Logos Noesis works with leadership groups and organizations to transcend the limits taken for granted and transform systems and structures already in place to be able to rebalance and expand their capabilities, finding ways to move towards cultures of collaborative partnership.
Core Concepts
We work with several core concepts that give focus to our work. Dialogue, Collaboration, Unity and synergy in diversity, and Transformative Change are the main ones.
Dialogue
Dialogue is a way to rediscover and nurture connections with others, addressing some of the fragmentation that we experience in modern life.. This brings coherence to our interpersonal relationships and fosters an environment of appreciation, within which we can listen to each other and inquire into new territory.
Skill Building Blocks and Guidelines for Dialogue
The building blocks and behavioral guidelines outlined below are concepts that form a scaffolding for Dialogue. Like the scaffolding used in construction to aid in the initial stages of building, they are meant to help provide an environment conducive to unfolding the dialogical process.
Rather than a set of rules, you might think of them as reminders of the level of attention which lies at the core of Dialogue. Attention to our thinking, our feelings, our communication, assumptions and judgments. Attention to the unfolding meaning of the group, the spirit of inquiry and the pauses for reflection that lead to learning and understanding.
Held lightly, these guidelines and building blocks will help you enter into Dialogue. Held too firmly, they will trap you in just one more structure and limiting system. Dialogue is a living process and requires the willingness of all participants to be open to letting go of the known in order to discover new perspectives and understanding. As one writer so eloquently put it, "We must be prepared in each moment to give up (our ideas of) who we are to discover all we may become. "
So, by all means use these guidelines to help you begin your exploration of Dialogue, and in each moment, be prepared to release them and let your attention guide you to the next level of learning.
Dialogue: A cycle of conversation that permits change through a generative process that allows for new ways of understanding and making sense. It can lead to higher-quality collective thinking and real transformation. Dialogue comes from the Greek roots dia meaning across or through, and logos meaning word or study. The picture or image that this derivation suggests is a stream of meaning flowing among and through us and between us.
When we engage in Dialogue we let meaning emanate from the group. People can learn to reflect and talk together, even in the heat of challenging moments, on the hidden meanings, assumptions, values, traps, voices, and forces of our interactions. When you partake in dialogue, you engage your whole being in an active living relationship with others that is pregnant with possibilities for newness, meaning-making, and understanding. Dialogue requires a commitment to speaking and listening more deliberately, which allows deeper understanding to emerge and encourages a sense of shared meaning.
Listening: How do you listen? What does it mean to you to hear someone? In Dialogue we should listen to hear meaning emerge both from individuals and from the group. We listen for common assumptions and for the voices that question those assumptions. In doing so we let meaning unfold in the conversation as a whole. We try to hear the shared meaning that can evolve only if many individual meanings are heard.The Chinese character for listen contains the sub characters one heart, eye and ear- all of which we must use to truly listen. Listening is the first step in making dialogue effective.
Honesty and sincerity: In dialogue one must speak the truth, be sincere and assume that the other person is also sincere and telling the truth. This develops trust between the partners in dialogue, and they can engage in dialogue with confidence.
Awareness: The capacity to see the living processes that underlie all things, and to begin to become aware of ourselves and the impacts we have--right in the moment of their occurrence. It includes letting go, or "suspending" our certainty, to see things from another point of view. With awareness we can entertain multiple points of view at once, even if they are opposed or in contradiction with one another.
Suspension: Means that we neither suppress what we think nor advocate it. In the words of Bohm (1996), “you neither carry them [thoughts] out nor suppress them. You don’t believe them, nor do you disbelieve them; you don’t judge them as good or bad.” Isaacs says you “change directions, stop, step back, see things with new eyes.” We allow our differences to be present – not moving immediately to agreement or debate, but developing the skill for bridging across the diversity of our opinions, assumptions, backgrounds and ideas.
The word suspend comes from the Latin root suspendere, which means "to hang below." It has to do with drawing out, or stretching. It refers to displaying our thinking in a way that lets us and others see and understand. When we practice suspending our judgments we learn to hold our opinions lightly. We consciously open ourselves to hearing and understanding each person's point of view. We create a space between our judgments and our reactions so that we can hear the other person in a new way. This is a key to building a climate of trust and safety in the group.
