"RE your recent posting: I use an ever shorter question, especially when I'm
feeling conflict brewing, or a judgement coming on regarding the person
before me:
"What is the valid reason s/he is saying/doing that?"
99% of the time I actually come up with something! This works to fuel my
inquiry -- do you say/do this because of x?? 1% of the time I actually nail
it and make the connection. But 99% of the time it seems to communicates to
the person "I would like to understand your perspective" so voila, the
connection is established regardless.
Hope this makes sense.
P.S. Have you read "The Anatomy of Change" which focuses on Aikido?"
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Susan, thanks for your response to me post regarding training executives
in the us of "aikido" as a strategy for meeting resistance to change. I
agree with your method, and that was what was intended in working with
these executives. But when the practice you describe is posed as a
methodology for overcoming resistance to change, the implication is that
the change is good and the resistance is bad. No matter how much energy
you put into understanding the other person's point of view, there is a
mental model interfering with genuine inquiry, namely, that the change is
desirable and the other person's point of view is an obstacle.
When I posted my anecdote, it was intended to illustrate this point, which
had already been made by several people in the conversation around
resistance to change. My own personal perspective is that change is a
constant (the Heraclitan view) and that stability is only relative. In
these conversations, change is often confused with "progress", a demon
concept now clothed in many dense layers of ideology, which has a pretty
firm grip on the "Western" mind.
I have not read The Anatomy of Change. Can you tell me a little more (who
wrote it an when, and what I'm likely to find there)?
--Jack Hirschfeld What do you see when you turn out the lights? jack@his.com