A Useful Perspective on Meetings
by Tom Atlee
Founder And Co-Director of the Co-Intelligence Institute
Thanks to Rosa Zubizarreta for nudging me to read this material. I had set it aside for later due to its length. Now I get to play Rosa's role, urging you to not set it aside for too long. Below, I've first provided a summary of Richard's ideas on this. It contains a few quotes from him, but most of it is my sense of the three categories of meeting dynamics he articulates. So the summary is a mixture of his words and ideas, and mine. After the summary you'll find the extended excerpts from his full essay -- as well as a URL taking you to the original essay -- which can give you a fuller picture of his views, if you want to delve deeper.
There is a lot to think about here -- in terms of how we function in meetings, how we function in society, and how societies function in the world. Richard also challenges us to think about what we can do about all that.
Coheartedly,
Tom
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SUMMARY
Dialog and Transformation
"Dialog is the means by which people express who they are. It is the means by which they become 'present' in the group. By 'listening to people', rather than 'hearing ideas', we allow a shared space of openness and trust to emerge. As people express their concerns, in an atmosphere of respectful listening, the space expands and everyone's presence expands. The group becomes a 'We' rather than just a cluster of individuals. Not a manufactured, compromise We, where diversity is submerged, but an empowered, alive We, where diversity is embraced -- all of it adding to the collective experience and insight of the group. In this space, diversity brings synergy rather than conflict."
Meeting dynamics
Meeting dynamics can be adversarial, collaborative or harmonizing. Processes exist that support all these modes, but most people are only aware of the first one or two.
Participants at adversarial meetings come with agendas that were set elsewhere among their own kind. They seek to prevail over their opponents through argument, power plays and/or majority vote. They focus on narrowly defined issues and interests, on exercising power and on framing the pros and cons of proposals to support their side; all else is a distraction. Maintaining a positional stance, they debate from fixed perspectives and muster and negotiate power, listening only to better counter their opponents. They highlight differences for power advantage, but may compromise on some issues in order to win on others. They leave with their views and feelings intact, now colored by the experience of victory or defeat.
People at collaborative meetings seek to deal with shared problems by finding solutions that most all of them can work with. They focus on clarifying and working through issues related to the narrowly defined problem at hand; all else, including various deeper issues, are usually seen as distractions. They listen to each other in a friendly, respectful way in order to learn what's needed to craft a consensus solution, often modifying their views (or at least their stances) in response to good arguments or obvious needs. They suppress their differences in deference to their shared search for common ground and to sustain relationships they may need for implementation and future work together.
People at harmonizing meetings share concerns, ideas, information, emotions and personal stories as part of a collective discovery process, starting from some shared concern or topic. They speak and listen to each other as whole, complex human beings, in order to better understand each other and the situation or topic they share, and to build and sustain a deep connection. They often undergo a transformation in their views, feelings and/or relationships with other participants. They explore differences -- and anything else that comes up -- as a resource for understanding. As understanding increases, differences often resolve and powerful synergistic solutions emerge -- sometimes through caring creativity and sometimes through a sudden breakthrough. The harmonization process of collective inquiry, understanding and creativity can evolve into a highly coherent, diversity-rich, empowered collective identity (e.g., We the People).
These types of meetings are actually types of meeting dynamics. In any given meeting we may see more than one of these dynamics at work.
Positive Social Change
In a culture where the only approaches supported are adversarial and collaborative, positive change agents must use those kinds of dynamics and meetings. In that context, the only time we meet the "other side" is in an adversarial setting, and the only time we experience collaboration is with like-minded souls, suppressing our differences. Since we have limited opportunity to weave a broader community for the common good across the divides -- a true We the People -- we increasingly use collaboration only to prepare our side for adversarial engagements in which the power arrangements are usually stacked against us and we are always prone to factionalism. (As they say in the gambling world, "The house always wins.")
" Collaborative meetings provide a space in which factions can rally together and plan their strategies. Adversarial meetings provide a space in which factions can compete for dominance. Harmonization-based meetings provide a space which may enable us to do away with factional divisiveness altogether." Change agents can explore the possibility that harmonization can enable us -- as groups, whole communities and societies -- to dissolve barriers to change, including our own.
