May 19, 2009
Last week I was in Leavenworth, WA for a learning conference, Leadership in a Self-Organizing World. Berkana was co-sponsor -- another event to support the needed exploring and forms for these times. The place was beautiful. Gigantic pines. Icicle River running alongside the conference space and at the feet of Sleeping Lady, the mountain after which the conference center is named. A harvest video is here, including some beautiful shots of the land. Amazing people there. I particularly found it helpful to be with some old friends and feel the sense of meeting each other even more deeply -- the times are calling us to be in our deepest relations and creations together.
The gathering was held largely in Open Space format. Harrions Owen and Anne Stadler were there, people who really helped give Open Space its early shape, conditions, and practice. Peggy Holman was a core host -- her work is thoughtful and exquisite. Anne is among the most beautiful souls I've ever come to know. She is elegant, full of grace, lives from such a beautiful place of joy. Harrison is direct, has a cowboy's straight-talking edge, and spoke with simplicty. Below are a few of the gifts I got through this listening with Harrison, including added ways to talk about the principles and laws.
- What can we do together that we can't do alone? The invitation was for each of us and all of us to take our practice to next levels in the reality of a self-organizing world. It was an invitation to get to the "what's possible" in the companionship of many that are pioneering.
- This time is one of the most exciting times in history. It is a time where many recognize we are beyond bullshit and that we have to be honest with each other. Harrison spoke of "a whole mess of people" who are scared now and having fits. It's time for us to get lit up and go to the edge and beyond.
- There is a difference between doing something wrong and doing the wrong thing. The former presumes we have the right paradigm and just need to learn. The latter asserts we need a new way of thinking.
- There is no such thing as an closed system. A closed system is a mythology born in Newtonian science and perpetuated through many traditions of management and control. "Managerialism is the greatest evil and hypocracy of the 20th century," speaks Brian Bainbridge, a dear elder parish leader and consultant from Australia. "In my parish, they no longer ask, 'what do you want us to do?' That question has evaporated." Brian is leading with a different principle -- that open systems seek deeper meaning and fitness. They do this or they collapse and make way for the emergence of other systems.
- Open Space as a format came to Harrison over two maratinis and 20 minutes. It was a simple as naming areas of care, opening a market place and then getting to work with no advance planning needed and no facilitation of groups.
- From Harrison's book, Wave Rider, naming that surfers are not in charge of the wave. They are curious, go with the flow, see opportunities, work with invitation and appreciation.
- The focus is on the reality of self-organization, what has been happenign for 13 billion years.
- Everyone, every organization, every community will have bumps, hills, valleys and what have yous. Create a way for people so share what they have passion for and then take some responsibility. Create a nexus for caring that is real passion and real responsibility.
- Whoever comes are the right people. Why? Because they care. "I'd rather have 3 people who care -- that's gorgeous -- than 50 that don't give a damn." Structure contrains spirit.
- On the law of 2 feet -- when feet stop moving, and organization dies. We need to keep the grief working in organizations because it helps us get to the next that is needed. "Give people a place to say 'o shit' with vigor."
Showing posts with label Harrison Owen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harrison Owen. Show all posts
Art of the Start -- Harrison Owen
February 5, 2009
I suppose I am a high context person. I really love simple framings of big picture and purpose. I love them because they aren't formula. The best that I see or offer are invitation to show up in the framing and purpose and offer the gift of our seeing in that. Sometimes to explore. Sometimes to do particular work in the best way that we know.
Here's one that I like from Harrison Owen from the Open Space Listserve...
"The basic idea of my book, Wave Rider, is that we live in a self-organizing world, universe, cosmos - and it has been that way from the very beginning, all 13.7 billion years. This means that everybody (all 6.5 billion of us) inevitably rides the waves of self organization - we don't have any choice.
But some of us do better than others. In a word we are all Wave Riders, but some have polished their skills and actually seem to enjoy the ride. Of course there are others who feel out of control and seek some way to manage and direct all those waves. Their experience is rarely pleasant. We are all Wave Riders. Some do it well, some do it poorly - and it has been going on for a long, long time.
Here's the point (at last)! I may have named the "Wave Rider" but I certainly didn't invent the process. Wave Riding has been going on for ever. When it is done well, great things happen in the human domain. All people in all times and places have been "doing it," and I think we could learn an enormous amount by thinking seriously about how we as individuals and as a species have adapted to this self organizing world. The names and the concepts will vary from place to place and time to time - but the basic reality of self-organization remains present over time and space - and the adaptive response by Homo sapiens will be equally universal. For example I suspect that much of the Chinese tradition surrounding the Tao may have its roots in the adaptive process. And there are others.
