Expanding Our Now

Expanding Our Now

by Harrison H. Owen
Released September 1997
Publisher(s): Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ISBN: 9781605096230

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Book description

Open Space Technology (OST) is an effective, economical, fast, and easily repeatable strategy for organizing meetings of between 5 and 1,000 participants. First developed in 1984, it has now been used around the world with all types of organizations including corporations, community groups, government agencies, schools, and churches.

OST produces better meetings and helps groups achieve such organizational goals as self-managed work groups, distributed leadership, and utilizing diversity quickly and without training.

In Expanding Our Now, OST creator Harrison Owen offers numerous examples to illustrate the evolution of OST and explores what it is, how it developed as a process for meeting management, and how and why it works all over the world, for groups of all sizes dealing with a vast range of issues. Owen shows how OST can move organizations to higher levels of performance, without elaborate training or professional facilitators.

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Prologue
  5. Chapter I: East Meets West
    1. It Was Bizarre
    2. The Impact of Honesty
    3. Breaking Through
    4. Results?
    5. All About Now
  6. Chapter II: Open Space Discovered
    1. Metaphysical Management and Open Space Technology
    2. Inspiration for Open Space
    3. I Believe I’ve Got It!
    4. Engines of Open Space: Passion and Responsibility
    5. Four Principles and One Law
    6. The Law of Two Feet—Personal Freedom and Responsibility
    7. Indications and Contraindications for Use
    8. Open Space as a Journey
    9. Critical Elements of Open Space
  7. Chapter III: Open Space on the Loose: The Now Grows
    1. Open Spaces and Places
    2. The Stories of Open Space
    3. Expanding Our Now: A Work in Progress
    4. After Open Space—What?
    5. Open Space as Part of Larger Interventions
    6. Open Space as the Intervention
    7. Before and After Open Space
  8. Chapter IV: What on Earth Is Going On?
    1. Open Space Is Not the Exception?
    2. Open Systems/Closed Systems
    3. The Emperor Is Naked
    4. Muddling Through
    5. The Lessons of Open Space
  9. Chapter V: Chaos and Order
    1. The Design Principle for Open Space—Occam’s Razor
    2. Working in the Domain of Spirit—Doing Nothing with Elegance
  10. Chapter VI: Giving the Power Away: The Hero/Heroine’s Journey
    1. Open Space as the Hero/Heroine’s Journey
    2. Operating at a Deeper Level
    3. Do You Really Have to Talk Weird?
    4. Personal Preparation for Facilitation
    5. Is There Something More Here?
  11. Chapter VII: What Next?
    1. A New Mental Model
    2. New Paths for Assessment and Compensation
    3. New Paths for Training and Development
    4. New Paths for the Body Politic
    5. Cyberspace and Open Space
    6. Organization as Spirit: The Gift of Open Space
  12. Chapter VIII: Expanding Our Now: A Journey to Wholeness
    1. The Systems Approach
    2. The Way of Contemplation
    3. The Expanding Now in Open Space
    4. The Appearance of the Stranger
    5. And How Big Is Now?
    6. Expanding Our Personal Now: Bringing Our Whole Selves to the Party
  13. Open Space Print and Video Resources from Harrison Owen
    1. Spirit: Transformation and Development in Organizations
    2. Leadership Is
    3. Riding the Tiger: Doing Business in a Transforming World
    4. The Millennium Organization
    5. Tales From Open Space (edited by Harrison Owen)
    6. Expanding Our Now: The Story of Open Space Technology
    7. Learning in Open Space (thirty-minute video)
  14. The Open Space Institutes in the United States and Canada
    1. Join the Open Space Institute
  15. Index
  16. About the Author
  17. Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Product information

  • Title: Expanding Our Now
  • Author(s): Harrison H. Owen
  • Release date: September 1997
  • Publisher(s): Berrett-Koehler Publishers
  • ISBN: 9781605096230