Dave Pollard's environmental philosophy, creative works, business papers and essays.
In search of a better way to live and make a living, and a better understanding of how the world really works.


July 16, 2009

When Music Began

Filed under: Our Culture / Ourselves — Dave Pollard @ 22:51


ancient harpThere is no known human culture on the planet, current or past, that has not had music as a staple element of its culture. Like art, it clearly predates the development of human language by at least three times. But very little has been written, or even theorized, about when, where, how and why human-made music began.

The use of the modern diatonic scale, which consists of 12 notes (each with a frequency of 2^(1/12) as great as the one below it), and which emphasizes 7 of these notes that produce the most natural harmonics (their frequency ratios relative to the starting note being very nearly 1:1, 9:8, 5:4, 4:3, 3:2, 5:3 and 15:8), is evident in hieroglyphic transcriptions dating back 4,000 years of harmonic music, and in excavated flute-like instruments dating back 45,000 years. Other scales that break the octave into 19, 24 (Arabic scale) and 31 have also been used in different times and places, with the objective being to allow music to be played or sung in different key signatures without having to use different instruments (some instruments such as those with unfretted strings can play any note or interval and are not subject to this limitation). Instruments that use such flexible scales are called ‘well-tempered’. Written notation of the melodies appears to have been independently and variously invented and forgotten in many times and places in different cultures.

Chinese legend has it that music was invented by a maker of pan pipes that mimicked bird songs. Early chinese stringed instruments had scale markings over a 7-octave range at 1:1, 4:3, 8:5, 2:1, 8:3, 16:5, 4:1, 24:5, 16:3, 6:1, 32:5, 20:3 and 7:1, and its seven strings were tuned to pentatonic scale intervals: 1:1, 9:8, 4:3, 3:2, 5:3, 2:1, 9:4. Other Asian stringed instruments are often tuned a fifth apart (1:1, 3:2). Although different human cultures prefer certain intervals and scales, all human cultures seem to prefer intervals that resonate naturally (‘consonant’ sounds) — the overtones naturally produced by the lower notes (‘pure’ tones do not occur in nature) ‘match’ the higher notes and their overtones. Dissonant sounds (whose overtones and sound waves interfere with rather than reinforcing each other) provide tension (like the crises in a drama) and we naturally look for them to be ‘resolved’ through a subsequent consonant sound.

There is little doubt that musical rhythms are at least as ancient as melody and harmony, although some European music (e.g. plainsong) had no time signature and no harmony (except perhaps that which resonated naturally from the cathedral in which it was sung!), and the tablature notation of some Asian music (e.g. that played on the ancient 7-string qin instrument) seems to have only occasionally included timing notations. By contrast, some African rhythms and musical constructions are staggeringly complex, and appear to have evolved over centuries and even millennia, an intricate language all their own.

There are depictions of dance in ancient African paintings dating back 8,000 years, and depictions of instruments that date back almost that far. It’s quite possible that Australian aboriginal music predates that of all other continents, but, like everything else about these peoples, little has been studied, much has been lost, and most of what is known is very recent.

All four major classes of non-electronic musical instruments date from prehistoric times: the self-vibrating percussion instruments (e.g. xylophone, rattle), membrane-vibrating instruments (e.g. drums, kazoos), string-vibrating instruments (e.g. piano, violin, guitar), and air-vibrating instruments (e.g. flute, trumpet, accordion, pipe organ). The human voice is a kind of string-vibrating instrument as well.

Perhaps because of the fragility of most instruments, the lack of pictures of their early use, and the lack of any initial written notation, it’s anyone’s guess what the earliest forms of musical expression were. What seems clear is that singing, playing musical instruments, and dance are inseparable forms of expression and integral parts of culture; that music is astonishingly viral, crossing the planet and infiltrating and integrating far more effectively than language or other elements of culture (and its power and transmissability is hence readily exploitable by propagandists); and that, like art and written and spoken language it is a form of self-expression and collective expression. In some sense, as expression of oral culture, it is indistinguishable from language. Indeed, a recently-discovered Amazon tribe has a language whose structures are fundamentally musical, not linguistic.

