Everything LO919 ...change, manipulation, wisdom, chaos, complexity

Myrna Casebolt (CASEBMJ@WP.DHSS.STATE.WI.US)
Mon, 24 Apr 1995 15:21:35 -0500

I can no longer hold back and beg your indulgence. I have tried to take
my associations to the absolutely spectacular stimulus regarding the
aforementioned subjects and synthesize them into comprehensive and
comprehensible statements. Alas, what follows is as a result of my
impatience with my dealing with my ridiculous resistance to associative
(chaotic appearing) thinking and feeling. So, this is in response to LOs
603, 606, 597, 595, 609, 563, 794, 800, 842, 838 but not limited to those.

If we have harkened together about anything, it is the dynamic quality of
everything. So, change is constantly occurring and we know that we must
operationally define it in order to dialogue with intent to both vent and
come to a meeting of minds, as it were. These (venting and meeting) are
not mutually exclusive phenomena; they are connected and related and
cannot exist without one another. They are the loops of our existence and
the existence, itself, is the loop both balanced and reinforced of our
relationship and connection to all other existence. So, a dialogue about
resistance to change and manipulation is enhanced by what we have learned
about archetypes - models of existence, "human nature" and the natural
selection of systems.

I hope you are still with me ....thanks. So, what does resistance to
change look like? That which we characterize as resistance is
adaptive....the way in which we adapt to the change or adjust to it is to
make noises that sound like resistance. It is the "delay" in the loop.
It is a natural part of change. The manipulation is a perception of an
attempt to change in some way.....it assumes a connotation of "out of our
controllness" when we are not ready to make a change or do not agree,
fundamentally, that there is understanding about the change. ( I can't
help but think now about Human Quest?.....Mindwalk?....any of Chopra's
work?....etc.) Manipulation defined in terms of intent pre-supposes that
we can, in some definably omnipotent way, know intent...our own and/or
some else's. We can only perceive intent......understand and acknowledge
that intent changes as more information is gleaned.

This brings us to the differences among and between information, knowledge
and wisdom. They, too are connected and we operationally define them to
help us talk with one another about them. If we acknowledge that
information applied turns into knowledge and knowledge related to and
associated with other knowledge applied and understood is wisdom, then we
have a basis for conversation. We can loop it....and double loop it. We
can relate it to mental models and personal mastery and systems thinking.

Sometimes, it serves a useful purpose to the victim or underdog of a
perceived manipulation. That, then becomes a manipulation. Hey, dear
colleagues, we all have hopes, desires, wants, aspirations, needs,
perceptions of control and power......the manifestations of these
phenomena are what we are dealing with .....those manifestations are
interpreted by us as "manipulation, resistance, etc." So what? What if
we focused the energy on acknowledging the existence of this and going
on....simply waiting for the "virus" to run its' course and not react to
it as if it had a course that we could control ..... change its' course
without affecting other systems or processes.....conquer its' resistance
to change or obliteration. What happens to me when we talk about this and
I listen and try to hear so carefully your wonderful words and thoughts
and ideas and feelings is that we are struggling together and seperately
with the concepts of the allusion, illusion, perception of
control.........the idea that somehow we are in control and that is power.

I wish we could replace the concept of control with a concept of well
being conceived from an acknowledgment about systems and the natural, if
you will, order to things and matter(s). By natural, I talk here not of
some esoteric construct but rather the evolutionary naturalness that is
inherent in all things.....the change that is omnipresent and discernable
with listening and hearing.

Perhaps we do orchestrate on some level that which we have the perception
of wanting to think occurs. Call it manipulation,.....none of us can be
manipulated unless we get something out of it. We cannot know evil unless
we know good and we cannot know love unless we know the absence of it
characterized somehow. Right? This is not just philosophical
rhetoric.....it is physiological cognizance.....a colleague of mine said
it so nicely recently...."I am therefore I think and feel"....Descartes
had it ok when he said the juxtaposition of the latter...it is only
relevant today in terms of our understanding of the impact of such
thinking.

Finally, comments about the metaphorical and analogical references are
just magnificent ways in which to help us connect to the relationships
that we all have with each other to omnipresent change. The drama unfolds
when we don't apply the metaphor or when we apply it without adequate
preparation for our psyche and soma. The executive teams in our
organizations (of which I suspect many if not most of us are willing
participants!!) still subscribe to the notion that they and only they are
saddled with making the decisions and that they and only they (hear
we....if we can) gain infinite wisdom by asking others and knowing how to
incorperate the feedback or "feed forward". There exists a bottom line
and that bottom line frequently is that the organization and culture has
to change ..... not
"me".....I..know....what....that....change....should.....be....I can see
the forrest and they can only see the trees.....the sense of "I" is seen
as exclusive rather than inclusive. We can only know our "I" with an
acknowledgement of the myriad of biological and genetic inheritances that
we carry with us. Our "I" is multiple "we's"....played out in our
organizations from widgets to health care to education to brick laying.
Say what????

Thank you so much for indulging me in this lengthy contribution, dear
fellow and sister (should I be saying sibling) LOer's. I await your
response with keen anticipation from my limbic system as well as other
parts!.......yours,,,,,,Myrna

Myrna J. Casebolt
Quality Improvement Consultant
Wisconsin Department of Health and Social Services
Division of Care and Treatment Facilities
1 West Wilson Street #550
Madison, Wisconsin 53707-7851
(608) 267-3783 - phone
(608) 266-2579 - fax
casebmj@wp.dhss.state.wi.us - e-mail