>1. One of the largest barriers is the stereotyping or application of a
>"mental model" to a group of people, either in terms of roles, gender,
>colour etc.
One of the learnings I have taken in relation to this dialogue is around
this area, and it is probably more of an issue because of the medium we
are using (mail). My take on it is that it would be helpful to be able to
declare the stereo-typing we are doing 'out loud' without causing offence.
This might help us explore why we do it and when and what difficulties it
creates for us?? Somehow in declaring it as our mental model we might be
able to say 'this is our current truth' and where it leads us without
saying it is 'the truth'
I watched a group recently in reflecting on a story telling session - they
were summarising the similarities and differences in their stories and
they noticed a gender divide - the women in their group spoke in terms of
'relationships' in their work the men of 'projects' They were noting the
different language sets that this created and were identifing a need to
use both sets - it was interesting to see the reactions to this as they
had not said there was a universal gender divide that could be applied
just that this was true in *their* group - this was hard for them to
do....
>2 What I try and
>do is to keep people focused on what is factually verified, NOT what is
>inferred about another person based on a set of feelings.
This makes sense and is more or less what happened in the story above -
the only difficulty I have with it is that as time seperates me from the
experience I forget the facts and remember the 'emotion' - in many ways my
perception of what happened is the 'facts' from my perspective. One thing
I have found useful in this respect is to try to remember in telling the
story to say 'this may not be what they actually *said* - but it what I
heard and remember!! My Husband often says - do I need a 'Julie filter'
for this...
>My proposition is that when we spend time trying to categorize or "guess'
>someone's intent, we spend less time learning (are there exceptions?)
Any thoughts on how we become more successful at inquiring about their
intent without evoking a defensive response??
>I ask for particulars so I can evaluate whether I DID mess up, or it is
>somewhat unreasonable (my opinion) to have taken a particular meaning from
>my message.
How do you decide what is unreasonable? I am intrigued about this process
- I am making a few assumptions as well about *why* you might want to
categorise some responses as unreasonable so I would really like to hear
more about the thinking behind this.
> Often, one finds that our conclusions are based on our
>projections, "mental models" or things absolutely unconnected with the
>words in the communication. I choose to play a role in these contexts.
I would be ready to say always rather than often!! I find it helps to
reflect with someone else and sometimes I find I have to vent etc.. before
I am ready to really hear what the person is saying and why!!
Julie Beedon
VISTA Consulting - for a better future
julie@vistabee.win-uk.net
--Julie Beedon <julie@vistabee.win-uk.net>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>