Civic behaviors
After spending the past couple of years observing people interacting in a wide variety of ways in the civic space, I’m now clear that people’s public behaviors are very context-dependent. When the space is open for people to interact in self-organizing ways, they tend to be collaborative, trusting, network-building, and action oriented. When they interact in contexts where the space is closed by imposed structure, they tend to be more competitive, critical, fragmented, and leader-dependent.
What this implies is that there may not be behavioral givens in any community; interactional behaviors may very well be a function of the degree of the openness of the space.
April 7th, 2005 08:44
Jack: Your observation strikes a chord with me today. I wonder about how open space strategies might work in congregational contexts. I am often in local churches, and hear about the critical and fragmented ways that these Christain churches behave around their work, problems and programs. These groups are regularly involved in “management by campfire”, where a group meeting is held, but only limited conversation happens in the meeting- then afterward, people begin to express themselves more openly in the 2’s and 3’s that gather in the parking lot. Do you know anyone using open space in congregational contexts?
April 7th, 2005 10:47
Open Space has been used in just about any context you can think of. It is very content independent because it invites the community to self-organize their passion, strengths, and capacity for responsibility in new ways around new questions.
I think every faith community manifests the watercooler culture because every one is self-organizing whether people realize it or not. Once people get over the illusion of control as Open Space invites and empowers them to, they self-organize differently in ways that liberates the vision and vitality of the community.