The interrelationships between conversations and action have been thoroughly addressed by academics for some time, but it is only since last year that the issue has invaded management circles with force. At least that's my appreciation.
As a result of having studied the Art of Professional Coaching with The Newfield Group, and in addition to having delved into linguistic acts, I have had to revise much of my own approach to how to do consulting and teaching management: art and science to which I have been fully dedicated for many years.
In fact, I had a book on Strategic Business Management ready for review, and I had to completely redo it before moving on.
This article intends to be a tight synthesis of the readings made and the teachings received, a synthesis for which I am obviously the only one responsible, especially regarding the interpretation of what has been read and heard.
Relativity of Objectivity
For a long time we have believed that the explanation of a phenomenon belongs to the phenomenon and not to the observer, based on the fact that there is a single and true explanation and that it transcends the observer and its capabilities (objectivity without parentheses).
There are multiple examples, including scientific ones, that show that many explanations that were once considered true ceased to be true, and probably many of the current truths will cease to be true, sooner than we suppose: nothing is as it was!
The truth is that the explanation belongs to the observer, it is he who interprets reality and gives it meaning. Hence p. ex. That it does not make sense to affirm that the world behaves rationally or not; the reasons for natural phenomena belong to us not to them: they do not know what it is to be rational, they do not need reasons or explanations, to exist or to manifest (objectivity in parentheses).
The question is - as Varela and Maturana show - that human beings are not capable of distinguishing between illusion and perception.
If we strike a white light beam and a red light beam on an obstacle (eg, a hand) so that the shadow is cast on a white surface, we would anticipate seeing shades of black, gray, red, or pink: the funny thing is that the shadows look greenish blue.
Obviously you will think that this is because somehow the obstacle breaks down the light coming from the light beams and hence you see the blue-green! But it turns out that if we measure with a spectrometer there is no corresponding wavelength there to the blue-green color! It turns out that the eye informs the brain that there is a blue-green color not only when stimulated by the blue-green color, but also against other stimuli. So even if you see the blue-green color objectively with your own eyes, that color is not necessarily present.
This is something similar to when you think you see - with your own eyes - that the sun rises and sets: or is it not?
These and other experiments, both by Maturana 14, 15, 16, 17 and other scientists (eg Van Foerster), show that very contrary to what we traditionally thought, human beings are closed information systems that we cannot Objectively observe the world around us.
Furthermore, the objects that make up the world do not exist for an observer who does not distinguish them: although the observer has them before his eyes and looks at them, he will not distinguish them, unless he has the linguistic distinctions to interpret and refer to them.
Hence Maturana's idea of distinguishing between objectivity without parentheses (traditional vision) and objectivity with parentheses (a new way of understanding observing), an idea that facilitates coexistence, since it leads to the acceptance of the other as a legitimate other… and therefore to the acceptance of other worldviews than ours.
However - at the end of the day - the one with the most and best distinctions is the best observer, in that they give him a more effective capacity for action in a given domain of action, according to certain standards: p. ex. Better ability to generate action in the domain of managerial conversation, as a consequence of having a better repertoire of managerial linguistic distinctions.
The Fundamental Linguistic Acts
In the traditional approach, language is an instrument that helps us to describe. In the ontological approach, we distinguish language as a social creation that, in addition to describing, allows us to modify reality, to generate worlds that did not exist before the use of certain linguistic acts. The use of language is action and generates action, generates being; we not only act as we are but we are as we act (we language).
Let's see how this is. According to Echeverría -in his interesting book Ontología del Lenguaje- regardless of the language used, it is always possible to distinguish five basic linguistic acts: affirmations, declarations, requests, offers and promises. The judgments correspond to a particular kind of statement.
When we affirm what we do is try to describe the world, the phenomena, the facts, etc., and we commit ourselves to the truth of what is affirmed: p. ex. Juanita is one meter and sixty-five centimeters.
On the other hand, when we declare what we do is to generate a reality, a world that did not exist, and we commit ourselves to the validity of what has been declared, acting accordingly with what has been declared; which -beyond desire- implies having the power or authority for it: p. ex. Juanita was found not guilty by a judge. In everyday life, declarations of love, forgiveness, ignorance, thanks, yes or no, are essential: but we do not always know how to do them, or we do not always do them in a timely manner and act accordingly, or we make them respect. In the particular case of lawsuits, what we do is make statements about something or someone, statements that may or may not be founded: p. ex. Juanita is very pretty.
On the other hand, when we make requests what we do is request something from someone, hoping to be satisfied: p. ex. Juanita, please give me a little kiss. A request does not become a promise to fulfill until it is accepted by the person to whom the request is made. Every question is a request: is it not?
