Keith, you noted that "the typing needed tends to stop story-telling
because our medium is too formal....We tend to net out our conclusions
rather than share the example!"
To a degree, I think that this "netting-out" phenomenon occurs in all
forms of story-telling: at its worst, it becomes a kind of posturing that
goes on in many (any?) group encounters, whether real or virtual. Most of
us, after all, want to look/sound/read "good." And so we talk *at*, rather
than with. That well-known philosopher Fran Leibowitz once observed that,
for too many people, the opposite of speaking isn't listening, the
opposite of speaking is waiting.
Which, to me, gets to the heart of one of the key elements of
collaboration and organizational learning: how to avoid the "netting-out"
problem. (Keith, you've created a whole new area of inquiry, for crying
out loud!) What sort of environment is needed to overcome this problem?
How should or can this be managed?
Over to you....
Ron Mallis
12 Chestnut Street
Boston, MA 02108
617-723-8362
ron2785@eworld.com