In the book tentatively titled Seeking Alignment I explain this technique in a variety of formats. I have that work posted on my web site at http://www.robertPerrine.biz. I will not duplicate that material in this article. Instead I will provide a brief overview of the technique and then put the technique to use.
To begin with, this technique relies on a concept rather than facts. I can give you facts in simple lists and you could memorize them if you found them valuable or ignore them if you so choose. Concepts are more difficult. Concepts cannot be formulated through brute force. Concepts need to grow. My opinions on this are based on what I understand today of developmental psychology, social evolution, paradigm shifts and other similar theories. Based on what I understand of the process of concept formation we need raw data, we need a pattern to arrange that data and then we need a transformation. Transformations, like creativity, are impossible to obtain on command. From all that I understand of educational theory the way to create a transforming environment is to provide information in a protected refuge where you can feel safe to explore and then wait with expectation.
Interestingly enough, one of the key concepts in this conceptual model is the concept of transformation. Thus this quickly becomes a cyclical loop. Until you understand the concepts you will not fully understand my explanation. Until I give you the explanation you will not have enough information to be able to build the concepts. Here is where I need your help. I ask you to please have patience with my attempts to explain what I understand. Please understand how much I want to help you understand what I am trying to communicate. Then please have patience with me while your brain processes this data, finds the pattern and then clicks onto recognition.
Think of this as a song. Let it flow over you and enjoy the melody. Let the words slip by without delving too deeply into them. Find the harmonies. Search for the places where the flow of the music aligns with what you already know and believe. I will do all I can to make the experience enjoyable. Given enough time and space your brain will find the concepts.
Here, then, is the first application of this technique. In those preceding paragraphs I endeavored to establish rapport and tell you that I have news to share. You are skillful enough to interpret what I have written. I hope you see that I have no guile in this endeavor. I probably do not yet know you and yet you are important to me. We are all joined into this community called “humanity”. If this technique is a discovery worth sharing then I need your help to carry this message into the community. I cannot do this without you. And what I hope you learn to see is that this concept is something that our community needs to understand. My hope is that we can align in this endeavor.
There, that was one of the second key elements in this technique. Alignment occurs when we share a bond of love and a desire to learn. Transformation and alignment are the two of the desirable forms of activity. The third valuable activity is tranquility. Note the dichotomy. I use the word tranquility and I say it is an activity.
This is yet another concept. The concept that I want to help you learn is built upon underlying concepts. There are numerous books on the techniques useful in creating a learning environment. There are numerous books written on the spiritual disciplines required to place yourself into a centered state where you can shed the conflicts that surround us. And there are books that can help you learn how to use a meditative state of tranquility so that you can regroup and launch from there toward a transforming state. When I refer to tranquility as an activity I mean the intentional use of learned habits that help us regain our focus.
As I worked with a variety of management techniques I came to realize that behaviors fall into certain patterns. My mind then formulated a concept that the model of team formation stages could be aligned with the model of conflict resolutions styles. As I struggled with that concept I got nowhere. It was when I learned to let go and go back into a meditative state that I was able to allow my mind to transform the data into the pattern shown below.
I have combined images and colors with text. I hope you see the colors, but in case you only have a gray image allow me to explain their relevance. First, we have two sides to our brain. One side works well with patterns and it likes images and colors. The other side works well with words. By combing images and words we find it easier to assimilate a concept.
What this diagram shows is a simple two dimensional grid. The horizontal axis ranges from love through a zero point and goes on to antagonism. We think we prefer love and yet most of us live our lives seeking antagonism. The vertical axis symbolizes the reception of information. I use the word dissonance to signify the good flow of information because we need something to catch our attention before we can see the value in the information that is passing by. Most of the information that streams past us is filtered so that we tend to say near the zero point on the vertical axis. We also learn to use distracters to block information. Most of the entertainment industry is focused on creating distracters.
What I do not show on this two dimensional model is that there are other dimensions. The third dimension is energy. The fourth dimension is time. For the purpose of this article I am going to omit those two dimensions. The exercise I propose to use to illustrate this model is based on the text found in the gospels in the Christian Bible. I believe that we can use words to help us understand the flow of information. I believe that we are skilled at reading words and interpreting the emotions of love and hate. In my opinion, the writers of the four gospels have given us few clues about the energy levels of the participants in those stories. While there is some information there I do not feel skilled enough to interpret that data accurately. Also, I do not believe that those writers gave us the type of data we would use today if we wanted to assess the flow of time.
For example, when I investigate the root cause for a system failure in a data processing shop I expect to have people report the events that took place with the time that they occurred. In most cases we agree on the exact minute of the exact hour each event transpired. Occasionally we delved down into the seconds on the minutes in the hours. Time was not tracked nor reported like that two thousand years ago.
