a first step from Rome (long)

Thu Jun 13 04:40:23 PDT 2002

Harrison, Florian, Kenoli, Julie,Winston and all participants of
these emerging threads,
wb-trainconsult at gmx.net 13.06.2002 at 11:00:03 (GMT/UT + 02:00)
On Wed, 12 Jun 2002 07:57:34 -0400, Harrison Owen wrote:
If anything the conflict is magnified, but space is provided so that
the conflict, and the energy it contains, may become a positive
force.

I am mentally & emotionally chewing this sentence since days.
And read the emerging discussion with great interest.
It hits a central nerve of my professional & personal identity.

Given our limits (e.g.trans-language as Artur pointed out lately,
occidental convictions/paradigms) the discussion seems to be more
complicated than "the
point" itself, but we have to do ist, because it is difficult if not
impossible to learn from each other by not-saying/not-doing in an
electronic discussion.

So here follow fragments of my thinking:

It sounds crazy to logical thinkers, that "magnifying the conflict"
can help to promote peace, but that is exactly what I experienced in
conflict management
consultancy processes (if the level of mutual aggression is not too
high).

What Julie & Winston said about "being man-made" and "natural",
"being completely natural" and "starting".
This has to do with the definition of the limits of the system, with
the definition of "starting point" and "ending point". Gregory
Bateson made clear, that
these are human/social definitions and not "natural", the same is
true for the limits/boardes of social systems.
It is a question of interpunction.

Instead of starting an re-starting I think Lewins idea/concept/word
of "un-freezing" could be useful. Our social/human potential seems to
freeze during all
the organizational/societal attempts to make it manageable. Ice is
more solid than water than gas, but ...
Anyway: for me it is 'unfreezing our self-organization-potential',
what OST helps to do.

There exists a long discussion and history of misunderstandings in
social sciences about what we perceive as beeing (not) 'natural' . I
suppose, we
better use another term to express "what happens by itself and
without any particular expert's know how implemented" to overcome the
repetition of
arguments during the discussion.

For me: peace is a social process, not at all natural in the sense
that it would make sense to speak of peace in the absence of human
beings.

To Winstons question: Is OS therapy?
I think, we should very clearly seperate the social levels of
*individuum
*group
*organization
*society
(I completed your list, Artur ;-)

and then see, what words like "learning", "development", "therapy"
"conflict", "peace" mean at the different levels. Sometimes it is a
real and well defined
meaning, sometimes a diffuse idea, sometimes a metaphor (more or less
clear).

Individuals always learn, they even learn, not to learn, in contexts
where this is a good criteria of survival (eg. in the global
educational system). If their
context is violent and brutal, they tend to learn violence and
brutality as a survival technique, even if they start as dreamers and
lovers.
Learning is closely related to "development", but it is clearer,
that if you stop development, the process, you are killing the
system.
The idea of a 'safe container' for development is very important for
living/development processes. When I was confronted with that idea
for the first time
(in a book of Alberto Passo) I immedeately applied it in our
alternative school as a basic principle.   I am shure, we can learn a
lot from therapeuts, if it
stays clear, that we are NOT therapeuts. Take care: people buy, what
you offer!

This reminds me of the time, when I was a group dynamic trainer in
classical T-Group settings (following Lewins tradition) at Vienna
University/Dep.
Sociology.  At that time I was myself participating in various
therapies. The more I learned about therapeutic interventions, the
more and more "problem"
cases showed up in my T-group trainings: people had break downs,
people blackmailed the group and/or the trainer with suicide
threats... I had to learn,
that my "naive" speaking that I have "also some psycho-therapeutical
knowledge" at my inicial presentation was interpreted as a kind of
invitation: not to
behave in a responsible way.
So I think it is just the other way round:   I had to (and I am still
in the process) unlearn a lot of my knowledge of group dynamics and
other "facilitator
skills" to become a good OST-facilitator
Unlearning does not mean: "just forget about ist", but to transform
the knowledge, integrate/dissolve it into the whole person and then
step forward. What
I mean is: no! no special skills necessary, but yes! of course we
will be better prepared for OST &/in PEACE making
if we become wiser and emotionally better integrated (healed)
persons.
(Medical & Psycho-)Therapy is a profession, Healing is something we
all can do (co-healing our & other selves), even if we forgot that.

I like Florians metaphor of the railway switch for the effect of past
decisions for the future. And sometimes it may help to know, that we
are already on
the new track but without notizing the change. But I would be
careful, sometimes this metaphor may fortify fatalistic
interpretations of "beeing determined
by our past" which is only a part of the truth, in most facilitations
of visioning processes I experienced it was more important to
remember everybody, that
we can do DIFERENTLY in the future, if we start NOW.

And this may be the point to get access to the wisdom in the room.

I did not really understand, what Kenoli meant with redefining our
understanding of process. Perhaps it would help, if you explain,
which understanding
of "process" we should get rid of. I would also be interested in
clearing what we understand by the word 'process', because I
meanwhile use it a lot and
perhaps it is really time to re-think it. Only that "doing something
to someone" is certainly not my understanding of process.
My understanding is:
* When Lao Tse and Heraclitos said, that it is imposible to step two
times into the same river, they refer to the process aspect.
* When I look at indiv/groups/organizations/societies/ I can identify
structure>&<process as vital and inseparable aspects of these
systems. Structure is
solid. contains elements, subsystems, fixed relations; these are the
frozen aspects, which (seem to) make the system manageable. Process
is
everything which flows, happens. Process is fluid.

I think it is of special  importance for us "process consultants" and
"process facilitators" to understand the inseparability, the mutual
dependency and the
permanent & necessary contradiction between, i.e. the dialectical
nature of structure and process. But perhaps this is, what you are
targetting at, Kenoli.

I stop here, the email is already to long for pleasant reading.

Bernhard
-----
wb-trainconsult at gmx.net 13.06.2002 at 13:39:20 (GMT/UT + 02:00)
My anti-virus precautions:
1) attached to this e-mail : No file
2) All attached files are mentioned by name in the line above.Please
do not open any other attachment!
3) Please send text documents in RichTextFormat/*.rtf, if possible.
This also facilitates communication between the mac- and ms-world.

----
Bernd Weber
Organization Development Consultant

"DEVELOP YOUR CAPACITIES - MATERIALIZE YOUR VISION"

C.P. 1462, Beira, Sofala, MOZAMBIQUE
fone: +258-3-32 98 59, cellfone:+258-82-43 79 77

-----
WB-TrainConsult
management- & human resources
training, consulting & development
-----
Gumpendorfer Straße 88b/18, AT-1060 Wien, AUSTRIA
fone & fax: +431 596 86 57
-----
Inscricao no grupo de discussao "Sistemas organizacionais":
Escrever um email para o endereco <sis-org-subscribe at eGroups.com>

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu,
Visit:

http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html