Music affects us more profoundly and extensively than language, because it is experienced bodily and emotionally and immediately — it does not need ‘translation’ by the brain to give it meaning. I wrote five years ago that I found the lack of appreciation by other animals for human music disturbing, because I don’t believe we are nearly as intellectually superior to other creatures as we might think. At that time I asserted a belief that our discovery of melody came from birds, and our discovery of the pleasing nature of harmony came from trial and error, ‘accidentally’. I also said I believed that the prohibition of certain forms of music by some cultures was driven by fear of its somatic and visceral power, since music affects us much like a drug — in uncontrollable ways.

I have a profound and instinctive love of nature and wilderness, an unshakable belief that it cannot be ‘improved’ by a single disconnected species (humans) acting upon it in its selfish self-interest. Yet when I am in natural places I love to hear human music playing, mingled with (but not overpowering) the sounds of wind and water and wild creatures, just as I love to see subtle human lights illuminating the natural darkness. What is it about music and light that add so much more to our experiences of the moment than any other human artifacts?

One research study claims:

…our emotional responses to music are controlled by the amygdala (which has close connections with the hypothalamus, the part of the brain which instigates emotional behaviour and ensures that we can react quickly when our life is at risk). The amygdala evaluates sensory input for its emotional meaning, receiving sensory information directly and quickly from the thalamus, a relay station for incoming information, before it has been processed by the conscious thinking part of the brain, the cortex… music seems to encourage the release of endorphins [natural hormones that suppress feelings of pain and produce feelings of elation, social attachment, relaxation and well-being]

So music is more than a form of personal and cultural expression, it is a stimulant for endorphin production (certain wavelengths of light apparently produce the same effect). And a recent clinical study suggests humans’ production of, and receptors for, endorphins are much more pronounced than those of other mammals, which might account for why we love and respond to music more than other creatures — it’s subconscious programming, not intellectual processing capacity at all. And guess which creatures do appear to share our high endorphin production and response mechanisms? None other than nature’s musical masters, the birds. Corvids, according to the work of renowned ornithologist Bernd Heinrich, have been known to sing to themselves as a means of self-comfort!

If that’s the case, it just might be that we discovered music initially as a form of well-being enhancement, like chilis and chocolate, back when we were gatherer-hunters in the forest, before language, before civilization. We sang, and drummed, and danced, and played with reeds, because it made us feel better. It was, perhaps, only millennia later, as this positive stimulus-response mechanism was increasingly selected for, that we also discovered it was a mechanism for personal and cultural expression.

That’s my theory, anyway, for when, where, how and why music began.

Category: Being Human

July 15, 2009

What Do You Want?

Filed under: Preparing for Civilization's End — Dave Pollard @ 22:55


I‘m back from a wonderful vacation in Oregon, and feeling very centred. I feel in touch with my emotions, my senses, and my instincts, and they are guiding me in my decisions and reflections as much as my intellectual thinking. Most of my life I have made decisions in my head, ‘rationally’, and then wondered later why they don’t ‘feel’ right. It is important, I think, to find a balance between our four ‘ways of knowing’ (mind, emotions, senses, instincts) before deciding what to do.

quaternity

My current preoccupation is deciding ‘What I Want’. This is more than just what I want to do; it also includes what I have to learn in order to do these things, what I (realistically) want to (see) happen, and what I want from others. By implication it also means where and with whom I want these things to happen. It includes but is not limited to what I need.

I think most of us rarely get around to thinking about what we want, because we are so caught up in the needs of the moment, our ‘to do’ lists and what is urgent (but generally not, in the greater scheme of things, really important). Those who see us as employees, customers, and voters, like to keep us too busy to really think about what we want, because this makes it more likely they can persuade us, thought-less-ly, that what we want is what they want — for us to work hard and ‘perform’ well on the job, to buy stuff we don’t really need, and to give them power to make decisions for us.

