[Dialogue] Guernica & Conversation Roots & Shoots

Thu May 3 08:44:32 PDT 2012

John,

Just for clarity, I think both ORID and Dialogue have valid functions to play, and I've seen the "art form" do the same as you describe, recently.  I would make the distinction this way in a very over-simplified nutshell.  ORID is conversation for the sake of teaching, led by a facilitator.  Dialogue is conversation for the sake of learning where everyone is a teacher (translate "learning facilitator") and everyone a learner, and in some of the better ones I've participated in there was no facilitator present or needed.

Nonetheless, I think we have to hear when some our colleagues when they say they find the ORID method "stifling."  I believe we have to pay closer attention to when we use ORID, the workshop method and all the other of our tools.  A while back I was with a participant in group trying to have a conversation for the sake learning, i.e. a dialogue.  Someone pulled out a set of worksheets for us to fill out and the conversation went south from there.  My point, good practical methods are only good when used in the appropriate setting.  Not every setting is appropriate for ORID, or for dialogue for that matter.

Again, I think we need to loosen up and not be such purists about the methods, ours or anyone elses.  I'm probably preaching here to myself more than anyone else.  The real key, as I said earlier, I don't believe we have to engineer outcomes.

Randy

"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires."
-Martin Buber (adapted)

________________________________
 From: "jlepps at pc.jaring.my" <jlepps at pc.jaring.my>
To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net> 
Sent: Thursday, May 3, 2012 10:21 AM
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Guernica & Conversation Roots & Shoots

Colleagues:

Since this stream has involved a bit of ORID-bashing (or de-sanctifying
if you prefer) I’d like to say a little on its behalf. 

O-R-I-D is simply the sequence in which the mind works. We perceive
something, we react to it, we make sense of it, and we act appropriately.
When a facilitator sequences conversation questions in that order, the
dialogue flows naturally. The “depth” to which it goes depends on the
subject and the group and, to some extent, the facilitator. 

We recently presented this “method” to a group of judges in Singapore and
invited them to try it with a scripted conversation at their 5 tables.
The topic was “mentors.” The bottom dropped out; All five table
conversations went deep, and awe filled the room. On reflection, the
people gathered said the reason it worked was the sequence of the
questions: they flowed naturally. Often that type conversation yields
pious or abstract characteristics of mentors; this one was specific and
based on experience of group members. As an outside observer during this
conversation, I thought it became a spirit conversation under the
category of meditation. 

ORID, though belonging to the ToP suite of methods, is not “ours” alone.
I attended a workshop at an IAF meeting in Germany in which the workshop
leader (from the UK) presented a conversation method entitled 4-F (facts,
feelings, findings, future). The leader had never heard of ORID. 

When you see what passes for group conversations in most situations,
having a sensible sequence that considers how the mind works is a major
step forward. How “deep” we let it go depends on how well thought-through
our questions are at the “I” and “D” levels – and what is our aim in
conducting the conversation in the first place. 

I look forward to your responses.

John Epps

At 05:06 AM 5/3/2012, you wrote:

