OpenSpaceTech originator, Harrison Owen, posted this recently on the OSLIST in reference to a question about the ongoing practice of OpenSpaceTech in organization — what I’ve called the InvitingOrganization and others call the ConsciousOpenSpace or InterActive organization:
…In my practice, I find it useful to start from the position (at least in my own mind) that the client is already there, but just doesn’t recognize their true situation. This start point makes a major difference in terms of how hard I have to work, and what needs to be done.
If the client is “already there” there is no need for me (or us) to design an InterActive? Organization, or even implement somebody else’s design. Simultaneously, I can say to the client — Look, this is not about doing something new and radical. It is really about being fully and intentionally what you already are.
Enabling the client to achieve this awareness is all about engaging in a process of appreciative inquiry (small “a”, small “I”) or maybe formally “doing” AI??? So — “Let’s look at what works, and how it really works.” The ensuing dialogue can go all over the place, but it usually covers the following sorts of stuff — Starting with the organizational chart.
Everybody knows of course that the organization is a steeply ranked hierarchy — with all control clearly centered at the top, and in the hands of the Senior person (CEO, MD, Director) And we know that, because that is the picture we have in our minds or framed on the wall. And yet, if you push a little bit, it turns out that little if anything actually works the way the picture says it should.
Good ideas come from all over the place, projects are initiated from the “Skunk works” that don’t even show up on the Org Chart. Most of all, it turns out that if all command and control is actually held by that single, almighty MD/CEO, the organization is but a short step away from death by organizational hardening of the arteries. Come the next shift in the environment (large or small) — the rigid face of things just cracks.
The nasty secret is that real work, really gets done interactively — despite our best efforts to the contrary. So it might seem that we are working much too hard to fix something that ain’t broke. We simply have to get out of its way so that it can easily do what it does naturally.
This is a good rendition of the very first words I ever heard Harrison speak, which happened to be in OpenSpace and in answer to my own question about organizing organizations. So have a look around this website… and suffice it to say that his saying so did touch me rather deeply. (grin)