Even when we believe we are acting in our self-interest we often discover that this binds us to future actions that we did not realize and which we do not really want to do. What seemed at the time like decisions based on enlightened self-interest often turn out to be foolish naivete, and regrettable. Or we may be bound, by poverty or illness (ours or loved ones’), to spend our whole lives doing what we must, not what we want. We are all caught up in this vortex of inattention to what’s really important: When I speak with business and political ‘leaders’ they all lament the lack of time to really think about what’s important rather than what’s urgent.

I’ve been blessed with the capacity and time to think about what’s important, even though this often means I get criticized for not dealing with urgent things. I’ve had the opportunity, therefore, to take what I think is the first step towards deciding ‘What I Want’, which is self-knowledge, summarized in my recent ‘self-portrait in words’:

self-portrait in words

Once you know who you are, I think, you can know what you want. What do I mean by ‘want’?

  • Not ‘wish’ — wants must be realistic
  • Not ‘hope’ — wants must be directed and actionable
  • Not ‘aspire’ or ‘resolve’ — wants are broader than just what we personally seek to do
  • Not ‘expect’ — wants include things you may not expect, and don’t include all your expectations
  • Not ‘need’ — wants are broader than needs (needs= things we cannot do without)

The word ‘want’ is, er, wanting, since it literally means ‘deficiency’. It might be easier to delineate the categories of ‘wants’ rather than trying to define the term. I think there are five categories, that are best listed as questions:

1. What do you want to do (actions) with the rest of your life?
2. What do you want to be (behaviours, way of acting, and capacities)?
3. What do you want to give others and the world?
4. What do you want to see happen in the world, that you can realistically influence?
5. What do you want from others, personally, that they have the capacity to give and want to give?

A ‘want’, then, is an overcomable deficiency (something that is not currently present or happening) coupled with a realistic intention (to do what we can to make it happen). You may of course want some things simply to continue, but that probably suggests that there is a real risk they will not, that they will soon become deficiencies. Also, if the deficiency can’t realistically be overcome, or if the intention to do something about it is unrealistic, then it’s a dream, not a want.

I’ve learned enough about human nature and how our mental models work not to prescribe a methodology to others for determining answers to the five questions above. But here’s the process I used, in case it’s of any value to you:

what you want process

First, I reviewed my ‘self-portrait in words’ (second graphic above), my knowledge of who I am now. I focused especially on the 6 groups of things I love doing, in the upper right, but I also considered what I’m not (centre-right box), and also the 12 characteristics of myself (lower boxes) that I don’t believe I can change. I did this to appreciate what I cannot reasonably want to do or be (I’m not a believer in ‘self-improvement’ or that we can really be other than who we really are). And I considered my five stories (upper left) and the emotions they unleash in me (centre left), since the stories we tell ourselves inform, influence and inhibit what we want to do, and what we think we can do.

Next, I reconsidered what I’m ‘meant to do’. To do this I used the model below from my book Finding the Sweet Spot, but expanded my thinking to all the things I’m meant to do, for myself and my communities, not just things I’ meant to do ‘at work’. I slotted the 6 groups of things I love doing into the ‘passions’ circle. I put the first (imagining/reflecting) and second (writing) in the sweet spot in the centre of the three circles. I put the third (conversing/showing) at the intersection of ‘your purpose’ and ‘your passions’ (I’m not that good at this). I put the fourth (exploring/learning) at the intersection of ‘your gifts’ and ‘your passions’ (I’m not sure the world needs this gift). And finally, I put the fifth (playing/loving) and sixth (paying attention/being) just inside the ‘your passions’ circle (these are my enjoyable incompetencies).

what you're meant to do

I started to make a list of the things that I believe the world needs most, things like fewer people, an end to fossil fuel consumption and factory farms, more (and more appreciation of) wilderness, love, complexity, and self-sufficient communities. The hard part was trying to figure out how any of my 6 groups of passions could contribute to meeting any of these needs. Trying to close down the Alberta Tar Sands, or make factory farming, dams, nuclear plants, coal-burning power plants or logging of old-growth forests illegal, or develop easier, more reliable birth control, or eradicate poverty, or improve education, or create model sustainable intentional communities — these are all worthy objectives and tasks, but they’re just not things that I’m either passionate (enough) about or competent about to make my involvement in them fruitful. It’s not that I don’t care passionately about these causes; it’s more that I don’t believe there is anything I can do about them that would be effective, even working in concert with others. I’m profoundly cynical about the political, legal, economic and educational systems, and don’t believe they can be reformed, or that working within them can achieve anything durable, though I profoundly respect and admire those who fight the good fight to prevent them being exploited more than they already are.

