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Fast Company called it the “penultimate water cooler,” and a “dynamic environment for continuous learning.” The normally reserved New York Times describes the results as “astonishing” and “stunning.” It is a new means of convening small and large groups of people to face complex challenges in ways that allow passion and leadership to break out all over.

It starts with leaders facing a challenge for which they don’t have an answer. A question or theme is selected which focuses the group’s attention. Everyone who cares about the challenge is invited to come work it. An open space facilitator sets just the “right number of right rules” to create an environment for creativity and exchange. Individuals who care passionately about an issue and are willing to provide some leadership around it are invited to post their topic, assign it a time and place, and then convene the group. When all the issues have been stated and assigned, participants choose freely how to spend their time. There is no other agenda.

An AT & T team spent ten months designing a fabulous theme center for the edge of the Olympics Village Pavilion. The Village organizers loved their design so much that they invited them to take the village’s coveted center position. The only problem? The new location would receive 75,000 visitors a day, and the old one worked for 5,000. A new design was needed. Opening day was six months away. Conventional design would take too long. The designers went into “open space”, and within two days created a consensus concept for a new, successful structure.

Open space works because the world works differently from how we typically think it does. The new sciences of physics, biology, and chaos theory tell us that organizations are more like organisms than machines. They learn and change as whole systems. The best way to change a whole system is not to change one of its parts, but to “disturb” it into new learning by building rich, redundant, and often messy paths of learning. Open space, by removing the barriers bureaucracies build in the pursuit of efficiency, and courting chaos, allows an innate order to emerge.

Open space works best is situations meeting the criteria of the nightmare in the opening paragraph. Short of that, you might try a Continuous Improvement Forum. Invite folks who are interested in talking about improving products, services, and operations to come to an open forum. One of my clients, a managed care consortium of four agencies, many of whom didn’t know each other, came together for two days. About one hundred staff generated nearly fifty discussion topics, over thirty of which became formal working teams for quality or productivity improvements. The Bank of Montreal does this every year for 150 employees. It is widely known as the best learning event of the year.

"Some people say my department is the most powerful in state government," said Jay Lindgren, Director of Rhode Island's Department of Children, Youth and Families, "because my staff can legally remove your child from your home. That's an awesome responsibility. And for that reason, for the first time in history, every one in the system of care for kids at risk, who must be placed outside the home, is in this room."

So began the sponsor's brief opening remarks at an historic forum in Open Space, held over two hot days last July, with 150 agency representatives, state legislators, child care providers, child advocates, foster parents, and others concerned with adolescents at risk in Rhode Island. "This is without question the most important meeting I have convened during my tenure as director," continued Mr. Lindgren.

Having worked with Mr Lindgren over months to prepare for this day, and appearing with him now as the forum's facilitator, I knew what he said was true. The stakes for all were high, as the issues were contentious, the players adversarial, and the impact on kids immediate and very real. Some of the people in that hall had been on opposite sides of the aisle in courtrooms in the not too distant past. Yet a courageous few had worked together, warily, to plan this forum, and here they were, with all their supporters, coming together in this curious thing called Open Space.

"You can talk about anything you want in this space, " promised the Director, " but if you want to be part of the proceedings you must state a goal and draft a plan for action. Within two weeks our agency will review every plan and declare whether we'll give it our active support, our passive support, or our active resistance. You'll know where we stand."

Within moments, the first of about thirty conveners stepped forward to the center of the circle and declared topics for conversation. So began two days of far ranging and free wheeling discussions leading to dozens of concrete proposals.

Fast forward to an early morning call from Mr. Lindgren's cell phone on his way to a meeting, six months later. "That forum was a real kick start! It really galvanized some things. We got out the proceedings as promised, with our review. We've held monthly coalition meetings ever since for the whole system of care, with very senior people participating.

I've reorganized my management team around an integrated system of care that cuts across all divisions. We refer to what we're doing a "paradigm shift" so folks know how serious we really are. I've agreed to do something my harshest critics never thought we'd do: allow an independent business watchdog group to review our agency's operations from top to bottom and fully cooperate.

The results are out, and the data shows innovative ways to spend less money and provide more services. That report was well received by the Governor, and I'm much more optimistic going into the budget sessions. My staff is tired, but frankly our work has just begun. I've tended to soften my remarks in the past, but because of the interaction at the forum, and since, I know I must be much more blunt and passionate and speak with a clearer voice about what needs to be done."

Imagine you’re a consultant and the President of an urban community college calls you and says, “I’ve been at my job for two months. I’m the sixth president in eight years. The semester’s almost over, but I want to involve all 270 faculty and staff in setting goals for the College for next year. We have four hours. Can you help me?”

Tell me you wouldn’t laugh out loud, or be speechless! Traditional organizational development methods tell us there’s no way to bring so many people, who are almost certainly so demoralized, together to get so much work done so fast. In my case, we begin to talk about Open Space.

Shortly thereafter, over two hundred faculty and staff assemble in the college cafeteria. The President has invited everyone, saying simply: “Please come if you care about the future of the college. If you are not coming, please cover for someone who is.” Present are long time faculty, copy machine operators, and everyone in between.

We adapt Open Space to fit this extremely tight time frame. In the first half hour everyone eats lunch. In the next half hour the President speaks briefly, and I set up the theme, process, and agenda. I welcome all conversations, but remind groups that only those who complete a flip chart template, listing a goal and a set of measures indicating its success, can participate in the final goal-setting process. Participants post over thirty topics for a single, two hour round. We gather in the final hour for an informal, gallery-style review of proposed goals posted all around us on walls. Individuals multi-vote for their favorites using adhesive dots.

People embraced the goal setting conversations with fervor. Twenty two goals were ultimately posted. The multi-voting process produced seven clear priorities. People stood and cheered as the goals were announced. They spoke warmly, sharing their pride, and celebrating their renewed hope.

That next fall the President invited me back, reconvening the entire College community in another half day Open Space to propose projects to realize the six goals (one was already done). She demonstrated her resolve by dedicating a substantial budget for this purpose. Participants proposed and discussed project ideas, which were, at a later date, refined, finalized in writing, considered by the whole community, and voted by ballot. With money and mandate, priority projects happened fast.

In the following fall, the College began an ambitious strategic planning process. I returned to lead a Future Search Conference that reinvented the vision and goals of the College, and built strong, new relationships with external stakeholders. The President credits the Open Space forums as giving her rapid credibility, mobilizing the community, and setting the stage for lasting organizational transformation.

for STORIES, the Newsletter of the Open Space Institute (US), Issue 1, June 1999 osi@tmn.com