In one experiment, led by Baba Shiv at Stanford University, several dozen undergraduates were divided into two groups. One group was given a two-digit number to remember, while the second group was given a seven-digit number. Then they were told to walk down the hall, where they were presented with two different snack options: a slice of chocolate cake or a bowl of fruit salad.

The students with seven digits to remember were nearly twice as likely to choose the cake as students given two digits. The reason, according to Prof. Shiv, is that those extra numbers took up valuable space in the brain—they were a "cognitive load"—making it that much harder to resist a decadent dessert. In other words, willpower is so weak, and the prefrontal cortex is so overtaxed, that all it takes is five extra bits of information before the brain starts to give in to temptation.

And so, instead of thinking in terms of imaginary systems and seeking to act on imaginary wholes, we might choose instead to focus on the complex reality of the conversations and interactions in which we are actually engaged. These are both products of and contributors to the contingent circumstances in which we find ourselves in the present.

Or as I say, the cobbler's children may well have holes in their shoes.. but that doesn't make him a bad cobbler.

Anyhow, as with all processes, Open Space has its fans and its detractors. But one of the things I find exciting about it is that it asks people - including me - to do two things that sound simple, but in practice can be quite difficult.

First, it asks: what is it we really want? That sounds simple but I know I often lose track of what I really want, and end up sucked into routines and habits that aren't very enlivening. And like other human beings, when I get to this place I often get frustrated and start demanding things that I probably don't really want at all.

Second, it then suggests that we ask for what we want in a reasonably direct way. And that's also harder than it sounds. We live in a culture that often seems to prize indirectness, hinting and manipulation. Being clear about what we want increases the risk of rejection, and it makes us stand out. In some organisations, it can be quite unrealistic to expect people to take this risk.

In my subjective experience, the best offers in open space are the unadorned and the rough edged. I suspect we have a good ear for other people's inauthenticity, even if not our own.

Most kids are miserable in school. We need to stop teaching the silly stuff we teach in high school and stop creating high schools that make students miserable. Apparently we do this in most every country.

I was particularly interested in the bits about how power(status) differentials diminish the effectiveness of groups. It reminded me of Matthew May's story which really dramatised this point.

I also liked this reference to research Nancy found:

Culture is localized. It is not the culture of the organization that encourages or discourages the learning behaviors needed for effective reflection on complex issues, it is the culture developed within each specific team.

Dave Snowden talks about Nancy Dixon's challenge to his recent speech at a KM conference.

Nancy Dixon, in response to my keynote yesterday, expressed a preference for getting people together to talk about things rather than gathering narrative into a database which "spits out the patterns".

The same preference was clear in David Gurteen's slides for his talk today. There was a picture of excited happy people in a knowledge cafe, followed by one of people slumped in boredom or asleep in a lecture theatre. I suspect he was trying to argue for the former over the latter. Now I've seen as many people going through the motions in a workshop as I have asleep in a lecture. I've also seen people animated and excited in a lecture (both as receiver and giver). There isn't one right way I'm afraid, its a little more subtle than a crude dichotomy.

All facilitators are prone to having their favourite approach and to championing it. But every intervention casts a shadow. It if does some things, it will prevent others. We should probably practice acknowledging the downsides of our favourite methods. And try to resist resorting to defences like

1 It would have worked if it had been done properly
2 It would have worked if people had done it for long enough
3 It would have worked if someone hadn't sabotaged it
4 Ah, all those terrible short term effects just a small price to pay for the long term benefits that all my other clients have seen

I'm sure you can add others of your own.

I suspect no method can be as smart or creative as the people in the room. And a facilitator who is certain of his approach is almost certainly going to come across as patronising to the crowd.

Like several friends, I have to cringe as well as laugh at the twitter hashtag #shitfacilitatorssay. Almost everything we could say might fit in here. I suspect the real evil is not the words, or the technique, but the attitude of a facilitator acting like they are really in control of things.

Similarly, we can probably also avoid donning sackcloth and ashes on the occasions things transparently don't go to plan. To paraphrase Eric Morecambe, all methods work, but not necessarily in the way intended.

So we're happy to be developing an online course with James Allen of Creative Huddle. He is a top bloke who really practices what he preaches when it comes to collaboration.

This is going to complement the book and we're aiming to keep it concise, low cost and fun. Like James, we're keen to experiment with ways of making these ideas accessible to anyone. Full details here, including a nice little discount for registering early. Or watch below and fill in the box.

The experiments reported in this paper show that in small, 5-person groups, the communication is like dialogue and members are influenced most by those with whom they interact in the discussion. However, in large, 10-person groups, the communication is like monologue and members are influenced most by the dominant speaker.

And if you go to the trouble and expense of getting people into a room together, it is very hard to justify monologues as a way of engaging. People who really want to hear a monologue can get it online without showing up in person. It frustrates me that so many meetings default to formats that support monologues.

If I’m learning to be a facilitator, I probably want to learn the how (processes, techniques, tip and tricks) first. Then I’d want to know about application, when and why I would use one and not the other. Problem is, learning is not linear. It happens in loops and leaps, in small moments of clarity, in confusion and messiness. In other words, learning, and meaning, emerges. It can’t be structured in a way that makes sense to everyone because everyone learns differently (and no, I’m not thinking learning styles – that’s been well and truly debunked).

In corporate life, training often conform to a similar stereotype. We're tempted to focus on the juicy chunks of content ('you will learn, blob, blob, blob').

The thing is, if someone's interested, they can suck down no end of content from the web, without having to pay a trainer to dress it up for them.

As Viv says, people come to these trainings hoping to learn techniques and that's fair enough. They also want to have the recipes for all the tricky situations they've experienced in the past or fear in the future. The temptation to serve up recipes, and perpetuate the teacher trance, is strong.

It should be resisted.

I find in the end that participants are more relieved when I say there is no magic formula and that the job is inevitably confusing and stressful sometimes. That feels like reality, and most people can deal with reality ok. But if they think there's a holy grail, then the search will exhaust them.

If you want to talk with people about how to work with people, I reckon the running order is unimportant. Start anywhere. It's all connected anyway, and in much more interesting ways than any "five steps" formula of finely honed agenda.