I’m equally skeptical of the scalability of good programs, practices and models developed and implemented bottom-up. The transmissability (to use a viral marketing term) of even the most compelling, proven models is just too low. Advertising, loathsome as it is, brings about behaviour change because it’s simple, polished and relentless, and the models of better ways of living that most need to be promulgated around the world are subtle, imperfect and complex. People put Exxon Mobil gas in their tanks because it’s easy, and they don’t establish community-based renewable energy co-ops, because that’s hard.

Most actions, to be effective, need to be collective, and finding the right partners for the things you’re meant to do is enormously difficult.

So it’s no surprise that most of us aren’t doing what we’re meant to do. First, we have to have the knowledge and imagination to discover what we’re meant to do — something that probably isn’t already being done, and probably hasn’t even been conceived of. Secondly, we have to have the capacity to find others who share our purpose and whose gifts complement our own. This is hard work, and it takes a lot of time, and thought.

But I’m making progress. Here are some of the things I’ve concluded I want to do (my answers to question 1 above) as a result of this process of knowing myself and what I’m meant to do:

WHAT I WANT TO DO: CAPACITY-BUILDING
  1. I want to expand the reach and effectiveness of my writing by becoming better at presenting, conversing and demonstrating, and also by becoming a better (more effective, clearer, more compelling) writer. To do this I intend to self-study presentation, memory, and effective listening skills. So my third (conversing/showing) passion needs to become one of my ‘gifts’ as well. I believe my lack of skill in this area is a result of poor personal practices, and lack of practice, not inherent incapacity. 
  2. I want to become an exceptional and renowned story-teller. To do this I intend to self-study and practice writing and telling stories.
  3. I want to become a much more competent and effective creative writer. To do this I will read and study much more fiction and poetry, and practice, practice, practice.
WHAT I WANT TO DO: ACTIVISM 
  1. I want to champion unschooling. To do this I will tell my own ‘success’ story, and meet and work with other unschoolers.
  2. I want to develop and offer practical programs for understanding and coping with complexity. Until we understand the inherently complex nature of virtually all the problems we face today, and stop trying to make dysfunctional complicated systems and solutions ‘solve’ them, there is no hope for us.
  3. I want to focus more of my writing and speaking on sustainability, on practical social and economic actions that people can undertake personally and collectively to make our world more sustainable and resilient, told through stories of what’s happening and what’s possible.
  4. I want to teach young people in high school how to discover what they’re meant to do, and in so doing help launch a resurgence of responsible, sustainable, joyful, respectful entrepreneurship.
  5. I want to find and communicate ways to grapple with what I believe to be the most pervasive and intractable problem we face today: finding the right partners for collective action. This incapacity prevents us from doing everything that is important for us to do. To do this I will convene an ‘unconference’ of people who have formed excellent working partnerships, and explore with them how they did it. 
WHAT I WANT TO DO: PERSONAL TIME AND SPACE
  1. I want to make more time and space to do the things I love to do, including those that aren’t necessarily ‘useful’ to others, such as
    • play and fun, especially connected to music and art, co-creation, sensual pleasure and the expression of love,
    • reflection,
    • paying attention, especially in wild and peaceful and beautiful, natural places, and
    • learning. 
  2. I want to learn how to allocate my time more effectively, living as much as I can in the now and open always to serendipity and aware of my innate laziness, allowing lots of time for (i) above, but for (a)-(h) as well.
  3. I want to spend more time reflecting on the above (the first two lists in particular are probably far from complete) and deciding what I want to do, and then put all my ‘wants’ in a priority order with a ‘first step’ towards each.

