To lead an authentic life, a person must choose a life, not live a life merely shaped by the world. To be human is to participate intentionally in shaping one’s future. — 43: 623-624
Fred Gealy23, in an essay called “Encounter and Dialogue”, suggests we begin our dialogue with sacred literature by first asking what the writer actually says, allowing authors to speak for themselves rather than beginning with our beliefs, assumptions or someone else’s interpretation. We let them “have their say.” We look for the actual words and phrases themselves. He then says we need to ask what happened in the story, because much of the world’s sacred literature takes a narrative form. We break out the steps taken and find the elements of a given story or passage. What were the events? He calls them “happenednesses.” He asks us to look at the historical, economic, political, social and cultural context. What was really going on? We find the objective occurrences and set them in context. We isolate and identify the human dynamics in the story. His next step suggests that we ask our own questions. In light of what happened in the stories, we surface the questions that are raised in our own very real lives today, the “existential questions” that strike deep into the core of our beings and raise foundational questions about our very nature. These are the questions that do not go away. They trigger an inquiry or a search for the answers that will enable us to consciously shape our lives. We draw relationships between the happenednesses and our own situation. It is easy to see this as two distinct steps: 1) a reflective self-examination, followed by 2) relating our own life experience to the story. It is only then, Gealy says, that it is appropriate to ask about the message we take from the story or text. How does it impact me in my real situation? How do I come up with answers to the questions I face? How do I determine my sense of identity and purpose? It is these pressing questions that focus the message and make it personal. It is the answers that provide a framework for authentic meaning and significance for each person. Gealy’s insights into applied phenomenology gave rise to ICA’s methods, first as study and teaching methodologies and later as the ToP facilitation methodologies. As they evolved, they were applied to all kinds of challenges in organisations and communities. The technology in the Technology of Participation (ToP) is the phenomenological method. Phenomenology as method Combining the methods used in demythologizing with insights from Suzanne Langer24, Gealy and others led to the creation of a unique approach to phenomenological inquiry. — 45: 655-677
Three critical aspects form the foundations of ToP phenomenology as a discipline: intentional focus, radical openness and methods of inquiry, as discussed in Chapter 1. — 49: 708-710
The methodology itself, as medium, is the message. “Your ideas are relevant and valuable.” “The group needs the best wisdom available to make the wisest decisions.” “You can shape your situation and your world.” These ideas are integrated into ToP facilitation through a complex of values, practices and application of methodology. ToP facilitators often say these things directly because they are using a methodology that supports them. ToP methodology provides a process through which an individual or a group can pursue, in principle, any inquiry. It enables groups to examine their own images or pictures of a situation in relationship to a topic. Each participant contributes, from their own perspective, thoughts relevant to the question at hand. As the group reflects on the compilation of ideas, their picture of the situation grows, develops and changes. They make meaning together. — 64: 919-926
The process of development and the formation of developmental strategy is a complex, interrelated whole that contains specific and very real polarities. At the most general level, there is a tension between the group’s vision for the future and the complex of factors that negate the vision or hinder its fulfillment. Seeing the specific barriers in relation to a vision enables a group to see their whole strategic situation and identify key underlying contradictions that must be addressed if they are to realize their vision. Naming those contradictions provides a platform for strategic thinking. This analysis provides insight into steps and strategic directions that can be taken to address the group’s situation in an authentic, future-oriented way. When they have identified their strategies, the group can create specific, practical action plans to implement their chosen strategies. This process has become known as the ToP Strategic Planning Method. ToP action planning rounds out the basic suite of ToP applications. The core of this method includes identifying a desired future state, analyzing the hindering and supporting factors in the present situation, naming concrete commitments given the present reality, generating actions toward those commitments, and timelining the actions with assignments and estimated costs. The ToP journey wall applies the charting approach to time and historical events to enable a group to look at, discuss, create a story of their journey, and learn from their past experience. — 67: 975-987
The rational aim or product that the group needs at the end of the conversation, and the existential aim or how the group needs to be different at the end of the conversation guide what questions you choose to ask. — 82: 1195-1196
In Western society, we struggle with articulating the reflective level. Reducing the reflective level questions to “How did this make you feel?” generates very little information, and many people avoid answering. More useful and appropriate information is elicited with several more specific questions, such as “What part of this made you uncomfortable, and which part were you pleased with?” Questions that elicit memories or past experiences can also be very helpful in allowing people to pay attention to their inner experience. The most successful interpretive questions are specifically crafted to explore insights in relation to the aim of the conversation. For example, if the aim is to understand a policy, one interpretive question may be “What implications might this policy have for our daily work?” Decisional level questions also work best when they are specific to the aim of the conversation. Sometimes a group decision is necessary, so articulating it is useful: “What have we decided to do?” Sometimes individual decisions are important: “What will you do next to apply what you’ve learned today?” Sometimes both are needed. Leaving the room without any decisional question will leave the group hanging and unsatisfied. If a decision is not possible, deciding not to decide and when to come back to the topic can be sufficient. After — 82: 1203-1213
Where the focused conversation method is intended to probe meaning and insight, the consensus workshop method looks for shared patterns behind diverse ideas and perspectives. One of the primary assumptions of this type of workshop is that each of the participants has wisdom to contribute. — 90: 1327-1329
Gestalt in this context is about seeing “‘patterns of meaning” in a whole set of ideas given in relation to a specific question. The individual responses to the focus question will, if the focus question is well-designed, be comprehensive in addressing the question. The task is to discern the major themes of thought or distinct answers to the given question. There may be many connections and associations among the ideas. There may be causes and effects. There may be words that are similar or seem to have similar meanings. The key factor in distilling useful meaning from this process is the question used as the guide, the focus question. It focuses the generation of ideas and guides discernment of the thought patterns of the responses. The question becomes the fundamental reference point for a whole inquiry and all of its parts. The patterns are named as the group’s response to the focus question. It must be understood that this is a process of synthesis rather than analysis. One of the easy temptations in performing this process is the tendency to sort elements into categories that are already integrated into our understanding even if they are not consciously identified. It is, without question, much easier for both the participant and the facilitator to sort into known categories, but sorting only organizes previous ideas, and does not create new ideas. Analytical methodologies play a necessary role in processing ideas when an overall framework is already firmly in place. — 96: 1408-1419
Western thought emphasizes and teaches analysis, sorting and categorizing from an early age. On Sesame Street they ask, “Which of these is not like the others?” It is easy to create categories and sort ideas into them, but no new knowledge or understanding is created, and “miscellaneous” categories are created, effectively marginalizing ideas that are different or outliers. In contrast, the consensus workshop method is best used to synthesize new ideas from a diversity of individual ideas. This approach completely sidesteps the question of agreeing or disagreeing with someone else’s idea; it asks how each unique idea can contribute to something the group has not seen before. — 106: 1562-1567