Steve,
> 
>I revere the "art form" methodology as much as and appreciate
its contribution over the years to our "knowing." 
However, in more recent years I've arrived at a slightly evolved
understanding of knowing, having not so much to do with clarity,
awareness, consciousness and all of that as we used to define those
words.  For me knowing now has more to do with "metanoia,"
what the late Willis Harman called "mind change," which I take
to mean seeing the world differently to the extent that one revises ones
stories of reality and as a result, lives life differently.  The NT
translation of "metanoia" is "born again," and it can
occur again and again in the course of a lifetime.
> 
>To allow this to happen, I'm finding conversational approaches like
Bohmian (physicist David Bohm) dialogue to be more effective.  It is
much less structured than ORID, and therefore more open-ended and less
prescriptive about desired outcomes.  It is more of an art than an
art form.  The conclusions arrived at by the individual participants
are less important than the communal bonds established in the process,
built not on the basis of having arrived at a common mind (read
"consensus") regarding the subject at hand, but on the
foundation of discovered and acknowledged interdependence and shared
destiny, i.e., community.  ORID, which still has a valuable role to
play in our work, depends more on the discipline of the
facilitator.  "Dialogue" seems to me to depend more on the
discipline of the participants, with a skilled facilitator way over on
the side.
> 
>I think generally we ICA types need to loosen up a bit, occasionally put
away our work sheets with prescribed outcomes, and acknowledge that good
things can happen, and are happening, without our having to engineer
them--in the midst of which we can be participants with meaningful
contributions to make in our role as partners.  
> 
>Randy
> 
>"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in
the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it
desires."
>-Martin Buber (adapted)
>From: steve har <stevehar11201 at gmail.com>
>To: dialogue at wedgeblade.net 
>Sent: Tuesday, May 1, 2012 1:08 PM
>Subject: [Dialogue] Guernica & Conversation Roots &
Shoots
>
>
>Regarding Wayne's assertion: "The basic phenomonology of the
conversation method has not changed. It has always been oriented toward
the ontological. If it isn't, it is some other method - put it that
way."
>
>With respect, I'm afraid I disagree
with Wayne's assertion that the basic conversation method has changed.
What has changed is the the emphasis of the conversation. 
>
>In the Art Form method the conversation is "for" being. It is
ontological-existential and ethical. In the ORID format [as articulated
in ToP] the focus is knowing and sharing something inside the context of
a facilitator-client agreement with a particular group of participants.
the conversation is "for" knowing i.e epistemological.
>
>Brian Stanfield's wonderful book of Focused Conversations really
highlights this shift to the client-consultant workplace -which was a new
field of engagement in which to practice conversation making. 
>
>Reading Brian's workplace conversation models is like reading the music
scores for Bach's Well-tempered Clavier. Publishing those models really
did change the conversation focus in my view. Of course there is other
music to score and play besides Bach's and there are other conversations
to model besides conversations for knowing [epistemology].
>
> JWM's NRM monastic  distinctions are really
powerful:  Knowing | Being | Doing are actually phenomenological
distinctions for sorting out the internal and social experiences that
open up in conversations and dialogues. 
>
>A conversation "for Being"
[ontology]  is an entirely different score and it creates an
entirely different kind of conversational "music" that has a
much wider and deeper expression - like the original Guernica Art From
conversation did or like the Tombstone conversation did. In these
conversations, you get to declare something, you get to take a stand and
say what you value. The questions can reveal personal character, what was
lost, what was gained, who you are being in this moment as a human being.
The conversation can be profoundly existential i.e. ontological. It can
also contain varieties of ontological language like mythological and
religious expression.
>
>There are 2 wonderful "Tombstone Conversations" for being done
recently by Charlie Rose in commemorating the death of 
>http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12297 and Christa Tippitt
Contemplating Mortality 
>http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2012/contemplating-mortality/ 
>
>A conversation for Doing -using JWM's NRM phenomenology is Largely
unexplored in my opinion. John Epps wrote some brilliant and new Other
World in This World conversations in 1996 which I found in the 6th floor
Archives last summer. last summer we tried some over skype. Bruce Hanson
gave a wonderful talk using the other world charts and Hoksai's pictures
to describe an Appreciative Inquiry assignment at Hitachi Company on the
outskirts of Tokyo. He talked about himself as being a navigator on an
otherworld trek.
>
>In my view the Jenkins's book on the 9 disciplines is a clearheaded
translation of the old monastic categories. What remains is to see
clearly the Knowing Being and Doing phenomenology in practice and in
roles like the role of a facilitator and the new roles of pedagogue,
story maker, coach, navigator
>
>So in sum, the point wasn't to jump on Wayne's good thoughts. The point
is to make some new distinctions about conversations that freshen the
wind and hear new music...
>
>Steve 
>  
>
>
>
>
>-- 
>Steve Harrington
>
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>
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