I attended the Green Cities Florida Conference here in Orlando this week. There were some very good sessions and a turning of the switch of a 1 Megawatt solar array atop the Orange County Convention Center. This solar array is now the largest solar array in the Southeast. We also christened the Orange County, FL Climate Education Center. I was impressed with the people attending for their commitment and passion, especially those leading the conference. I was more than disappointed with our state government leaders who had nothing to say and clearly weren’t thinking about how they could leverage our complex systems to bring about change. More to follow on that.
As part of the conference, I participated in Open Space workshops that were excellent and a great tool for any group seeking to connect and share ideas, as well as move to action. It is a great tool for creating inspired meetings and events for from 5 to over 2000 people. Go to their website www.openspaceworld.org.
From my experience and notes, a brief summary of how open space works is below. I am sure there a lot more variations, tools, etc. for Open Space. This is just meant to give you the concept through my experience.
We were given one law:
- If you are not learning or contributing, use your own mobility to take you wherever you will.
We were given 4 principles:
- Whoever comes are the right people.
- Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened.
- it starts is the right time.
- When it’s over, it’s over.
- We were told to we could stay in group where we were learning and/or contributing, but to be a butterfly or bee to add value to other groups.
- We were then given time to for any member of the group to write a topic on a piece of paper (then stand up, read the topic, and say your name).
- These topics were then posted in a ‘marketplace’ with different breakout areas defined. In our case, we had two times for the number of topics we had.
- Then everyone went to the group they most wanted to attend in the first time slot.
- Discussion started usually with introductions and then with someone(s) sharing their idea, recommendation, issue, concern for the group. Discussion continued until next set of workshops.
- Each group documented names and emails of the group, the headlines from the group, and actions the group determined.
When we were done, the whole group gathered again in a circle (because we had the space). If you had the stick (wonderful tool from Native American culture), you were the only one that could speak. Ideas and feelings were shared. There was a connectedness and a sense of purpose both as a group, but also for each individual.
A couple of things I noticed that were helpful to me. Proactive listening was not as important as open heart listening. To be inspired or create inspiration, you have to hear the purpose and passion of another. The measure of a team that has honed this technique seems to me to be getting to the point of dialog, not just discussion. I see discussion as batting ideas around. Dialog is when a team moves to sharing their assumptions or mental models, look for shared vision and principles, as well as move away from linear thinking. In this initial session we discussed, we really didn’t get into dialog. Trust and focusing on principles seem to me to be the foundations for using the tool to drive action on an ongoing basis. I hope the Green Cities Florida Open Space workshops connected enough people to start the process of trust and common goals for a specific actions.
As a note and I had to look this up, expected Open Space Meeting Outcomes are:
- All issues and opportunities of most importance to the participants were laid upon the table.
- All topics were discussed to the extent that anybody cared to.
- A full written record of all discussions is online &/or in the hands of all participants.
- Critical opportunities have been isolated and Next Step actions identified.
- Commitments for action have been made.
(Credit to Christine Whitney Sanchez, M.C., www.christinewhitneysanchez.com)
By Debbie Deland, Director of The 10% Initiative. She works with Green Cities Florida, the Chamber of Commerce, and NetImpact.
