Global Research Centrum: Chicago, JT, Social Methods School 12/14/74
The discourses the last couple of days set the context for thinking
through the Primal Community Experiment. First, we worked through
in three arenas, the practical vision having to do with social
demonstration, the primal community and the local church, or local
religious institution. Yesterday, we worked through the design
necessary for working in the context of that vision. This design
has to do with the framework, the structural dynamics and the
catalytic role.
Today, we want to look at the methods of effectivity that would
allow implementation of those designs and get a stew going in
three different arenas. I have a couple of stories that help me
to focus a bit. They get said what we are about here and what
is occurring in society.
I have a job in which I have a boss. I go to meetings with him
occasionally. One meeting in particular, every other Friday morning,
has been going on now for what seems like eons. At the end of
the meeting, the same ritual goes on, Not only my boss but everyone
else goes out the door rehearsing the fact that everything they
got done at this meeting could have been done in the last five
minutes. My boss goes into a little more detail than that because
we have a long walk from the meeting place back to our office.
So every other Friday we leave this place and go through this
same ritual, in great detail, about how everything done there
could have been done in the last five minutes.
I finally got tired of listening to it one day. I decided
I think it was just out of meanness, really, to say, "Now
suppose we take this conversation we have been having over the
last year together, a little bit further. What are the three things
that group of people need in order to operate in their meetings
differently than they do now? What do they need to have?"
I was amazed. My boss is not a particularly bright man, but I
was amazed. He said, "They do not know how to solve problems.
They can't think together." I thought, "That is not
bad." "They can't plan and they do not know how to work
together," my boss continued, "It would be a miracle
if they could simply talk one at a time. They would be far down
the road relative to operating corporately. They do not know how
to work together as a team. Thirdly, even if they did know how,
they do not want to anyway."
That is not bad in terms of articulating the concern relative
to effective operation: a way of thinking tactically, of operating
corporately and of standing on the long haul in the midst of the
first two. We have called these three methods Tactical Thinking,
Corporate Action and Depth Motivity. This morning, I want to talk
particularly about Tactical Thinking.
I want first to hand out a chart that represents work done in
all 3 arenas. This is not intended to represent anything final,
but I think it will allow you to do further stewing. A group took
each of these 3 methodological arenas, tactical thinking, depth
motivity and corporate action, and thought about them in terms
of five components five ways in which that particular
method gets done.
This chart then breaks them down further into the elements of
each component, the issue involved and the function of that particular
component. You end up with a three by five chart
15 components that you can call the components of the methods
of effectivity.
I am beginning to think that grid of 15 represents a rather comprehensive
screen of the 15 concerns that you must have in order to have
an effective operation. If you are going to move into a particular
situation and operate effectively with a corporate body, you have
15 things to worry about. Another way to say this is you have
15 tactical systems to create, and those 15 tactical systems intermesh
into one thing that finally is going to allow you to operate effectively.
Fifteen different tactical systems may be the way of explaining
what that chart represents in terms of methods of effectivity.
Second story. A variety of effectivity training courses have emerged
recently. One of the ways in which we know we are pretty well
on target in talking about methods of effectivity is that everyone
else is doing the same thing. There are about 1500 different courses
to choose from. You can pay anywhere from one hundred to several
thousand dollars for training in some of these methods.
One of the most popular courses is called KFA (I believe that
stands for Kepner Friedman Associates). I read part of the book
that was written as a basis for that course. The book is called
The Rational Manager. They don't have a lot to say; however they
have phenomenal imagery.
In an early part of the book they lay out a typical meeting in
dialogue form. It is like reading a play. First Man X speaks,
then Man Y speaks, and so on. In reading through this play you
see that this is a description of every meeting you have ever
attended. They lay out the general flow of commentary as it takes
place at the meeting. That is the first hooker. You know you have
been there
Then they say "let's take a look at what was really going
on in that corporate action, that attempt to think something through."
They are geniuses in their use of images. They take the comments
made in this meeting and break them into four categories. They
had comments which they called "irrelevant." That was
one set. They had comments relating to "what is the problem,"
another set related to "what is the cause behind the problem,"
and a fourth set that raised the question of "what shall
we do about that."
Then they went through and chronologically charted the flow of
that meeting. It went like this. The meeting opened with an irrelevant
comment. Then someone either asked a question or made a statement
addressing "what is the problem." Someone else then
talked about the cause behind the problem . From there on through
this long meeting, the chart went something like this: There were
two particular comments side by side that were actually on the
same level as the meeting went on; I think at the level of "what
is the cause behind the problem." Two comments that followed
chronologically were actually on the same topic. Then the meeting
closed with an irrelevant comment. You know you have been to this
kind of meeting before.
I did this thinking, "Those guys are on to something relative
to spelling out the actual situation. I think this has marketing
possibilities among other things." I had my boss in tears
laying out our meetings in this fashion for him.
