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“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

Category: Nature of Conversation

Changing the Nature of Conversation (2)

George

In a recent post I wrote about questions and how, in our conversations, they impact community. It was stated that the traditional questions that permeate conversation regarding organizational issues, have no power to change the future, to make a difference. I recognize that truth in my own experience. In my corporate days, I sat in many meetings where the traditional questions dominated. They would create a frenzy of helplessness and hopelessness. On more than one occasion, I was compelled to comment to the participants that it was apparent that there was nothing that could be done and the company would be best served by us committing an honorable suicide. We didn’t and nothing changed. Sadly the process was repeated over and over. There was no enlightened leadership that understood the nature of great questions to lead us out of our squirrel cage existence.
The referenced booklet describes the nature of powerful questions.  

It is the questions that change our life. We all look for answers and all we get in response is more questions. This is why questions confront in ways that statements and answers don’t. And why questions are essential for the restoration of community.

Elements of a Great Question

  • It is ambiguous
  • It is personal
  • It evokes anxiety and accountability

Each time a small group takes up a question, set it up by explaining why the question is important and then telling people not to be helpful. Trying to be helpful and giving advice are really ways to control others. Advice is a conversation stopper. We want to substitute curiosity for advice or a call to action. Urge participants to ask others why does that mean so much to you? If we quickly move to action, then tomorrow will be just like yesterday.

The Questions

There are five language actions which, when taken in the presence of others, create community and shift the public debate. These are:

  • To declare a possibility
  • To take ownership — I created the world I live in
  • To say no authentically
  • To make a promise with no expectation of return
  • To declare the gifts we and others bring to the room

Each of the conversations is created through its own set of questions. Whatever the venue, accountable community is created when we ask certain questions.

Here is a summary of the core question associated with each language action:

1. To what extent are you here by choice? (Invitation)

2. What declarations are you prepared to make about the possibilities for the future? (Possibilities)

3. How invested and participative do you plan to be in this meeting? (Ownership)

4. To what extent do you see yourself as part of the cause of what you are trying to fix? (Ownership)

5. What are your doubts and reservations? (Dissent)

6. What promises are you willing to make to your peers? (Commitment)

7. What gifts have you received from each other? (Gifts)

Changing the Nature of the Conversation

George 1 Comment

Recently Wade Hodges’s blog linked to a booklet entitled Civic Engagement and the Restoration of Community: Changing the Nature of Conversation. It is authored by Peter Block and others. The purpose of the material is to present a set of ideas and tools designed to restore and reconcile community by shifting the nature of public conversation.  Although the subject put me off a bit, as I read through the material I found the information and ideas compelling. I believe the nature of our conversations can be a reliable barometer of the depth and meaning of our relationships as well as a powerful force in building and sustaining community. What follows is my interpretation/re-statement/paraphrase of some of the concepts and principles in the booklet.

Language has power. How we speak to each other is the medium through which a more positive future is created or denied. As we engage in conversation the questions we ask and the speaking that they evoke constitute powerful action. The questions we ask will either maintain the status quo or bring an alternative future into the room. There are traditional questions which have little power to to create a future different from the present. These questions are, in the asking, the very obstacle to what has given rise to the question in the first place. For example, these questions seem to be universal to conversations about organizational issues:

How do we hold people accountable?
How do we get people to show up and be committed?
How do we get others to be more responsible?
How do we get people on-board and to do the right thing?
How do we get others to buy into our vision?
How do we get these people to change?
How much does it cost and where do we get the money?
How do we negotiate for something better?
What new policy or legislation will more our interests forward?
Where is it working? Who has solved this elsewhere and how do we import the knowledge?

In answering these questions we support the dominant belief that a different future can be negotiated, mandated, and controlled into existence. They call us to try harder at what we have been doing. They urge us to raise standards, measure more closely, and return to the basics, purportedly to create accountability, but in reality maintain dominance. These questions are wrong, not because they don’t matter, but because they have no power to make a difference in the world. These questions are the cause of the very thing that we are trying to change: fragmented and unproductive communities.

More to come.