53. Harrison Owen – “Do one less thing”

How not acting can be a powerful intervention in managing, training and coaching.

News came through last week of the death of Open Space pioneer Harrison Owen at the age of 91. I wrote here about the powerful Open Space framework for self-organising multi-thread conversations last year, and why I think it works so well. It’s a masterpiece of creating a framework which allows all (literally) kinds of participation and gives choice and agency to everyone participating.

Harrison Owen in his trademark hat

The last time I saw Harrison in person was at the World Open Space On Open Space (WOSONOS) in London in 2012. He was definitely there and present; the slightly strange (but not at all unexpected) thing was that he didn’t ‘do’ anything. He didn’t give a keynote speech, he didn’t open the space, he didn’t (as far as I can recall) convene a conversation; he was just there. Clearly part of it, clearly endorsing it with his presence, and also just being part of the great swim of conversation and connection. Great restraint – I’m not sure I could do the same thing in the circumstances.

“Do one less thing”

One of Harrison Owen’s key ideas which emerged on the thread of memories hosted by Chris Corrigan was his encouragement to “do one less thing”. Owen was a great believer in the power of self-organisation and the dance of order and chaos. He saw active problem-solving as creating as many – or even more - new difficulties than it removed. His way was to encourage us to get out of the way and to take as many barriers to progress with us as possible, allowing things to emerge and encouraging others to participate. This ‘way’ requires great trust and commitment to wait, hold back and be open; no wonder Harrison was a firm devotee of meditation. This is not a philosophy for attention-seekers or wannabe ‘stars’; to act by not acting is noticed by few and valued by fewer, but it’s a key way of working with complexity.

Before looking at three small ways we can all practise doing one less thing, I’d like to point to a connection with Solutions Focus. SF pioneer Steve de Shazer was a great enthusiast for minimalism – working with what was happening in the client’s life already, using few words, helping re-orient rather then ‘change’ his clients. I discovered SF through a chance meeting with James Wilk over 30 years ago, when Wilk was working on his ‘minimal intervention’ approach, a kind of strategic-therapy-for-organisations where changing a few small things allowed the whole thing to pivot into a new configuration, a bit like a judo player using the force of their opponent to redirect them to the floor. I wrote about SF many years ago as ‘How to change everything  by changing as little as possible’, and I still think that’s a good way to think about, and value, SF work.

And, if you’re looking for an illustration of the risks of ‘doing one more thing’ instead and changing something without thinking about it, enjoy this short clip from Terry Gilliam’s 1977 movie Jabberwocky where a naïve Michael Palin attempts to enhance the efficiency of an armourer’s workshop. The relevant bit starts about 50 seconds into the clip, which features some great British character actors in Brian Glover and Rodney Bewes,

Three specific ways to ‘do one less thing’

Do less is surprisingly hard to put into practice! These are three ways I have found over the years to remind myself to do less rather than more. I hope they may be useful to you.

1.      Give space and let people continue

One of the early activities in my extended SF trainings has been the exercise ‘What do you want to think about?’. I got it from Nancy Kline, author of the excellent Time To Think and other books in a similar vein.  This is about not interrupting people when they are doing quite well on their own! People get into pairs and decide who will be the thinker and the thinking partner in the first round. The partner ask the thinker “What do you want to think about?” and then gives relaxed attention, saying nothing more – for seven minutes. The thinker gets to talk away about whatever it is that they want to think about, without interruption.

This is a very unusual opportunity; even in the world of coaching where the coach is focused on helping the client, it’s not normal to have seven minutes to yourself. Sometimes the thinker will seem to stop… and then pick up again. Even sitting in silence can be useful. The only other thing that the partner can do, if the thinker seems to have stopped completely, is to ask “What else do you want to think about?”.  They then swap roles and repeat.