Inquiry and Reflection: When we are unclear about what someone means, we ask a question. In Dialogue the intent of questions is twofold. One purpose is to draw the other out in a safe and supportive way. Questions should never belittle or criticize. More importantly, questions allow us to dig deeply into ideas and perspectives that are novel to us. Questions can give us room for reflection and develop the understanding of the entire group.
Identifying Assumptions: Our assumptions play a large part in how we view the world and how we behave towards others, yet our assumptions are often invisible to us. Our assumptions are so habituated that we "know" that the world agrees with them. Learning to identify our assumptions allows us to see the world in a new light. By identifying our assumptions we learn to build common ground and consensus. We learn to respect others and their contributions, regardless of the fact that these contributions may contradict things we have long held to be true.
A Safe Space: We can’t change human behavior by command, resolve, or even good intentions. But we can create a safe, holding environment for the collective identity of a group of people, with a safety and quality that makes people more aware of their thinking, their conversations, their interrelationships, and their potential for better action. This is what Isaacs calls The "container."
Mutuality: In dialogue, there is a mutual search for understanding. Each regards the other as a partner in a shared inquiry, someone whose point of view is valued, someone with whom to explore the familiar and develop the new. Both are open to the possibility that the meanings of one may cause those of the other to be revised and/or changed. The conversation form together, even though everyone is responsible individually for whatever they feel is needed and relevant.
Growth through crisis: As we address difficult issues, the crises that break out are essential parts of our development. We learn from them and build with them. We stay with the dialogue until a new level of understanding develops.
Collaboration: Refers to cooperation, to working together. We become conversational partners in mutual inquiry, discovery, and interpretation that permit the emergence of new meanings and new possibilities. Collaboration is equality, or walking together; not knowing, or “not being an expert,” and therefore not giving answers or advice; discovering together, especially through curiosity and asking questions; and respecting each others needs, agendas, timing, values, choices, and uniqueness, by deep listening and keeping the focus on the positives.
The magic of dialogue occurs when a group wanders into territory - discovers new meaning - that can only be discovered by the entire group. This is meaning that no individual formed him or herself - rather it flows from the group as a whole. For the group, this can be a powerful experience because it is the creation of shared meaning. Creating shared meaning is a step toward creating community and working collaboratively.
Fragmentation is like a virus that has infected every field of human endeavor. Dialogue’s purpose is to create a setting where conscious collective mindfulness can be maintained. -David Bohm
Dialogue is a process in which one can experience the connectedness and wholeness that is always present, yet is mostly invisible. -Sarita Chawla
Dialogue is a mode of exchange among human beings in which there is a true turning to one another, and a full appreciation of another not as an object in a social function, but as a genuine being. -Martin Buber
Through dialogue we learn how to engage our hearts. Dialogue provides a means by which we can learn to maintain our equilibrium, cultivating a mature range of perception and sensibility. It let us reconnect and revitalize our emotional capacity because it compels us to suspend our habitual reactions and frozen thoughts. Dialogue requires that we take responsibility for thinking, not merely reacting, lifting us into a more conscious state. -William Isaacs
Dialogue is a shared inquiry, a process of forming, saying, and expanding the unsaid and the yet-to-be-said--the development of new meanings, themes, narratives, and histories--from which new descriptions may arise. -Harlene Anderson
Collaboration
Unity and synergy in diversity
Transformative Change
Intellectual Heritage
Logos Noesis draws upon the growing body of theory and practice that has developed during the past 50 years as different disciplines have researched and studied dialogue, collaboration, change, and the nature and impact they have in leadership and organizations. The most relevant ones for our work are: Systems-related theory and methodology, Dialogic Consultation, Dialogue, and The Five Disciplines of the Learning Organization.
Organizations as Living Systems
The work of Logos Noesis incorporates several different threads of systems-related theory and methodology:
System Dynamics is a body of knowledge about systems modeling and intervention, developed originally by Jay Forrester at MIT. [1]
Structural Dynamics is an outgrowth of family systems theory applied to organizational contexts. [2]
Dialogic Systems Theory is a set of insights about group interrelationships, derived in part from the work of Martin Buber (I and Thou), Harlene Anderson’s ideas about “conversation, language, and possibilities” (1997), the “dialogue” theories of David Bohm, and expanded to organizational and leadership contexts by William Isaacs (Isaacs, 1999).
