Anastasia
Adelaide, South Australia – Open Space Technology (OST) is a simple, inclusive, easily repeatable approach to productive, creative meetings in which a few or thousands of people in business or community, quickly find their inner leader and deal effectively with complex issues, within a short period of time. A fundamental aspect of OST is that the meeting utilizes the circle, one of the most ancient symbols pertaining to human consciousness.
If one was looking through the eyes of the first human gazing out into the skies one would witness the first circles – the sun, moon, planets and stars. Wonders that can only be described in a circular language, one that is literally celestial. The circle appears repeatedly in wisdom traditions ranging from ancient mythology, the world’s great religions, and lesser known spiritual practices, to psychology, philosophy and system’s science. “The circle is the fundamental geometry of open human communication.”
Alienation from our earth, ourselves and nature has caused us to forget the natural cycle and interconnectedness of all things, hence we feel uncomfortable even fearful of endings which we perceive to be chaotic, and unpredictable. Pinkola Estes states in her classic work Women Who Run with the Wolves that “the Life/Death/Life nature is a cycle of animation, development, decline, and death is always followed by re-animation.”
Organizations have their own consciousness and require freedom to evolve naturally according to the cycles of Life/Death/Life. Organizations which do not heed the call for change and attempt to obstruct it find themselves overwhelmed by apathy, lack of motivation, high levels of stress and abuse of various kinds. Harrison Owen originator of Open Space Technology describes these organizations as having lost spirit and therefore showing signs of “Soul Pollution.”
Typically the fundamental need to control prevents organizations embracing the wisdom of the changing nature of the circle. The Fourth Law in Horstman’s The Art of Great Management states “Control is an Illusion: there is not a single person whom you think you “control” who would agree with you. If you really think you’re so good as to control another, then who in your organization thinks that way about you? Stop trying to control you are wasting your time. Build relationships based on trust.” Unfortunately a consequence of our alienation from the flow of the cycles of life is we tend to believe that if we do not have control then we are in perpetual chaos and we don’t trust chaos.
Some scientific disciplines have caught up with the ancient teachings and are proposing a pattern and usefulness in chaos. Owen speaks of organizations as being open systems having a natural cyclic ebb and flow which cannot be contained. This Open System states Owen “gets itself back together, not as it was, but in a new (radically new) fashion, which is at the same time related to its past (it is still recognizably the same sort of thing), and in synergistic harmony with the new environment.”
Anastasia Goussios, a registered psychologist and member of the Australian Psychological Society, specialises in working as psychologist, life/soul coach and educator. She assists organisations to open space where control is relinquished to the creative process and to a diverse group of people who are passionate about the issue at hand. They come together in a circle with no set answer giving themselves over to inspiration and imagination. The participants are completely self-managing and their natural leader comes to the fore. They experience for themselves that chaos and order are unifying opposites which move in sympathy with one another bringing about transformation internally and externally. Through the Open Space encounter one remembers the natural cycles of life and tentatively begins to regain trust in this long forgotten truth that new life always follows death and chaos.
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