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Slightly edited excerpts from http://www.cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?id='845'&lists='cj'
HARMONIZATION IN THE MICROCOSM
by Richard K. Moore
Meetings are the place where people generally make joint plans and reach group decisions. Some of these meetings are collaborative, and some are adversarial.
A typical example of a collaborative meeting would be a neighborhood gathering where the parents would like to see a crossing guard assigned to a dangerous local intersection. The people have a common goal, and they work together cooperatively to achieve it. People offer suggestions for actions which can be taken, the suggestions are discussed, and people volunteer to help with the actions that are agreed to. If the meeting is successful, everyone comes away better off -- the concept of winners and losers is irrelevant to a collaborative meeting.
A typical example of an adversarial meeting would be a city council session where a controversial development project is being discussed. The developers and business community are showing slides of beautiful landscaped buildings and talking of new jobs, while neighborhood protestors are complaining about increased traffic and the loss of a children's playground. The typical outcome of such a meeting is that one side wins and the other loses. Either the development project goes ahead, and the neighborhood suffers, or else the project is rejected and the investors may suffer considerable losses.
It is very unusual for anything creative to happen at an adversarial meeting. People, or factions, come in with agendas to promote -- agendas that were created somewhere else. If the meeting is unable to resolve an issue, it is typically deferred -- and people are expected to go off somewhere else and create revised proposals. The 'somewhere else' -- where the creative activity of planning occurs -- is generally a meeting of the collaborative variety. In our city council example, the developers and promoters have been meeting collaboratively for months preparing their project plans and their city-council presentation. Similarly, the neighborhood protestors have held collaborative meetings to assess their feelings and to decide how best to express their concerns to the city council. The adversarial meeting -- the official 'decision making' meeting -- is not a discussion session, but is rather a battle of strength between the two opposing sides: Which side can muster the most support among the city council members? Which side can spout the most convincing rhetoric, painting its own proposals in the colors of the common good?
Parliamentary sessions in liberal 'democracies' are based on the adversarial meeting model. A chairman governs the proceedings, proposals can be introduced, time is allowed for debate, and a majority vote decides each question. The 'debate' is typically rhetorical, for public consumption, and seldom affects the outcome of the vote. This is not a system designed to solve problems nor to encourage useful discussion -- it is a system designed to efficiently measure the relative power of opposing factions, and to promptly assign the rewards to the strongest. Just as the floor of the stock market is designed to efficiently manage the investment transactions of the wealthy elite, so is the floor of the parliament designed to efficiently referee power transactions among elite factions.
A collaborative meeting operates according to collaborative dynamics, and an adversarial meeting operates according to adversarial dynamics. Collaborative dynamics are about people seeking common ground, identifying common problems, and working creatively together to find mutually beneficial solutions. Within collaborative dynamics people have an incentive to listen to one another's perspectives, and in the problem-solving process the group typically converges toward a consensus perspective on the problems at hand.
Adversarial dynamics are about people debating from their fixed perspectives in an attempt to prevail over the other side. There is little incentive to listen to the other side, apart from looking for weaknesses that can be exploited. Each side may attempt to shift the perspective of the other side, but neither side has any intention of shifting its own perspective. Whereas people learn useful things about their shared problems within collaborative dynamics, the only thing learned within adversarial dynamics is how to better combat the other side. Collaborative dynamics tend to resolve group factionalism when it arises, while adversarial dynamics tend to reinforce and encourage group factionalism.
* A gap in our cultural repertoire
These two meeting models are very common in our society, and indeed they are more or less the extent of our cultural repertoire. We know how to get together with our allies and make plans to promote our shared interests, and we know how to fight for our side in an adversarial gathering, according to whatever rules are in play. What we don't know much about, and don't have many cultural models for, is how to resolve differences within a group of people. We don't know how to engage in productive dialog within a group of people who express conflicting interests.
