Sunday, May 20, 2012
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So What Do We Do Now?

So What Do We Do?

So what do we do? The short answer is to learn our way forward. This clearly needs a little more explanation. The first thing is to take a perspective of the human being as a complex set of nested systems, each of which is logically different from the others, and yet each inter-operates with the others. Given that as a species we still are unable to define awareness, life, etc then what follows must be treated as a working proposition that needs continuously testing and mediating through your own experience. The first step is to take a reductionist view of the nested systems and examine three, namely:
  1. What we say
  2. How we feel
  3. What we do

Each of these is logically different from the other because:

  1. Is neurologically based
  2. Is neurotransmitter/hormone based
  3. Is motor based through our physical body

Each of these processes is linked to the others, and each has its own particular logic. So, if we wish to change, then we must examine the reasoning or design rules we use to implement our action choices. Given that these are defended and in the main we are unaware of our own defenses, then in our seminar we use the opportunity to learn through and from each other how these processes operate in each of us.

Over the years, it has become clear that whilst we have certain characteristics in common, we each have our own distinctive variations on the characteristic themes. For the seminar, we have therefore evolved a means of tracking the data that each of us generates that combines the structure of our common characteristics and our specific differences. In this way we seek to minimise the generalisations, categorisations and labelling that can occur and instead, co-create a valid, confirmable set of data within which a participant has a free and informed choice about their own learning and development. We have found Double Loop Learning skills to be invaluable for leadership, teamwork, coaching and as a platform for change. Many of our consulting assignments would have been less successful (in our opinion) without the ability to surface reasoning, interpersonal strategies and behaviour to non-defensive discussability, where the need for change was clear. In this way change is learning and implementing, not just into the self but also as a set of value directed behaviours designed to contribute to the effectiveness and quality of work life for all involved. This reveals the primary learning objectives of our seminar as:

  1. Raising awareness of how our own defenses and defensiveness activates and contributes to the very difficulty that we blame others for (thereby contributing to organisational defenses)
  2. Becoming aware of how quickly and easily they are deployed, even below our own threshold of awareness, and how quickly we can blame others for them
  3. Changing our skill sets so that we can interact with others to:
  • Develop commitment to choices and decisions based on confirmable data
  • Combine speaking and listening to promote inquiry and public testing of issues in which defensive reactions become part of the data
  • Reduce the errors and misunderstandings caused by unsurfaced/unresolved issues
  • Continuously use feedback to raise awareness of our design rules and the behaviour that flows from them.

Creating a safe and comfortable learning environment, in which we are resources for each other to learn and grow is the tangible expression of DLL skills within the seminar. It also gives participants an experience of high performance team work found to be so useful when facing the complexity and ambiguity of modern business challenges.