
' One either meets or one works'
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Arguably the most influential
of all management 'gurus', Drucker most definitely had a 'downer' on meetings.
He tended to see them as being ineffectual if they failed to make decisions or their decisions were not/could not be implemented. He also saw them as a very inefficient means of communicating information. At best, in his view, they all too easily distract from the actual doing of the work; at worst, they attract 'meeting junkies' who live from meeting to meeting, consciously or unconsciously avoiding the work.
At the very worst, you have meetings to discuss meetings!
And, of course, meetings usually run to the senior management’s agenda. They all too often ignore the concerns of those lower down the hierarchy and thus usually fail to gain the commitment of those who actually have the job of making any decisions taken work in practice.
Drucker's perceptions will be recognised by many, particularly those who work in larger organisations or the public or voluntary sectors.
However, Drucker's views were formulated prior to the emergence of the radical Open Space 'technology'.
Developed by organisational consultant Harrison Owen and pioneered by the gigantic
Boeing Corporation in the USA, the concept works so well that Boeing have been known
to shut down entire lines for a half-
Engaging
all of the energies of all of the people
Drawing much from the Japanese principles
of Kaizen, Open Space involves an open forum meeting of all the stakeholders in an
organisation, a department, a process, a community network, a family or any other
kind of grouping.
The process of Open Space enables all the concerns of all the stakeholders to be
raised in a constructive fashion and commits all the stakeholders to collaborate
to attempt to resolve all the issues (as far as realistically possible). Because
everyone's concerns are valued, everyone has the chance to participate in their resolution.
Because everyone has the opportunity to be involved, the proposed solutions tend
to be owned by everybody -
Senior Management using Open Space have found the data gathered highly informative and solutions derived from the process much easier to implement.
In addition to being a group problem-
A
word of warning...
While the facilitator has no say -
The Open Space concept is rooted in the worldviews of the ORANGE and GREEN vMEMES.
Powerful as the process is, it is not always automatically suited to less-
I have facilitated groups of varying sizes -
If you would like to discuss whether Open Space is suitable for your organisation and what you might expect to accomplish from it, please do get in contact.
