Rick, I appreciated your note about effective conversational practice. As
someone who's been on and off bazillions of discussion lists, I don't mind
saying that this one is terribly well managed and even at its worst the
conversation here is better than most.
[Host's Note: Thanks, John. I hope my moderating actions are helpful, but
if this list is better than most, the credit goes to all of you who are
providing our stimulating content. Thanks! ...Rick]
Rick asks:
>What, in your view, would contribute to effective conversational practice
>in this medium? Or, in conventional settings?
This is certainly a key question for organizational learning and one
that's on my mind as I prepare to kick off the Internet discussion part of
the LO Implementation Forum that my partners and I are currently hosting
(see LO8362).
My own perspective, which may be inaccurate or incomplete, is that we need
to step back a little and look at how thinking informs whatever
conversational practice we have either on or off the list. In my own case
-- and I believe this may be true for others -- I knew and practiced
active listening, "I statements," and other good conversational techniques
for years before I really came to grips with the relationship of thinking,
speaking and listening. I have found that the greatest payoff comes not
from following this or that protocol but from examining my own thinking
processes and how they get expressed in conversation. Then protocols can
become useful as ways of structuring the expression of an authentic change
that's already been internalized.
I start with the observations that (1) all our thinking processes are
inferential in the sense that they are ways of making meaning out of
incomplete observations and prior inferences stored as "beliefs,"
"values," "intuitions," "rules of thumb", etc. and (2) these inferential
meanings are very often inaccurate and incomplete. Nevertheless, we
naturally tend to experience them as accurate, factual, "the way it really
is". (This is the way human minds work, not a flaw of character.)
>From the meanings we make, we form our intent and shape our actions
(including what we say in conversation on and off the Internet). In a
perfect world, we would always be able to observe the consequences of our
actions. We would therefore always be engaged in pragmatic tests of the
meanings that we had made. We would reach more accurate interpretations
and change our behaviors accordingly. I.e., we would learn. (This is
basically the view of learning associated with John Dewey, C. S. Peirce
and others.)
However, in the real world of human interaction there are many ways that
this familiar learning process can (and does) get off track. For one
thing, if I experience my thinking about your actions as accurate, why
would I test it with you? For another, many of the important consequences
of the way I interact with you are *not* readily apparent to me. They may
be be known only to you, and for many good reasons you may (knowingly or
unknowingly) be exercising considerable skill, learned from decades of
cultural and professional training and constant practice, keeping your
true thoughts and reactions to yourself. And if you're experiencing your
thinking about my intent as accurate, why would you test it with me?
Because the tacitness of our thinking is itself tacit for us most of the
time, it becomes an "undiscussable" barrier to our collaboration and
learning.
To tie this back to the original question about protocols for
conversational effectiveness, let me illustrate (and this hypothetical
illustration does *NOT* represent my real thinking about lurkers).
Suppose someone skillfully uses a good conversational protocol:
When people lurk on the list, I think they're probably
just hanging out to see what good ideas they can steal
and represent as their own in some other context. When
I think people are stealing from me, I get angry and
scared. Then I simultaneously flame them and withhold
from the list what I think are my most creative ideas.
Great! Now we all know what's going on for that person. But does this
make the conversation better? Not if that person doesn't see the
inferences as inferences, isn't willing to test them, and continues to
hold them as accurate. Moreover, without that openness to learning and
inquiry, any counterexamples, disconfirming data, and reasoned argument
may be interpreted inside the frame "lurkers = thieves = deceivers" and
even seen as confirming the original inference. Indeed, you can almost
hear the next sentence in the paragraph:
... withhold from the list what I think are my most creative
ideas. Therefore, having lurkers around is clearly shutting
down the group's learning and we should get rid of them.
Using the protocol, the person has put out some pretty heavy stuff, and it
would be hard for us not to respond. But the responses may only fuel
frustration and flaming if the they are not heard.
