Our theory of practice
Kurt Lewin said ‘there is nothing more practical than a good theory’. A theory of practice provides a reference point for the design, delivery and debriefing of work with groups. It guides where to put our attention, and how we frame our intention.
Our theory of practice underpins our social technology. A primary text is William Isaac’s text “Dialogue – and the art of thinking together” (Doubleday, 1999).
We have distinguished four primary dimensions of institutional learning. Each one is particularly associated with a group of stakeholders and a set of issues and common perspectives that arise at local (community and regional) levels. Each have their own distinct “take” on the purpose and process of learning, their own preferred language, their own “light and shadow”. Design with regard to these dimensions will guide selection of participants in learning processes, and assist in “getting the whole system in the room”. These dimensions occur within each of us, as well as within the wider system. So, as we become skilled at working with their strengths and “over-strengths”, we can evoke balance and harmony in a learning process and in ourselves.
We distinguished recurrent ‘stops’ to learning (thresholds). We have developed interventions, practices, and design approaches and tested those that can assist a multi-sector group (or institutional learning in microcosm) develop a capacity to get themselves past being stopped. With recurrent practice, this generates an ability to observe and a “high consciousness” culture. The way to bring out the collective intelligence of a group is to have them not stop – or get stuck – by factors that are not about the main challenge.
We have also noticed that as individuals participate, they deepen and build up their capacities over time. And that what emerges, stage by stage in a relatively predictable manner, are new collective capacities to think, hold complexity, and work together. We think we are beginning to observe emergent patterns that might guide how we take new initiatives to scale across regions and across the country (and the world).
We have been mapping our learning back to the ecological insights of resilience theory (Resilience thinking, sustaining ecosystems and people in a changing world, Brian Walker and David Salt, Island Press, 2006). We noticed familiar stable states, thresholds, fore-loop (observing to visioning) and back-loop (intention to action) sequences, and are speculating how similar or useful (or otherwise) this coincidence of appearance is in real life social practice.
Key resources
Dialogue: The Art Of Thinking Together by William Isaacs (Hardcover - Sep 14, 1999) (Amazon)
How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work: Seven Languages for Transformation by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey (Paperback - Dec 16, 2002) (Amazon)
Kenneth I. Maton: Making a Difference: The Social Ecology of Social Transformation. 1999 Presidential Address. American Journal of Community Psychology, Vol. 28, No. 1, 2000. (Sourced in pdf format from www).
Process Consultation: Its Role in Organization Development, Volume 1 (2nd Edition) (Addison-Wesley O D Series) by Edgar H. Schein (Paperback - Jan 1, 1988) (Amazon)
Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities by Adam Kahane and Peter M Senge (Paperback - Aug 1, 2007) by Adam Kahane (Author) (Amazon)
The Generon Consulting: The U-Process:
http://www.generonconsulting.com/publications/papers/pdfs/U-Process_Social_Technology.pdf
The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization (2nd edition) by Peter M. Senge (Paperback - Mar 21, 2006) (Author) (Amazon)
The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations by Peter M. Senge, Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, and George Roth (Paperback - Mar 16, 1999) (Amazon)
Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society by Peter M. Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers (Kindle Edition - Aug 16, 2005) (Hardcover) (Amazon)
Cultivating Communities of Practice by Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott, and William M. Snyder (Hardcover - Mar 15, 2002) (Amazon)
Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges by C. Otto Scharmer (Hardcover - May 2, 2007 (Author) (Amazon)
Meg Wheatley & Deborah Frieze: Using Emergence to Take Social Innovations to Scale. http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/emergence.html