| Hacking the Kingdom

It can be very difficult to communicate across these “languages.”  You should first understand your own primary language.

Three ways in which people prefer to organize power and relationships:

1. Open – resolve differences through a process of open exchange.  (Think Android)
2. Closed – regulates the life of its members. (Think iOS)
3. Random “system paradigms” – individuals without any clear correlation.  System, what system?

Closed: “insular purity,” blind to emergent change

Open: “tyranny of process,” can include too much, tolerant of intolerance that cannibalizes

Random: anarchy, nothing constant (this was the most difficult to understand)

Mapping – I’m not very clear on how to do this.  Seems like putting on paper both issues and structures as well as the content of what is said are important.

There are “conversational fields,” which are all of the influences – memories, atmosphere, energy, etc. exerting influence in a conversation.  Fields are somewhat like stages in a conversation.

The route to understanding goes through doubt and confusion.

“Fields” cannot be manufactured, but the “container” can be intentionally set.  A well prepared container sets you up for the best field possible.

The idea behind a container is that human beings need a setting in which to hold the intensities of their lives.

Ensure, before dialogue begins, that energy, possibility, and safety are present.

We should consciously decide how to structure the mode of the container – closed, open, or random.  Decided and maintaining this reduces anxiety.  This might come in the form of interjecting things like, “George, were you understood as you intended?”

The process of dialogue is more important than any “end” or “objective.”

Both of these are wrong: “No fight, no reality.”  “Terminal niceness”

Containers are the “relatively observable features of fields.”

Four Fields – Corresponds to Otto Scharmer’s TheoryU Fields

All spaces have their role.  It is movement through the fields that indicates health.

Field 1 – Politeness

Initially the container supports very little intensity.  Things are kept polite and superficial.  Differences are kept hidden.

“In Kantor’s four player system terms, Field I is usually characterized by “more-follow” sequences: some people move, others follow, no one opposes or bystands.”

Erving Goffman is an expert in Field 1 behavior.

We must encounter the “crisis of emptiness.”  Here, we empty ourselves of expectations that anything new is to happen.  We empty ourselves when we realize our initial desires aren’t going to be met.  This crisis can be provoked by commenting on the process of the conversation itself.  On the other end of this crisis there must be a move towards shared responsibility.

Here silence is socially awkward.  Kronos dominates.

Field 2 – Breakdown

Here people start to say what they think.  Move – oppose sequences emerge.

Here emerges the “crisis of suspension.”  Here we must find a way to cool down the exchange to the entire crowd may freely move.  Failure at this point, often goes back into politeness.  The way out is self-reflection.  Everyone must see that “I am not my opinions.”

Here silence holds tension.  Kronos time is running out.

Field 3 – Inquiry

Curiosity dominates the Inquiry Field.  No longer are people feeling compelled to agree.  They reflect upon the rules themselves.

“Outsight” is insight collectively experienced.

Here we must engage the “crisis of fragmentation,” where we can be something new together.

Here silence silence is thoughtful, reflective.  Here we start to become aware of kairotic time.

Field 4 – Generative Dialogue

The rarest of all, in this stage people come to an awareness of the whole.  There is an experience of “flow” or “collective flow.”  People can speak from and interact in a pool of common meaning.

Here we must overcome the “crisis of entry (or reentry)” as we come out of the generative state into a world more familiar with Field 1 and 2.  The movement of healthy dialogue requires us to continue beyond the generative stage into other places.  In this way, the movement is more like a spiral or a circle.

Here silence is whole, even sacred.  Kairotic time dominates here.

Kronos is time measured.  Kairos is time that is filled with its own purpose.  Kronos is external time, Kairos is internal time.

This chapter is about the best leadership practices for each field of dialogue.

