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Discussion: Practicing self-reflection
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vvratusa |
Practicing self-reflection
Jul 31 2008, 8:27 PM EDT
I can not think of better way of enhancing and encouraging any capacity than practicing it. In spite of disillusionment with enlightenment of many people, I would agree with enlightenment classics that capacities of our mind are fairly equally distributed among the human population with exception of small percentage of inborn defects. The problem arises when social obstacles exacerbate individual laziness and/or lack of courage to use our reason without the guidance of the uncritically accepted authority. Another words, SDDP facilitators/knowledge management team members and participant stakeholders should not take it for granted that there is such thing as an “impartial researcher” p.2 of http://www.harnessingcollectivewisdom.com/pdf/How_Co-Laboratories.pdf. They should instead self-reflect in every phase of the research what are her/his own stakes and how are they being formed by her/his social habitus and irreducible individual decision to interests of which part of the stakeholders they will offer predominantly their expert knowledge (conservation, reform or radical change of existing social power relations). 1 out of 1 found this valuable. Do you? |
Aleco |
1. RE: Practicing self-reflection
Aug 1 2008, 9:07 AM EDT
Vera: The presumpiton that the facilitator has the SENSITIVITY and the knowldeg base about a situation for which he is not a stakeholder to intervene and guide the stream of consousness of the stakeholders dialogue is, in my opinion, counter productive and elitist. The whole SDDP paradigm was developed over the years to counter the idea of scientific elitism and redefine the notion of the "expert." The only experts of a complex societal situation, requiring the authentic participation of the stakeholders in a dialogue, are the people who are immersed in that situation. There is a big diference between social science and process science, which is fundamentlly a Third Phase science. IMPARTIALITY, JUST LIKE COMPLETENESS, IS VERY DIFFICULT TO GUARANTEE IN DEALING WITH COMPLEXITY, BUT IS WORTH STRIVING FOR, ONLY GOD CAN RAISE CLAIMS OF COMPLETENESS AND IMPARTIALITY.... Do you find this valuable? |
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vvratusa |
2. RE: Practicing self-reflection
Aug 1 2008, 4:43 PM EDT
Aleco: The presumption that the researcher facilitator is impartial, as it is formulated in p.2 of http://www.harnessingcollectivewisdom.com/pdf/How_Co-Laboratories.pdf is elitist. I am glad that you used much better formulation in your answer, namely, that impartiality is regulative principle that is worth striving for like completeness. Am I not right in believing that we are nearing the most to realization of these principles when we do not attempt to claim them for us and deny them to others as if those others are “immersed in the situation” and “us” who have passed the SPPD course and earned the license are not immersed and have no stake? Can you point out to me a single “complex societal situation, requiring the authentic participation of the stakeholders in a dialogue”, in which in the most general sense of being the member of humanity me, you or anybody else would not be able through self-reflection to make conscious our stake in that situation? Does not this most general attitude toward conservation, reform or radical transformation of social power relations involved in a given complex societal situation (for instance, dropping out from high school) guide researcher facilitators in all phases of research? Don’t we middle class researchers with licensing diplomas have a better chance to identify entire spectrum of stakeholders instead of just those having stakes similar to our own and to accomplish the regulative ideals of impartiality and completeness if we become aware through individual and collective self-reflection of our stakes in societal situations we are researching instead of claiming that we have none? Does not awareness of observer dependent data and process science exist at the least since sophists, and should not therefore be attributed just to the Third Phase science? Do you find this valuable? |
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Aleco |
3. RE: Practicing self-reflection
Aug 1 2008, 7:47 PM EDT
Vera: We claim impariatlity for us the "process scientists," and encourage non-impartiality to the stakeholders that do not have the role of faciltiating the discourse, just like psychiatrists can treat human beings without invading their lifeworld. I have done this for 35 years. I know it can be done, even though you do not beleive it. Unfortunately, because you have not experienced impartiality in your lifeworld, you cannot even imagine it happening. This is the perceptual trap...Furthermore, this is the predicament that most people trained in first phase social science find themeselves. As a result they perpetualte the present situation instead of faciltating the creation of an alternative future. I thik this is true even in your coutnry that has been tortured so much by everybody. I hope you find the time to read the futures-creative paradigm that has been advoacted by Hasan Ozbekhan and recently promoted by Vigdor Schreibman in the Lovers of Democarcy web site.. The connection that you make with sophists is very inappopriate and unfortunate. I am sorry, but I have detected a tendency in your responses to decalre that you can climb the mountain and make the rest of us feel inadequate or marginal. Do you find this valuable? |
normaromm |
4. RE: Practicing self-reflection
Aug 2 2008, 2:47 AM EDT