This random fluctuation in the corporate thinking through of a
particular set of problems occurs because meetings begin with
the question "What is the problem." The responses to
that question lay out the situation. As soon as you begin the
meeting with 'What is the problem," you have forced everybody
into his own arena that he has to defend, so that statement of
the problem doesn't hit him, but hits somebody else.
I suggested that we begin meetings with the question, "What
is the situation," which was the question they were answering
anyway. If we were intentional about that question, we would be
setting limits on the random comments that could be made. My boss
agreed. It made me think that we were on to something relative
to tactical thinking.
Tactical thinking represents the consolidation of what has been
taking place in ways of thinking for hundreds of years. We are
not fooling around with something simple here. Tactical thinking
represents a new way of thinking. (Similarly, corporate action
represents a new way of doing and depth motivity, a new way of
being). Tactical thinking represents a new way of thinking that
is out to accomplish nothing. It relies upon exposing corporately
the deep intuitions about a situation which produce the insights
to revitalize the situation.
Two kinds of diagrams have helped me to discuss our experiences
in the labs under the category of tactical thinking. One rather
rationally lays out the 5 components of tactical thinking. The
practical vision, timeline implementaries and your social analysis
are laid out on that chart. There is a sequential nature to these
5 components. We must clearly say to ourselves, however, that
we are also interested in each component as a method that stands
on its own bottom as well. This tension must be held in talking
about components of tactical thinking.
Society has difficulty in creating practical vision or laying
out the actual situation. It is frequently assumed that everyone
understands a given situation. There is no attempt to state that
practical vision. Your practical vision states the trends in your
situation and should say what your programs are out to do. Your
practical vision has to do with your ideology, your programs,
the direction in which you are headed.
The underlying contradictions involve an objective statement of
the blocks that prevent the new from coming into being. The underlying
contradiction states what you are over against in society. It
is an articulation of the challenge. It states where you will
apply pressure to accomplish your program.
Your creative proposals are the workable ways in which you intend
to deal with the matrix of contradictions. You do not end up with
proposals on a one to one basis with contradictions, The contradictions
are a web of challenges and the proposals are a set of ways which
together will deal with the contradictions.
Your proposals are built out of the particular situation. This
is the creative portion of tactical thinking. This is where your
homework gets done. This step is a response to the "Hey,
what if. . ." that people voice intuitively about a situation.
Your recommendation on a direction to move is almost a twist on
what is going on. It is built out of the situation in which you
find yourself. This is the beginning of your indirection in creating
a set of proposals to release the challenge in your statement
of contradictions. You are not talking about doing more and better.
That would be uncreative proposing; it might work and it might
not. More and better is what you are up against during the creation
of creative proposals.
Your system of creative tactics is an arrangement of actions particular
actions, indirect actions which, operating together,
will accomplish the proposals. This is a key here. A tactic is
part of a system of actions which can do nothing by itself, but
operating in the context of that system, pulls off the proposals.
This component can also be called programmatic actions which,
again, operating in systematic fashion, will do the proposals.
Next, your timeline implementaries are your miracles, or catalytic
actions to do the tactical system. Here you can begin to see the
dynamic interrelation of all of these. Your timeline implementarieswho,
what, where, why, how, whenwill catalyze the tactical
system.
Another way of talking about miracles might be as further clarification
of your contradiction. Once you have snakeeyed the tactical
system to discover the catalytic actions, you are really able
to talk about the contradiction you are facing.
Society certainly knows about miracles and catalytic action. Most
people in society operate between practical vision and timeline
implementaries. You go into a particular situation, discover the
problem and do a shoddy job of practical vision. Society knows
that action to solve the problem must be catalytic. Slogans, poster
campaigns and a thousand other actions suggest that society is
not out to deal directly with a situation; they are out to do
catalytic action. Our task is to bring rational clarity and depth
into the process that society already participates in.
I found this image helpful in getting clear what we are out to
do with tactical thinking. In tactical thinking, you step outside
of what is going on, as represented by your practical vision,
to do a very careful analysis of that through your contradiction,
goals and tactics. A systematic set of miracles, injected back
into the practical vision, gives it new vitality.
The only reason for doing an analysis of your practical vision
is to begin that process of stepping outside of it to create that
which will give it new vitality. Every group has a practical vision
and that practical vision is constantly being recreated. This
recreation brings intentionality to your practical vision. You
start out with a practical vision that is simply going on, go
through the process of creating miracles, which you inject into
that, and you get a new practical vision. The process never ends.
This is the dynamic of tactical thinking; this is the heart of
the matter and where our stewing has been and needs to be most.
This sort of statement helps me to grasp the simple fact that
I am not in charge in this universe, that I am not in charge in
any given particular situation. Through my thinking process, I
come up with something to do. The situation shifts, perhaps not
at all in the way I intended it to. There is a response and a
change in situation, and a response and a change through your
whole life. It is that kind of ongoing dynamic process of thinking
that we are talking about here.
Tactical thinking goes beyond the static. It is beyond goal orientation
which finds a clearly stated objective, then finds complex administrative
procedures to bring this down into smaller achievable objectives.
