We have indeed found that participants in many collateral organizations face ambivalent attitudes when they return to their home organization or community. Nevertheless, long after the Open Space (or Future Search) meeting concludes, its participants (and those affiliated with the participants) might find that the heart-based habits of this collateral organization will linger. They are prepared for the ambivalence and are likely to be persistent in their attempts to bring about reform in their organization or community. Unlike those who gather ideas from the passive attendance at a traditional conference or training program, the participants in collateral organizations are actively involved in the creation of the new ideas and are engaged in co-active learning with other participants. The heart-based habits to be found in these settings are invaluable. However, are they enough?
Expertise-Enhancing Processes
There are many process-based interpersonal and group tools and strategies that help to create and maintain a community of heart–and enhance the emergence and use of collective expertise. These include the cluster of communication tools involved in Active Listening (Bolton, 1986; Bergquist and Mura, 2011) and strategies that encourage the generation and integration of diverse perspectives—such as those associated with Bohm dialogue (Bohm, 2004). We propose, however, that there are a specific set of process-based tools and strategies that are particularly effective in the facilitation of collective expertise and that incorporate these other tools and strategies.
These emerge from and cluster around something called an Appreciative Perspective (Bergquist, 2004; Bergquist and Mura, 2011). What is the nature of such a perspective? In essence, an appreciative perspective concerns a willingness to engage with other people from an assumption of mutual respect, in a mutual search for discovery of distinctive competencies and strengths—areas of expertise–, with a view to helping them fulfill their aspirations and their potential. This simple statement might at first seem to be rather naive and idealistic, but at its core it holds the promise of helping to encourage and make use of collective expertise.
Understanding Another Person
The term appreciation itself has several different meanings that tend to build on one another; however, appreciation refers first to a clearer understanding of another person’s perspective. We come to appreciate the point of view being offered by our colleague and with this understanding, we can receive and build on their expertise. The tools of active listening are engaged to enable this understanding to take place. We offer a paraphrase of what another person has said so that we might not only benefit from what they have said, but also gained greater insight into their own perspectives by testing the accuracy of what we have heard (as processed through our own perspective).
This appreciative tool arises not from some detached observation, but rather from direct engagement. One gains knowledge from an appreciative perspective by “identifying with the observed.” (Harmon, 1990, p. 43) Empathy is critical. One cares about the matter being studied and about those people with whom one is collaborating. Neutrality is inappropriate in such a setting, though compassion implies neither a loss of discipline nor a loss of boundaries between one’s own perspectives and those of the other person. Appreciation, in other words, is about fuller understanding, not merging, with another person’s perspectives. It is about being open to, not necessarily uncritically embracing, another person’s apparent expertise.
Download Article 1K Club