So the point I'm trying to make is that protocols are fine as far as they
go, but we need more than protocols. What we really need, IMHO, is to
develop a stance toward our own thinking and the thinking of others that
acknowledges, without judgement, its inherent incompleteness and frequent
inaccuracy. Then we need functional tools that allow us to test our own
thinking and tools that allow us to productively inquire into the thinking
of others. Because the consequences of my interaction with you may not be
visible to me and vice versa, and because our most profound areas for
learning may be "difficult to discuss or undiscussable," we need other
tools that allow us to productively expand what we can safely discuss with
each other. Once we had such tools for learning and could use them to
create deep understanding, we would also need a reliable way of (1)
collaboratively designing a new set of shared meanings, intentions and
behaviors, (2) assuring that we actually incorporate them into future
interactions and (3) concretely measuring their actual impact and
effectiveness over time. Finally, all of these tools would need to be
integrated, usable in daily practice, and used inside a continuous
improvement or "quality assurance" loop that allows us to uncover and
remedy gaps in their design and use. Most importantly all the tools need
to be used and solutions tested in a context that allows us to access what
is difficult to discuss or undiscussable -- otherwise we'll still be
seeing only the tip of the iceberg of what's going on, and if we produce
unintended consequences we will probably not detect them.
I won't take credit for this analyis, for it is, in fact, a thumbnail
sketch of the major design objectives of the set of organizational
learning tools called Collaborative Action Technology. These design
objectives and the tools themselves have evolved from over a decade of
ongoing action research in organizations -- collaboratively designing and
testing in action what it takes to maximize learning, business value and
human dignity.
Although I can't go into great detail now, I can offer a couple of
"conversational effectiveness" suggestions. First, as I was saying, we
can learn to acknowledge the potential inaccuracy and incompleteness of
our thinking -- even though we may be putting it out quite passionately.
I can take a lot of heat from you if I know you are ultimately open to the
possibility that things could be different than how you currently see
them. And if I am similarly open, I can have my reaction to your passion,
recognize that reaction for the inference it is and test it. Second, we
can recognize that we all have the absolute right to keep private what
we're really thinking and feeling in a conversation without being
negatively judged for doing so; and that we all have the absolute right to
decline hearing what others are thinking and feeling. Explicit
acknowledgement of these very real personal boundaries does wonders for
actually making them less rigid and more expansive.
Rick also wrote:
>... Here on the net we miss all the non-verbals, and miss the
>context cues, so we need to be aware of the impacts.
I think this is true as stated, but I have to add that, from my
perspective, having the non-verbals is not all it's cracked up to be
unless we have the outlook and the checking tools I was referring to
earlier. Interpretations of body language are also inferential, and, to
use Argyris's phrase, much of the "skilled incompetence" we all have in
communication comes from untested inference about non-verbals. I have to
admit that when I hear the oft-quoted "70% of communication is in body
language" I inwardly translate that to "70% of untested inferences about
communication pertain to body language." (If this message weren't already
too long, I could give you some pretty amusing illustrations from our
fieldwork.) Moreover, as far as I can tell, the human tendency is to think
that if one's inference about someone's body language aligns with one's
inference about their words, then it *really* must be true.
Rick also wrote, in reference to one of our functional tools:
>A close relative is "precise checking" recommended, as I understand it, by
>Collaborative Action Associates whose principals studied with Chris
>Argyris.
Rick, I'm pleased you'd think of recommending one of our tools for use on
the LO list. However, I do have a caveat. The tool you mentioned is a
powerful tool when it's properly used, but it's incomplete without the
other tools I alluded to above. In some cases, using it in isolation can
produce ineffectiveness rather than effectiveness in conversation. For
example, based on our best data, using it in isolation will probably
backfire in a heated discussion or with issues that are difficult to
discuss.
Two minor corrections. Only one of our principals, Gary Lospaluto,
studied and worked with Chris Argyris. The current version of the tool
you mentioned is called First Party Checking (because it's a way of
checking directly with the party about whom you hold an inference, instead
of the unfortunately more common practices of not checking at all or going
to a third party to see if they agree with your inference about the first
party).
Finally, thanks again, Rick, for your diligence in keeping this list on
track.
John Snyder
Collaborative Action Associates "The end of all thought
Round Rock, TX must be action."
jsnyder@pobox.com - Aldous Huxley
(512) 218-4870 phone
(512) 255-0606 fax
--jsnyder@bga.com (John R. Snyder)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>