I have managed to get into this site ! This is to say that I agree with Vera that SDDP facilitators/knowledge management team members and participant stakeholders should not take it for granted that there is such thing as an “impartial researcher" and should instead self-reflect in every phase of the research on what are her/his own stakes might be and how are they may be formed by her/his social habitus. I think that Vera expressed this idea of the purpose of self-reflection very well. Aleco, when you say that Vera may not have experienced impartiality in her lifeworld and therefore cannot imagine it, you assume that you have indeed experienced this (in your own practice). But the question is how you know that you have indeed practised it! To claim that you have practised it is not to say that you have indeed been "impartial" in the sense that you had no stakes at all in trying influence the unfolding of the social events. Someone could well argue, looking at your practices, that there have been ways in which you may have unwittingly directed events. As Vera has argued, even decisions as to how stakeholders are chosen and also how the triggering question is set are choicces that make a difference to how the context is defined. I I do not feel that Vera is trying to place herself "above" others in pleading for more self-reflection on everybody's part. I think she has rightfully raised important issues for consideration. I am now running out of space on this answer - as the computer says I have only 450 characters now left! But I think the dialogue should continue as we all consider in more depth Vera's plea. I don't think the answer is to claim that you have experienced impartiality while she has not. This is precisely the issue she queries - that is, whether you can claim impartiality and whether one needs to claim it to gain credibiltiy and trust. Only 69 characters left now! Thanks! Norma Do you find this valuable? |
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normaromm |
5. RE: Practicing self-reflection
Aug 2 2008, 3:01 AM EDT
Hello all again,I posted a reply just now to Vera's initial plea for people to engage in enhanced self-reflection. Aleco, I see that you have suggested an analogy with "psychiatrists [who] can treat human beings without invading their lifeworld.". The language that you use of "invading" suggests that it is an imposition when psychiatrists try to enter a person's lifeworld and help them to reconsider their ways of being and lviing. There is a lot of literature on interventive counselling as a way of counselling that specificaly helps people to restory their life (build new stories) by listening to a person and then adding new ways of seeing for the person to deliberate upon. This is not an invasion but an aid to help the person extend their horizons by co-constructing, with the counsellor, new stories. I think perhaps we need to rethink what we mean by "impartiality". Your concern seems to be that you will influence the direction of the dialogues as a facilitator and you do not wish to do this. But perhaps impartiality is more a matter of being prepared to reflect upon the possible way in which you be impacting on the social world, so that you can, together with others, define a responsible way of intervening. In other words, instead of claiming that you have no influence on content (and on definitions of context) , you can rather decide to consider with others the way in which you can try to inlfuence the course of social reality so that new visions and stories can be created to which you all have contributed. This is another way of operating - rather than claiming that you need to strive for "impartiality" in the sense of trying to be outside the process. Does this make any sense to you? I find it difficult to make up arguments in so short spaces of space! You know I need to practice being more Spartan in this sense.! Thanks again, Norma Do you find this valuable? |
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normaromm |
6. RE: Practicing self-reflection
Aug 2 2008, 3:34 AM EDT
Hello Vera.I am a bit illiterate with computers, so I do not know what it means to be a "friend" on this site. But I agree to be your friend! And when I opened my friend's page I saw this extra message of yours. I am not sure that I even agree with suggesting that impartiality should be a regulative principle - if by this we mean that we have no stakes in the way social reality unfolds. I agree with you that as members of humanity we should, through self-reflection , make conscious our stake in the situations in which we are involved This being the case, I would suggest that we do not need to strive to be "outside" of the process of contributing to the creation of new futures. The idea of impartiality arose from the idea that as "scientists" people could distance themselves from the political fray. And to me it (the use of the word) still has this connotation. The idea of self-reflection suggests an alternative - that we acknowledge the ways in which we may be influencing the social fabric, and that we take responsibility for this. This means at every step being aware (also through talking with others) about the potential effecct that our involvement may have on "the situation" - and operating out of that consciousness. I suppose if "impartiality" becomes redefined as encouraging this kind of self-reflection, then one can maintain the use of the word. But it still worries me, because people can claim that "as far as possible" they have indeed been impartial.! And so they do not engage in serious consideration of how they may be influenced by their "habitus" and how they may be influencing the course of events further. With good wishes, Norma Do you find this valuable? |
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vvratusa |
7. RE: Practicing self-reflection
