Replying to LO24825 --
Dear Learners,
I think John Zackavi asked about Isaacs, I found this in a file this
evening. The word crisis seems very important- I like the idea of a rich
silence, I have experienced it once in a systemic enterprising format
among about thirty. I think such states often derive from a tiredness that
often predetermines new levels of a differing energy reservoir. However,
here are the notes...
The following information about dialogue is from Organisational Dynamics.
Autumn 1993. 'Taking Flight: Dialogue, Collective Thinking, and
Organisational Learning," William N. Isaacs, director of the Dialogue Project
at MIT's Organisational Learning Centre.
Dr. Isaacs mentions these first steps and four Levels and Stages of Dialogue.
- Early requirement - people developed an initial grasp of inquiry
skills, such as how to detect an abstract statement and invite people to
explain their thinking.
- Gradually people recognize that they can either begin to defend their
points of view, finding others as somewhat or totally wrong, or suspend
their view, and begin to listen without coming to a hard and fast
conclusion about the validity of any of the views yet expressed. They
become willing to loosen the "grip of certainty" about all views,
including their own.
- At this stage, people may find themselves feeling frustrated,
principally because the underlying fragmentation and incoherence in
everyone's thought begins to appear. Extreme views become stated and
defended. All of this "heat" and instability is exactly what should be
occurring. The fragmentation that has been hidden is surfacing in the
container. They ask: "Where am I listening from? What is the disturbance
going on in me (not others)? What can I learn if I slow things down and
inquire (to seek within)?"
- People notice, for example, that they differ in their pace and timing
of speaking and thinking, and begin to inquire into and respect these
facts. Sometimes in this phase the flow takes on a powerful and undeniable
intensity. Inquiry within this phase of the container is subtle; people
here can become sensitive to the cultural "programs" for thinking and
acting that they have unwittingly accepted as true. In these later stages
of dialogue, the term "container" becomes limiting. It is more accurate to
describe it as a kind of shared "field" in which meaning and information
are being exchanged.
This phase can be playful and penetrating. Yet it also leads to another
crisis. People gradually realize that deeper themes exist, behind the flow
of ideas. They come to understand and feel the impact that holding
fragmented ways of thinking has had on them, their organizations, and
their culture. They sense their separateness. While people may understand
intellectually that they have had limits to their vision, they may not yet
have experienced the fact of their isolation. Such awareness brings
pain--both from loss of comforting beliefs and from the exercise of new
cognitive and emotional muscles. People recognize that their thoughts--in
the form of collective assumptions and choices--create and sustain
fragmentation and separation. Moving through this crisis is by no means a
given nor necessary for "success" in dialogue. Groups may develop the
capacity for moving to the final level of dialogue over a considerable
period of time. It is a deep and challenging crisis, one that requires
considerable discipline and collective trust.
- If this crisis can be navigated, a new level of awareness opens. People
begin to know consciously that they are participating in a pool of common
meaning because they have sufficiently explored each other's views. They
still may not agree, but their thinking takes on an entirely different
rhythm and pace. At this point, the distinction between memory and
thinking becomes apparent. People may find it hard to talk together using
the rigid categories of previous understanding. The net of their existing
thought is not fine enough to begin to capture the subtle and delicate
understandings that begin to emerge. This too may be unfamiliar and
disorienting. People may find that they do not have adequate words and
fall silent. Yet the silence is not an empty void, but one replete with
richness.
Close notes.
Best
Andrew Campbell
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