{"id":980,"date":"2011-08-20T10:09:33","date_gmt":"2011-08-20T10:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saasoft.com\/blog\/?p=980"},"modified":"2011-08-20T10:09:33","modified_gmt":"2011-08-20T10:09:33","slug":"reality-trumps-rhetoric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/?p=980","title":{"rendered":"Reality trumps Rhetoric"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>One of the biggest challenges posed by Improvement is the requirement for beliefs to change – because static beliefs imply stagnated learning and arrested change.\u00a0 We all display our beliefs for all to hear and see\u00a0through our language – word and deed – our spoken\u00a0language and our body language – and what we do not say<\/strong> and do not do<\/strong> is as important as what we do say<\/strong> and what we do do<\/strong>.\u00a0 Let us call the whole language thing our\u00a0Rhetoric – the external manifestation of\u00a0our internal mental model.<\/p>\n

Disappointingly,\u00a0exercising our mental model does not seem to have much impact on Reality – at least not directly. We\u00a0do not seem to be able to perform acts of\u00a0telepathy or telekinesis. We are not like the Jedi knights in the Star Wars<\/em> films who have learned to master the Force – for good\u00a0or bad. We are not like the wizards\u00a0in the Harry Potter<\/em>\u00a0who have mastered magical powers – again for good\u00a0or bad. We are\u00a0weak-minded muggles and\u00a0Reality is spectacularly indifferent to our\u00a0feeble powers. No matter what we might prefer\u00a0to believe –\u00a0Reality trumps Rhetoric.<\/p>\n

Of course\u00a0we can side step this uncomfortable feeling by resorting to the\u00a0belief of One Truth which is often\u00a0another way of saying My\u00a0Opinion – and we then assume that if everyone else changed their belief to\u00a0our belief then we would have full alignment, no conflict, and improvement would automatically flow.\u00a0 What we actually achieve\u00a0is a\u00a0common Rhetoric about\u00a0which\u00a0Reality is still completely indifferent.\u00a0\u00a0We know that if we disagree then\u00a0one of us must be wrong or rather un-real-istic; but we forget that even if we agree then we can still both be wrong.\u00a0Agreement is not a good test of the validity of our Rhetoric. The only test of\u00a0validity\u00a0is Reality itself – and facing the unfeeling Reality\u00a0risks bruising our rather fragile egos – so we shy away from doing so.<\/p>\n

So one\u00a0way to facilitate\u00a0improvement is to employ\u00a0Reality as our final arbiter and to do this respectfully.\u00a0\u00a0This is why teachers<\/em> of improvement science must be masters<\/em>\u00a0of improvement science.\u00a0They must be able to demonstrate their Improvenent Science Rhetoric by using Reality and their\u00a0apprentices<\/em> need to see the IS Rhetoric applied to solving\u00a0real problems.\u00a0One way to do this is for the apprentices<\/em>\u00a0to do it themselves,\u00a0for real, with guidance of an IS\u00a0master<\/em>\u00a0and in\u00a0a safe context where they can make errors and not\u00a0damage\u00a0their egos. When this is done what happens is almost magical\u00a0– the Rhetoric changes – the spoken language and the body language changes – what is\u00a0said and what is done\u00a0changes – and what is not said and not done changess too.\u00a0And\u00a0very often the change is not noticed at least by those who change.\u00a0 We only appear to\u00a0have\u00a0one mental model:\u00a0only\u00a0one view of Reality so when it changes we change.<\/p>\n

It is\u00a0also interesting to observe is that this evolution of Rhetoric\u00a0does not happen immediately or in one blinding flash of complete insight. We take small steps rather than giant leaps.\u00a0More often the initial emotional reaction is\u00a0confusion<\/strong> because\u00a0our experience of the\u00a0Reality clashes with\u00a0the expectation of our\u00a0Rhetoric.\u00a0 And very often the changes happen when we are asleep – it is almost as if\u00a0our minds work on dissolving the confusion when it is not distracted with\u00a0the demands of\u00a0awake-work;\u00a0almost like we are re-organising\u00a0our mental model structure when it is offline. It is a very common to have a sleepless night after\u00a0such an Reality Check\u00a0and to wake with a feeling of greater clarity – our updated\u00a0mental model\u00a0declaring\u00a0itself as\u00a0our New\u00a0Rhetoric. Experienced facilitators of Improvement\u00a0Science understand this natural learning process and that it happens to everyone – including themselves. It is this feeling\u00a0of increased clarity,\u00a0deeper understanding, and released\u00a0energy that is the buzz\u00a0of Improvement Science – the addictive drug.\u00a0 We learn that our memory plays tricks on us; and what was conflict yesterday becomes confusion today and clarity tomorrow. One\u00a0behaviour that\u00a0often emerges spontaneously\u00a0is the desire\u00a0to keep a journal –\u00a0sometimes at\u00a0the bedside\u00a0– to capture the\u00a0twists and turns of the story of\u00a0our evolving Rhetoric.<\/p>\n

This blog just such a\u00a0journal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the biggest challenges posed by Improvement is the requirement for beliefs to change – because static beliefs imply stagnated learning and arrested change.\u00a0 We all display our beliefs for all to hear and see\u00a0through our language – word and deed – our spoken\u00a0language and our body language – and what we do not … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Reality trumps Rhetoric”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,41,42,43],"tags":[55,64,66,90,111,153,156,181,219,234,244],"class_list":["post-980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections","category-stories","category-how","category-why","tag-apprentice","tag-challenge","tag-change-management","tag-denial","tag-facilitator","tag-language","tag-learning","tag-motivation","tag-psychology","tag-reality","tag-rhetoric"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}