" The very highest leader is barely known Then comes the leader they know and love Then the leader they fear Then the leader they despise.
The leader who does not trust enough will not be trusted. When actions are performed without unnecessary speech
The people will say, ”we did it ourselves.”
Lao Tsu


 

Thought leadership
Harrison Owen

Imagine attending a meeting in which there was no planning or steering committee and at the point of arrival the attendees have no agenda but just a theme, a topic or a question that can induce energy and engagement; a meeting which encourages and enable multiple voices to be heard, promotes meaningful conversations that generates productive action.
All that the participants know is when the meeting would start, when it would end and the role of the facilitator is to start the meeting off. Typically such meetings may last for half a day to over three days, although it is possible to use it for 90 minutes or so.

This kind of meeting or practice has been labelled as Open Space by Harrison Owen the originator. Simply put Open Space is a self organising practice which brings people together to take responsibility and act by creating their own agenda and plan and agree action for making a difference. Each person take responsibility for identifying and sharing the area or issue they would like to explore and pursue by writing “ a brief description on a small placard , announce their topic to the assembled group, post the placard on the wall and sit down. When no further topics were posted, the original proposers determined the time and place for meeting, and anybody interested in a particular topic signed up.”.

Typically by the conclusion of a gathering, the following promises have been kept:

1) Every issue of concern to anybody had been laid upon the table.
2) All issues were discussed to the extent that anybody cared to do that.
3) A full written record of all discussions existed and was in the hands of all participants.
4) All issues were ranked in priority order.
5) Critical "focal issues" had been isolated and Next Step actions identified for their resolution.

In a typical Open Space session, self-managed work groups are the general mode of operation, distributed leadership the norm, and diversity is perceived as a rich resource to be cherished, as opposed to a problem to be managed. It is also usually noted that participants treat each other with respect, that conflict inevitably seems to yield deeper outcomes, and high energy --often experienced as playful, is the marked characteristic of the occasion.
Harrison Owen has suggested that Four Principles and One Law guides behaviour in an Open space meeting. The principles are:
1) Whoever comes is the right people,
2) Whatever happens is the only thing that could have,
3)Whenever it starts is the right time
4) Lastly When it’s over it’s over. In a word, don’t waste time. Do what you have to do, and when its done, move on to something more useful.

The Law is the so called Law of Two Feet, which states simply, if at any time you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor contributing – use you two feet and move to some place more to your liking.
The basis of the meeting is that of self-organization. Ever since Meg Wheatley published Leadership and the New Science, excitement around self organization and complexity has been building. It is not about having better meetings, although that certainly takes place. It is about experiencing the mystery and power of self-organization.
Harrison suggests that it is no longer necessary to learn the fundamentals of self-managed work groups, empowered and distributed leadership, community building, and appreciation of diversity as a resource and not as a problem to be managed. All of these things apparently happen as natural acts in an Open Space environment.

The lesson from Open Space is a simple one. The only way to bring an Open Space gathering to its knees is to attempt to control it. It is a practice that has much potential for connection and engagement and one which already being adopted by leaders from across sectors.

 Harrison Owen is President of H.H.Owen and Co. His academic background and training centered on the nature and function of myth, ritual and culture. In the middle '60s, he left academe to work with a variety of organizations including small West African villages, urban (American and African) community organizations, Peace Corps, Regional Medical Programs, National Institutes of Health, and Veterans Administration. Along the way he discovered that his study of myth, ritual and culture had direct application to these social systems. In 1977 he created H.H.Owen and Company in order to explore the culture of organizations in transformation as a theorist and practicing consultant. Harrison convened the First International Symposium on Organization Transformation, and is the originator of Open Space Technology. He is the author of Spirit: Transformation and Development in Organizations, Leadership Is, Riding the Tiger, Open Space Technology: A Users Guide (Second Edition. Berrett-Koehler), The Millennium Organization, Tales From Open Space (editor), Expanding Our Now: The Story of Open Space Technology (Berrett-Koehler),  The Power of Spirit: How Organizations Transform (Berrett-Koehler, 2000) and The Practice of Peace (Human Systems Dynamics Institute, 2003). His new book Wave Riders (Berrett-Koehler) was published in 2008.

 

Peter Drucker Emanuel Gobillot Harrison Owen Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff Don Tapscott Dr David Cooperrider Dr Marshall Goldsmith Rosabeth Moss Kanter Prof Lynda Gratton Rod Beckstrom