An Invitation to Dialogue from Roger Harrison

In this last decade of the century, my work has undergone a major shift of style and emphasis. Preparing and conducting workshops and presentations as I have done in the past no longer gives me the satisfaction and sense of service that it once did. Increasingly I receive feedback from participants in my events that what is of value to them is the personal contact we have, some connection of both mind and heart-and that is what nourishes me as well. When I work at the level of mind alone, I often feel drained and unnourished. What seems to work best for me and for my clients, is to engage in a dialogue in which each person brings their knowledge, their experience, and, hopefully, an open heart. We consider together the changes that are going on for us, for our organizations and their members, and for our planet. We share concerns about the meaning and relevance of our work in a rapidly changing world. We explore how we may feel called upon to respond to the increasing levels of pain and stress in working life. In doing so, we may sometimes penetrate to the essential human issues that underlie the mundane and technical aspects of our work-what we might call issues of heart and soul.

In such a dialogue, we do not begin with my theories or models, or my consulting experiences. I offer these freely when they seem to me appropriate, and I encourage others to do so as well. The intent is not for me to transmit information, so much as it is about our each serving as companions for one another in our common journey towards a deeper wisdom and understanding in our work. I do not have a specific outcome in mind. What I look for is a deeper shared understanding of what is going on in organizations and in the world, the larger context that enfolds our roles, tasks, and our difficulties and challenges. I also want each of us to leave nourished in mind, heart and spirit, and for each to learn something of value to him or herself in human terms. I look for each to leave strengthened in his or her ability to find hope and meaning in the work we do, and to bring that hope and meaning to others.

Each event grows in an organic way out of the issues, concerns, and styles of the participants, interacting with each other and with me. There is a set of guidelines, stemming from the work of David Bohm and others on dialogue ( see "Brief Guidelines for Dialogue" attached ) which I help the group to learn and observe. Otherwise, the experience unfolds in a way which is guided by the interests of the group, and by our discovery of deeper shared meanings underlying our concerns. So it is an adventure for us all.

My participation in these exchanges is not solely informed by ideas about dialogue, but is also influenced by convictions I have come to lately, some of which I hold rather passionately. Here are some of them:

Organizations are increasingly dysfunctional, by which I mean that they behave like addicts, and make addicts (primarily workaholics) of their members.

Organizations' addictive qualities are part of a larger addictive pattern on the part of our dominant culture. One way this pattern manifests is our persisting in economic behaviors which are destructive of earth's resources on which we depend for life.

Addictive thought and behavior patterns in organizations include:

	Putting corporate survival above all else. This produces ruthless managers, and a power-and-crisis-oriented organization culture.
	Responding to crisis by aggressiveness and a warrior or siege mentality towards the outside world.
	Short-term goals, bottom line focus, abandoning vision and values, and avoiding risk, combined with a loss of ethics and morality.
	Participation and employee involvement used manipulatively and calculatingly.
	All allegiances viewed as expendable, and long term implicit contracts with employees, customers, suppliers and the public unilaterally abandoned.
	An inability to endure tension and ambiguity, to prefer quick fixes, and to decide impulsively so as to avoid deep reflection.
	A tendency to make frequent changes (often reversing previous changes) instead of changing fundamentally, and to take up one fad or "flavor of the month" after another.

Much of the time we as consultants enable and support the addictions of our clients by relating to them in ways that are "codependent" such as:

	Being excellent observers, picking up clients' cues as to what responses are wanted, and saying what clients want to hear, rather than the truth as we see it.
	Suppressing our own professional standards in favor of responding to the wants of our clients, e.g., providing "quick fixes."
	As dedicated helpers, setting aside our own needs in order to help clients, and becoming burned out as a result.
	Acting as rescuers, propping up the sick organization, and manipulating it to make ourselves indispensable and powerful.
	Avoiding expression of our genuine opinions and feelings in favor of being "objective" and "professional."

What I have to say about the right work for OD consultants today is absurdly simple (some might say, simply absurd) and, in my experience, devastatingly difficult. The basic elements are:

	Wake ourselves up: acknowledge both the dark and the light of our world's unfolding condition, and that of the organizations and their members with whom we work; own and accept the feelings that accompany such awareness.
	Learn to support and nurture ourselves in the loneliness and despair of being awake in the midst of sleepers, a key element of which is compassionate detachment.
	Assist others to wake up, by telling the truth as we see it, and also by convening and facilitating conversations which support others in discovering and speaking what is true for them.
	Join together with others who are awake to :

nurture and support one another, and

take joint action based on our awareness.

I have undertaken explorations into the means by which we can wake ourselves and assist others in doing so. The convening of conversations such as I propose in this Invitation to Dialogue is one such means.

Some of the above may sound elitist, but I think it is not. I claim no special pipeline to the truth; rather than belaboring others with what I fondly hope are my insights, I favor convening conversations in which all are encouraged to speak their intuitions and the wisdom of their hearts. It is to that endeavor that I invite you.

Brief Guidelines for Dialogue (after David Bohm)

Margaret Harris & Roger Harrison

An important goal of dialogue is to enable the group to reach a higher level of consciousness and creativity through the gradual creation of a shared set of meanings and a "common" thinking process.

What dialogue is not:

Not a discussion-

Discussion shares its root meaning with percussion and concussion, both of which involve breaking things up. A discussion is a process by which individuals are treated as separate and distinct, and where the central effort is to decompose or break apart in order to produce understanding. The world is objectified in an effort to be understood.

Not a debate-

These forms of conversation contain an implicit tendency to point toward a goal, to hammer out an agreement, to try to solve a problem or have one's opinion prevail.

Guidelines:

Invite and maintain awareness of Spirit presence, if this fits for you.

Suspend certainties and be willing to be influenced. What this means operationally in the group is that when you are upset by what someone else says, you have a genuine choice between:

1) voicing your reaction and
2) listening more deeply with the intention of finding common ground.

Listen to your listening: pay attention to what you are listening for and what you are not hearing.

Slow down the inquiry.

Examine your thoughts, and be willing to share the assumptions which underlie and shape them.

Notice points of frustration and explore them aloud or silently.

Maintain awareness of the group's needs and processes, and look for ways you can take responsibility for providing what is needed.

By attending to these guidelines we create a "container" in which the invitation is to explore and reflect on one's beliefs, assumptions and self-talk, and speak them-or simply become aware of them.

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Being excellent observers, picking up clients' cues as to what responses are wanted, and saying what clients want to hear, rather than the truth as we see it.

Suppressing our own professional standards in favor of responding to the wants of our clients, e.g., providing "quick fixes."

As dedicated helpers, setting aside our own needs in order to help clients, and becoming burned out as a result.

Acting as rescuers, propping up the sick organization, and manipulating it to make ourselves indispensable and powerful.

Avoiding expression of our genuine opinions and feelings in favor of being "objective" and "professional."

Guidelines: