[Ailist] Re: Connecting with Others

[Rob Voyle]

Hi Bruce

You wrote:

> So, Rob, it¹s a kind of ³higher ground² you seek, a la Spiral
> Dynamics value memes?  
> 
> Or like Fraternity (familial compassion) was to Liberty and Freedom
> in the slogan of the French Revolution.
> The higher level value allows you to see and act on the lower level
> values.
> 
> I think it is critical that we do not confuse hierarchies of value
> with ³dominator hierarchies².  We need hierarchies of value to think
> through and act effectively in complex situations.

I am not familiar with the references you suggest.
What I am thinking of is what can happen in apprecaitive conversation or that 
place that great dialogue and dreaming can take us to.  That creative place that 
is both realistic (because it is based on the best of our past adn therefore we 
know is possible) but expansive and creative because it is love based rather than 
fear based.  I think of Barbara Fredricksons research on the creativity that arises 
when we are in the place of positive emotion.  It is also a place of great synergy.  
My experience of such times is that it is a place of transcendence, or a place of 
oneness of deep conectedness, that place where hearts are changed, that others 
have been referencing.  It is also a place that is often beyond words and hard to 
define or express.  We know somehow we have been changed but we are not 
quite sure how.    

With respect to hierarchies, I find them very limiting.  Hierarchies are linear 
impositions on organic processes.  Maslow was never able to prove 
experimentally his hierarchy of needs. I think it was precisely becaues it was a 
linear reduction and oversimplification of the interrelated organic processes. 
Steve Andreas used the term heterarchy to describe organic processes.  For 
example with respect to values, while we may have preferences, our preferences 
are rarely mutually exclusive.  I place a high value on personal freedom, I also 
highly value community.  Can I have one without the other, does having one 
mean I can't have the other. It is not an either or but how these two values, and 
other values as well, interact. In a heterarchy these values operate like a 
committee.  Think of a committee with junior and senior members.  Some clearly 
have greater influence but the junior ones can still relate to the senior members.  
When coaching an individual or working with a group we don't want one value to 
dominate or impose itself on all others.  What we want is to have dialogue 
between the values or the parts that hold the different values. 

I once worked with an individual in a coaching exercise who had two competing 
desires and values.  It was a classic "on the one hand I want and on the other 
hand I want."  So we put the values in each hand and had them dialogue.  We 
worked to have each hand find gratitude for the other hand's position and what it 
valued.  What was amazing was that as the two parts dialogued and appreciated 
each other's position his hands got closer and closer together.  They had started 
about two feet apart. Eventually without any prompting they came together and 
he was able to then place them over his heart, The two values no longer 
competing but were an intergral part of who he was and he was able to plan a 
course of action that affirmed both positions.

Rob
  
Robert J. Voyle, Psy.D.
Director, Clergy Leadership Institute
For Coaching and Training in Appreciative Inquiry
Author: Core Elements of the Appreciative Way 
http://www.clergyleadership.com/
503-647-2378 or 503-647-2382