"My first experience with Open Space came just six months after I began working in the Office of Training and Program Support at the Peace Corps. My colleagues and I are responsible for providing technical support to more than 6,500 Peace Corps volunteers in 90 countries, and we had gathered to talk about and plan for the future. I had just returned from the National Organization Development Network Conference that had included one day of Open Space. The contrast between that day of Open Space and our traditional meeting was powerful, especially in terms of my own energy and commitment. As Open Space predicts, the most productive planning discussions occurred outside the carefully structured workshop sessions. I shared my reflections with my new colleagues, along with a growing conviction that Open Space might prove to be a better way for the Peace Corps."
Open Space At Work in the Peace Corps
Open Space At Work in the Peace Corps
Caption: Open Space at Belfast City Council Staff Satisfaction Conference
Sandy Callier, Betsy Devlin-Foltz
Within the span of two years, Open Space has changed how the Peace Corps helps its volunteers prepare for -and organize- their work.
My first experience with Open Space came just six months after I began working in the Office of Training and Program Support at the Peace Corps. My colleagues and I are responsible for providing technical support to more than 6,500 Peace Corps volunteers in 90 countries, and we had gathered to talk about and plan for the future. I had just returned from the National Organization Development Network Conference that had included one day of Open Space. The contrast between that day of Open Space and our traditional meeting was powerful, especially in terms of my own energy and commitment. As Open Space predicts, the most productive planning discussions occurred outside the carefully structured workshop sessions. I shared my reflections with my new colleagues, along with a growing conviction that Open Space might prove to be a better way for the Peace Corps.
These informal exchanges about Open Space as an alternative to more structured workshop methods proved to be more than idle talk because my colleagues proceeded almost immediately to try it out for themselves. As Open Space gained new adherents, I discovered that one of thejoys of working at the Peace Corps is a receptivity not only to new ideas but, more importantly, to acting on them when they work. -Sandy Callier.
The fit between the Peace Corps and Open Space is a natural one, not surprising in light of the fact that the creator of Open Space Technology, Harrison Owen, gained some of his formative professional experience as a Peace Corps field staffer in West Africa. Moreover, the Peace Corps' goals, its history, organizational structure, and the diverse countries where Peace Corps volunteers live and work also make Open Space an ideal method for strengthening communication among people.
The Peace Corps' development philosophy is based on the premise that volunteers must work with the people of developing countries, not for them. The Peace Corps seeks to promote self-sufficiency by building human capacity. Organizationally, the Peace Corps benefits from a constantly renewing work force: volunteers typically serve for two years overseas, and Peace Corps staff may work for the agency for a maximum of five years. Although this policy may at times inhibit institutional memory, it also fosters new ideas and encourages people to take responsibility for action at the local level.
With volunteers serving in communities in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Central and South America, Eastern and Central Europe, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean, the Peace Corps must constantly respond to a wide range of circumstances and challenges. Processes such as Open Space that support self-organizing systems are needed and valued. At the same time, deeply traditional values and practices in these countries are generally congruent with such Open Space concepts and practice as the cirle, marketplace, and community bulletin board.
A Better Way
Over the last two years Open Space has has been used repeatedly and effectively in a variety of circumstances. Here are some examples.
Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. An early application occurred in Abidjan at an April 1995 training workshop that brought together Peace Corps staff from Washington, and American and African field staff who were working on water, sanitation, and health projects in a number of African countries. The workshop had a variety of purposes, but the most important was to provide an opportunity for this talented group of development experts to learn from one another's experiences. The U.S.-based planning team wanted to avoid supporting the illusion that solutions from Washington always worked in the villages of Africa.
The staff feared that Open Space might not work in Africa, and that American participants might jump in too quickly to ensure an agenda. This fear, however, was unfounded: the first to come forward were the African women, who are usually reticent in such settings. They were delighted to have an opportunity to name and examine issues of importance to them, and originated a session on "AIDS Programming, Death and Dying, Volunteer Support."
The success of the Abidjan event led, within weeks, to the use of Open Space in other workshops throughout Peace Corps posts in Africa. And it led to the creation of a regional network of other Peace Corps staff members to work on micro-nutrients. The group continues to meet, sharing ideas and support. Now, when Peace Corps staff members hold a workshop overseas, they "will demand time to spend learning from each other," noted Angela Churchill, a staff member. "Because they can be very isolated from one another at their posts, Open Space encourages the staff to see themselves as part of the entire Africa region and as having something valuable to share."