And why bother? I believe that Wave Riding, by whatever name is critical to the continuance and fulfillment of humanity. In short, when and as we "get it" we will find ourselves aligned and flowing with the primal force of the universe. And when we "don't get it" - our succeeding days on Planet Earth will be "nasty, brutish, and short" (Thomas Hobbes)."
All of this is beautiful to me. It names the underlying purpose and world view. When I think further on this about how I am beginning trainings that explicitly use paraticipatory and self-organizing methods and models, here is a bit of what I am speaking. Not as script, but as some key framing. It is one of my current versions of response to the question, "what are we going to do in the next few days?" With thanks to several friends that have fed this clarity in one way or another -- Toke Moeller, Teresa Posakony, Chris Corrigan, Patti Case.
"As I hear it, the purpose of us being together is that we feel we have work to do. What I hear at the center of this is this very big challenge and very big dream. We can see the difficulty. We can feel in our hearts the images of creating our way into the next level of solution or helpfulness. And we really want to do this. Many of us carry the strong hunch and intuition that we need to do this together. But how?
Here is the most simple I currently know...
First, we will be in in meaningful conversation. To explore the questions and issues together that help us move to the next level of health and well-being around our purpose. If we don't need new, or if we don't need learning, we don't likely have as strong of a need to be together. But if we do, meaningful conversation is a key strategic choice for how we will create the next level of solution together.
Second, we will be in wise collaboration. We will not begin with collaboration because it is essential that we look at the problem and the dream from many perspectives. And from this, we can welcome the shared sensing together that tells us what is wise to do together. Anything that lasts, comes from people doing it together. We know that many individuals will take action. And this is good. But we want to choose the collaboration from our conversation together. We want to invite our collaboration to grow from not just our individual preplanning, but from the surprise that might emerge from our being together that none of us could see until we were together.
Third, we will be in bold decisions. Or we will have the choice of bold decisions together. Our boldness may be about what to do. It might be about what not to do. It might be about how many different people will hold particular responsibilities. But we will deliberately challenge ourselves to work in boldness, and I would say, deep beauty, to harvest from our conversations and collaborations into desicions and actions. To be in added partnering with the self-organizing world that Harrison describes so well.
I'm in it for the doing that comes from a deep place of knowing. Conversation is a choice, and it needs to be deliberate, for how we will get to the most lasting and helpful doing.
So, what kind of conversations? What will this feel like? I love talking about the primary need of connection, ala Humberto Maturana's notion of "if you want a system to be healthy, connect it to more of itself." To invite a deliberateness of the self-organization requires connection. Conversation is one form of connection. Some of our connection / conversation will be in full group. Some in small groups. Some with self. Some with partners. Some with nature. Some with music, or movement. Some with empty stillness. Some with deep groaning. Some with the interaction of many energy ripples in the room.
Each of these conversations will be rooted in one or all of... learning, building relationships, and working.
Our learning will show up as, "I'd never thought about it that way." Or, "I've been thinking about that for a long time." Or, "aha!" Or, "I'm beginning to see some of the letting go needed to work with more wisdom."
Our building relationships will show up as, "I never knew that about you." Or, "I'm surprised by how much I learned about this stranger in such a short time and how strongly connected we now feel." Or, "I'd never heard another or myself speak in this way about what we care about in this work." Or, "it felt so good to bring myself more wholely into this room." Or, "it was really good to just breath a bit together and witness not only our dreams, but our fears."
Our work will likely show up as, "here is a project that I really can't not do." Or, "I want to invite help in thinking about how I could work differently with my team, my board, my community, my family...." Or, "I'm glad that I came here to be in my work in another way, rather than retreat from it."
Shall we get to it.... Let's be wise together. Let's be healthy together. Let's work as wholely as we can together. Let's be in our gifts together. Let's be in our beauty together. Let's be in what we are called to do at this time and place, because it is ours to do."
And this poem from Teresa, which she shared with the OS list a few years back and won her the distinction of poet laureate...
Diving Deep
Teresa Posakony
Diving Deep
Are you ready?
No I mean…
Are you READY?
The time is now
Hold my hand
Together we dive
Into the river of heart and soul
The water is deep and quick
All there is to do is trust the flow
Struggling makes no sense though
We don’t know where the river goes
The choice is clear
Ready
Set
Wait a minute Let me catch my breath
Go.
