself.
According to this rule, estimate half-day meetings at 4 days
total and 2 1/2 day conferences at 8-12 days total, on the part
of the consultant/facilitator.
More importantly, Open Space really hits the
bottom-line in terms of lowered costs and increased revenue because
it gets so much work done so quickly. When a project that is
expected to take 10 months comes in 6 or 8 months early, the
reductions in direct costs alone are tremendous. On the revenue
side, one company created a whole new product line in two days
and made $24 million in its first year of sales. Suffice it to
say that bottom-line gains are all about being prepared to be
surprised!
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Open Space Stories: Successes and Strategies |
A number of real open space events are documented
online. Here are a few to start with...
Strategic Planning in Open Space -- three short stories from an export trade council,
a community college and a volunteer executive board retreat.
<http://www.globalchicago.net/mha/stories/strategy.html>
Special Projects in Open Space: Meetings that Make a Difference -- Harrison Owen's
story of the project team that built the AT&T pavilion for
the Olympic Games in Atlanta.
<http://www.globalchicago.net/mha/stories/attinost.html>
Opening Space in Dangerous Times -- observations from working with a small hosptal
on an Indian Reservation and a number of comments from the managers,
supervisors and assistants who participated.
<http://www.globalchicago.net/mha/stories/dangeroustimes.html>
Photos from Open Space
-- worth several thousand words, these were taken by participants
at the September, 1998, Intentional Evolution Workshop in Open
Space.
<http://www.globalchicago.net/mha/workshops/sept98photos1.html>
And a couple of websites that will have many
more stories from around the world...
Worldwide Open Space Website/Portal - the center of the Open Space Tech world, with links
to stories, conversations and resources offered by practitioners
and websites around the world.
<http://www.openspaceworld.org> click Marketplace link,
then click Stories link.
Tales from Open Space
- A collection of open space technology stories written by professional
writers and edited by Open Space Tech originator, Harrison Owen.
Originally published by Abbott Publishing, now available at Harrison's
website.
<http://www.mindspring.com/~owenhh/Tales.htm>
OS Stories Collected by Chris
Corrigan - in addition to ten
of his own stories from Open Space you may find links to a further
eight stories or collections of stories from around the world.
<http://www.geocities.com/chris_corrigan/osstories.html>
The Worldwide Open Space Institute -- one of the first online repositories for open
space stories and other practitioner resources, created and collected
by Barry Owen.
<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/9215/>
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Evolution at Work: A
Personal Journey and Public Invitation to Open Space, by Michael
Herman (www.michaelherman.com) |
© Copyright 1998-2002 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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