Leadership for Field 1:

• Clarify your intentions – do you see them as “needing help”?  If so, can you tell them?
• Entry is everything – The start sets the tone
• Join each person differently
• Create the container – four practices are key: (1) listening, (2) respecting, (3) suspending, and (4) voicing
• • Evoke the ideal – make explicit the potential
  • Support dreaming out loud – be ready to add your support to positive visioning that emerges
  • Deepen the listening – work for understanding in the heart and mind
  • Make it safe for opposers – affirm them, come to their defense
  • Dare people to suspend – help people manage the “crisis of emptiness” (abandon initial expectations for dialogue)

• Map the structures – name the underlying forces and their consequences (often conflicting) as best you can
• Facilitate Cross-Model Conversation – attempt to make the case that different people are speaking “different languages,” e.g., (affect, energy, or power; open, closed, or random)
• Educate – talk about dialogue theory:
• • Articulate new capacities for action (Part II)
  • • Listening
    • Respecting
    • Suspending
    • Voicing
  • Develop people’s predictive intuition (Part III)
  • • Action – Intention Roles
    • • Mover
      • Follower
      • Opposer
      • Bystander
    • Structural Traps
    • • “Languages”
      • • Affect
        • Energy
        • Power
      • Relationship Organization Type
      • • Open
        • Closed
        • Random
  • Shed light on the invisible architecture that surrounds them (Part IV)
  • • Set Container
    • • Energy
      • Possibility
      • Safety
    • Fields
    • • Field 1 – Politeness
      • Field 2 – Breakdown
      • Field 3 – Inquiry
      • Field 4 – Generative Dialogue

• Listen for emerging themes – bring out underlying themes and questions that go beyond any single person
• Model leading from behind – see self as an equal partner in inquiry process
• Predict and deal with retrenchment – beware of sense of superiority that can come with newfound group identity that is now talking/thinking differently

• Embody service – what is our group’s highest purpose?  unique calling?
• Reflect on the whole process – reflect on entire dialogue process
• Seek paths to resolution – what actions are now possible?
• Allow the leadership role to move – seek out the de facto leader
• See the whole as the primary – ask and act on behalf of the whole

Twin aspects of inner ecology: memory & awareness

Three levels of ecology:

1. behaviors we exhibit (Part II)
2. predictive intuition (Part III)
3. invisible architecture & fields (Part IV)

This chapter uses ecology as an analogy for what is happening to us internally.  One limit is the factor of interpretation, which science leaves little room for.

We each carry our own ecology – one that surrounds us and one that is internal.  They also affect one another.  This applies to groups as well.  Ecologies are made up of reflexive memories.  These happen instinctively.  To transform our ecology, we must transform our memories.  We do this through perceptions inherent in the practices of dialogue.  Changing the way we talk can change the way we think.

Three great value spheres of human experience: (1) the Good (We), (2) the True (It), and (3) the Beautiful (I).  These exist more independently and don’t naturally talk easily to one another, but they should be seen as interconnected.  In our scientific era, the True (It) has dominated the Good and the Beautiful.  According to Plato, the Good should be the master of the other two.

We are in a period of “punctuated equilibrium” – a massive change, reordering things.

An adjustment to this change can’t only be personal, but must be collective.

Kevin Kelly’s Three Features of the New World:

1. Globalization
2. Favoring the intangibles of information, ideas, and relationships
3. Intense interlinking

1. Power lies in embracing decentralized control
2. Generosity produces wealth
3. Support the network, not my node within it
4. Freely abandon the successful for the emergent unknown

We must learn to manage our ignorance.  There are three different types of ignorance: (1) blindness, (2) unawareness, and (3) deliberately withheld information.

This chapter deals with real world examples of some of this theory in action. Very case-studyish.

I listened to most of this chapter via “Speed Up.”  It deals with the real world politics of all of this theory.  Less “how to” than the rest of the book, but reflects on the most polarized of all places – the American political scene.  Not terribly important to review.

I listened/read this chapter via “Speed Up” as well.  It seemed to be a sort of reflection on the theory emphasizing how it ties together everything “wholistically.” Each of the elements in the Good, Beautiful, and True.  The content and the feeling.  It reflects on the Internet both good and bad for dialogue.  Also not so much how-to, but probably the most useful chapter in Part V.

The book seems to be aimed at those facilitating meetings.  How can this all be applied when we’re participants and have more limited ability to set the container and so forth?

How does one map the structures of dialogue?

How do time constraints effect dialogue?