Thanks, Randy: Yes, I've also seen so-called ORID conversations led in such a way that was stifling, mechanical, insensitive, offensive, and generally ineffective. A lot depends on the facilitator who as Larry says, needs to be a good listener and adapt the prepared questions to the group and to the responses that come. Loosening up is a good image. Fortunately ORID can be used loosely! :-) Now about teaching: I don't think that aptly describes the function of ORID, though it can certainly be used as a teaching tool. We certainly were not "teaching" with Guernica, unless you mean something different by "teaching." Say more about that, please. John At 09:44 AM 5/3/2012, you wrote:

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@pc.jaring.my" <jlepps@pc.jaring.my> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@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 conversaation 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@gmail.com> To: dialogue@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>http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12297 and Christa Tippitt Contemplating Mortality <http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2012/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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