[Oe List ...] The respectful dialogue

Tue Oct 16 06:43:00 EDT 2007

Dear colleagues.  

The following email of mine, from July, links in with the discussion about consensus.  It had to do with the creative tension between (1) the long-term sensibility/tradition/etc of a movement/organisation, and the means of maintaining that, and (2) the participation of all, including new people who may have "off the wall" insights/contributions/criticisms/suggestions.

My very first experience of consensus-making was in Demonstration Platoon of the Adelaide University Regiment in the years 1965-68.  (The equivalent of ROTC - for those with as-yet-ill-formed views about draft-dodging or conscious objection, and/or did just not want to die in Vietnam.)  At the yearly camp, when our platoon was required to demonstrate an ambush or some other activity, our platoon commander, a young second lieutenant and honours architecture student, would gather us all around a map with the outline of our brief.  Then suggestions would be called for.  

New, naive, unconditioned members would offer "off the wall" ideas which were often taken up.  More experienced members would offer suggestions based on experience.  One of the two sergeants would offer a tentative overview.  Discussion would continue.  Finally our leader would say "Looks like we're going to do .........  Any comments or questions?"  

It helped that we were close to the same age and most of us were students.  It helped that we were all involved.  It helped that our platoon commander did not stand on ceremony when we were all in it together.  The esprit de corps was amazing, as it combined tradition and partcipation.
Best wishes

