What's to Like in an Organization?

 We know that organization increases our power enormously. We know that our organization informs and educates us well.

                    We are capable of forgetting the pleasures and satisfactions  of organization. I expect that the pleasures and satisfactions I am recalling just now will not be the same as yours. Still among mine you may find one or two of yours.

                    I have an interest in ad hoc organizations and and those of longer term.

Below are many of my personal likes in organizations. You may find some of your likes listed.

An organization which attracts me often has:

~ members who feel connected, involve, and respected.

~ the motive of helping me and others to thrive.

~ a clear understanding of costs and benefits.

~ members who promote widespread participation and responsibility.

~ members who embrace reality and who are willing to approach the truth.

~ members who value honesty and justice.

~ a mission I find valuable and pleasing.

~ plenty of talk in which all participate.

An organization which pleases me is one which:

~ Keeps me in the information loop.

~ most members feel well connected with leadership.

~ Makes very clear who pays how much and who gets what.

~ moves in the direction of democracy.

~ tends to be inclusive.

~ tends to safeguard that which I value.

~ includes those who study and promote actions good for me and others.

~ advocates and protects people and process important to me.

~ promotes dialogue which leads to appropriate action.

I find an organization congenial when it includes:

~ teaching the process of organizing.

~ the purpose of advocating and protecting me.

~ objectives very like my own.

~ intelligent, respectful, loving ladies. (Excuse my honesty, please.)

                I am very interested in hearing of your likes in organizations. I expect to post more about organization and organizing. Dialogue skills are organizational skills for all participants in society.

                Organizing can be a wonderful move toward governance.

                More as soon as I can.

                Thank you for reading. Make some time to do some exploration among the 50 posts here.

                                                                                                            RCS

Benefits of the Dialogue

Dialogue With RCS: more meaning in you your life, better understand others, a way to a better world, being listened to.             

                On this new blog I intend to continue a number of posts on a kind of dialogue with which you may be becoming familiar. Some churches, corporations, civic organizations, and others have been this sort of dialogue for years, so it is not brand new.

               

                For those who may not be certain of what I mean by dialogue, In brief, it is meaningful talk within groups.

                

                Below I will begin to note a few of the dialogue's benefits. As we are now on the internet I will say now that, I do not know of cases of the dialogue's being used successfully online. However, I believe that it is now possible to do so, but am not sure how. If you would like to suggest something the "comments" window below is for your use.

                

                As I know it the dialogue is best used face to face, in person. And seems most effective in groups of between 20 and 40 participants. Groups of 15 and less have been please with it. Much of it can be used to good effect between husband and wife. It has been used with groups with groups much larger than 40 with professional facilitators and more as a demonstration than as well functioning group. I would like to see it use online. 

                The following list is far from inclusive and not completely representative, but can serve to introduce something of the dialogue.

I am calling it the dialogue now, have called it Magic Table Dialogue and Dialogue For Peace.

                    

 Benefits include:

~ learning to make yourself heard.

~ being heard.

~ being listened to.

~ coming to enjoy being heard.

~ an opportunity for the practice of listening.

~ learning that dialogue is more than talk.

~ gaining motivation to listen.

~ improving your use of language.

~ practicing a language new to you.

~ learning new listening skills.

~ the possibility of getting in touch with traditions of knowledge new to you. 

~ getting to know yourself better.

~ getting to know an interesting other.

~ knowing new people.

~ having fun while realizing that the dialogue is a serious activity.

~ experiencing the creation of culture. 

~  increasing your word power.

~ Seeing how better dialogue can be a way to a better world.

~ sharing meaning and understanding.

~ the possibility of beginning an interesting new exploration with safe, comfortable "baby steps." Still there might come a time that you will want to take a step beyond your comfort zone.

~ improving your ability understand others, even those quite different from you.

~ learning more of the effect of assumptions in our lives.

~ the possibility of increased meaning and understanding in our lives.

                                     

                 More to come.

                There are about 50 little essays here. It's okay if you read a couple.

                Thank you for reading!

                                                                                                              RCS

 

 

Dialogue: A More Effective Practice Group

             The writing of the following list of hints began while I was thinking of the problems which can come up at the beginning of some groups. Some of the problems can brought on by a facilitator

        A facilitator might truthfully say that a good thing about these practice groups is that leadership can be widely shared in them. I believe that this is true and as it ought to be. The facilitator could have saved some confusion if he had added that the learning and practice of certain rules needed to take place before that wide sharing of leadership can successfully take place.

        Another problem or misunderstanding may be brought on by a facilitator saying that in no dialogue practice did a decision have to be made nor any problem solved, that the practice was the purpose. This is usually correct, but a facilitator may save confusion by adding a little more information. She could have added that each participant in a practice group has his personal reason to practice. And, have gone on to say that the practice is designed to develop, improve, and maintain skill in oral group communication. And even included that a goal of the practice may be to build the meaning and understanding among us with the hope of learning to think together.

