3 Steps to Profound Change
The challenge of our time is to find profoundly creative ways to address global social, political, and environmental breakdown. Both organizations and communities are challenged to redefine themselves and their practices in light of an increasingly unpredictable and in many cases more dangerous environment.
While many of our tranditional methods of facilitation and organization change are effective at improving efficiency of meetings or work processes, they were not designed to help a group engage in the more profound issues that face us.
Fortunately, there is a growing body of work from psychology, science, and organizational theory that points the way toward a new and deeper practice of facilitating change. The noted business writer, Peter Senge’s recent book Presence (Senge, et al, 2005) suggests group must pass through three stages to begin to tap the creativity needed in these times.
The first stage is data collection. This is not just facts and figures, but deeply engaging in the multiple perspecitves and interpretations of the situation we face.
The second is letting go of our preferred solutions and listening for the solution that contains the wisdom and perspective of eveyone in the group.
The last part is turning this conceptual solution into a vibrant series of experiments and prototypes that are constantly refined as we learn more.
This is not an easy path. But for groups who want to be deeply effective, it may be a necessary journey.
Filed by Joseph McIntyre under Facilitation Org-Change