The first concept shown on this grid is that a state of low emotional flow and low information flow is described as tranquil. I believe that the key to entering a transforming state is to increase our perception that valuable information is available while holding the emotional inputs low. The concept expressed by this model is that if we then increase our perception of love we will seek to align our wills. Alignment occurs when we value the information flow and share a loving relationship.
It is my belief that by learning to use these concepts we can improve our personal relationships and extend the concept of alignment to broader and broader segments of humanity until we all reach alignment. The difficulty, however, is that we learn habits of behavior when we are very young.
Some of us learn the conflict resolution style of smoothing and do our best to live in a tranquil environment. One of the bits of information that I learned while doing the research for this article is just how skilled Pilate was at smoothing. Pilate was an excellent negotiator. No matter who tried to alter the ambiance, Pilate skillfully strove to pull the situation back into the tranquil state. I now have an admiration for his talent.
Some of us learn to respond to dissonance with anger. As a teacher I learned that when I gave the students a surprise quiz they were upset. I also learned that when I postponed a quiz they were equally upset. They liked things to be predicable. We all do. And along the way we learn the habit of transforming the perception of news into a potential for conflict. In team formation theory the transition from the tranquil state to the next stop in the evolution of the team is called storming because it is a state of conflict. This is our predominate habit. When we find something unexpected we first react with anger. Think of what would happen if we could just teach the habit of using new information to generate an internal transformation instead.
There are a few who practice the spiritual disciplines and learn how to make that transition. Sadly, there are also some who hear the dissonance, feel the conflict and wander off into chaos. Today one of the most common chaotic behaviors is drug abuse. The habit of blocking the dissonance through drugs leads to conflict with those around the drug user. That conflict reinforces the habit as it now serves as a way to try to block the sense of conflict as well. From there the drug user enters a spiral that is difficult to break.
What if, instead, we could help people learn how to get back to the tranquil state and from there exit upward to the transforming state? There are times when this happens in schools. There are times when this happens with teams. It is possible. Now if we could use this simple grid to help us understand the dynamics then we might be able to makes those transitions intentionally and as needed.
One of my expectations is that this research endeavor will help us understand how people intuitively use this model already. My hope is that we can then progress from intuition to understanding.
To make this concept explicit I needed an illustration that was sufficiently complex to show the capabilities of this conceptual model and yet so broadly researched that my findings can be validated by others. I found that the Christian Bible contains a vast collection of case study material and it is widely available.
The approach that I took is trivial in order to be reproducible. I began by searching for words that express the concepts of dissonance, love, distraction and antagonism. The word matrix shown below lists the word families that I found as I studied the four gospel accounts of the encounter between Pilate, Jesus and various other personages. If you want to validate this article, please challenge those words and challenge the placement I have given each.
Now, to keep this exercise reproducible I also made one other key simplification. I treat each of those words as if they have an equivalent value. In each phrase in which I find one of these concepts I give that phrase a vertical score of either +1 if I find a dissonance concept or –1 if I find a distracter concept. Then I give that same phrase a horizontal score of +1 if I find an antagonistic concept or –1 if I find the concept of love. I did not try to distinguish big conveyances of love from small demonstrations of compassion. Every score is plus one, zero or minus one. There are no other values.
| Alignment
(Love + Dissonance) Opportunity Redeem Repent “You say so” | DISSONANCE
(Information to share) Discussion Explanation No response Unexpected answer | Chaos
(Dissonance + Conflict) Accused Confused Conspire Jealousy Self-Focused Withdraw |
| LOVE
(Actions to benefit) Acquiesce Convene Gift Inquire Release | ANTAGONISM
(Actions to hinder) Captive Challenge Request Suffer | |
| Closure
Agreement Concede Ignorance Obligation | DISTRACTERS
(Information ignored) Deny Tradition | Suppress
(Conflict + Distracters) Contempt Refuse Require |
Now when I first set that criteria I was not sure what I would find. I then began with the Gospel of John and I was pleasantly surprised that I confirmed my own model. I was elated and yet I realize that confirming my own results does not convey significance in the scientific community. But what I can do is convey my message to you and then ask you to be the witness that accompanies me in testifying as to these findings. So again I am asking for your help. Please follow along, help me verify these results and then help convey this news to those you know.
After that preliminary examination of the Gospel of John, my next step was to examine the other three gospels. I found the same patterns recurring in greater clarity than I had hoped to find. I also found several common themes. I earlier mentioned that these texts helped me understand Pilate’s skill in negotiating. I also came to see a recurring pattern demonstrated by the various peoples that I have simply termed the “Crowd”. While the texts clearly delineate between the gathered religious leaders and the gathered people I did not find that significant. If the same event occurred tomorrow, any of us could easily find ourselves cast into the role of a leader or a follower. I see no need to differentiate. We are all in this crowd together.
