Re: Jonah and Mental Models

Richard Burg (raburg@well.sf.ca.us)
Tue, 17 Jan 1995 10:42:40 -0800

>From: Jim Michmerhuizen <jamzen@world.std.com>

>... A single conversation, by the way it is conducted (even
>more than by its subject matter or its outcome), can have an enormous
>impact on other conversations, subsequent to it, on utterly unrelated topics.

I more than agree - it is a fundamental premise of our approach to helping
organizations improve. The power of the conversation in an organizational
intervention is in the quality of the experience of the conversants. Not
only does the consultant discover metaphors and models _in vivo_, the
*style* of the interaction becomes an experience of a new way of *being* in
the system. In our practise of consulting for organizational culture
change, we create settings for open conversation, focused on the
*experience* of being in the culture, simultaneously creating a new
pattern. All of the person's life experience becomes valued and appropriate
within the workplace.

As other correspondents have noted, working in this way does not provide
quick and easy fixes, but does connect with the *quality* of life at work,
and establish deep connections for people who (we assume) would rather have
a good day at work than a bad one. The conversation is an experience,
sanctioned by management, which opens the possibility of engaging more of
oneself at work. When people are more engaged all of the initiatives,
whether it be TQM, SMT, BPR, or the behaviors which characterize a
'learning organization' flow more easily from improved relationships, based
upon openness and participation.

This interaction does not mean that the consultant tells members of the
organization what to do. We only create experiences between people which
open up the possibility for better relationships, increased awareness, and
setting in which it *is possible* to inquire about assumptions. The danger
of telling the client what to do is that you are attempting an import
activity into an open system. If there is no readiness or context for the
import, it will not find fertile ground and the overall consequence of the
rejection of the idea will be a setback to the authority of the
consultation and those who sanctioned it. When someone comments that the
Quality program in an organization has faltered, they rarely consider
bringing back the consultants whose training program was used to install
Quality!

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|
It takes creativity to get a
plane to fly.
It takes rigor to keep it in the
air.
-o-o-
Phillipe Starke
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Richard Burg Voice 510-848-4258
Meridian Group Fax 510-848-4257
1827A Fifth Street 800-3MERIDIAN (800-363-7426)
Berkeley, CA US MERIDIANGP@AOL.COM
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