After this, I considered the things I want to be and the things I want to give (my answers to questions 2-3 above). This list was partially informed by the things I want to do, above, and partially informed by a plausible (not idealistic) story I created about myself in the future — how I would behave and act, and what capacities I would demonstrate: 

WHAT I WANT TO BE
  1. I want to be able to take things in stride, calmly, and address them automatically according to the 7-step process I have used intermittently and consciously: Sense, Self-control, Understand, Question, Imagine, Offer, Collaborate.
  2. I want to be always in balance: thoughtful (intellect), sensitive (emotions), aware (senses), intuitive (instincts). That probably means I want to be always in love. When I have this balance, I am engaged, enthusiastic, and attentive, and those are always good things to be.
  3. I want to be more humble, and graceful.
WHAT I WANT TO GIVE
  1. I want to love and give time and attention to lots of people, deeply, care-fully, generously, differently, polyamorously.
  2. I want to give the world my ideas, imagined possibilities, in forms that are inspiring, provocative, memorable, exhilarating and useful.
  3. I want to be a model for others I know, and to show (not tell) them, one-on-one, what I’ve learned in ways that are helpful, practical, timely and relevant to what they want to learn and how they personally learn. I’ve given up the vanity that I, or anyone, can develop world-changing models that millions would intuitively embrace and follow. Self-help books (including all the books for business) are an addictive joint folly of arrogant writers and desperate-to-believe readers.
  4. I want to be more empathetic (caring + understanding), as much to humans as I am to other creatures.

And then finally, I created another plausible future story about the world, and the communities in which I imagine I will live, which allowed me to compile these final two lists of the things I want to see happen in the world, and in my communities, and the things I want from others (my answers to questions 4-5 above):

WHAT I WANT TO SEE HAPPEN
  1. I want to see our fatally-flawed and unsustainable civilization crash as gently and with as little suffering as possible, and the survivors learn quickly a better, less miserable, more sustainable way to live, and not repeat our mistakes.
  2. I want to see a better-late-than-never groundswell of biophilia, sufficient to save much of our rainforest, boreal forest and other wilderness, and by finding ways to feed humans more effectively than through industrial agriculture, I want to see an end to factory farming and monoculture.
  3. I want to see a massive rediscovery that the soul of and hope for humanity lies in community, in sufficiency and self-sufficiency, and in conversation, and in love.
WHAT I WANT FROM OTHERS 
  1. I want to be free to be nobody-but-myself, unencumbered by responsibilities, obligations, social pressures, commitments and others’ expectations of me.
  2. I want to learn from others what you cannot learn from books or self-study, and since I’m a slow learner I want those people I can learn from to be patient with me.
  3. I want others to be honest with me, always and completely.

Considering this list is probably not complete, pending some further thought, I guess I want a lot. But I suppose knowing what we want is a prerequisite to making it happen. How about you? What do you want? How would you answer the five questions above?

Category: Let-Self-Change

July 7, 2009

Can Groups Be Taught to Resolve Their Own Inadequacies?

Filed under: Working Smarter — Dave Pollard @ 18:19


social fluency
Our hosts during my vacation this past weekend in McKenzie Bridge, OR were Charlene and Galen Phipps. Charlene, it turns out, is a facilitator with an interest in complex adaptive systems, and specifically the issue of how an understanding of social complexity can be applied to improving group functionality.

Those familiar with this blog know the fundamental factors that differentiate complex from merely complicated systems. Mechanistic, complicated systems (like an automobile) have many moving parts, but they can be fully identified and understood with study and effort. By contrast, complex systems (like the world’s climatic system, or a community) are never completely knowable. They have too many variables to ever fully map, and the n-to-n connection between those variables is too manifold and nuanced to fully appreciate. Further, in complex systems, causality is never determinable; one can never separate cause and effect. So while a dysfunctional automobile can be ‘fixed’ by assessing the cause or causes of the dysfunction, we can never hope to do this with the world’s climate, or with community interactions or other social systems.