Ehane Dogore, an Ivoirian Peace Corps staffer who supports volunteers working on health projects, now uses Open Space to train volunteers in Cote d'Ivoire. Incoming trainees usually raise a broad spectrum of questions about service in the Peace Corps, including how to collaborate with their host country counterparts and how to deal with their own worries and fears about living for two years in a vastly different culture. Later, during in-service training, Dogore has seen how using Open Space can energize the volunteers: "When you do Open Space, they do not feel like they are prisoners. They have time to share experiences, and they can discover each other in another way. Open Space allows them to get to know each other better than before."
Central African Republic. Another event, a workshop held in the Central African Republic (CAR) in September 1995, was designed to increase the Peace Corps' visibility in the country and, most importantly, garner support for addressing volunteer safety and security issues.
Planners for the workshop worried about mixing civil servants and Open Space. The Chief of Police and the Head of the Gendarmes attended the workshop in uniform. Would others in the room speak freely to them? And how could planners facilitate effective conversations across cultures and encourage volunteers to play a larger role than they typically do at such gatherings?
The workshop planning committee chose Open Space because of the diversity of the participants. One Peace Corps staff member, who had participated in numerous Open Space conferences before, was pleased with the choice: "Open Space is useful in these situations because people have their own characters and their own needs. Not only did people participate, they really got into it!"
Lynn Foden, Peace Corps Country Director, expressed both surprise and delight that the Chief of Police and the Head of the Gendarmes (a national police force) not only came to the conference but stayed the entire time. "People told us that they would never stay for the whole workshop," she commented.
The workshop's success could be seen in one of the results: the Chief of Police and Head of the Gendarmes provided letters of introduction for each Peace Corps volunteer in the CAR. These letters serve as an effective way to ensure that volunteers, like all members of their communities, can seek and obtain assistance from the CAR's local police when they need it. "We got information and commitments we probably wouldn't have gotten [otherwise]," Foden recalled.
More Support for Volunteers
In less than two years, Open Space has changed how the Peace Corps plans for workshops and conferences with staff, volunteers, and their host country partners. Open Space helps us determine and better understand the needs of Peace Corps volunteers, not in a single step but rather through a continuing dialogue in which needs emerge, evolve, and are explored by everyone involved.
Open Space has also affirmed and contributed in a very practical way to the recent evolution of Peace Corps' training of volunteers, moving us beyond traditional, structured group experiences. In recent years, increasing numbers of Peace Corps programs have adopted community-based training, a method that allows volunteers to define their needs and then seek out information, skills, and support within their new communities. After having experience with Open Space in staff workshops, some of our field staff in countries that had not yet moved to community-based training -for example, Malawi, Tonga, and Guyana- were inspired to bring the spirit of Open Space into the training of new volunteers.
Challenges
As the Peace Corps continues to experiment with Open Space, some important challenges need to be addressed:
* In Open Space groups where participants may have very different levels of experience or power (such as young people and adults), the Peace Corps has used structured sessions prior to Open Space to help ensure that less powerful voices are heard. How much and what kind of such structures are useful and necessary? Whatever structures are used, they need to serve the needs of participants, not just the conference organizers.
* The Peace Corps has been successful in using Open Space to identify and explore training needs for volunteers, staff, and counterparts. More controversial is whether and how we can use Open Space to provide skills training.
* The very success of Open Space means that it is vulnerable to misuse or mislabeling. It is not facilitated agenda setting, nor is it an anything goes free-for-all. in the appropriate setting, Open Space is a powerful methodology that enables people to act on their passion and responsibility. How can we provide guidance on using Open Space without prescribing or restricting?
"When it's over, it's just beginning"* is certainly true at the Peace Corps. The use of Open Space in any one event has typically led to multiple uses and settings. These uses and their effects are not easy to trace or quantify, but it is clear that the Peace Corps has found Open Space to be a useful way to strengthen communication among staff, volunteers, and our host country counterparts so that we can help Peace Corps volunteers do what matters most-help people build a better ftiture for themselves and their communities.
*This is an amendment to a basic Open Space principle that was enunciated at the 1996 Open Space on Open Space.
Sandy Callier works with the Peace Corps' Office of Training and Program Support (OTAPS) as the Senior Programming and Training Officer. She can be reached at 202-606-9507 and scallier@peacecorps.gov. Betsy Devlin-Foltz offers consulting, training, and coaching services to clients in government, education, and the nonprofit sector. She can be reached at 301-681-0970 and bdf@consultingwomen.com.
