Harrison Owen, Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide, Third Edition, Revised and Expanded. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2008.
Referenced in: Strategies for Church Renewal – Whole Systems, Large Group
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
Open Space Technology (OST) is a Whole Systems design approach to congregational renewal. While useful for planning, its primary benefit is for bringing large groups together to discuss problems and solutions to organizational issues. Also, this volume is not geared to churches, but many churches have benefited greatly from OST, and this is the best field guide to the approach. See the Resource Guide other whole systems techniques such as Appreciative Inquiry and Asset Mapping.
Harrison Owen is the originator of OST, a very free-form, non-directive facilitation method. It has worked with groups as small as five and as large as one thousand. OST operates by the philosophy that groups can be helped to self-organize and deal with complex, critical issues with less time and cost than with other directive facilitation models.
Owen says OST came about when he attended a planning symposium in 1985, and despite all the elaborate systematic methodologies, the most creative and productive moments occurred during the coffee breaks, which were completely unstructured. Building on that, the next year’s gathering was deliberately much simpler.
As each person determined that they had some area of exploration they would like to pursue, they would write 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. That was it. (https://www.openspaceworld.com/brief_history.htm)
It resulted in amazing increased productivity and overall satisfaction. Subsequent years were similar, but with even larger groups and easier self-structuring among the groups. Out of these experiences grew the Open Space concept, which has been used thousands of times on all continents with diverse and often conflicted groups, large and small, from among “Fortune 500’s, third world villages, religious communities, governmental agencies, and whole towns. They have been rich, poor, educated and not, labor and management, politicians and people… and all of the above.”
OST is a fascinating and effective process, but only under the right conditions. In these contexts, however, it “always works.” Harrison is careful to say,
OST is effective in situations where a diverse group of people must deal with complex and potentially conflicting material in innovative and productive ways. It is particularly powerful when nobody knows the answer and the ongoing participation of a number of people is required to deal with the questions. Conversely, OST will not work, and therefore should not be used, in any situation where the answer is already known, where somebody at a high level thinks he or she knows the answer, and where that somebody is the sort that must know the answer, and therefore must always be in charge, otherwise known as control, control, control. (15)
He continues, “in the OST environment, people tend to be creative, synergistic (they work together), and self-motivated. If this type of behavior is not desired, it can cause problems.” (16-17) Harrison also lays out five Conditions of Use (16):
- There is a real business issue (or congregational, CG)
- A great deal of complexity
- Lots of diversity in terms of people and points of view
- Real passion (people care), and probably also conflict
- A decision time of yesterday (real urgency)
One caveat. This is probably not the right process for congregations experiencing high levels of conflict and instability, or where highly-anxious and difficult personalities could derail the process. Some level of conflict and disagreement is normal and desirable, and most groups have a few troublesome participants, but some situations are simply too out-of-control for OST to work. Judge this carefully for your context.
Nevertheless, I am convinced that OST is effective because it strikes at the way healthy living organisms naturally self-organize and self-regulate. Healthy congregations who are well-informed and motivated to do meaningful kingdom work can and will thrive if they are provided the right environment. The right environment is one that removes the obstacles to their natural creativity. However, since this freedom and creativity is so counter-intuitive to many planners, it is important that those wanting to use OST read a few good manuals and understand how to use it effectively. OST requires careful planning of “space,” special awareness of the facilitator’s light and non-intrusive presence, and observance of unique principles and laws. Concepts like the facilitator’s “total presence and absolute invisibility,” “holding space,” the “law of two feet,” etc. are vital. For these and other reasons, Owen’s user’s guide is indispensable.
Those interested may reference other volumes as well. I have adopted the publisher’s descriptions of each resource.
Harrison Owen, Wave-Rider: Leadership for High Performance in Self-Organizing World. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2008. What began forty years ago as a journey of exploration into the interplay between chaos, order, and the creative process culminates in this capstone work of Harrison Owen’s pioneering career. From the creator of Open Space Technology (OST), Wave Rider shows how to apply the fundamental principles of OST to the day-to-day management and leadership of organizations. Owen lays out eight concrete steps for aligning ourselves with the driving power behind OST’s immense success: the primal force of self-organization. We can’t control it, but we can work with it—we can ride the wave.
Harrison Owen, The Power of Spirit: How Organizations Transform. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2000. Just as consciousness evolves in individuals, so too does it evolve in organizations. As Spirit forms and transforms in people, they become strong, focused, and vibrant and wonderful things can happen. But when the spirit is down, nothing else seems to make a difference because not too much happens. Many of us today find ourselves trapped in just such organizations. The spirit in our workplace, to say nothing of our own spirit, is getting a little tattered, showing the early stages of what Harrison Owen calls “Soul Pollution.” Those in the advanced stages may find themselves plagued by exhaustion, high levels of stress, and the abuse of just about anything in sight, including spouses, substances, and fellow workers. So what is the secret to transforming organizations? The answer, says Owen, is simple: we must consciously be what we already are – natural, open, self-organizing systems.
In The Power of Spirit, Owen examines the world of Spirit/Consciousness in organizations and offers help to those who find themselves dreading another day on the job in an organization seemingly bent on its own destruction, as well as the destruction of its members. He draws from what we are now learning about self-organizing systems to provides a practical application to the world of organizations, revealing the ways in which Spirit shows up in new, emergent organizational forms.
Widely known for his Open Space Technology, a broadly used meeting management tool, Owen now pushes well beyond that surface appreciation and suggests deeper applications and implications, showing how what has been experienced in a typical “great meeting” with Open Space can actually be a 365-day-a-year reality. For all those interested in Spirit and spirituality, particularly in the workplace, individuals who are feeling down and out and buried by Soul Pollution in the workplace, and for current practitioners of Open Space Technology who are wondering what comes after a “great meeting,” The Power of Spirit will offer a pathway to positive transformation.
Harrison Owen, Expanding Our Now: The Story of Open Space Technology. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1998. Open Space Technology (OST) is an effective, economical, fast, and easily repeatable strategy for organizing meetings of between 5 and 1,000 participants. First developed in 1984, it has now been used around the world with all types of organizations including corporations, community groups, government agencies, schools, and churches. OST produces better meetings and helps groups achieve such organizational goals as self-managed work groups, distributed leadership, and utilizing diversity quickly and without training. In Expanding Our Now, OST creator Harrison Owen offers numerous examples to illustrate the evolution of OST and explores what it is, how it developed as a process for meeting management, and how and why it works all over the world, for groups of all sizes dealing with a vast range of issues. Owen shows how OST can move organizations to higher levels of performance, without elaborate training or professional facilitators.
From the Publisher
What if you could identify a mission-critical issue for your organization, bring together the people with something to contribute and something at stake, focus on that issue and take decisive action all in the same meeting? A fantasy? Not with the application of Open Space Technology. Open Space Technology is a methodological tool that enables self-organizing groups of all sizes to deal with hugely complex issues in a very short period of time. Authored by the originator of Open Space Technology, Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide details what needs to be done before, during, and after an Open Space event. It is the most authoritative book available on how to plan and run a successful Open Space event. This 3rd edition adds a survey of the current status of Open Space Technology around the world, an updated section on the latest available technology for report writing (a key aspect of the Open Space process), and an updated list of resources.
About the Author
Harrison Owen is the president of H.H. Owen and Co. and the author of The Power of Spirit, The Spirit of Leadership, and Expanding Our Now: The Story of Open Space Technology.
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