Nature’s way of ‘dealing’ with complexity is to make these complex systems self-managing. A balance is found, and as the infinite number of variables constantly and inevitably change, the entire system itself collectively seeks and finds a new balance, a new equilibrium. The physical and social systems of our world are complex because, in Darwinian terms, they work. They are less brittle than simple and complicated systems — cars break down much more easily and frequently than ecosystems and societies. If an ecosystem has a quintillion components, it makes far more sense to have all these components working collectively to resolve their problems (the resolution is then said to ‘emerge’), than expecting a single superior intelligence, or even a single species, to try to manage the system and impose ‘solutions’ on it.

In her work, Charlene summarizes the work of many social complexity pioneers and then presents what she calls the Discovery Model, which recognizes that groups learn and perform optimally when the people, the environment and the capacity for self-organization are in sync, and when information, interaction, and adaptability are present and working to enable the group to continuously transform itself into one sustainably suited to dealing with the issues of the moment. The facilitator’s role in this dynamic is to open up, unblock, encourage and enable the group to be fully functional. S/he does this through coaching, inviting, drawing out, connecting, challenging, articulating, and building personal and group capacities.

This is a huge task, and while I do agree that the role of a skilled and present facilitator is essential to effective group function, it’s my belief that this is largely because we have been indoctrinated to believe that mechanistic, complicated problem-solving is the answer to every situation (hence organizational hierarchies, and the simplistic and dysfunctional decision-making methodologies that have prevailed throughout our civilization), so we have never properly learned (as I believe indigenous and non-human societies do from birth) to self-manage, to allow resolutions to emerge naturally.

Reading Charlene’s work and talking with her got me thinking about the model of social fluency that Chris Lott and I co-developed, which is illustrated above. Here’s a brief re-cap of what it says:

Our ability to impart social value to others is a function of (a) our knowledge,  (b) our thinking competency (critical, creative and imaginative), (c) our communication skills (conversation, presentation and demonstration), and (d) our ability to integrate these three things.

This ability to integrate these three things gives rise to (i) insight, ideas and new perspectives (thinking competency applied to knowledge), (ii) reportage and stories (communication skills applied to knowledge), (iii) rhetoric and provocation (articulation of one’s thinking), and (iv) art (in its broadest sense, the re-presentation of reality). We are all artists, performers, when we have the stage in a social circle. This aspect of the social fluency model is from the perspective of the actor (presenter, demonstrator, creator, artist), and is shown in black in the model above.

The corresponding elements of social fluency from the perspective of the re-actor (audience, listener, student, learner) shown in red brackets in the model above,  are as follows:

Our ability to derive social value from others (i.e. to learn) is a function of (a’) our openness to others’ knowledge and ideas, (b’) our learning competency (ability to learn), (c’) our attention skills, and (d’) our ability to integrate these three things.

This ability to integrate these three things gives rise to (i’) understanding (openness and competency to learn new ideas and knowledge), (ii’) appreciation (openness and attention to new ideas and knowledge), (iii’) self-change (attention/awareness of change opportunities and the learning competency to apply them), and (iv’) improvisation (the real-ization of learning).

Again, this ability to integrate is social fluency. We exhibit social fluency inter-act-ively, as actors (though art/presentation) and as re-actors (through improvisation/attention).

Just as individuals’ social fluency is a function of these capacities, so is that of groups. The best facilitators have the awareness and skills to recognize the capacities and incapacities of the people in a group s/he is facilitating, and those of the collective group.

It’s been my experience that groups are more or less dysfunctional depending on the presence or absence of certain preconditions. The work of Dave Snowden and John Kotter supports this. These necessary preconditions for functional groups include:

  1. a shared purpose;
  2. a shared sense of urgency;
  3. the presence among at least some in the group of each of 12 core capacities (I describe these in my book Finding the Sweet Spot): excellent instincts, critical thinking, imagination, creativity, attention, communication, demonstration, learning, collaboration and self-management skills, and a strong sense of responsibility and of intention;
  4. sufficient information about the subject to have a context for learning and understanding (this is described in James Surowiecki’s book The Wisdom of Crowds); and
  5. a shared passion.

So my sense is that the role of the facilitator in dealing with complex issues should include the following:

Being aware of the presence or absence in the group of the necessary preconditions for a functional group.

Being aware of the presence or absence of social fluency among the members of the group, and of the group collectively, as described in the model above.

