Craig

[Harrison Owen]

OS and conflict -- Over the years I have used Os in multiple conflicted situation, ranging from The Middle East, Labor/Management situations and many more that I can't remember. To this point, i have never found it necessary to do anything other than OS, beginning, middle, and end. And in situations where some other person (group) had done some form of community building, issue identification, conflict resolution prior to the Open Space, I never saw any advantage and quite often received comments from the participants that while they thought the "warm up" was interesting, at the end of the day it seemed to "waste time" (their words not mine) that could have been better spent in the "real" (meaning OS) conversation. I am not sure I understand why all this is true, although I think I am beginning to, at this point I have total confidence that if the group seriously wants to engage the issues that divide (and also unite) they can effectively do all that in Open Space. As for the Theme -- I guess that depends on the group. When working with a bunch of Palestinian and Israelis, the theme was "Ending the Cycle of violence." In a coroprate setting with a nasty labor/management situation, the Theme was, "Fixing Arizona" -- which everybody understood to be the company and its relations -- which everybody knew were broken.

Harrison


Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Dr.
Potomac, MD  20854
USA
301-365-2093
207-763-3261 (summer)
website www.openspaceworld.com
Personal Website www.ho-image.com

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Craig Gilliam 
  To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU 
  Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 11:38 AM
  Subject: Craig


  Question for you using OST in Conflict Transformation:
  Context:
  I do a great deal of conflict transformation work with communities.  I use 
  Open Space throughout the process (way of being together), but often, the 
  formal process (whatever that means) Open Space Technology,  forming the 
  circle, create a bulletin board, setting-up a market place, etc, I use only 
  as a part of it.  I use it after we have spent time in conversations 
  exploring the past patterns, learning from them, and helping direct the 
  energy toward exploring the future and its options.. After time has been 
  spent in these conversations, I use a full OST process.

  Question:
  If one uses Open Space Technology in the beginning, form the circle, open 
  the space, hold the space, create a bulletin board, as the first and primary 
  process, what does the theme look like?  Of course, the participants help 
  form the theme or question, but is it direct?--You are in conflict and what 
  conversations need to happen to find your way out of this? or does it work 
  best without the directness and focusing on the positive direction of 
  thinking such as--What is the future you are trying create? Or does it 
  matter because the group is going to go where it is going to go where it 
  needs to go?

  I would like some insight from you who have had the experience and traveled 
  this road.

  Thanks,
  Craig

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