Bully conversation --

This is one place I find our listservs serve us well.  I watch for the next header to pop up with another thoughtful contribution to the thread.

I can't get into this one without it triggering old memories and stories.  Those of us who have used and taught our methods over the years have probably not only seen most of their possible bungled applications--we've probably made most of them ourselves.  There are so many aspects to leading or facilitating any of these that we pretty quickly learn none of them can be reduced to just a set of steps or procedures which, once learned, assure future success.  Trust the method, to be sure; then mix in all those learnings about yourself, those you work with and life itself that really make that method work.

I still have vivid memories of the first time I was assigned to lead the conversation method in a live RS-1.   It was with a large group in Room A, West Side, latter 60s, and I'd been given the Freedom Conversation ("Who'd be willing to take George to the airport?").  Amazingly to me, it wasn't going nearly as well as I recalled it had in my own RS-1.  As I was struggling to stay afloat, Slicker edged in to help redirect things so that the group could genuinely wrestle with the issues being raised.  I felt like a flaming failure--then came to treasure it as one of my great learning moments.

A story that bears on what we've been talking about is of Joe's take on the conversation method.  It was in a pedagogy guild; he was leading it, and we were on the movie conversation.  I recall one of the staff asking him something like, "Joe, how do we make sure in this conversation that people get it about Miss Miller?" 

Joe's response was abrupt and unequivocal: "That's not your job!  You're not out here to teach anyone anything.  Teaching happens in the seminars, not in the conversations.  Your job, what this conversation method does, is to see that people seriously confront the life questions that this movie raises.  That  they authentically confront them is your concern; what they decide about them is not."

He paused, then added: "Now, if six months or six years later, someone who was in this conversation should be sitting on the crapper--and all of sudden--jump up and shout, 'MISS MILLER WAS A SHITASS!'--well, that would be great.  But that's not your job, not the job of the conversation, to make that happen."

Joe had his ways to make his points stick with you.

When I teach the Focused Conversation method or ORID these days, I tell people that it can be--often is--used in teaching; and that it can be--indeed, often is--used to help a group reach some level of agreement or consensus; but that its real job is to help the group to have the serious conversation it needs to have.

Gordon


On 5/3/2012 2:55 PM, Wilson Priscilla wrote:
You can read about a wide variety of leadership roles and skills in The Facilitative Way. The premise of the book is that everyone in the "group" is called to be a leader...assume responsibility for what is happening.

I happen to recommend the book...which is now available again after being out of print for a year.
Anyone interested can let me know and I'll give you a Discount code to purchase it for $6.95.

I'm enjoying all the variety of methods conversations...
Priscilla Wilson

On May 3, 2012, at 4:43 PM, steve har wrote:

To my taste nurturing roots and growing new shoots is actually a
timely task in the face of a 50 year vision.

Nurturing roots and shoots for ways of leading in complex situations
is a good thing.

Debating the reliability of ORID with facilitators is like listening
to a group of carpenters argue about whether hammers put nails in
boards.

Studying Brian's new version of Chapter 10 would be delightful,
especially online with generous hearts and open inquiry

What new shoots for 50 years?

Building a house with only a carpenter and a hammer seems silly.
Plumbers and Roofers would be good.

Bending history with only a facilitator role and an ORID conversation
seems daunting as well.

I'm thinking more roles, conversations and tools are needed:
Facilitators facilitate knowing
Pedagogues and Story-Makers grant being
Navigators, Coaches, Mentors cause  action outcomes

Mathews's NRM and Jenkins's 9D book don't only belong to facilitators.
Might be a good point of departure for some new thinking.

Did you read Kaze Gadway's post this morning? She's hard at work in
the Being-Doing mode. She is mentoring those indian kids on behalf of
the next generation. She's granting new being side by side with those
kids. There is no facilitation in sight.

Not everyone needs to think, be, do it al, all the time either. Seems
like it is a time for more appreciative inquiry and more innovations
not less.

--re presuppositions--

The assertion that ORID is THE way the mind thinks doesn't pass the
"no-smiling allowed" test in Buddhist circles. It would be a topic for
generous respectful inquiry, maybe a testable hypothesis.

Heidegger asserted that most people don't actually know much about
hammering, especially carpenters,  they are just being in the world
hammering. Not too much reflection goes on until the hammer hits the
thumb for most carpenters. Kind of sets those Cartesian abstractionist
back a step or two.

Carpenters have skillful means they don't need to do an ORID they just
have the experience of hammering skillfully. Some people focus on
knowing, some on doing, some on doing.

I assert that the world needs more leadership roles, and facilitators
have great skill set. It isn't the only leadership skill set.

Mathews had a fine insight when he separated out the phenomena of
knowing being and doing. What new leadership roles and conversations
and skillful means?

What happens when you take up a practice like facilitating, teaching,
coaching, mentoring, story-making skill sets? You practice being
skillful until you get it right and you get it automatic.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_model_of_skill_acquisition

If you plot leadership roles on Mathews's NRM triangle as updated by
the Jenkins it might look like this
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DlNTut28MXqLnv-_Xd2yPoHONBHlOAJLC8AmwL_O2B8/edit

Seems like some new skill sets might evolve too.

What do you think?

Steve
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Priscilla H Wilson
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