Ben and Steph's 1/11 Live Chat

for "DandDTrans," a "community of inquiry and action" regarding the role that Dialogue & Deiberation can play in addressing the mega-crises of our time

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Back to +OS Topic 6 Processing our Whats Possible answers: Comments by others

Hi Steph!!!

Hello Ben :-)

goin' synchro! :-0

Actually I have to boogie out of here....but I'll give you a few -

No worries... I was thinking about something related to you--an invitation. But now I'm not sure what it was!

Well, if you invite me to do something I'll probably say yes ;-)

Maybe it was related to the Bohm dialogues. Or maybe I've mixed things up and it wasn't you! You're already showing up so strongly!

If I can help in any way, let me know. Otherwise I'll keep on keeping on

You're already helping...

Thanks - this is my medium; I'm in heaven!

Ah, OK! This wasn't it, but I think this might be something juicy. And a longer convo that this will afford, so a live chat at another time makes sense. But I can give you the short ans sweet version now...

okay

This Possibility conversation is one of a set of six that Block suggests must all be done with a group to get the "transformational" value they can offer. My inquiry is whether or not there is a readiness for that here in DandDTrans, and if so,what the best way to do this might be?

Oy, yes, within the time constraint of January? I'll let this percolate in my mind today and get back to you as soon as a suggestion or two gels.... alright?

Of course! Are you familiar with the model?

No, am learning it from you as we go along! But I can think about dialogic and group process, how to use this tech and what people's capacity might be for engagement....

The other five are Invitation (which we've already done, but could do more of!), Ownership, Dissent, Commitment, and Gifts.

So far it looks like it is designed to stimulate the stages of group development: forming, storming, norming and performing.... I've been seeing bits of evidence that this group may be entering storming, but also a lot of indicators that the group will try to skip it and jump to norming (largely because the norms are already so internalized)

It's not linear like that though. More of a spiral. Other than Invitation, which comes first, the others can be done in any order, and each of them has multiple layers of depth and difficulty.

the group stages also occur in all kinds of crazy sequence, recycling and repeating, but the model lays it out neat and tidy :-)

The other thing with these is that, though you "Need" to do them all, each one is designed to be an experience of "a future distinct from the past" in its own right. "Aliveness," which you are fond of noticing, is a key principle.

hehe, yes :-) the bridge to the future from the past is in the present. What are people starting to actually DO Differently? The enthusiasm for the tech is (so far) only an extension of present practices....this is where the storming phase comes in....it's a different kind of stretch.

I'd be curious, if we do go through the full cycle, to hear your thoughts on how closely it parallels the forming/storming... model or not.

Of course :-) Now I have to scoot, my new friend, but I'll be back.

"See" you when I see you!

Ditto! and carry on :-)

Actually, the "correct" response is "not if I see you first!" Learned that from Gallipoli--one of the best movies of all time!

Going asynchronous again:

Hello @Ben Roberts! Did you see this? I posted yesterday (1/11) but the hotlink for your name didn't appear....does it only show up when a person is actively online? I can't figure out its logic :-/ {Steph Jo 1/12}

FYI, @Bruce Schuman responded to my spin-off hackpad "Is there a pattern that connects all the issues: From Bruce, Sunday morning, January 11, 2015"

Bruce, thank you. What you're talking about resonates with +a project/prototype I describe on the Processing our "What's Possible" answers, Open Space Topic #6.

Some thoughts on how to engage all of Block's questions for stimulating transformation within a limited timeframe

Assumptions:

Invitation and Groundwork already established

Ethos of experimentation

Work at the GROUP level (aggregated, holistic)

Individuals have valences and will migrate/gravitate to what calls them most

It's okay for crossover, bleed through, "contamination" or whatever we want to call evidence/manifestations in regard to one question that seems (for whatever reason) to "belong" to or with another question

feel free to add more!

Hypotheses:

Simultaneity of focus, interest, and attention may move the group further/deeper even though not all members individually pass through the process of each question

Maximizes our time together (bounded by start and end times) while respecting limits on individuals' availability and flexibility to read/take in everything

"forces" decision-making and choice by participants (some of whom will opt out) which will start to provide an outline of a trajectory for continued action and/or next steps

feel free to add more!

Proposal:

Set up concurrent hackpads on three of the remaining questions: Ownership, Dissent, and Gifts.

Establish a time-span by thinking/planning backwards from the end-date, taking into account all the other activities: those pre-planned (BOHM and World Cafe calls) and these coming about now, emergently, from Open Space and the group's discourse. (In my online teaching, undergraduate level, I established three days as the average time span for everyone to make at least one thoughtful contribution.)

