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Imagine
you are facing the greatest challenge of your organizational life. The
issue is complex, the range of opinions about what to do is diverse, a
decision was needed yesterday, and conflict is likely. You have invited
everyone who cares about the challenge to come work it, and two hundred
people have showed up. The meeting is about to start, yet there is no
agenda, and no planned presentations. A cold-sweat, bolt-out-of-bed nightmare?
No, just another typical work day in "open space".
What is open space technology? 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.
How does it work? 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.
What are the results? 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.
Why does it work? 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.
When do we use open space? 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.
Try working in open space, if not for learning, then when nothing else
will work.