In an adversarial meeting the differences are accepted as a given, as a fixed quantity, and the business of the meeting is to enable the different factions to battle it out until a winner can be chosen. There is no attempt to resolve the differences: people go away with their perspectives unchanged, and the same factions retire to prepare for their next engagement.
When people come into a collaborative meeting, they come in with the knowledge that they are bound by common interests to the other participants. Indeed, the people come together in order to collaborate in advancing those common interests. In order to 'get on with it' and 'make progress', participants tend to avoid bringing up internal differences in such meetings. At such a meeting a 'good leader' will be skillful at defusing differences, articulating compromises, and keeping the meeting 'on track'. Minority factions within the group are encouraged to stifle their 'divisive' concerns, and join the majority in a 'consensus' that will advance the identified common interests of the group. And in the competition between different factions, success tends to go to those who are best able to submerge their internal differences, focus on their primary interests, and adopt decisive action plans.
Under neither dynamics is there an attempt to engage in constructive dialog regarding the differences in the group. Under adversarial dynamics there is dialog over differences -- but it is the dialog of power, expressed in the language of influence and votes. Under collaborative dynamics, discussion of differences is avoided, so that the group can focus on their identified common interests and get on with their primary business. In the one case differences are expressed competitively and are reinforced, and in the other case differences are suppressed. In neither case are differences resolved.
This gap in our cultural repertoire creates a problem for popular initiatives, particularly in a society which is already split by factionalism. Indeed, the gap can lead to difficulties whenever people attempt to work together. Here's an example I observed on a recent visit to the San Francisco Bay Area. The population there is relatively progressive, and there is widespread support for an increased focus on public transport. But instead of people getting together and coming up with a common proposal, people soon divided themselves into two camps. One camp wanted to expand the conventional rail network, while another wanted to expand the rapid-transit system. Most of the available activist energy was then devoted to a struggle between these two camps.
As I read over the positions of the two camps, as an outside observer, it seemed obvious to me that the best of the ideas could be usefully combined into a cost-effective hybrid proposal. The real solution, it seemed, would be to make strategic interconnecting links, and coordinate upgrades, among available transport systems -- rather than promoting one kind of transport to the exclusion of another. Of course my own arm-chair proposal probably didn't take everything into account, but the main point remains: the two camps were fighting over their differences rather than trying to resolve them -- and missed any opportunity to find synergy in some creative middle ground. The collaborative meeting model could not serve the two camps, because neither side was willing to stifle its ideas -- so the activists adopted the only other available cultural model: adversarial engagement. As a consequence of this split in popular activism, the transport planning decisions will most likely be made by speculative developers and their politician cronies, and whatever they decide they will be able to claim their decision has 'public support'.
Most of us consider public meetings to be a waste of time, particularly when they attempt to deal with issues that are complex or controversial. This is because we have prior experience with the dynamics that are likely to occur. First there will be an attempt to reach a rapid consensus, most likely proposed by those calling the meeting. Then someone in the back stands up and disagrees, voicing some objection. That sparks other suggestions and objections. The meeting threatens to 'get out of control' -- to revert to adversarial dynamics. The organizers attempt to bring the dynamics back into collaboration. If they succeed, then some of the participants go away feeling their interests have been betrayed; if they fail, then everyone goes away with the feeling that yet another meeting has been a waste of time.
Because of these circumstances, anyone with a motivation to pursue political activism soon learns to flock with birds of the same feather. Environmentalists flock under a green banner, animal rights activists follow their drummer, other groups rally around their opposition to corporate power, or their stance in favor of or against abortion rights, etc. In order to get anything done, collaborative dynamics are required, and gathering together in interest groups seems to be the natural thing to do. Those gathering together already agree on what's important, and they are thus able -- depending on their organizational ability -- to get on with a program, rather than 'wasting time' debating the priority of different issues. In this way the energy of popular initiatives gets sucked into the game of adversarial factionalism -- a game whose rules are set down by elites for their own advantage. Just as in Las Vegas or Wall Street, this is a game where the house always wins in the end.