I suppose I am a high context person. I really love simple framings of big picture and purpose. I love them because they aren't formula. The best that I see or offer are invitation to show up in the framing and purpose and offer the gift of our seeing in that. Sometimes to explore. Sometimes to do particular work in the best way that we know.
Here's one that I like from Harrison Owen from the Open Space Listserve...
"The basic idea of my book, Wave Rider, is that we live in a self-organizing world, universe, cosmos - and it has been that way from the very beginning, all 13.7 billion years. This means that everybody (all 6.5 billion of us) inevitably rides the waves of self organization - we don't have any choice.
But some of us do better than others. In a word we are all Wave Riders, but some have polished their skills and actually seem to enjoy the ride. Of course there are others who feel out of control and seek some way to manage and direct all those waves. Their experience is rarely pleasant. We are all Wave Riders. Some do it well, some do it poorly - and it has been going on for a long, long time.
Here's the point (at last)! I may have named the "Wave Rider" but I certainly didn't invent the process. Wave Riding has been going on for ever. When it is done well, great things happen in the human domain. All people in all times and places have been "doing it," and I think we could learn an enormous amount by thinking seriously about how we as individuals and as a species have adapted to this self organizing world. The names and the concepts will vary from place to place and time to time - but the basic reality of self-organization remains present over time and space - and the adaptive response by Homo sapiens will be equally universal. For example I suspect that much of the Chinese tradition surrounding the Tao may have its roots in the adaptive process. And there are others.
And why bother? I believe that Wave Riding, by whatever name is critical to the continuance and fulfillment of humanity. In short, when and as we "get it" we will find ourselves aligned and flowing with the primal force of the universe. And when we "don't get it" - our succeeding days on Planet Earth will be "nasty, brutish, and short" (Thomas Hobbes)."
All of this is beautiful to me. It names the underlying purpose and world view. When I think further on this about how I am beginning trainings that explicitly use paraticipatory and self-organizing methods and models, here is a bit of what I am speaking. Not as script, but as some key framing. It is one of my current versions of response to the question, "what are we going to do in the next few days?" With thanks to several friends that have fed this clarity in one way or another -- Toke Moeller, Teresa Posakony, Chris Corrigan, Patti Case.
"As I hear it, the purpose of us being together is that we feel we have work to do. What I hear at the center of this is this very big challenge and very big dream. We can see the difficulty. We can feel in our hearts the images of creating our way into the next level of solution or helpfulness. And we really want to do this. Many of us carry the strong hunch and intuition that we need to do this together. But how?
Here is the most simple I currently know...
First, we will be in in meaningful conversation. To explore the questions and issues together that help us move to the next level of health and well-being around our purpose. If we don't need new, or if we don't need learning, we don't likely have as strong of a need to be together. But if we do, meaningful conversation is a key strategic choice for how we will create the next level of solution together.
Second, we will be in wise collaboration. We will not begin with collaboration because it is essential that we look at the problem and the dream from many perspectives. And from this, we can welcome the shared sensing together that tells us what is wise to do together. Anything that lasts, comes from people doing it together. We know that many individuals will take action. And this is good. But we want to choose the collaboration from our conversation together. We want to invite our collaboration to grow from not just our individual preplanning, but from the surprise that might emerge from our being together that none of us could see until we were together.
Third, we will be in bold decisions. Or we will have the choice of bold decisions together. Our boldness may be about what to do. It might be about what not to do. It might be about how many different people will hold particular responsibilities. But we will deliberately challenge ourselves to work in boldness, and I would say, deep beauty, to harvest from our conversations and collaborations into desicions and actions. To be in added partnering with the self-organizing world that Harrison describes so well.
I'm in it for the doing that comes from a deep place of knowing. Conversation is a choice, and it needs to be deliberate, for how we will get to the most lasting and helpful doing.
So, what kind of conversations? What will this feel like? I love talking about the primary need of connection, ala Humberto Maturana's notion of "if you want a system to be healthy, connect it to more of itself." To invite a deliberateness of the self-organization requires connection. Conversation is one form of connection. Some of our connection / conversation will be in full group. Some in small groups. Some with self. Some with partners. Some with nature. Some with music, or movement. Some with empty stillness. Some with deep groaning. Some with the interaction of many energy ripples in the room.
Each of these conversations will be rooted in one or all of... learning, building relationships, and working.
Our learning will show up as, "I'd never thought about it that way." Or, "I've been thinking about that for a long time." Or, "aha!" Or, "I'm beginning to see some of the letting go needed to work with more wisdom."
