All I really need to know...

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN (a guide for Global Leadership)All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.These are the things I learned:

• Share everything.

• Play fair.

• Don't hit people.

• Put things back where you found them.

• Clean up your own mess.

• Don't take things that aren't yours.

• Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.

• Wash your hands before you eat.

• Flush.

• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

• Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

• Take a nap every afternoon.

• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.

• Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

• Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.

• And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

[Source: "ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN" by Robert Fulghum.  See his web site at http://www.robertfulghum.com]

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Stephanie M. Echeveste´s (a friend I met during her stage in Bilbao, some years ago, whose passion finds place in Etxe) message reminded me writes in a message of these sage words by Robert Fulghum

"...But maybe, instead of giving general change-the-world advice, we could give new graduates slightly more specific advice--like...

• find out what moves you, 
• try out everything until you get lost in it,
• think about what you do and why do you do it before you say yes to a paycheck. 
• Figure out how to be a good friend, a good sibling, a good daughter/son, and don't forget what that feels like.
• Practice staying in touch with people you care about. 
• Notice what makes you laugh and don't let yourself wake up another day feeling less than ecstatic. 
• Learn how to be alone. 
• Work at being the best at what makes you most happy, and then, once you get there, look around. 

You're probably out in the world. Doing what you love. Making it a better place."

Thanks Steph, Robert and best wishes for all!

@Eleder_BuM    
www.burumapak.blogspot.com  www.flowandshow.blogspot.com  
http://in-fluyendo.blogspot.com.es
www.bilbohiria.com/irratsaioak/berbaz

What we " do" is just a joke

(Harrison Owen tells on the OSLIST this funny story on the origin of the "T" for Technology in the name Open Space Technology)

It was 1989 in Bombay (now Mumbai). My friend and colleague, one V.S. Mahesh, a senior member of the Tata Administrative Service Corps, had invited me to do a series of lectures, in addition to an Open Space conference in Goa. How could I resist?

 At the conclusion of the several programs, Mahesh convened a press conference for the business reporters of India. This was rather a formal event, and in the way of such things in India, Mahesh’s introduction of myself seemed to go on forever. He covered my CV in detail, including articles and activities I had forgotten, one of which was a review of a colleague’s book entitled, “Global Management Principles.” This 725 page monster described the work of 4 management theorists under such headings as, “Primal Management,” “Developmental Management,” – and last,  “Metaphysical Management,”  ...and that was me. As Mahesh drew to a heart stopping close, he said... It is my pleasure to introduce Harrison Owen  ... and Harrison will you please explain to the gentlemen of the press what you mean by Metaphysical Management and Open Space...Technology. And he sat down. I think I could have shot him. “Metaphysical Management” was the invention of a colleague. I think I know what he was getting at, but it surely would not have been my choice of wording. As for Open Space Technology, that was, I do believe, Mahesh’s invention. “Open Space,” I admit to... as for “Technology” – I can only think that Mahesh got on a roll. “Metaphysical Management” was pretty cool. But “Open Space” was a little weak. Needed a tweak.  “Technology” might just make it into the titles of the next day’s articles. Mahesh was right. The Press took the bait. And we have been stuck with it ever since. So that’s the story... as best as I can tell it. But I think there is a moral. If we ever take what we are doing too seriously, we are definitely in trouble. What we “do” is really a joke. Truthfully, it all happens by itself. We just take naps... if we are smart. Harrison

Thanks, Dan, for opening the space with your questions! 

Bruce Lee and Open Space (sent to OSLIST by Dan Mezick)

(Interesting message from Dan Mezick just picked on the oslist)

Greetings All,

I am reading a book [Bruce Lee: Artist Of Life] and some of the things he is saying are strikingly resonant with OST. 

In some spots he seems to be speaking quite directly about it specifically. 

I plan to post more quotes here soon, and for now I offer these for your consideration: 

Page 3

"[the principle] is not a thing that can be learned, like a science, by fact-finding or instruction in facts. It has to grow spontaneously, like a flower, in a mind free of desires and emotions. The core of this principle is ... the spontaneity of the universe."

Page 18

"[the discipline] values the wonder of the ordinary, and the idea is not daily increase, but daily decrease."

Page 19

"Being wise in [the discipline] does not mean adding more but being able to remove sophistication and ornamentation and simply simple- like a sculptor building a statue not by adding but by hacking away the unessential so that the truth will be revealed unobstructed."

Page 121

"Learn the principles, abide by the principles, then dissolve the principles. In short, enter a mold without being caged in it, and obey the principles without be bound by them."

Page 120

One should respond to circumstances without artificial and "wooden" prearrangement. One's action should be like the immediacy of a shadow adapting to a moving object. One's task is simply to compete the other half of the "oneness" spontaneously."

Page 97

"It is useless to try to stir the dirt out of the muddy water, as it will become murkier. But leave it alone, and if it should be cleared, it will become clear by itself."

Page 80

"If you understand the situation you are in, and let the situation that you are in control your actions, then you learn how to cope with life."

Page 72:

"The meaning of life is that it is to be lived, and it is not to be traded and conceptualized into a pattern of systems. We realize that manipulation and control are not the ultimate joy of life- to become real, to learn to take a stand, to develop one's center, to support our total personality, a release to spontaneity- yes, yes, yes."

Page 74:

"...our life is basically practically nothing but an infinite number of unfinished situations- incomplete gestalts. No sooner have we finished one situation than another one comes up."

Page 121:

"When one has no forms, one can be all forms, when one has no style, one can fit with any style."

"In primary freedom one uses all ways and is bound by none, and likewise one uses any technique or means that serves one's end. Efficiency is anything that [achieves the goal.] 
"When you perceive the truth of [the discipline,] you are at the undifferentiated center of a circle that has no circumference."

Page 123

"True observation begins when one is devoid of set patterns; freedom of expression occurs when one is beyond system."

Page 124

"If we honestly look at the nature of combat as it actually is, I am sure we cannot help but notice that a 'style' tends to bring about adjustment, partiality, denials, condemnation and a lot of justification. In short, the solution being offered is the very cause of the problem, placing limitations and obstacles on our natural growth and consequently obstructing the way to genuine understanding."

Page 126

Any structure, however efficiently designed, becomes a cage if the practitioner is obsessed with it."

--- 

Daniel Mezick, President

New Technology Solutions Inc.