If we want to overcome factionalism at the macro level, at the level of society, we must first learn how to overcome differences at the micro level, down in the grassroots where people meet face to face. We need to extend our cultural repertoire to include gatherings of a third kind, where people neither compete to win or lose, nor submerge their differences in order to reach a shallow consensus. We need a third dynamics, a dynamics of harmonization, a dynamics that encourages us to express our concerns fully, and which enables us to work creatively with that information to find ways forward that benefit everyone involved. If our cultural repertoire can be extended in this way, at the micro level, then we may find that there are new ways of working together on a larger scale as well -- ways that avoid the quicksand of adversarial politics.
* The dynamics of harmonization
Although harmonization dynamics is not part of our mainstream culture, it is a well-developed part of certain sub-cultures. In particular, if we look at the management-consultant and meeting-facilitation communities, we find that harmonization (under various names) is a rapidly expanding domain of knowledge and practice. In the pursuit of greater efficiency and competitiveness, corporations want their internal teams to work more effectively together -- and this has spawned a whole industry of consultants and facilitators. As a consequence the state-of-the-art of facilitation has progressed along many lines, and some of those lines have produced very promising results as regards harmonization. Indeed, there are several proven facilitation methodologies (e.g., Dynamic Facilitation
These facilitation techniques have proven to be successful in socially-oriented contexts as well, enabling groups to transcend their differences, discover their underlying common ground, and come up with creative, breakthrough solutions to difficult problems and seemingly intractable conflicts. Furthermore, people who participate in such sessions often report that they find the experience to be personally transforming.
This kind of facilitation is not about a leader guiding the group through an agenda or a problem-solving system. The main job of the facilitator, in achieving harmonization, is to enable the participants to learn how to listen to one another. That turns out to be the key to harmonization -- really listening. Listening without thinking about a counter-argument at the same time. Listening without judging and dismissing. And beyond that, listening with the respect that every person deserves and that we ourselves would hope to receive when we speak.
Our culture doesn't give us much experience with this kind of patient and respectful listening. Typically in social conversations we are thinking about what we're going to say next instead of really listening. In adversarial meetings we listen in order to retort, and in collaborative meetings we are only interested in hearing things that move the agenda forward. It never seems like a good use of our time to pause and really listen to what everyone has to say, even those we might consider to be divisive or uninformed. But such listening is possible, we can all do it if we have a bit of support, and when it occurs amazing things happen.
My own introduction to harmonization dynamics came in a roundabout way. I had organized a gathering in Berkeley of about a dozen progressive activists and thinkers. My intention was to explore with the group certain ideas that I had been developing. I had learned about consensus decision making and was convinced that the key to an effective movement could be found in consensus. If we could agree on a vision for a new kind of society, and if we could agree that radical change was necessary, then we could reach a consensus that might become the basis of a radical popular movement. Since we all shared progressive views, I figured we should be able to avoid divisiveness, and consensus would be achievable. I prepared a discussion agenda and my intention was to lead a discussion based on the agenda, the last item of which was to document whatever consensus we had reached.
For a while the meeting seemed to be going 'on track'. We got through a good portion of the agenda and wrote down many points of agreement on several flip charts. And then someone spoke up and complained about the agenda. He had other things in mind he wanted to talk about. I considered this to be a divisive interruption of our process, and a threat to the 'progress' we were making in our 'limited time'. I tried to get the discussion back 'on track', but he persisted in his objections. At that point, feeling frustrated and 'threatened', I totally lost awareness and told the fellow he should go off and organize his own meeting(!) I'm sure you can imagine how my rude outburst affected the tone of the gathering. Any momentum we had achieved suddenly evaporated. There was a seemingly endless moment of embarrassing silence. I wished I were somewhere else, as I was expecting some measure of deserved ridicule from the group.