At a time deemed "best" according to the criteria/plan developed (#2), open a new hackpad on the question of Commitment.

After that is completed, also at a time deemed best within the overall scope of this January DandDTrans inquiry, open a new hackpad to further explore Invitation.

Logic:

Ownership, Dissent and Gifts involve membership/participation as well as control/authority needs of individuals determining what's in this for them (e.g., will I be able to contribute at a meaningful level, do the outcomes seem likely to further my concerns, are other members interacting in a way that fosters my sense of belonging, etc.)

Commitment is a next step for future action, establishing a foundation for moving forward.

Invitation is the bridge to close this event while reaching from the co-constructed foundation to further interactivity.

I like this a lot. Thank you for being such a good thinking partner! My only question is whether there's enough energy in "the group," especially here on hackpad, for this to be worthwhile now. There's also a lot of other stuff that's been initiated, and I'm concerned about pulling attention away from that.

Can you funnel these into the new threads?

Legitimate concern, however, as Hackpad becomes more 'full' and 'active' it becomes more chaotic and difficult for people to follow. Your 'steering' becomes increasingly significant! {Steph 1/12}

@Ben Roberts - howdy :-) I highlighted & wrote the above this morning and spent the day thinking more about it. I'm not advocated strongly for it, just playing out the thinking....

....if you can imagine a way to ask people to bring/fit "whatever" they've been working on/thinking/writing about to those three questions (Ownership, Dissent and Gifts), you would ask us to make a "forced choice" based on where each one feels they could say the most, sortof like a summary, but a summary that then addresses and draws out the implications of the particular question on the subjects and topics of their DandD to date, and to then stick with that theme (reading each other's stuff, writing more, engaging in more DandD within that stream) until time to switch to the next question...when we all "come together" to distill further

....so, then, the switch to distillation, with a question about Commitment could perhaps be done in OS#4 (maybe, it's an inspiration but you have to decide if it's better than all the other ideas you and the facilitation team are considering)......why? Because if this month-long dialogue is to be measured and assessed in terms of what it has accomplished / is accomplishing as a prototype, then the criteria laid out there might work.

....it does mean combining two tasks: Peter Block's question with an "evaluation" process of what's actually coming out of all of this. +The three criteria I culled from one of Tom Atlee's statements might suffice...?

[Ben, 1/25]

My apologies for not engaging with you around these ideas, Steph. You put a lot of thought into them, and they deserved more time and attention than I provided in return. And, we've both been rather busy, so please don't take it personally!

What happened was two-fold for me:

I/we decided to simply trust Open Space as the core framework. It lets everyone take responsibility for what they want and care about, and doesn't require that we tell everyone what they should do. Now that we're moving back towards World Cafe mode, though, there is room for another collective invitation, so these ideas become congruent with my own sense of the flow once again. That said...

I don't see this group as having come together with sufficient convergent energy to want to become a "community" at a level where asking all of Block's questions to make sense to me. Yet.

It may be that we can still weave one or two of these questions into the harvest process, but I'm aware of Block's cautionary observation that all six are needed for transformation to be possible.

I would love to think about doing the full six convo cycle as a next iteration, and to consider partnering with you to do so. Perhaps we could bring in a few more people as part of the next hosting team too--especially some who don't look and sound and come from backgrounds like you and me and most of those who have shown up already.

[Steph, 1/25]

This is quick, @Ben Roberts, and off the cuff. My time is very limited right now. But I saw the email correspondence with the Planning Team and your invitation. I've been thinking about last night's card call, Self-Awareness, and the "discovery" we made about possibly "pissing all over each other's ideas." Maybe you can link to the notes? I know you dislike the model, but this is looking a bit like "storming," to me, which means the Planning Team has options. They can choose to play it conservatively and safe (which seems to be what @Linda Ellinor is proposing: i.e., don't change now or too fast) or we figure out how to expose and engage 'the storm' / 'the pissing.' The other thing that's been on my mind is how much courage @Ben Levi showed in the card call. I think he absorbed a lot, sat with it, and generated some genuinely new meaning. It would be awesome, imho, if the Planning Team could piggyback onto his example. This would probably enliven the conversation considerably and provide people more motivation for going forward, together.

Thank you! Can you say more about what this would look like/mean, and what your role might be, if any?

Ben and Steph's 1/11 Live Chat
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Back to OS Topic 6 Processing our Whats Possible answers: Comments by others
Going asynchronous again:
Some thoughts on how to engage all of Block's questions for stimulating transformation within a limited timeframe
[Ben, 1/25]

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