In the same way when we make offers we offer something to someone, hoping that the other person will accept it: p. ex. Juanita, I invite you to dinner. As long as acceptance does not occur, the offer does not become a promise to satisfy.
Therefore the promises are requests or offers that have been accepted -in saying yes- and therefore imply compliance by the committed people (those who accept and those who receive acceptance): if the declaration is no, or remains On hold, it cannot be decided that a commitment was made. E.g.: Being accepted to hear a question does not imply that you are committed to answering it.
On the other hand, hearing the question, request or offer is not the same as listening to it, since the latter implies openness to interpret what was heard, and especially interpreting this is the concern of the person who asks, asks or offers; what led him to ask, ask or offer what he asked, asked or offered (from the world of possibilities of the listener, determined by his distinctions, his way of being and the emotion experienced at that time).
In the same way, it is not the same to make sounds than to speak, as it is not the same to make movements with the hands than to use gestural language. We said before that looking is not the same as seeing or observing. Then it is also necessary to distinguish activity from action, considering the latter as an activity plus interpretation: the first can be described through affirmations, while the second involves judging behaviors, making sense of them.
What does Juanita do who is an actress, when she ardently joins her lips with those of Juan, who is an actor ?: Kiss ?, Simulate a kiss ?, Taste ?, Do artificial respiration ?, Fall in love ?, Act?, Earning a living ?, or this and other things? Are the statements and the judgments different - in this regard - if the context or its interpretation changes?
We see with our eyes, we interpret with our distinctions.
Direct and reflective, recurring and contingent actions
We can distinguish between direct actions (eg the action I take in writing this article) and reflective actions (eg in thinking or speculating about this action). Reflective action allows us to improve the productivity (quality, efficiency and effectiveness) of our direct action: either by making sense of what we do, expanding the possibilities for action, and / or redesigning it to achieve better performance (eg planning the direct action and formulating strategies to make the text attractive to different types of readers).
It is interesting to analyze what happens daily in the workplace, when you say "that person reflects a lot, and acts little, if he acts", or when you say "that person is always in action but reflects little, if he reflects ».
Reflecting and not acting (speaking, writing, creating, leading, etc.) does not make much sense.
Reflecting to act better oneself or make others act better, makes a lot of sense: sharing the product of reflections can improve later action.
Carrying out an action correctly without reflecting on it, requires having learned very well what is done, and it is possible that you do not reflect on what is done while what is done continues to give results: if for some reason that transparency breaks, it is advisable to reflect on the actions necessary to overcome your breakdown in the best possible way… instead of regretting, blaming someone or yourself.
Contingent actions are generated whenever it is not previously established how to act against unexpected circumstances or contingencies that occur; instead the recurring actions arise and are carried out in the same pre-established manner, every time the same circumstance arises. These recurring actions are also called social practices19: organizations benefit and harm from them, because on the one hand they become habits and avoid having to think every time about the actions we carry out, but on the other hand they can blind to others and can impair our ability to change and innovate.
All these distinctions are vitally important possibilities in any organization, all the more if we consider organizations as conversational networks.
If in organizations everything always works according to expectations, it is possible that we only had to carry out direct and recurring actions, within current social practices: but if the normal flow of actions is interrupted unexpectedly, producing breaks that break transparency of action, paralyzing regrets will arise or reflective and contingent actions will be carried out, conducive to overcoming the situation and re-entering transparency… and so on.
Conversational Networks
The analysis of organizations -like linguistic phenomena- allows us to interpret that the setting of their limits is made through declarations of those who have the authority to make them, that the daily work is configured by a complex network of judgments, and requests, offers and mutual promises, which develop in a shared background that we call culture, and that this background guides the way to formulate and try to achieve a vision and objectives through the fulfillment of a mission: a shared future, which is to be achieved through linguistically induced actions.
Since Mintzberg and others showed that managers are most often engaged in conversation, as Kelly also showed in Venezuela, not much has been done to train them to examine the conversational structures and processes that occur in the organizations they lead. This is still striking, as there is no doubt about the strong interrelation between a manager's conversational skills and her good or bad performance as such.
It is difficult to conceive as successful a manager who does not act in accordance with his declarations, confuses judgments with affirmations, or requests or offers with promises, or does nothing to improve the degree of fulfillment of his promises, or increase his persuasive capacity, or does not know how to design and / or interpret narratives, or does not design conversations to agree on possible conversations, or agree conversations to converse about possible actions, or conversations to coordinate actions, or does not know how to listen, or does not know how to speak in a way that they understand… that actions conducive to what he wants to achieve be carried out, for which it is also essential to "distinguish between different male and female speaking and listening."