Our building relationships will show up as, "I never knew that about you." Or, "I'm surprised by how much I learned about this stranger in such a short time and how strongly connected we now feel." Or, "I'd never heard another or myself speak in this way about what we care about in this work." Or, "it felt so good to bring myself more wholely into this room." Or, "it was really good to just breath a bit together and witness not only our dreams, but our fears."
Our work will likely show up as, "here is a project that I really can't not do." Or, "I want to invite help in thinking about how I could work differently with my team, my board, my community, my family...." Or, "I'm glad that I came here to be in my work in another way, rather than retreat from it."
Shall we get to it.... Let's be wise together. Let's be healthy together. Let's work as wholely as we can together. Let's be in our gifts together. Let's be in our beauty together. Let's be in what we are called to do at this time and place, because it is ours to do."
And this poem from Teresa, which she shared with the OS list a few years back and won her the distinction of poet laureate...
Diving Deep
Teresa Posakony
Diving Deep
Are you ready?
No I mean…
Are you READY?
The time is now
Hold my hand
Together we dive
Into the river of heart and soul
The water is deep and quick
All there is to do is trust the flow
Struggling makes no sense though
We don’t know where the river goes
The choice is clear
Ready
Set
Wait a minute Let me catch my breath
Go.
Wave Rider -- Book by Harrison Owen
September 2, 2008
Below is an email that came out through the OS listserve. It announces Harrison Owen's new book, Wave Rider, published by BK. I'm posting it here because I love the clarity of description on experiment. When I think of what OS is, and how I describe it to others, this little post is exceptionally good. I like the focus on self-organization with OS as one of the ways to work with the reality of self-organization.
Below is an email that came out through the OS listserve. It announces Harrison Owen's new book, Wave Rider, published by BK. I'm posting it here because I love the clarity of description on experiment. When I think of what OS is, and how I describe it to others, this little post is exceptionally good. I like the focus on self-organization with OS as one of the ways to work with the reality of self-organization.
"On September 12, 2008, Berrett-Koehler will
publish my new book, Wave Rider: Leadership for High Performance in a Self
Organizing World. As I explained to my publisher, Steve Piersanti, this is the
book I have been waiting to write because it represents my final report on my
participation in a grand natural experiment.
The experiment, of
course, is that ridiculously simple way to elegant gatherings, Open Space
Technology. As you may know, the creation of OST was not a labor intensive
activity. In fact it appeared in my mind on the strength of two martinis in the
time it took to drink them. That was 23 years ago, and in the intervening period
millions of people from 134 countries have discovered that if you will sit in a
circle, create a bulletin board, open a market place, and go to work -- some
fairly incredible things are likely to happen. Massively complex issues can be
dealt with in amazingly short periods of time. Intense conflict can find useful
paths of resolution. And it seems to happen all by itself. There are even
recorded cases where the sole facilitator took a nap!
I have no way
of knowing what all these people thought about their experience, but I found it
profoundly mystifying. How could something so simple do so much? Considered
against the dominant theory and practice of organization and meetings, such
things not only could not happen, they should not happen. But it did and it
does.
Over time it occurred to me that the magic was not Open Space
Technology, but something infinitely more powerful and profound: the elemental
force of Self Organization. For whatever reason, I have had a lifetime
fascination with the great cosmic dance of chaos and order. My 1965 thesis could
have born the title, “Chaos, Order, and the Creative Process,” for that was the
central theme. As the evolving science of chaos and complexity matured I found
myself mesmerized by the elegant insights of the physicists, chemists and
biologists who were pushing that frontier – particularly when they identified
the phenomenon of self organization as a critical player. It all seemed so
counterintuitive -- and disturbingly compelling when it occurred to me that
something of the same sort could be happening every time we sat in a circle and
created a bulletin board. But they were doing High Science, and we just
convening meetings. And that is where that funny thing called OST became a
natural experiment for me.
The question was: If the primal force of
self organization lay at the heart of the Open Space experience could we learn
to leverage it for our benefit and align our endeavors with its massive power? I
think the answer is yes, not just as a theoretical possibility but in very
practical ways which might enhance our performance and expand our possibilities
in this turbulent, confusing and wonderful world. In a word, we might learn to
surf the waves of primal power to become Wave Riders.
The book
comes in two parts. The first states the case, and Part II makes the
application. If your predilection is theoretical start at the beginning and read
forward. On the other hand, if your preference is practical, skip Part I and
head straight for Part II: The Wave Rider’s Guide. I make no pretence that this
is the “final word” -- indeed I hope it is but a beginning. But it will get you
started, and the rest is up to you."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
