Replying to LO30578 --
"AM de Lange" <amdelange@postino.up.ac.za> writes:
> Bill Harris <bill_harris@facilitatedsystems.com> wrote upon my:
>
> >> ... You will undo all your good work
> >> should you employ any kind of coercion rather
> >> than relying on spontaneous responses.
> >
> >You wrote an important message most eloquently; I wanted
> >particularly to highlight this most important and most difficult
> >part. I found it was important to sit still and reflect until I "got it";
> >only then did I begin to understand what I really had to do to
> >facilitate development.
> I can still remember that almost 40 years ago, when i began to study
> chemistry, i also found the distinction between spontaneous and forced
> reactions difficult. For example, what criteria do we use to distinguish
> between them? There is so much information that we may fail to recognise
> the one and only one criterium which is essential. The system has to use
> its own free energy to sustain its changes.
Dear At,
Your perpetual reminding me that it has to do with free energy is helpful.
Just to (try to) bring it down a level on the ladder of abstraction,
here's the thinking I went through in my discovery.
If one is trying to foster change that encourages openness, the taking
of individual responsibility, and the like, it's pragmatically and
ethically impossible to coerce people into accepting that.
I didn't make this up; I was trying to encourage a group I managed
to adopt Argyris' Model II behaviors. As their manager at the time,
I think I would have been given a clear mandate by my manager to
mandate that we would behave that way "'cause I was their manager."
Yet as I read Argyris' statement to the effect it was pragmatically
and ethically impossible, I knew it was an important statement, and
I knew I didn't know what it meant or what I should do as a result.
It began to dawn on me that, should I mandate that they do what I
wanted them to do because I wanted them to do it, I had established
that there were exceptions to the rule, that there were cases when,
for the larger good, one should use coercion. That didn't seem right
ethically, and it seemed to give the rest of the group free rein to
find their own exceptions. In other words, the house of cards would
come tumbling down.
So, it was clear: I couldn't grant myself an exemption from those I
wanted the people in my department to follow.
I was still in the dark. What in the world was I to do, if I wanted
the others to follow this new, strange, difficult approach _if_ I
couldn't just mandate it and follow up with "carrots and sticks"
(rewards and penalties, as were befitting my role as manager)?
This may sound easy to some of you. If you've been through this and
worked your way through it in an hour, congratulations! If you haven't
been through it and are wondering what I'm talking about, it took me weeks
(at least), as I recall, to figure out what I was to do. When I figured
it out, it was blindingly obvious and intensely challenging. It also
enabled my personal growth and facilitated (but didn't guarantee) the
ultimate success of my effort.
After reading and re-reading Argyris' ethical and pragmatic
injunction, it finally dawned on me what I had to do, at least for the
special case of moving to Model II behavior. I was to exhibit Model
II behavior myself. That's all I could do, in both senses of the
word. If I had tried more, in the sense of mandating conformance, I
would have been doing less (by showing the rest that I didn't really
believe this stuff). And, exhibiting Model II behavior was
challenging enough, at least at times, so that it would have been
hubris to think I could have done more, were there more to do.
For 99% (?) of the cases we discover in organizations, I suspect that's an
important and not-well-understood (or at least -followed) lesson. How do
we when acting as managers "manage" the organization to produce certain
results without coercing people? Do we understand the ramifications of
trying to coerce people who are organizationally in our control? While I
can't guarantee from past experience that my experience as described above
carries over to arbitrary other domains, I think it does carry over into a
large number. It's back to the old aphorism, "The only person you can
change in this world is yourself."
Because this topic was initially about terrorism, a subject about which I
have less direct experience, I must say that I don't know for sure if
there is a nonlinearity that makes coercion necessary in extreme cases. I
suspect there is. For example, the result of staying in Model I behavior
is usually reversable -- there's a second chance. The result of people
being killed is not, at least in this existence. That's one reason why we
have police, for example -- to stop the immediate act of harming another
physically. I'm also mindful of a conclusion in the book Guns, Germs, and
Steel that, historically, the cultures which have survived have been those
which weren't unwilling to use force in certain situations (please correct
me if I got that wrong).
Even if that be true, I suspect we humans turn to physical coercion
between countries (and inside countries) much more often than necessary
for our own good, much as I suspect we turn to much less violent forms of
coercion inside organizations much more often than necessary for our own
good. I also suspect we have much to learn about how to move from such
coercion after the immediate need has past in ways that reduce the need
(or desire) for future coercion.
I'm being careful with my words here to try to avoid associating my
notions on coercion with particular political stances. That's not
because I may not have them, but because the essence of this
conversation is about the theory of making a difference. I suspect I
often make better ethical and pragmatic decisions when I think through
things carefully and then begin mixing in more challenging and
emotionally laden issues slowly, as one might add ingredients to a
recipe one is cooking.
Thanks, At.
Bill
-- Bill Harris 3217 102nd Place SE Facilitated Systems Everett, WA 98208 USA http://facilitatedsystems.com/ phone: +1 425 337-5541Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
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