Aug 2 2008, 7:05 AM EDT
Aleco: phenomenon of transfer and counter transfer that pops up in practically every psychiatric treatment relationship is good illustration for the way in which facilitators are precisely invading the lifeworld of the stakeholders as well, treating them as patients and often payment capable clients. Please point out to me a single “complex societal situation, requiring the authentic participation of the stakeholders in a dialogue”, in which me, you or anybody else would not be able through self-reflection to make conscious our stake in that situation (conservation, reform or radical transformation of social power relations involved in a particular societal situation). Until you do this, why should I not stick to my “perceptual trap” that present situation of social relations of exploitation and repression is perpetuated precisely when we “claim impartiality for us the ‘process scientists’”, since this implies in last resort impartiality between the stakes of the slave owner and the slave. Why do you claim that connection that I make with sophists “is very inappopriate and unfortunate”?. Is not Protagora’s dictum “homo mensura” one of the earliest formulations of relativistic stand of observer dependent observation? Did not ancient philosophers already wrestle with both formal and dialectical logic, leaving to posterior lovers of wisdom just to give new names to a finite number of ultimate and often contradictory ontological, epistemological and practico-political world views? I have one more imploration to you to try to empathize with my impression that when you tell me:“because you have not experienced impartiality in your lifeworld, you cannot even imagine it happening. This is the perceptual trap...Furthermore, this is the predicament that most people trained in first phase social science find themeselves”, it is you who declare “that you can climb the mountain and make the rest of us feel inadequate or marginal”. At the least I feel this way myself. Do you find this valuable? |
peterjones |
8. RE: Practicing self-reflection
Aug 2 2008, 9:05 AM EDT
I'd like to add my perspective on the dilemma of facilitators recognizing their own stake in a situation and joining or "intervening" in the matter they are convening. While none of us may be impartial in an absolute sense, there is the hermeneutic notion of bracketing and distanciation. While we may be compelled and in fact CAN imagine ourselves taking a stand with our participants, this would be an ethical violation. We must distanciate ourselves - critically reflect and establish a cognitive and emotional distance from the problem - in order to permit the agreed stakeholders to proceed under our espoused principles of authenticity and autonomy. These principles are always expressed in terms of the individual participants - so that each participant, regardless of their social or assigned power - is given an equal say in the contributions to the problematique. However, we might also see that the group itself has an overarching responsibility in their inquiry to identify the appropriate balance of voices and stakeholders to the problem. The group itself must recognize its own autonomy from the process facilitators. And the process facilitators must be able to be trusted to maintain sufficient distance from the problem, for the purposes of the engagement. We must reflect in the moment and withhold personal propositions, to self-critically excise any statements that may introduce influence and tip the delicate balance of authenticity and autonomy. Do you find this valuable? |
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vvratusa |
9. RE: Practicing self-reflection
Aug 2 2008, 9:06 AM EDT
Hello Norma, I am much illiterate with computer hardware and software so I learn a new gadget by attempting to apply available options. I have sent request to be friends with every member of this virtual community who participated in our earlier email exchange. Only Peter Jones was quicker than myself and I approved his request by pressing relevant button in the self-presentation section with great pleasure. You can just imagine what it meant for my ego when nobody else approved my request to bi friends and rationalized that people just did not push the right button. On the basis of your postings’ content I dare say that two of us are really “kindred souls” with respect to the issue of impartiality. I would like to renounce my earlier formulation that impartiality should be understood as the regulative principle that is worth striving for since you are right that it might imply “that we have no stakes in the way social reality unfolds” and this implication is directly contrary to also mine insistence “that as members of humanity we should, through self-reflection, make conscious our stake in the situations in which we are involved” and seriously consider how we may be influenced by our ‘habitus’ and how we may be influencing the course of events further in the desired, often opposed directions of conservation, reform or radical change of existing social power relations. I also agree with you that self-reflection is not possible without talking with others – if anything, interactionists taught us that. Best and freidnly regards to all Do you find this valuable? |
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vvratusa |
10. RE: Practicing self-reflection
Aug 2 2008, 9:47 AM EDT
Friend Peter, could you please for the sake of my better understanding your perspective elaborate further how would you in the imagined but possible extreme situation of the convened SDDP between slave owners and slaves “establish a cognitive and emotional distance from the problem - in order to permit the agreed stakeholders to proceed under our espoused principles of authenticity and autonomy”?