You could try this with a willing partner at work or even at home. In my experience, most of the time the thinker goes through the full time on their own. They enjoy the opportunity. Many partners are a bit surprised about this, but learn to see the value in giving space and attention without interrupting. A few partners are unconvinced, thinking that it would be much better if they could barge in and say what they think; they are, of course, missing the point completely. 😊 Giving space like this is a key part of SF work, and connects with the circles of acknowledgement and progress about which I wrote a few weeks ago.

2.      Never do for learners what they can do for themselves or for each other

One of my mentors in Accelerated Learning in the 1990s was the late Dave Meier, author of the Accelerated Learning Handbook. One of his sayings was “Never do for learners what they can do for themselves or for each other”. This is such a great piece of advice for trainers and also managers and anyone involved in helping people create something together.  It sounds helpful to do things for people – but if it’s something they could do for themselves then you are actually impeding their feeling of self-efficacy and competence by getting in their way. Encouraging them to do things for each other is another great step towards them engaging with the material and topic – and you being an enabler in the background rather than a guru in the spotlight.

A very simple example: there are often name badges being given out at the start of a training, so that everyone can use all the names. It’s not uncommon to find these pre-prepared with the names, so one is given the ‘correct’ badge at the outset. That’s work for the trainer. But how about giving people a blank badge and asking them to write the name they want to be called? Sometimes folk are registered by their workplace who have a ‘full’ name (Algernon?) whereas the person likes to be called Algie. Or Phil. Or Phyllis. Giving them the chance to make the badge steps over all these potential issues.

And you can go further. I used to do an initial ‘introduction’ exercise where people got into pairs and introduced themselves, following by an affirming exercise about their strengths. Then eavch partner made a badge for the other, with illustrations about their strengths as well as their preferred name. Better connection, more personalising, something else to talk about – and even less work for the trainer.

3.      Ringing your gong for the end of the conversation – never more than once

Anyone who has been on a workshop with me will know that I like to mark the end of an activity or time to change partners by ringing a small gong. Here’s a picture of it.

Mark’s gong - small size, great sound

I bought it in a shop call World Of Feng Shui in Penang, Malaysia nearly two decades ago and it’s been everywhere with me since. It’s small and has a lovely sustained ring which cuts through noise and hubbub in a busy workshop room. I have even been offered money to sell it to other facilitators – nothing doing! 😊

Here’s the thing. Having accustomed people to the idea that the bell marks a transition, I only ring it once. Then people know it’s time to move, swap partners, wind up the conversation, whatever. I once lent it to a colleague who rang it and, people not seeming to pay attention, rang it again. Disaster. Once you ring it again, it tells people that the first time didn’t count. (And for that matter, the second time either…).

Once people know the signal, they will come along. Confusing the issue by ringing it again might feel like doing something, but it certainly isn’t a useful thing to help your participants understand what’s happening. By the way, I did some NLP courses many years ago where the trainers used two bell rings – the first as an indicator that time would be up soon, the second to say that time was now up. And of course that works fine, as long as you’ve explained it or most people understand the routine. Then don’t ring it three times.

Conclusions

The idea of doing one less thing is very powerful – particularly where you want people to act on their own, organise themselves, sort things out together and not rely on you. That sounds like a good basis for a humane and effective organisation to me. How about catching yourself doing one less thing tomorrow and see what happens, how people respond and how it helps everyone to focus their attention on encouraging sensible participation rather than following instructions.

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Dates and Mates

An early warning that my Solutions Focus Business Professional 16-week online course will be offered this autumn by the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. It’s a pretty intensive full-on grounding in SF for coaches, consultants, facilatators and managers, and will be using the new edition of The Solutions Focus as the main text. Starting Sunday 27 October 2024, lots of asynchronous work so you can fit it around your life, calls every alternate Sunday. I am there right through to work with you. Full details at https://sfwork.com/online-sf-professional-certificate.

And if you want to learn more about working with complexity, Chris Corrigan and Caitlin Frost are offering their Working In Complexity Inside & Out course starting 11 April 2024, online and interactive. More details here.