STIA- Isaacs & Zohar LO3003

/S=J.SAVELAND/OU1=W01C@mhs-fswa.attmail.com
Sat, 30 Sep 1995 01:10:34 +0000

Here are my notes/thoughts from the 1995 Systems Thinking in Action
Conference, "Building Organizational Learning Infrastructures," Sep.
18-20, 1995, Boston.

F03 - Dialogue, Organizational Learning, and the Quantum Society
William Isaacs and Danah Zohar

Started off with a nice quote on listening by Krishnamurti. (From
Talks & Dialogues?)
Faced with a paradox: the capability for dialogue is in all of us and
we have a lot to learn.
We don't come to advocate our point of view in dialogue. Listening to
the space in the center of the circle. Raising questions of meaning and
value.
Film clip from Dances with Wolves.
Sense of group: what is this thing called dialogue?
Insight that came to me - an analogy to fire management: In dealing
with wildfires we are in a high control situation - like controlled
discussion, in prescribed fire we don't give up much control but we are
focused on producing a positive result - like skillful discussion.
Dialogue is like wilderness fire management, our so called "let burn"
policy, where we embrace the uncertainty, dive into the unknown, provide a
container, and let the fire emerge. Sometimes the fire gets out of the
container (Yellowstone NP 1988).

--
Jim Saveland
USDA Forest Service
/s=j.saveland/ou1=w01c@mhs-fswa.attmail.com