Frank Bremner

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> From: fjbremner at hotmail.com> To: dialogue at wedgeblade.net; oe at wedgeblade.net> Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 13:12:27 +0930> Subject: [Oe List ...] (no subject)> > Dear colleagues> > Recent discussions about ICA issues in the US (and various archives, and various boards), and the discussion about the prolegomena etc - these have pushed me to articulate a few questions. I'd appreciate any reflections, answers, comments.> > 1)> A former Baptist minister, now social worker, told me a few years back how he had ben asked to write the constitution for a new Baptist congregation in his suburb. He asked lots of people for what they wanted in it and so on.  They didn't quite understand why he asked questions about how many months notice would be needed to have a vote to change the constitution.> > But he was able to write in "two months (or maybe it was more) months notice" was required for discussion before any motion to change the constitution was to be put to the vote of a meeting of the congregation. A few years later a fundamentalist sub-group tried to take over the congregation by a swift change in the constitution - theological and procedural wordings would be changed. People at last were grateful for George's wisdom - he was as gentle as a lamb, but as wily as a servant. He showed the congregation that they were living in the real world.> > In earlier days of the Order of the Ecumenical Institute, the Order:Ecumenical, the Ecumenical Institute, and the Institute of Cultural > Affairs there was a lot of cultural pressure and tradition that just kept things going by consensus (albeit flawed in process at times). Despite there being a triangle in the Social Process about "Bureaucratic Systems", "bureaucracy" became a "boo word". Never-the-less there was a small amount of formal organisational legalism that kept us in relationship with "community and polis".> > When were there events, incidents, periods of time when the smallness of that formal organisational legalism (I may have the wrong word here) became a real problem? I do recall that we had an adolescent confidence that we would "live forever" (as in the title song from the musical "Fame") and could "do anything", and that legalities were for "the world" and not for us.> > Those of you who have read a lot of Niebuhr and so on - what have they to say about this? I know we used Bonhoeffer to say that a person, group, etc makes decisions with due consideration of lwas, duties, etc - but my sense was that "due considferation" was often swept aside in that adolescent confidence, as we let "the indicative" tell us what to do. My unformed, but intuitive, question back then was "How do you decide, and who decides, what "the indicative" is?" And within what framework - maybe history long, > cosmos wide, and soul deep?> > It's like a Lutheran pastor of my acquaintance telling his flock, and the management committee of the ecumenical centre we once sat on, that "We should not be pushing our own agendas, but be asking what God wants us to do". I only wish I had had the courage (I was new on the scene) to ask "What's the process for asking God?"> > So: at one pole we have very strong, tight and limiting procedures, like law that is never up for interpretation or discussion, unlike that on Boston Legal or whatever.> > At the other pole we have very open "we'll decide it for ourselves" that does not consider the "commonweal".> > Maybe my polarity is flawed. Comments are welcome.> > 2)> "The Polity of the Order:Ecumenical" (c 1974) was out of date as soon as it was written. The collators of that document said so in their introduction - like religious doctrine, it was a snapshot of theory and practice at that time. But by gathering the threads together from our practice, and many different writings, papers and documents the collators were able to develop a very useful document. I used many of its principles in the late 70s and early 80s when writing about educational administration.> > One section referred to "the Permanent House Church" as a group of guardians of the tradition. was this ever spelled out in detail, anywhere? Or discussed and never noted, anywhere?> > My reflection at the time of my ed admin wrirtings was that this "Permanent House Church" functioned to provide a creartive tension with our participative processes. No sub-group could insert their agenda too easily into the participative decision-making and bend the developing consensus.  Like "the Regulatory" at a summer research gathering, it could monitor the process.> > So: another polarity. "the Permanent House Church" at one end, participative processes at the other.> > 3)> I remember one summer gathering where a workshop leader was just ignoring participant contributions that didn't fit the outcome he wanted. He had already decided the outcome. A member of the Global Panchayat leant over and pointed this out to me. I replied "Yes, there seems to be a bit of "getting people to fit a predetermined agenda" going on here". Was that participative process or something else?> > I remember a workshop leader at a Community Meeting in a suburb of Adelaide, in the late 70s, who tied to steer the participants. The problem was that he was the electorate secretary to the local Labor Party member, and in later years would be the MP for that seat, and then go on to hold several ministerial positions and then premier of South Australia. He now works in SE Asia for a prominent NGO.> > To those of you with backgrounds in political philosophy and history. Are these examples of the USSR use of "soviets"? Do they fit Stalinist thinking? "No matter what the cost" thinking? It's certainly not the sort of thing that we'd teach these days in ToP training - the various kinds of questions and frameworks we use certainly put a check on such actions.> > 4)> I've heard "the Panchayat principle" used as a phrase over the years. Again it seems to have been used when some "executive action" seems to be taken, or the influence of some "executive" is brought to bear.> > Sometimes it seems to have been used over against any around-the-table thrashing out of issues, sometimes it seems to have been used in a behind-the-scenes fashion.> > These days, when most people (at least in the "developed" world) have email, recommendations can be made by a council, group, retrea, or team, and then be discussed on email within a suitable time frame. Remember when Pope Paul VI changed the rules for papal elections? The new rules gave time for members of the conclave to gather from around the whole world (not just Europe) in an appropriate and possible time. The email assists with the same principle.> > John Cock is reported to have said (and I paraphrase) some years ago at a gathering "Around this table we've all been here long enough not to be pulling the wool over each others eyes, or to have it pulled over our own". Apologies, John, I've quoted this many times over the years.> > So: any comments on "the Panchayat principle" over against participative processes?> > 5)> Finally. The above are similar and yet different polarities. How do they fit with "the ends" and "the means"? "The ends justifiy the means"? "Anything for the sake of the mission"? Our use of "The Philosophy of  Revolution" by Jean-Paul Sartre. I remember reading books on social and organisational change mechanisms (in medicine, in agriculture, in education, etc) in the late 60s that moved far beyond Sartre's processes.> > Were other models considered apart from Sartre back in the 60s/70s? I recognise that in the heady 60s/early 70s "revolutionary rhetoric" was par for the course. In fact, it's part of required reading now, ALONGSIDE other models, in any decent organisational change study. I suspect that we hung on to this rhetoric and its processes for too long - - eventually we recognised that life includes these processes in more complex ways than we used them back when.> > 'Nuff for now.> > Best wishes> > Frank Bremner> (in Adelaide, where we've just had weather so cold it reminds me of > Chicago/Denver/Philadelphia winters, and where I've just finished reading > Obama's "The Audacity of Hope")> > > > _______________________________________________> OE mailing list> OE at wedgeblade.net> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/oe_wedgeblade.net
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