By Don Oldenberg 
 

 No one's in charge, there is no structure, no agenda, no planned 
content. 

 Posted on the wall are two hand-drawn signs. One reads simply "The Law 
of Two Feet," and shows a crude rendition of two footprints. The other 
lists four principles that clarify nothing; "Whoever comes os the right 
people"; "Whatever happens is the only thing that could have"; Whenever 
it starts is the right time"; and "When it's over it's over." 

 Whether or not what happened in ballroom C at the Sheraton Crystal City 
one morning two weeks ago was the only thing that could have happened is 
debatable. That it was the strangest conference 50 senior administrators 
of the U.S. Forest Service have ever attended, no one is debating. 

 "The most puckered, tight, heirarchy in Washington" is how one of the 
Forest Service participants described the gathered beaurocrats as they 
mulled about, sipping coffee, rechecking watches, waiting for "the 
meeting" to begin. They seated themselves in folding chairs arranged in a 
large circle. With their arms crossing their chests in classic defensive 
posture, they looked at the ceiling, looked at each other. All they knew 
was they were scheduled to be there all day. 

 "You never know what's going to happen," Harrison Owen says as an aside 
before he steps to the centre of the circle of administrators to get 
things started. Unlike most experts in organizational behavior, Owen 
thrives on ambiguity and believes that, in the right circumstances, 
workplaces do too. His theories fly in the face of business as usual. 
While others try to boost productivity by reorganizing and controlling, 
he dabbles in chaos, promoting it as a potent creative force. Others 
focus on the nitty-gritty of organization; he tunes in to the spirit. 

 Calling his work "organizational transformation," Owen has applied his 
innovations at major corporations on five continents, as well as with 
small tribal villages in West Africa, personnel managers in India, and 
polymer chemists at DuPont. No matter the audience, skepticism always 
greets his offbeat approach. He expected nothing less from the forestry 
managers toward the largely leaderless and formless meeting he calls Open 
Space Technology. 

 "Every single group I have ever worked with has told me up front it's a 
great idea but it will never work with them," says Owen, president of 
H.H. Owen and Co., his consulting firm in Potomac. "Groups that I think I 
could never get them to do it, like the senior executives for Pepsi-Cola 
in Venezuela, they take to it like ducks to water." 

 Were it not for the savvy corporate execs and hard-core senior managers 
who attest to the effectiveness of Open Space technology, it might seem 
like Harrison Owen has hit upon a fat scam in a world grasping 
desperately for new solutions. By his own estimate, he spends only about 
five minutes preparing for these one- to five-day conferences. His 
corporate rate runs about $2,000 a day (though he donated his services to 
the African village and other promising causes). He readily admits that 
once he gets a group moving in the right direction, he "goes and sits 
down the hall." For the Open Space to work, he says, no one can take 
charge - including himself. 

 "That's the big secret," says Owen, whose credentials include Anglican 
priest and author of several management books. "I don't do anything. 
There's nothing to plan - just when is it going to be, and where, and 
who's coming. My major job is to get them to get them to stop doing 
things. I have to tell them 'Don't worry, it's going to happen.'" 

 What does happen isn't predictable, nor is it easily defined. In a 
sense, Open Space Technology is kind of the brainstorming version of the 
classic 'Stone Soup' story; Owen's minimal guidance is like the rock in a 
pot of boiling water, everyone else contributes their ideas to the soup, 
and in the end the group is well-fed. 

 "It's like community Rorschach," says Owen, referring to the highly 
interpretable ink-blot psychology test that is impossible to fail so long 
as one participates. "The structure that will emerge, will emerge as a 
response. My goal is that within an hour, we will have the whole agenda 
for the entire conference and the people to carry it out."  For the first 
15 minutes, the Forest Service managers listen soberly to Owen's 
briefing. He assures them Open Space Technology has worked before, and 
sometimes brilliantly.  There was the time the National Education 
Association brought 420 teachers, school board members and administrators 
to Colorado to explore how to enhance education in America; in less than 
an hour they created 85 workshops and then ran the two-day conference 
themselves. 