But something else happened instead, something that transformed the gathering and created a space that I hadn't visited before -- the space of real dialog. A woman spoke up and asked if I'd mind if she tried a bit of facilitation. Relieved to see the focus of attention shift away from myself, I readily agreed to her offer, not knowing what 'facilitation' was or how it could help. What she did was very simple. She asked the other fellow what he was expecting from the meeting and then she asked me the same thing. His answer was basically a repetition of what he had said before, but somehow I could now hear it as a sensible concern rather than as a disruption. When it came my turn to answer I felt like I was making a public 'confession'. I was opening myself up to a kind of vulnerability I wasn't accustomed to -- the vulnerability of being really 'present' and 'exposed'. As other participants shared their thoughts about the session, that's when I realized that our exchange was now taking place in a different space than before. It was a space occupied by people, rather than by ideas, 'discussion', flip charts, and 'progress'.
I had always thought of dialog as being primarily a logical interaction among ideas, as in the pages of a scientific journal. In this new space I realized that dialog has a more profound dimension. Dialog is the means by which people express who they are. It is the means by which they become 'present' in the group. By 'listening to people', rather than 'hearing ideas', we allow a shared space of openness and trust to emerge. As people express their concerns, in an atmosphere of respectful listening, the space expands and everyone's presence expands. The group becomes a 'We' rather than just a cluster of individuals. Not a manufactured, compromise We, where diversity is submerged, but an empowered, alive We, where diversity is embraced -- all of it adding to the collective experience and insight of the group. In this space, diversity brings synergy rather than conflict.
Being in this space was a powerful experience. It wasn't a new-age, "We are one with the cosmos" experience -- it was practical and down to earth. It was more like the experience of being part of an effective team: "We are all present and now we can do some good work." It became clear to me that until this kind of presence comes into being, dialog can only exist in the black & white space of abstract ideas. With presence, and with listening, I felt that We could tackle any problem and We would do so with technicolor synergy -- with a spirit of intelligent, creative, collective inquiry.
To enter the space where the dynamics of harmonization operate, we pass through a door that seems to be about people rather than about ideas and issues. And in going through that door, its seems that we may experience some kind of personal transformation. We each tend to undergo whatever transformation is needed to remove those internal blocks that prevent us from being present with a particular group at a particular time.
The dynamics of harmonization are quite different than adversarial and collaborative dynamics.
* Harmonization begins by expanding the space to include everyone's diverse concerns and interests. Adversarial and collaborative dynamics both begin by limiting the space to narrowly defined issues and interests.
* Participating in the space of harmonization involves being open and present as a complex human being. Participating in an adversarial or collaborative space involves only being an advocate or opponent of some issue or proposal.
* The experience of harmonization often leads to personal growth and transformation, while adversarial and collaborative experiences tend to reinforce pre-existing positions and attitudes.
* Harmonization breaks down barriers between people and enables them listen to one another and to find common ground at a deep level. Adversarial and collaborative dynamics reinforce factionalism and regard deeper issues as being irrelevant or divisive.
* Collaborative meetings provide a space in which factions can rally together and plan their strategies. Adversarial meetings provide a space in which factions can compete for dominance. Harmonization-based meetings provide a space which may enable us to do away with factional divisiveness altogether.
In the microcosm of a facilitated gathering, we know it is possible for the empowered spirit of We the People to be kindled. We know that in that space of harmonization it is possible for this empowered microcosm to work together effectively and creatively as a group. At the level of the microcosm, assuming the availability of appropriate facilitation, we can see a way to overcome factionalism and bring We the People into being.
This leads us to several useful questions:
* How can the practice and understanding of harmonization dynamics be brought into the mainstream culture?
* How can the availability of facilitators be expanded, or alternatively, how can the need for facilitators be reduced -- so that the dynamics of harmonization can be practiced more widely?
* How can progress in the microcosm be translated into progress in the macrocosm? That is to say, how can We the People come into coherent being at the level of a community, a region, a nation, or the whole globe?
* How can We the People become a 'player' in society and in global affairs? And if We achieve that, how can We dialog with, or engage with, the established regime so as to facilitate transformation? How can We the People create a new society?
Tom Atlee * The Co-Intelligence Institute *
PO Box 493 * Eugene, OR 97440
http://www.co-intelligence.org * http://www.democracyinnovations.org Read THE TAO OF DEMOCRACY * www.taoofdemocracy.com - Please support our work. * Your donations are fully tax-deductible.
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