Central to all of these threads of work is the concept of all human groups (including formal organizations and corporations) as “living systems:” as adaptive and unpredictable as the people who comprise them. The work that Logos Noesis does succeeds because it takes into account (and embodies in its change initiatives) the primary characteristics of living organizations:
Participation: Everyone in a group of people both influences and reflects the thinking and interaction of the whole. Powerful patterns of influence resonate throughout the organization, not merely up and down the hierarchy. For this reason, we endeavor to “get all the voices in the room:” to make sure people know that their perspective is heard, and that all perspectives are comprehended by the decision-makers.
Context: Living systems evolve to meet the challenges and constraints in their environment. Thus, in organizations, there is always a reason why some situation has evolved the way it did. We strive to come to a clear-sighted understanding of why things look and work as they do. It also sets the stage to enable us to work with reality: circumstances as they are, not illusions we might project about how things should or could be.
Unfolding Potential: Living systems grow and mature. Living organizations have a distinct potential form and purpose that continues to evolve as the organization grows. Applying this principles entails discerning not only what is possible, given the current reality, but the deep potential carried in the situation, even if it is not fully yet grasped or realizable by people in the system.
Awareness: Living systems are characterized by awareness of their environments and themselves. A system’s capacity to be aware of what it is doing as it is doing it is a very high-leverage change avenue. This principle suggests that the most effective way to intervene in organizations is to increase their capacity to detect and correct errors, as well as to detect and utilize strengths. The quality of reflection that a system has about itself directly influences its capacity for taking generative action.
Dialogic Consultation
Our work draws on several threads: a) action learning that stretches back to John Dewey through the work of Kurt Lewin, Chris Argyris, and Edgar Schein [3] ; b) transformative learning as developed by Mezirow (Mezirow, 2000), and going back to Kuhn 1962), Freire (1970), Habermas (1971), Gould (1978), Bowers (1984), Candy (1989), and Vygotsky (1962, 1978); c) collaboration; and dialogue. The dialogic approach we use apply the following principles:
- Interventions are jointly designed with participants (who are no longer kept apart as “objects” of the intervention);
- Time for joint reflection with participants is built in, both for evaluation and to develop their capabilities to make use of the actions so far;
- We take part in joint theory-building with participants, helping them to derive a meaningful model (in mind) of the situation.
Logos Noesis promotes a collaborative learning space in which participants explore practical issues in a reflective space where they can learn by observing their own actions or those of others, and then, through dialog, build shared models of how to maximize the positive impact of those actions.
Dialogue: Collective Thought
The work of Logos Noesis is based on keen awareness of the nature of reflective thought [4]. We design and facilitate generative conversations that fosters awareness and capability. In this sort of facilitation we pay close attention to the quality of the “container:” the conversational environment.
We foster an environment where dangerous perceptions and non-discussable topics can be raised productively, without making people vulnerable. Four qualities are significant in the design of dialogue. These can be simply stated as:
Voice: Creating a place for all relevant perspectives and attitudes to be spoken so that they may be heard.
Listening:Attention to the spoken and unspoken nature of the conversation and the “acoustics” of the space in the room.
Respect: Acknowledgement of the value of differences and participants’ identities.
Suspension: Willingness to raise and consider assumptions and perceptions without being bound by them.
The Five Disciplines of the Learning Organization
Our work also draws upon the five organizational learning disciplines. Popularized by Peter Senge, the five “learning disciplines” have formed the basis of a growing practice for individual, team and organizational development. [5] The underlying premise is that “real-world” results are more effectively achieved, especially when flexibility is needed, by galvanizing authentic human commitment. Senge suggests five forms of ongoing practice:
Personal Mastery: Articulating individual aspiration while fostering keener awareness of existing challenges;
Mental Models: Uncovering the “theories in use,” assumptions, and mindsets that govern behavior;
Shared Vision: Designing processes that elicit the common aspirations that can spark extraordinary behavior;
Team Learning: Learning to transcend barriers and reach beyond agreement to genuine alignment and effectiveness in teams; and
Systems Thinking: Learning to see recurring interrelationships in complex environments and thus intervene more effectively, drawing on intellectual traditions such as those of system dynamics.