Here, then, is the data I found in the Gospel of Mark.
| Book | Ch | Vs | Actor | Vert | Horz | Dissonance | Love |
| Mark | 15 | * | Start | 0 | 0 | Assumed start place | |
| Mark | 15 | 1 | Crowd | 1 | 1 | Conspire | Conspire |
| Mark | 15 | 2A | Pilate | 1 | 0 | Inquire | |
| Mark | 15 | 2B | Jesus | 2 | -1 | "You say so" | "You say so" |
| Mark | 15 | 3 | Crowd | 3 | 0 | Accused | Accused |
| Mark | 15 | 4 | Pilate | 4 | 0 | Explanation | |
| Mark | 15 | 5 | Jesus | 5 | 0 | No response | |
| Mark | 15 | 6 | Narrator | 4 | -1 | Obligation | Obligation |
| Mark | 15 | 7 | Narrator | 5 | -1 | Explanation | |
| Mark | 15 | 8 | Crowd | 4 | 0 | Require | Require |
| Mark | 15 | * | Pilate | 4 | 0 | Pilate understands the motive | |
| Mark | 15 | 9 | Pilate | 3 | -1 | Obligation | Obligation |
| Mark | 15 | 10 | Narrator | 4 | 0 | Jealousy | Jealousy |
| Mark | 15 | 11 | Crowd | 3 | 1 | Refuse | Refuse |
| Mark | 15 | 12 | Pilate | 2 | 0 | Ignorance | Ignorance |
| Mark | 15 | 13 | Crowd | 1 | 1 | Refuse | Refuse |
| Mark | 15 | 14A | Pilate | 0 | 0 | Ignorance | Ignorance |
| Mark | 15 | 14B | Crowd | 1 | 1 | Refuse | Refuse |
| Mark | 15 | 15A | Pilate | 2 | 0 | Redeem | Redeem |
| Mark | 15 | 15B | Pilate | 3 | -1 | Explanation | Acquiesce |
| Mark | 15 | * | End | 3 | -1 | Weak alignment | |
The first column lists the name of the gospel. I include this column to make it easier for you to load all of this data into a spreadsheet and manipulate it.
The second and third columns contain the chapter and verse of the text phrase. The Christian Bible has reference numbers that were adopted a very long time ago to simplify communication. There is also a common practice to subdivide the verse into fragments when doing analytic work. I know that the chapter and verse number I have adopted conform to the standards. I am not sure about my text fragment selections but I give you a clue as to my delineations by telling you who is the focus of that fragment.
The fourth column is the clue about who is the center of focus in that fragment. Note again that I have aggregated a variety of personages into the group called “crowd”. I could use the phrase “chorus” to align with theatrical productions. Or I could use the word “Us” to convey my belief that each of us when placed in this same situation would probably have blended in quite comfortably.
The next two columns show the vertical and horizontal position on the grid during the time period described in this text fragment. The convoluted reasoning I used to assign this numbering arrangement is described in one of the articles in my set of articles on Seeking Alignment. For now, I suggest we simply adopt it as a convenience as the particular orientation of this grid has no bearing on the results.
The next two columns list the key concept that I found in that text fragment that justifies the score I gave that fragment on dissonance and love. Perhaps it will be more clear if I refer to this scoring system as dissonance and antagonism because antagonism scores positive values while love is a negative number.
Values that are near 0,0 indicate tranquility. Pilate likes tranquility and works hard to keep things there.
Values that are near zero vertically and positive horizontally indicate conflict. The soldiers understand conflict and intuitively know how to shape their environment to fit their preference.
Values with positive vertical values and zero horizontally indicate a transforming condition.
Values with positive vertical values and positive horizontal values indicate chaos.
Values with positive vertical values and negative horizontal values indicate alignment.
I always assume that we start at 0,0 because that is where people tend to want to be. I felt that choice was vindicated when I found that Pilate tended to push the conflict back to 0,0 whenever he could.
I then repeated this process over and over again to refine the list of words. First I searched for recurring combinations. For example, there are numerous instances of the crowd denying that the information was relevant and then becoming more agitated. I classified deny as a distracter. I classified agitation as a type of conflict. Then I consolidated the pair into the concept of “refuse”. The crowd refused to accept the information and refused to accept the offer.
Other combinations were more difficult. For example, I found repeated references to the tradition of releasing a prisoner. Tradition is a closure process that precludes new information. As long as we have always done it this way then there is no need to consider alternatives. Release is an act of love. It is a gift. The tradition of giving a gift is an obligation. No new information is required to trigger the giving of a gift as an act of love. Admittedly, there is quite a range of emotions possible with the act, but from the point of view a contract, the gift has been given and the obligation has been fulfilled.
I hope that gives you enough information to be able to reproduce this experiment. Please choose your own words if you find that process more meaningful. What I intend to do next is to proceed into the analysis and thus illustrate the process and indirectly illustrate the technique. I suggest you follow along with my illustration first and then try the experiment yourself.