The Hope Effect: Rippling Outward Gently

Fields trips!  Remember the excitement as a young child - getting out of the classroom and not having to study?!  Little did we know that the field trips were designed to teach us lessons not found in the text books!

Growing up in the Central Coast of California, there were numerous places to go on field trips:  the agricultural nurseries, greenhouses, seed farms and fields of the Salinas Valley; the manufacturing plants of Peter Paul, Nestles, Firestone and Schilling McCormick; the historical sites of several California Missions, Monterey Presidio, and Steinbeck's Cannery Row; and the natural beauties of the tide pools of Point Lobos, the redwoods in the Santa Cruz mountains, and the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary in Pacific Grove.

The world expanded for me through these field trips: the world of discovery and education.  What memories come to mind when you think of your childhood education?
 

Hope Begins:  Beauty is Born
(Monarch Butterflies Need Help, Chicago Sun Times)

Recently, the Monarch butterfly came to mind when my Dialogue mentor used the 'Butterfly Effect' as an illustration of the importance of practicing our dialogue skills.  You may be familiar with the Butterfly Effect if you have studied weather patterns or chaos theory.  It states that a small and sensitive cause may have a large impact on a later state.  Example:  the fluttering of a butterfly's wings could impact a typhoon weeks later around the world. 

I mused with my mentor that the divisions and and struggles in our current political and social lives seem like a tidal wave rather than the gentle ripples that occur when we attempt to dialogue: slowing down, listening, reflecting, and asking questions to understand.  Where is there hope when people seem to rush to judgment or make decisions without dialogue or discourse?  These impulses seem to dwarf the steps attempted by dialogue.

Hope Supports
(Disappearing Monarch, The CommonSenseCanadian)

As I reviewed articles about the migration of the Monarch Butterfly from Canada to Mexico, one story noted that a single gene is responsible for their ability to migrate.  The impact of this one gene causes millions to travel thousands of miles, filling the skies and trees with a beautiful mosaic of fluttering wings in motion.
 

Hope Emerges
(An Increase in Numbers, Daily Mail-UK)

Do you think there is a gene that would help us as we move through the changes ahead?  Could the gene create a need to connect rather than divide?  Could it be a desire to improve ourselves and others rather than diminish?  Could it provide a hope to be understood and to understand?

I believe that practicing dialogue skills will help us find the answers to these questions.  It would be an opportunity to move from Either - Or thinking to hearing and thoughtfully exploring Both - And options.  All may be true!
 

Hope Transforms
(http://www.monarch-butterfly.com/)

Let's take a field trip together this week!  As an exercise to transform ourselves from our insulated ways of being to a singular and collective beauty, let's turn on the 'migration gene' by practicing one or more of the Dialogue Skills suggested by Chris Argyris and his colleagues:

•  Combine advocacy with inquiry
   Invite others into your viewpoint, allowing them to explore and understand.
  ("What do you think?")
•  Illustrate abstract interpretations with concrete information
   Provide information or data that supports your claim.
  ("This is what I read or considered in my approach.")
•  Share your thought process; check for agreement along the Ladder of Inference
   Seek to understand assumptions, meanings, and conclusions.
  ("This is how I came to this conclusion...")
•  Look for contradicting data and alternative explanations
   Test the conclusions by seeking new ideas and other experiences.
  ("Are you aware of any other information or thoughts?)
•  Support making mistakes in the service of learning
   Overcome defended responses by learning from mistakes.
  ("Oops!  I didn't consider that perspective.")
•  Notice your own impact on a situation
   Become aware of how different roles and communication styles impact dialogue.
  ("I noticed that you became quiet and didn't respond.  Was it because of...?")
•  Experiment to test different views
   Use various methods to test other explanations.
   ("Let's try it your way.")

May this week allow us to migrate away from our predictable behaviors and actions toward an interdependence on who we are meant to become together: Hope Rippling Outward!
 

Larry Gardepie
Dialogue San Diego Consulting