Articulating to the group the presence or absence of these preconditions and the elements of social fluency, so that they are aware of their strengths and weaknesses.

Suggesting compensatory ideas and methods (e.g. bringing in people, knowledge or teachers) to strengthen the group.

Most importantly, enabling the group to self-assess these strengths and weaknesses and to self-generate ideas and methods to draw on strengths and alleviate or compensate for weaknesses, to make the group and its members stronger and more competent to address the issues at hand.

I’m not suggesting that competent facilitators don’t do this already, just that there is a tendency for some facilitators to take the inherent problems of missing preconditions and incapacities as a given and hence not explicitly reflect them to the group, and also a tendency to make that the facilitator’s problem rather than the group’s. It seems to me that, while the facilitator may be able to get the group started in this self-assessment and self-management process (i.e. to facilitate it) the process itself should be directed and managed by the group. This is the very essence of managing social complexity.

For example, in my experience dealing with senior executives, they have a propensity (often reinforced by others) to exaggerate their own competencies and knowledge and to be blind to their incapacities and areas of ignorance. In facilitated sessions, they tend to dominate groups of subordinates and rush to conclusions. In such cases I have tried to research their possible and perceived incapacities and areas of ignorance in advance, and pull them aside before the session to urge them to recognize the value of them holding back judgement, listening, and helping draw out the knowledge, perspectives and ideas of others (almost making them quasi-co-facilitators, to disable their dominance, infallability and judgement behaviours). On rare occasions, an executive will even lead off by confessing his/her incapacities and ignorance as a means of leveling the power playing field and eliciting active participation of others. On occasions where the group explicitly acknowledges their strengths and weaknesses, the session can be very productive. A team aware of its individual and collective strengths and weaknesses will generally outperform a team that isn’t.

Likewise, I have found that business groups in particular often suffer from imaginative poverty, and that there is great value in doing some quiet advance brainstorming with creative and imaginative people, and then pre-seeding some provocative and credible ideas to selected group members, so that these ideas emerge as their ideas during the session and not mine as facilitator. Even better, if the group acknowledges this (or any other factor) as a collective incapacity, it can enable them to collectively invest more attention and effort on that area of weakness, or bring in others who have that capacity, or even follow a course of study or practice to acquire that capacity.

Having spent many years in research, I’ve also found that groups tend to think they are more knowledgeable about issues than they really are. In particular, there is a tendency for bad news and information about problems not to be communicated vertically in organizational hierarchies. For that reason it can be helpful to have the organization’s research staff (or group members with that competency) do an ‘environmental scan’ around the issue, and pull together and present an objective and uncensored precis of applicable facts and perceptions.

Of the three sets of elements of social fluency, in my experience the one that is most often lacking in groups I have facilitated is communication/attention skills. Many people come to these sessions with their minds made up, but an inability to articulate the reasons for their belief coherently and compellingly to others (often they don’t particularly care if others understand and share their viewpoint). As a result they may convey their ideas, information and perspectives poorly, or not at all, and disengage and be distracted when others are speaking. There is no simple answer to this significant challenge, but being aware of it, and recognizing it as a challenge explicitly, is a first step. It is then largely up to the group to deal with this, and I have seen groups do so very effectively. There is a technique, for example, of requiring each speaker to summarize the point made by the previous speaker before making their own point. The group can use a ‘talking stick’ to focus attention on the speaker and the importance of courtesy and attentiveness. And if a point is poorly made, asking clarifying questions can help, and can also teach the speaker how to be more coherent and responsive in future. Some facilitators use mindmaps displayed on a screen at the front of the session to ensure the points made are captured coherently and collectively understood.

I know that many readers of this blog are facilitators, and would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on how you have enabled groups suffering from lack of necessary preconditions for effectiveness, or lack of social fluency, or even total dysfunctionality, to become aware of, name, self-manage and resolve these issues themselves. The word facilitator literally means ‘one who makes things easier’. How have you made it easier for groups struggling with incapacities to make it easier for themselves?

Thanks to Charlene for inspiring this post, and to Charlene and Galen for their wonderful hospitality.

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