Very nice stroy shared by Harrison Owen on the Oslist. OS and a circle layout: much more productive, much more peaceful,...
Just imagine 250 Senior Rabbis and Imams gathered together in the service of Peace. Place was Seville and the participants were the upper echelon, so to speak. The sponsors, assuming that a little transition into Open Space would be helpful for this bunch of folks, had designed the 1st day in the Standard Way. Straight rows of chairs, dais, and endless speeches. The proceedings began at 9 am, but by noon the room was total chaos. Delegates were standing on desks and screaming at each other. I wasn’t in the room, finding such a meeting more than I can handle, but as I was walking towards the dining room for lunch I was intercepted by the sponsor’s associate. Frantically he called my name and popped the big question, “How quickly could I Open Space?”
The
Open Space part of the 3 day program wasn’t due to start until the next
day, but plans do change when driven by necessity. I replied that we
were good to go just as quickly as the hotel could re-arrange the room –
which turned out to be 2 hours. That gave us time for lunch and a
little cooling off period for a very overheated group of people.
Somewhere
around 3 pm – there we were. The same group of folks who in the morning
were close to killing each other (at least verbally) – now all sitting
peacefully in a circle. And so it went – just like usual…
Harrison
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