If the clear objectives are not realized, the goal orientation
system assumes that the objectives were not clearly stated, or
were incorrect.
Tactical thinking goes beyond the problemsolving process
which lists problems next to the actions which need to be taken
to deal with the problem. The problem solving process cuts off
both your practical vision and any possibility for real indirection
Tactical thinking is beyond the luxury of activism. Tactical thinking
knows nothing about concrete goals. As soon as you allow yourself
the freedom of thinking that you are out to accomplish a set of
miracles, you will find yourself thinking that you are trying
to solve some contradictions through a set of concrete goals.
If there is a shred of practicality left in you, you know that
this applies in every situation, even in the world of business.
If you can operate with no concrete goals, no reduction of your
particular objectives and thus avoid the traps and superficial
problems, misdirected actions, relevant tactics, you can actually
make more money. There is a certain amount of practicality, I
believe, at the bottom of tactical thinking.
As a response to the way life is, tactical thinking cannot be
accountable to a set of concrete goals. It is only accountable
to the practical vision, and finally not even that. We need to
find far better ways of saying that secularly.
Tactical thinking occurs through interplay of the intuitive and
the rational. We are using intuitive gaps in each of these components
to allow people to shake off their prejudices and find their deepest
intuitions about what needs to happen.
We used the cross polar gestalt as a gimmick to allow a creative
gap in dealing with the contradictions. Our clustering activity
was the gimmick to create an intuitive leap so that the tactics
did not relate 11 to proposals and proposals did not relate
11 with contradictions. The category of "snake-eyes"
is the intuitive gap we use to come up with our miracles.
I finally understand a little bit about "snakeeyes."
It comes out of the movie "Little Big Man." They throw
a clay pigeon up in the air. One character says, "the only
way to hit it is to draw and go snakeeyes." If he had
drawn his gun, kept his eyes wide open and done a bit of mental
calculation, "I have to shoot just a bit above and right..."
he would likely have missed. But if you just squint at it and
use your deepest intuition, you can hit the clay pigeon almost
every time.
With every one of these you are after some way of fleshing out
the group's deepest intuitions. It doesn't make any difference,
finally, what gimmick you use. We have found polar gestalting,
swirling, plotting on the triangles and crossgestalting
fairly helpful. But finally, you want a way of cutting across
simple rational processes and allowing a group to make a genuine
creative leap in their thinking. You do it as many times as you
have to.
You know that you finally have your underlying contradictions
when the reaction to your rational set of statements is a corporate
a-ha. The a-ha comes from the interplay between the intuitive
and the rational; the intuitive leap and finally the rational
statement of what you discovered in making that leap. That is
the remarriage of art and science. You work with your art in the
rational product of science that holds things together.
There are all kinds of pitfalls if you get to thinking that the
actual methods you are using are swirling, crossgestalting
or gapping. It is important, at least in my mind to state that
you are after the practical vision, underlying contradictions,
creative proposals, systemic tactics and timeline implementaries.
Swirling, plotting, gapping are the tools that get you there.
The key to gaining clarity on a practical vision has to do with
stating the deep, underlying trends in operation there. The key
to the underlying contradictions lies in simply stating the challenge.
It lies in eliminating contradictions that begin with "lack
of." It lies in being faithful to the actual situation.
The key in stating proposals is in being creative and practical.
In terms of tactics, the key is in the systematic, getting the
system rationally clear. The key for miracles is simply the explosive
rallying point which catalyzes all kinds of other action and has
a smack of the impossible. I find it hard to come across proposals
that are genuinely creative these days. Maybe this is an edge.
I finally jotted down 5 guidelines which will make tactical thinking
yours. You need common procedures. The procedures everybody received
the last couple of days are not a bad start. They are simple procedures
spelled cut with all kinds of pedagogical hints.
Second, you need intuitive holding images on how each component
is to be done. The holding image represents pictorially what is
in the actual doing of that component.
The picture that you create may be a tactic under the guidelines
of holding images. Your picture might hold, as an example, your
intention of producing 25 trends, 5 contradictions, 7 creative
proposals and 48 systematic tactics and implementaries. If your
holding images are clearly stated, a group can grasp in an image
what that product is. They can invent numerous ways to go beyond
their ancient prejudices.
Delineating screens may be a fourth guideline. They are criteria
to define what a tactic or a miracle really is. You pull your
data through these screens at every point in the process. Delineating
screens provide a way of never losing sight of the forest for
the trees.
Common procedures, holding images, a picture of product flow,
delineating screens these are all one method. It sounds
so simple. You would think that anybody ought to be willing to
do this. I have tried from time to time, in particular communities
like my office, to implement tactical thinking. I discover that
what is so simple and clear to me causes great rebellion from
others.
In working on these methods you and I stand upon the shoulders
of men from Plato and Socrates, Copernicus and Galileo, to Einstein.
We represent a pulling together of all the thought of those men.
This is a new way of thinking. It is no wonder, where you get
it down to something so simple, that people look at you like a
man from Mars.
Gary Tomlinson
12/13/74