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peterjones |
11. RE: Practicing self-reflection
Aug 2 2008, 11:36 AM EDT
Vera, that may not be a helpful extreme example because it is so polarizing and political. And, since we have choices about where and when to apply any method, the method of SDDP may not be appropriate in such a situation. And, there is not actually a single shared problem between slaves and holders - there are two problems that are not held in common. For the SDDP process there must be some initial agreement that we can define a trigger question that all will agree upon. There must also be the political possibility of free expression on the part of every partciipant. This is not theoretical, it is pragmatic. The distanciation is an ethical choice we must make in the practice, for the benefit of the participants whose work we must empower, but not with our own inclusion of content. We may actually care, but we cannot vote, and we cannot take sides. A better example would be from the actual case studies which are documented on this site. The Cyprus Reunification dialogues require the participants to effect an exquisite balance of honest assertions and trustworthiness, to bring the other sides to the table. The facilitators cannot be seen by the marginalized stakeholders to be the preferred process guides of one party that brought us in to run "their sessions." Does this help to clarify the expression of this type of dialogue? These are interesting questions, but as Aleco has always said, you have to "do the do" to understand the power of this process. The kinds of situations dialogic design is good for are very poorly addressed by other methods. No method is perfect, but SDD was designed for complex multi-stakeholder situations where a shared problem can be identified. 1 out of 1 found this valuable. Do you? |
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Aleco |
12. RE: Practicing self-reflection
Aug 2 2008, 4:04 PM EDT
"Hello all again,Norma: I knew how you were going to psition yourself on this issue from the outset. Imagine me facilitating bi-communal dialogue engagint Turkish and Greek Cypriots and managing to be acceptable and legitimate by both sides in my role as a facilitator during the engagment. After the engagement, in private conversations with either side of the issue, I am very imparital and very passionate. If the participants experience my passion I will disqualife myself from playing the role of the facilitator of an SDDP dialogue again. What is not becomin clear in all these exchanges is the power of the person who is conducting the dialogue if he or she chooses to exercise it. I choose not to do so because if I do I will not me an SDDP facilitator but a social scientist dominator... So we do not agree but we still love each other I am sure... Do you find this valuable? |
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vvratusa |
13. RE: Practicing self-reflection
Aug 2 2008, 6:36 PM EDT
Peter, I gave on purpose at the first glance extreme example because when we look at it a little closer, we can see that slave owner (master) – slave relationship is not at all exceptional, but according to life experience of many people still dominant form of human existence in just modernized form of wage slavery (not to speak of thriving classic slave trade in the XXI century). I also ask myself whether it is true that “there is not actually a single shared problem between slaves and holders.” Isn’t master-slave relationship the so called unity of opposites and the main driving force of permanent re-structuration of social relations on the basis of the fight to preserve, reform or abolish the class division of labor? If SDDP is not appropriate for very frequent “polarizing and political” social situations with the identifiable common problem that nobody can be free and recognized as such as long as there exist slaves in different forms, is not its applicability rather limited? Ethnically colored conflicts like the one in Cyprus and in my country are very much connected with unequal local and international division of labor. Western facilitators are very often at the least in my country experienced by one part of stakeholders precisely as “the preferred process guides of one party”. Interestingly enough the other party acknowledges the same through popular songs like “Danke Deutchland” or naming their children Bill Clinton. In the times of social unrest and strikes, facilitators are by majority of workers also felt as the extended hand of the management attempting to pacify them by consultation type dependent participation. By all means, thank you on your helpful clarification. I am looking forward to “do the do”. Do you find this valuable? |
kevindye |
14. RE: Practicing self-reflection - Impartiality and Neutrality
Aug 4 2008, 2:24 PM EDT
In the realm of Conflict Resolution, the notion of mediator as a 'neutral' is a semantic dilema. However, the researchers in the field generally no longer believe in the notion that a mediator has neutrality.