            As you move forward you can expect to discover more benefits and reasons for your practice in the group.

            It can be worth your while to keep some of the coming hints in mind as you continue you with these posts and perhaps begin a practice group of your own. There is much to learn about the nature of the dialogue as you develop skills and gain the rewards of the practice.

            In  the hints below you can find help for you to benefit from your practice group and beyond. They can aid you in your learning the nature of effective dialogue and in getting in better touch with skills and attitudes. 

Here are the hints, take your time:

~ We found it best to meet weekly. Some found it good to meet more often at first. We found that meeting only once monthly not to be a good choice.

~ Expect to continue meeting again and again. Show up.

~ The practice is not a time to decide anything. You can have a business meeting to do that.

~ The beginning of a brand new group may accomplished with only 7 tentative members committing to attend to 3 or 4 consecutive meetings.

~ It may be time active recruitment when the membership drops below 30.

~ Your group is self-supporting so expenses an finances need be considered.

~ Two hours is a good length of time for a meeting. For example. a typical meeting might begin with 10 to 15 minutes of instruction or urgent business, then continue with 45 minutes of actual dialogue practice followed bay a short and another 45 minutes of practice. The aim is to give each member time to talk twice. Not easy.

~ An effective size for a group  my from 17 to 30 individuals. More than 40  lowers the quality of participation. With fewer than 17 there seems to be to little variety of participation and the needed variety of points of view is lost.

~ A truly effective group calls for a considerable difference of  life experience among the participants. There can be to much difference in experience and points of view. However, the more common case is too little variety. 

~ Group practice is designed for large differences of opinion and experience to be expressed and understood. No particular opinion need be taken as one's own.

~ From time to time there may seem to be a need to renegotiate a meeting rule or practice. But it is good to remember that most of the rules and methods have proven important for the maintenance of effective dialogue. Still when all members feel it is time for a a change in a particular practice that usually occurs.

~ As you meet and practice, assumptions usually arise. Some assumptions may seem mad, monstrously ignorant, or just incomprehensible at first. Great! This is your chance to achieve ne understanding. You can enjoy the satisfaction of coming to understand an assumption other than your own, or the satisfaction of others coming to understand one of yours.

~ Our purpose, as we face an assumption new to us, is to find out what it means and discover the experience from which it comes.

~ Our job is no to take the assumption of another as our own nor is it to convince another that ours is right and best. We want to understand the fellow participants reason for holding his. This  may be called getting to know that person. In this process new meaning and understanding may come into one's life.

~ We may learn to neither believe nor disbelieve an assumption, to neither suppress nor defend it, even should it be your own. Our practice is not a lace to find an opinion or assumption either good or bad. We would like to come to know how a person has come to hold that opinion even though even she is not sure why. We look at an assumption to see what it means and to understand it. I have  discovered an assumption of my own which I never new I held.

~ We would like to come to understand why a given assumption or opinion is held.

~ We want to se the meanings of assumptions including our own,

~ We may come to think that it is marvelous to learn about the experience which led to a given opinion or assumption.

~ We can begin a learning experience by taking in an assumption and noting our reaction to it, This may prove an excellent practice. It is also good practice to neither defend nor attack an assumption during our practice meetings.

~ It is, in a sense, very early to begin speaking of assumptions. I do so now because they are very often an important and sometimes a difficult part of our longer range learning. There is much to be learned about them and through them that can bring more meaning and understanding into our lives. Even so, there are many steps and much learning to complete before we need be much concerned with them. We have a lot to learn just about being heard and about listening.

~ You may come to want opinions to come up to where you can look at them. You may find it surprising to discover the depths of feeling they can stir. You will probably learn that it is best to improve your understanding of the meaning of an assumption before letting strong feelings within you to takeover, before defending or attacking.

~ We learn to share our opinions more freely and more modestly.

~ We may come to see us beginning to think together while retaining our own understanding. We begin to understand one another better. We may never agree on certain points, but we do come to better understand them. We begin to share more of our meanings.

~ We spend much less time and energy in defending our opinions.

~ Sometimes we may fid ourselves having a sort of game without winners or losers; a game wherein the goal is much like, "Keep the rally going."

~ We may find that one of us gets an idea and another of us extends it. Still another connects it to a related idea. The thought or idea would flow among us and others would see what is going on.

~ We come to better understand the important of this kind of dialogue, we may even come to see it as a culture sustainer and creator.

            You may soon have enough info about dialogue groups of this kind to consider finding one, forming one, or of asking another if they have ever heard of such a doing.

        More to come, perhaps from a different angle.

                            RCS