Genuine Contact Learning Module

Early Bird Registration Is Open Now | Register Before 20 May For 15% Off

Working with Open Space Technology

20 to 22 September 2026

Westcord Hotel, Eindhoven Netherlands

Some of the most important conversations in any organization happen in the margins; in hallways, over coffee, in the moments when people finally feel free to say what they actually think. Open Space Technology is a meeting methodology that creates the conditions for those conversations to happen on purpose, at scale, with real results.

This three-day training will give you the skills, confidence, and stronger inner grounding to facilitate Open Space meetings, with groups of 5 or 500, online or in person, in moments of change, complexity, or creative possibility.

What you will learn

You will leave with more than a method. You will leave with a new understanding of what makes groups come alive, and the confidence to create those conditions for others.

• Facilitate Open Space for groups of 5 to 500 online, in person, in any language, with any level of organizational complexity.

• Prepare your clients so thoroughly with the understanding, commitment and trust it takes to make an Open Space meeting truly effective, so that the right people arrive with the right spirit, ready to do real work.

• Create the conditions for follow-through so that what was discovered in the Open Space meeting continues to grow and give results in the weeks and months after.

• Understand your own inner landscape as a facilitator: what Open Space asks of you, and how to develop that capacity in yourself.

• Know - with confidence - when to recommend Open Space and when something else is called for.

About the method

A Powerful Method With A Long Track Record

Harrison Owen created Open Space Technology after organising a major international conference in 1983. A year of meticulous preparation. Every session designed, every paper arranged. And at the end of it, participants agreed: the best part had been the coffee breaks.

From that insight came an enduring, widely used facilitation method practised in 145 countries, with groups as small as five and as large as two thousand.

OST works because it starts from an elegant premise: the people closest to the real issues are also the people best paced to address them. When people gather around a topic that genuinely matters to them, are given a clear theme, genuine freedom, and a clear structure, groups consistently surprise themselves with what they are capable of.

This training is a part of the Genuine Contact™ way of working. It goes further than most OST trainings. You will learn not only the mechanics of running an Open Space event, but the art of creating the container, the preparation, the inner work, the follow-through. All of this makes the difference between a meeting people remember and a meeting that actually changes things.

About the trainers

Three experienced practitioners, one rich learning experience

Doris Gottlieb (Netherlands), Thomas Herrmann (Sweden), and Anna Caroline Türk (Germany) have worked closely with Birgitt and Ward Williams, founders of the Genuine Contact Program, for more than two decades. Together they have designed this training to bring their complementary expertise into a cohesive, varied, and deeply practical learning experience.

Depending on group size and availability, you will work with them individually, in pairs, or as a full team of three.

Between them, Doris, Thomas, and Anna Caroline have assisted organizations including:

• Volvo, Etsy, Dropbox, and Stena Line

• Stichting Emancipator, Klimaatonderzoek Initiatief Nederland

• The City of Gothenburg, Municipality of Waddinxveen, and Karolinska Institute (Hospital)

• Rotterdam School of Management of Erasmus University, Emergency Nutrition Network (ENN)