Actions & Attitudes That Enhance Collective Reasoning
Brad C. Anderson
Simply placing people with different perspectives together and expecting them to produce miracles may lead to disappointment. Rather than innovate, people may argue. Rather than focus on what the organization needs, people may waste resources solving the wrong problem.
Several actions and attitudes will help avoid these adverse outcomes. These include:[1]
- Understand how you use your power to disempower others
- Identify the possibilities of teamwork and work to build your team.
- Step back from daily pressures to get a broader view of the situation
- Help the group consider their situation in a new light.
- Know that you cannot control everything
- Understand wisdom has a spiritual aspect of meaning and values
- Become a life-long learner
The following sections discuss these elements in more detail.
Understand how you use power to disempower others in the group.
As discussed in Chapter VI, even though social systems may distribute power unequally, everyone has some power. During interactions, consider how your actions might inadvertently disempower others.
For example, a vice president may stifle a productive discussion between front-line employees when she voices her opinion. Someone in charge of setting a meeting agenda may only give a speaker five minutes to talk when they need fifteen. An assertive extrovert may speak over a shy colleague.
To facilitate collective reasoning, we must be mindful of how our actions may silence others.
Identify the possibilities of teamwork and work to develop the team.
Consider what you might accomplish as a group that you are unable to do alone. Set your team to those actions. Take time to develop the lines of communication and bonds that strengthen the team’s cohesion using the methods described earlier.
Step back from daily pressures to get a broader view of the situation.
In many organizations, this may feel like an impossible task. Managers and employees are under intense pressure to manage immediate emergencies, making it difficult to pause and think about how their work fits into the big picture.[2]
Though it may sometimes feel like life conspires against our ability to do so, we must force the time into our schedule to stop, step away from our work for a moment, and reflect on how our efforts fit into the big picture.
Help the group consider their situation in a new light.
It is easy for us to lock ourselves into our perspective. We might call this narrowing of focus ‘tunnel vision.’ Breaking out of our tunnel vision may help us see novel solutions to problems or give us unique insights into our circumstances.
In groups, we might achieve this by taking on the role of devil’s advocate. A ‘devil’s advocate’ purposefully challenges people’s arguments not because they oppose them but rather to strengthen them or spur different ways of thinking. Alternatively, you might bring in outside experts who may see your group’s situation differently and then challenge your perspectives.
Know that you cannot control everything.
Recall from Chapter IX how champions possess a realistic sense of what the organization can and cannot do. Also, recall how organizations are open systems, and so forces inside and outside the organization influence our environment.
Rather than relying on hopeful idealism, wise action is realistic. Phronesis–practical wisdom–is doing the ethically practical in your specific situation.[3]
You will accomplish more if you acknowledge upfront that there are forces beyond your ability to control and adjust your efforts accordingly.
Understand wisdom has a spiritual aspect of meaning and values.
Values guide wise action. As the previous bullet said, phronesis is doing the ethically practical–the keyword being ethical. The pressure of organizational life can cause us to lose sight of the values we work toward as we rush to our next meeting or deal with angry customers.
Always remind yourself and your team of the values that guide your action.
Become a life-long learner.
Knowledge is required but insufficient for wise action. Our understanding is often flawed or incomplete. Our training indoctrinates us in certain forms of rationality, which may leave us deficient in other ways of knowing.
We can never know enough. Always learn more. Ask yourself, “What do I know today that I didn’t know yesterday?” If the answer is nothing, take action to add to your knowledge.
Developing the capacity to engage in collective reasoning is one way to create organizations capable of handling the unknown. This textbook will discuss two other ways to build this capacity: appreciative inquiry and experimentation. The following section explores the process of appreciative inquiry.
Key Takeaways
- Developing the capacity to engage in collective reasoning: Actions & attitudes
- Understand how you use your power to disempower others
- Identify the possibilities of teamwork and work to build your team.
- Step back from daily pressures to get a broader view of the situation
- Help the group consider their situation in a new light.
- Know that you cannot control everything
- Understand wisdom has a spiritual aspect of meaning and values
- Become a life-long learner
- Vaill, P. B. (2007). Organizational Epistemology--Interpersonal Relations in Organizations and the Emergence of Wisdom. In E. H. Kessler & J. R. Bailey (Eds.), Handbook of Organizational and Managerial Wisdom (pp. 327–355). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc. ↵
- Vaill, P. B. (1998). The Unspeakable Texture of Process Wisdom. In S. Srivastva & D. L. Cooperrider (Eds.), Organizational Wisdom and Executive Courage (pp. 25–39). San Francisco: The New Lexington Press. ↵
- Flyvbjerg, B. (2001). Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How It Can Succeed Again. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. ↵
Motivated by their personal values, champions drive action in their organization. They possess specific characteristics.
- They are passionate about the cause they champion. They exhibit enthusiasm, optimism, and resilience.
- They possess the skills needed to produce useful power relations.
- They possess sufficient bureaucratic rationality to know how to implement activities in their organization's structure.
- They are adaptable.
- They are realistic about what they can accomplish within their organization.
A system that has an effect on and is affected by the outside world.
Ancient Greek for practical wisdom; prudence; mindfulness