 Last fall, the Forest Service's own travel and management division 
hosted 224 people representing 65 organizations - from the Sierra Club to 
timber companies to the National Nude Sunbathing Society -  to meet on 
the issue of access to public land. In less than an hour they created 62 
task forces and managed the conference themselves for two days. "About 
the only thing they had in common was the issue at hand and their 
antagonism for each other," says Owen. "But by the end of the second day, 
we had available a 200-page report of their findings. The only complaint 
was that the report was too detailed to assimilate." 

 If Owen has reinvented the meeting, he's done it by recognizing that 
creativity abhors a vacuum. His instructions to the forestry managers are 
brief: Each is to think of an area or issue he or she is passionate about 
that relates to the conference's theme ("Enhancing Relationships With Our 
Customers"); then title it, be prepared to take responsibility for it, 
step forward and write the title on a piece of poster paper, and tack it 
to the wall. 

 The room buzzes with doubt and excitement. "Think of something which is 
important to you," encourages Owen. "And if nothing pops up, don't worry 
about it." 

 One man rises reluctantly, states his name and issue and starts marking 
it on poster paper. Two more stand up, followed by a flurry of others. 
Squeaking felt-tip markers compete with voices announcing topics: 
"Consumption and Recycling," "Whistle-blowers: How Can We Be Known Again 
as an Honest Agency?" and "Multiculturalism." 

 As sudden as it started, it stops. Buying time for late blooming ideas, 
Owen "orchestrates the flow" of what will occur for the rest of the day. 
The posted topics are arranged in immediate, late , and afternoon time 
slots and are designated locations. Anyone interested in an issue signs 
up and shows up. Those who originate the issue take notes of what goes 
on. 

 Thirty-two minutes into the conference, the forestry managers have 
created and scheduled 13 workshops. Owen sends them off, telling them only 
to report back later that afternoon. 

 "People say how do you get substantive results out of that?" Owen says 
afterward. "But the same people who would be sure there was no way 
anything useful could get done all of a sudden find themselves operating 
with absolutely no problems in a situation where leadership is constantly 
changing and structure is made and remade to fit the task at hand. 
Suddenly the barriers go down." 

 Owen's credo is "Structure Happens." As he told the Forest Service 
managers, "What we're really talking about is inspired performance. Can 
you force inspired performance? You can evoke it. You can give space for 
it. You can train for it. You can hope for it. You can pray for it. But 
can you force it? No.'" 

 Looking over the workshop choices, Paige Ballard says he's never been to 
a meeting like this. "It sure seems to encourage creativity and free 
thought,' says the Forest Service's recycling program manager. 'it isn't 
inhibiting about what we can talk about and who can talk about it. And 
everybody gravitates to what they're comfortable with. Different strokes 
for different folks." 

 Bill Delaney, the Forest Service's branch chief for management 
improvement who has contracted with Owen for several such conferences 
with other Forest Service departments, believes Open Space works 
especially well for the silent majority - most of the people in a 
bureaucracy who usually say the least. "It's not for every meeting," he 
says, "but it is certainly a way to get participative juices flowing." 

 Owen designed Open Space Technology seven years ago after a meeting with 
a group of organizational experts in Monterey, Calif. At the end, 
everyone confessed they got more out of the coffee breaks than the 
meeting itself. "So my question was, 'is there a way of producing the 
kind of good, intense interaction you get in a coffee break while 
achieving the output and performance you get in a meeting?'" he says. 

 "I was looking for a mechanism that was so simple that you could do it in 
a boardroom or in a Third-World village with the same results. When all 
is said and done, people really have the experience of open power. They 
are in charge - which is the reason the level of spirit and creativity 
are so high." 

 Last spring. in South Africa, Owen conducted a one-day Open Space 
meeting that included the mayor of Cape Town and several black leaders. 
"I'll never forget. We were all standing in this circle at the end and 
everybody was holding hands crying." says Owen. "They were saying that 
they were the new South Africa and there was a lot of work to do. 

 "Open Space seems to create an incredible sense of community. The key 
is, it's a safe space within which people can take authority and 
responsibility for themselves."