Theory U by C. Otto Scharmer

Author:C. Otto Scharmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Berrett Koehler, business
Publisher: Berrett Koehler Publishers, Inc., San Francisco
Published: 2009-01-27T16:00:00+00:00

talking tough: clash I am my point of view listening from outside other counterpart rule-confronting

REENACTING PATTERNS OF THE PAST

Figure 17.2 Four Fields of Conversation

to build a small sculpture that expressed what he or she wanted to create with his or her work. Then we had a "gallery" tour, during which everyone explained their sculptures. The move to genuine inquiry into one's own and others' ideas allowed us to tap into another field and stream of conversational reality. The difference between this field of appreciative inquiry and the trench warfare of the prior day was palpable."^

Talking from the Flow of Pure Presence

On the last morning, we closed the workshop with a large open-forum dialogue. The difference between it and the second day's breakdown could not have been more striking. Yelling at one another was replaced by a deep, calm flow of conversation. The directness, subtlety, and intimacy of the conversation testified to a heart-to-heart connection and collectively felt presence through a moment of spontaneous silence near the end of the event.

In reflecting on that experience, I reahzed that the group as a whole had operated using different field structures of conversation. I identified four different field structures of conversation that had appeared during the v^ork-shop: dov^nloading (talking nice), debate (talking tough), dialogue (reflective inquiry), and presencing (deep co-creative flov^). The dialogue model that resulted from this observation is diagrammed in Figure 17.2.^

Download: Enacting the Process of Conversation from Field i

"Hov^ are you?"

"I am fine."

Many formal meetings in organizations are conducted using this kind of ritual and set language. Operating effectively in such conversations requires the participants to conform to the dominant pattern of exchanging polite phrases v^ith one another, not to say v^hat is really on their minds. In school v^e learn to say v^hat the teacher w^ants to hear. Later, this skill is exactly the one v^e need to deal v^ith bosses and to get ahead in organizations. If it serves us so v^ell, v^hat's v^rong v^ith it.^

The problem is that this type of conversation—viev^ed from an organizational learning point of viev^—tends to result in dysfunctional behavior: it prevents a team from talking about v^hat's really going on. They talk about the real stuff somev^here else—in the parking lot, on their v^ay home. But at the meeting everyone's time is v^asted v^hen they do nothing more than exchange polite comments. If individuals and teams don't talk about difficult issues, v^hat Chris Argyris calls "undiscussables," they v^on't reflect on them and nothing v^ill change.^ The higher the complexity of a given challenge, the greater the need to broaden one's conversational repertoire and to learn hov^ to operate from other fields of conversational emergence.

Dov^nloading conversations are center-driven in the sense that they simply reproduce existing rules and phrases. Just as in individual dov^nloading my perception of the v^orld is limited to my existing mental frames and templates, conversational dov^nloading only articulates those aspects of reality (as experienced by the participants) that fit into the dominant framev^orks and

conversational patterns of the group. The

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