Dear Dr GK VanPatter
You have asked the list if anyone is interested in the dynamics of
exchange and ideas for intervention. Yes, I am very interested and I
think you have something usefull to offer in this connection. (I have
included a lengthy quote from your post below)
I tried to defuse an emerging situation by posting a mechanical
translation of Rosan's German text but we certainly need to go much
further than that. The football anecdotes certainly did help, and the
encouraging comments from other list members but I am sure that there
are many ways that we all will need to learn about the dynamics of
exchanges and adult behaviour if we are to do this competently all the
time at a very high level of creative exchange.
I looked back at the archieves and came up with what follows: (Very
interesting and I would certainly like to know more about the current
level of understanding about team dynamics and potential skills and
tools etc and I agree that it is and will be important in the future of
innovation and design.)
QUOTE
"I often find the forum's dynamics unfriendly and even
intimidating." SNIP SNIP Matthew Soar, PhD,
Mon, 11 Aug 2003 13:02:11 -0400
UNQUOTE
QUOTE
SNIP
"Do such notes make list dynamics unfriendly and intimidating? Do
subscribers want me to stop posting the kinds of notes that Matt
labels erudite but unwieldy?" SNIP
Ken Friedman
Tue, 12 Aug 2003 15:48:44 -0700
UNQUOTE
QUOTE
SNIP
I was interested to see the comments that were posted earlier regarding what
was referred to as the style and dynamics of the list as well as the later
suggestion prescribing courage. For those who might be interested, below are
a few observations that are based in practice.
It is no secret that dynamics of conversation can, over time, and through
repetition, impact participation, ideation and ultimately entire cultures.
We see this often in our innovation and understanding work with large
organizations. The reality is that this terrain is of huge importance to
many companies today, especially those who find themselves in the position
of having few ideas in their pipelines.
I will quickly point out that this is just one example of how the issues on
the list are not always isolated to that community but are often
representational of issues found in the business world where clients exist.
It is not likely possible to over state the importance of this realization
as in our problems can be found many opportunities for design to serve and
help others.
Surfacing issues around dialogue dynamics in the real world of business is
tricky. In our practice we are sometimes asked to work this terrain. We do
this by decoding and mapping such dynamics as visual architectures.
Consciously or unconsciously the list (community) has a dynamic, the origins
of which, despite the technology, could likely be traced back to the
time of
Socrates. It is a dynamic that is deeply embedded in the academic community
and also appears in western business culture. At the heart of the
dynamic is
the idea of adding value through criticism and judgment. Unfortunately they
knew little about innovation dynamics in Ancient Greece.
I do encourage graduate design students on this list to think, think, think
about what this means if you haven't already. Think about how you are
learning to add value to conversations yourself. Think about how others are
learning to do so. Some of the others may become your clients soon. Think
about what this means in terms of problems and opportunities for the future
of design. There are many avenues worthy of design research there.
I propose today that we be adventuresome. Why not invite a brave graduate
student or group of students to take on the challenge of mapping the
architecture of the conversations on this list, or at least a representative
sample. Suspended in time, they can conveniently be found in the archives.
Such research would likely surface substantial insights.
Based on our experiments and experience in practice I am guessing that what
you will likely find is a considerable disconnect between the stated or
implied intentions of the list and the actual conversation dynamics that
spring from deeply embedded behaviors. I am guessing that this list likely
has a judgments to ideas ratio in the 100 to 1 range. It would be very
interesting to see what the numbers actually are.
In our consulting practice we have undertaken this kind of exploration by
filming the interaction occurring between client employees in sample problem
solving meetings and then deconstructing the dialogue. To do this we use,
what we call a Dialogue Architecture Framework that we have had in
development for some time. When the visual deconstruction and analysis is
presented, the participants are often very surprised by what they see. Most
people have the best of intentions in what they do, but conversation
dynamics spring from the level of learned behaviors rather than intents.
When doing this kind of work it becomes important to understand the close
interconnections between purpose and process. If the purpose is to
create a
debating society then the default Socrates-like model might be perfect. If
the purpose is to create a sustainable innovative capability or culture
where ideas must be grown from seeds, then an organization may have to
substantially rethink much of what it is doing conversationally. It
therefore becomes important not to mix the purpose from one model with the
process from another.
Changing such dynamics in organizations typically involves a significant
unlearning curve as those default behaviors are deeply rooted in many adults
who consider themselves to be among the best and the brightest. There in
lies very difficult news for some organizations but also huge opportunity
for design as the future unfolds, if we can better understand our own
behaviors.
In traditional design practice you will not find the tools and models to
address such challenges but we believe this to be rich terrain for future
design leaders.
Hope this helps.
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 19:24:36 -0400
From: GK VanPatter <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: list meta-discourse
UNQUOTE
This is fascinating stuff. Has anyone on the list done this kind of
study into conversations or have references to such studies and come up
with enabling processes and tools, procedures, understanding of the
underlying dynamics etc.? I agree with Dr GK VanPatter that this will be
a critcal area for design research, particularly if design (and I
believe it is) is headed into the domain of "team centered performance"
and away from the classical "individual centric models" of super hero
performancees that seems to be championed by our "Star Designer
Syndrome" that we follow for much of design promotion and design awards
across the world.
I would like to hear more about this and to learn from list members on
this matter. If NextD has some new insights to share it would be wonderful.
With warm regards
M P Ranjan
from my office at NID
23 April 2004 at 9.55 pm IST
|