| When I first studied Tuckman’s concept of team formation I plotted the team states as a state-transition diagram. Then I found the pattern that allowed me to show team formation states on the grid with love and dissonance. This let me see that the states of being are not static. We transition between states. |
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| I then turned to case studies in the Christian Bible and found that I could plot the path taken by the woman caught in adultery as described in John 8:1-11. She is in conflict with the law. She is taken away by a mob and I cannot think of anything that would be more chaotic than standing in the midst of a mob that is about to torture you to death by throwing rocks at you. Jesus calms the crowd, changes their hearts and they leave. Jesus speaks to the woman and she replies calmly, accepts Jesus request to change her life and aligns her will with his. The “dance” is from hostile to chaotic to tranquil to changing and into aligned. |
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As I continued experimenting with this tool I found that the patterns in other stories are more complex. Consider the comparison of the story of the encounter between Jesus and Pilate told in the four gospels and shown in the following graph.
| I modified this approach when I got to the complexity of the book of Job. Consider the shaded areas shown on the graph shown on the right. Those areas indicate the range of behaviors demonstrated by the four principal characters in that work. Job stays centered, but expresses alignment, chaos, subjugation and obligation. His friends speak mostly about obligation. |
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I put this tool to use in exploring relationships at home, work and in outside activities. I tried to explain to people that their behaviors were focused on conflict and that we could not move forward until we all returned to calm. I tried using this model to create calm so that I could lead people into transformation. And I tried using this model to assess my own behaviors and get myself back into tranquility so I could focus on transformation.
I found that changing myself exerts influence on others more powerfully than I had previously realized. I attribute that effect to systems theory. I accept the concept that minute changes in the environment are detected by those around and we then adapt our behaviors accordingly.
Intentionality
We choose our coping styles. We choose our helping methods. We choose how much or how little attention we will pay to the dissonance. We choose which stage of change we want. We, however, do not seem to have the ability to choose our developmental stage — but we can choose whether or not we make use of the stage that we have achieved.Then we choose whether or not we desire knowledge that we can assimilate. We choose whether to live with old constructs or build new ones. We choose whether or not we seek the transformations that are possible knowing that those transformation might lead to a radical change in our thoughts that could be a developmental stage change or a spiritual awakening.
We shape our environment. We choose whether we will dialogue with those we meet or treat the other person as an object. We choose how we want to structure our communications.
Consider the following two illustrations of a very small organization. By intentionally changing the pattern of communication the operation of the organization is improved. By changing the structure of the organization, life became better for the people in the organization.
The state of being that I seek as my starting place is tranquility. The state of being that I seek to use when I can exert the energy is changing. My goal is to achieve alignment periodically. My desire is to spend more time in alignment, and more of the time when I am not in alignment changing. My goal is to minimize the time I spend being chaotic, hostile, subjugated, denying, obligated or pampered. My goal is to help people give up being chaotic, hostile, subjugated, in denial, obligated or pampered so they can spend more time in tranquility. My desire is to help others learn the discipleship pattern of tranquility to changing to aligned.
Kinetics
| My first master’s thesis was about change in a church. In that paper I described a primitive model of change that I called the Tiddlywinks model. My premise was that organizations resist change, and once compelled to change advance almost at once to a new state where they again experience inertia. The concept was related to the child’s game in which pressure is applied to small plastic disks which then jump to some new location. The disks will not move unless pressure is applied. They move once and then stop movement again until more pressure is applied. There is an “Old Reality” which is replaced by a “New Reality” and soon it is as if the “New Reality” is what had always been. |
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My second master’s thesis was focused on iterative software development. My premise in that paper was that it is better to create something small and put it to use rather than perfecting something that is not used. This paper reflects my preference to put incomplete works into circulation rather than wait until I have all the answers.
I have used both of those constructs and now refer to the second approach as Kinetics. I have made excellent use of it on several projects where I create something small and primitive. I then put that small creation into circulation and wait to see if someone will adopt it. In essence, I seek someone who senses the dissonance that this object is incomplete, senses that there is a safe neutral environment to work in and is willing to transform the primitive object.
I used Kinetics when I created my teaching materials, used those materials to document best practices and used those results to expand the two-dimensional model into my current three-dimensional models. I then adopted “House-3D” as the foundational framework until I encountered one obstacle. When I went back to the Book of Job to explore the third dimension, I realized that the two-dimensional plot I previously used was not suitable for a three-dimensional study. I then reworked that material and plotted it onto a radar chart.
And with that change in plotting technique, I transformed “House-3D” into “Model 5-B”. “House-3D” required manual plotting of vectors. “Model 5-B” is designed so that data from a spreadsheet can automatically generate a graph.
This ties into the theme of Kinetics because this new plot is pointed towards subjugated while the old plot pointed towards obligated. My first attempt was based on an assumption that the core relationship in that work was the relationship between Job and God. My second attempt came up with a different result because I was better able to focus on the relationship between Job and his advisors.
When I first studied Job I learned that Job’s advisors believe that God is obligated to act in a manner consistent with their theology. In my second study I learned that his advisors wanted to subjugated Job because they were in conflict and failed to understand his position. Both understandings are right. It is by holding information tentatively that I am free to see both interpretations.
Discipleship
My understanding of discipleship is that it is a pathway. I see this pattern in the way that Jesus lived during his years of public ministry. He spent considerable time in prayer—which I believe is the helping technique called centering. He spent considerable time teaching — which I believe it the helping technique that moves us from tranquil to changing. He spent considerable time aligned with God—which I believe demonstrates the result from discipleship. I believe this pathway is lived by centering myself, engaging in the world as fully as possible with the expectation that I will be changed, all the while doing all I can to maintain my alignment with my ideals.The highest power that I know of I call God. I cannot be like God and so I turn to Jesus as my role model. I am not strong enough to be like Jesus so I turn to the Apostle Paul, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. as examples of people who lived disciplined lives and changed the world. I believe that those three individuals were called to greatness because there was a need for someone to fill those roles at those times. Today I aspire to be more like Bill W—who founded AA, or perhaps Melody Beattie — who published a book, or perhaps Michael Cole—who opened doors from the USA to the USSR.
I believe that discipleship requires that I explore dissonance. Peter Senge reminds us to explore the options for “and” rather than choosing “or”. Eliyahu Goldratt’s “thinking process” focuses on dilemmas and recommends that we resolve the dilemma with an answer that meets both needs rather than choosing between sides.
I believe that discipleship is the traditional path that changes lives. I see discipleship expressed in religion, twelve step programs, schools and in professional certifications. But in my opinion I see too little of it expressed in daily living.
I believe we need to be challenged. I think this is the traditional approach to growth. For example, I believe that the giant ground drawings found in South America are a mental exercise program. I think that people would walk the lines and then be asked to describe what it was that the image represented. That was an exercise in mental discipline.
I believe that the Book of Revelation in the Christian Bible is a mental exercise. I believe that once we gain the proper perspective we will be able to understand it. I believe that too much of what has already been written about that book are attempts to focus on one side or another of a multi-faceted dilemma. I believe that the answer is in “and”, not “or”.
Based on my understanding of discipleship, I have set large goals for myself. I look at the example that John Kennedy set for the USA and USSR when he challenged both to build a system that would allow a human to walk on the moon. I believe that the challenging task caused us to learn and grow. I believe that the actual result was more powerful for the imagination than it was significant for science.