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vvratusa |
15. RE: Practicing self-reflection - Impartiality and Neutrality
Aug 9 2008, 2:57 PM EDT
Doesn't SDD "Decalogue" copied at http://blogora.wetpaint.com/page/Baseline+perspectives+of+SDD suggest to you too, dear members of this virtual community, that dependence on payment capable sponsors "whenever in doubt" compromises the most commanded neutrality of facilitators?Does not the very demand to “remember”, that is, accept without questioning some axioms or laws, especially when they are formulated after the blueprint of the Old Testament which praises ignorance and punishes craving for knowledge, induce you too dear member of this virtual community, almost automatically react by some kind of resistance to attempted dogmatization under the guise of science? I started a new thread at the above adress, but it got lost in the ciber space, so I am copying details here: ... commandment 9 is the most revealing of the partiality of facilitators, in contradiction to the manifest content of the commandment seven on neutrality? Appropriating, namely, just to herself/himself the knowledge of the process (commandment 8), facilitator is risking in fact to remain just the extended hand of the sponsor who pays the bills and has the last say “when in doubt”. What if the aims of the sponsor and participating stakeholders are in conflict? Does not it seam to you too that the commandment four never to sacrifice group to the individual leaves the possibility open that individual might be sacrificed to a group since this is not explicitly forbidden by the Decalogue? Do you find this valuable? |
vigdors |
16. RE: Practicing self-reflection
Aug 11 2008, 9:23 AM EDT
The practices of self-reflection might be productive if the group dialogue managers (e.g., , Aleco Christakis, Ken Bausch, Yiannis Laouris, Ioanna Tsivacou, and Janet McIntire), would seriously address the imperative need for values clarification that has been well identified: Ozbekhan 1971; Argyris 1982; Lodge 1984; Christakis 1993; and Ackoff 1999. This is unlikely to occur, however, and this discussion of "self-reflection" is gong nowhere, just as predicted by Thomas S. Kuhn, in his masterpiece, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962).Do you find this valuable? |
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kevindye |
17. RE: Practicing self-reflection
Aug 11 2008, 11:35 AM EDT
"The practices of self-reflection might be productive if the group dialogue managers (e.g., , Aleco Christakis, Ken Bausch, Yiannis Laouris, Ioanna Tsivacou, and Janet McIntire), would seriously address the imperative need for values clarification that has been well identified: Ozbekhan 1971; Argyris 1982; Lodge 1984; Christakis 1993; and Ackoff 1999. This is unlikely to occur, however, and this discussion of "self-reflection" is gong nowhere, just as predicted by Thomas S. Kuhn, in his masterpiece, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962).Could you outline for us a specific process for "values clarification"? Per my previous post, I am interested in specific techniques one might employ - especially when the participant group has a disparate set of values. Do you find this valuable? |
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peterjones |
18. RE: Practicing self-reflection
Aug 11 2008, 1:02 PM EDT
"Could you outline for us a specific process for "values clarification"? Per my previous post, I am interested in specific techniques one might employ - especially when the participant group has a disparate set of values."Kevin, thanks for asking. This is not a simple a priori process, as most organizational consultants realize. The core of Chris Argyris' work dealt with the hidden conflict between theories in use vs. espoused. He did not actually state that these theories were values conflicts - he had some trouble with the fuzziness of values as I recall. The problem being that in practice, everyone in an organizational situation or a meeting venue "clarifies" their values as a process of strategic groupthink (espoused values). I believe in a mix of interviews and ethnography to observe and get at actual values in use, get agreement that they "exist," then build a mapping of the differences between the stakeholders. Otherwise, people have very little access to their tacitly held values in use (JOHARI window anyone?) and few people are going to disclose values in a mixed group exercise that are out of alignment with the developing consensus for problem solving. Do you find this valuable? |
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vigdors |
19. RE: Practicing self-reflection
Aug 11 2008, 1:23 PM EDT
I have divided the strategy for values c;arification into two lessons. In the first, relatred here, the question of moral imagination is addressed. The distinguished American social theorist and popular teacher of cultural anthropology, Ernest Becker (1924-1974), contributed to an understanding of the problem of human morality and creativity. He observed “the meanings that one puts forth” may depend on “what one can sustain.” This condition, Becker concluded, gave a clue to the motion of human morality and creativity, namely, that “we can try to increase the strength and the courage of the individual in the face of the potential rebirth of the self.”2 Rousseau, Stendhal, and Nietzsche saw the great fact about morality is that it needs real strength to assume the responsibility for one's uniqueness. On the individual level then, the problem of courage is clear: “man must try to frame problems in ever-more-explicit, cognitive terms, because this alone unlocks action. One can convert a situation in which there was no choice to one in which there are new choices. In this way, man liberates himself.” The second lesson will follow in a separate post Do you find this valuable? |