Therefore, it is difficult for a manager to achieve high levels of individual and group performance of the personnel in charge if he does not skillfully manage the conversational skills necessary to bring each person to a mental or emotional state that encourages them to carry out the Necessary Actions: As people - with disposition and energy - find meaning in their lives and work, motivation and performance change positively.
Moods of resentment or resignation are not the best to achieve high levels of motivation and performance, however if we are able to lead people to states of peace or ambition first, we will cause high levels of proactive energy and a very high performance: conversations and coaching are means to achieve it.
Language power and competencies
Before concluding - and by way of summary and reinforcement - we could not fail to refer to power as a linguistic distinction, which allows us to appreciate the relative capacity to generate action of different actors and / or devices, with or without use - effective or not - of complementary tools, more or less effective.
We can distinguish four domains of power-generating language skills:
- Domain of distinctions: the greater and better capacity to make greater and better distinctions, the greater the capacity for observation and effective action in a given domain.
Eg: A sales and marketing manager hitherto successful in sales, but empirical and unprepared in marketing, will likely not make very precise distinctions as to what defines the business, characterizes the market, determines consumer behavior, and decides what to buy. Blind in front of what they do not know they do not know - in the face of an unstoppable drop in sales - they will be able to insist on more of the same in terms of advertising, promotion, merchandising and sales strategies, without realizing in advance the uncertain destiny of their Actions. Only if he were to declare his ignorance, which would imply that he knows that there is something he does not know about, the situation of the possible could change. You could ask for help, go to specialists, know and encourage the use of other mechanisms and instruments, etc.
- Mastery of linguistic acts: greater and better competence in the pertinent handling of affirmations, requests, offers, promises and declarations (and judgments) will correspond to a greater capacity to generate trust and effective action.
Eg: A production manager hitherto successful in getting it to be produced on time and with the required quality could be disturbed if a major competitor abruptly introduces technological and managerial changes that dramatically improve productivity and sharply lower costs., allowing you to lower prices and win market violently. A manager who does not have command of the linguistic acts that we have distinguished, could try to confront the problem with more and greater efforts from the area in charge, without making requests for help to other areas or instances, could not offer them strategic analysis of the global situation, to form opinion and obtain support, could confuse the judgments about the situation and the origin of the problem with affirmations,he may not declare his bankruptcy and not acknowledge his eventual incompetence to resolve difficulties, and he may not engage or engage others in actions leading to overcoming them, remaining in a dramatic web of lamenting and blaming others and himself, resentful of the lack of understanding and support from everyone else and resigned to never being able to change things… "talking" with himself over and over again, tirelessly and unproductively.tirelessly and unproductively.tirelessly and unproductively.
- Mastery of narratives: the greater and better competence in the design and narration of own narratives (and interpretation of others), there is a greater capacity to make our ideas and our way of being known, showing the possibilities of action that we accept those that we deny (the same is true in reverse as regards the greater capacity that we have to understand the possibilities of action that others accept and deny).
E.g.: An entrepreneur who has been a winner many times and a loser sometimes, relates his adventures to his collaborators in a new project, with great passion and enthusiasm. He recognizes his mistakes and highlights his successes, and raises his aspirations, managing to bring others to his emotionality.
He listens and answers with charm the questions that are asked, and he analyzes with insight the doubts and objections that are put to him: whenever he can exert his arguments with stories about situations that he remembers, with narratives that together with captivating his audience show what it is like and how you would like to be… and what you would like to achieve and with whom.
- Conversation domain: the greater and better the ability to design and hold conversations to coordinate actions, or to design and hold conversations about possible actions or about possible conversations, the greater the ability to act to modify the current situation and make it possible to achieve desired situations: the greater the reflective component in our conversations, the greater the ability to expand possibilities and design a more promising future.
E.g.: Finished the new CFO, shows with facts that there are serious cash flow problems derived from inadequate management of working capital. With a warm and soft voice he addresses each manager, suggesting coordinating actions.
Procopio, the production manager, declares that he refuses to buy raw material in smaller batches and to decrease inventories of raw material and spare parts, he also declares that he refuses to produce in batches of smaller size than the economic batch (calculated by an obviously anachronistic system). He further states that he is not committed to changing anything that decreases his productivity.
Coco, the commercial manager, declares that he supports the production manager in the latter but not in the inventory, since according to him, the most important inventory is that of finished products, and it is here that capital must be immobilized.
He also asks that prices not be raised so much and that credit conditions be improved: he says that only under these circumstances he can promise that sales will rise.
Given the position of the production manager, the second man in power, she asks if there are any circumstances under which he would agree to discuss possible conversations about possible actions in the production area to help solve the cash problem. The production manager accepts, since she says that she seems unfriendly and irrational not wanting to talk about talking, although she clarifies that a priori she does not commit to changing her position. She confesses - in a very intimate tone - that unfortunately the managerial productivity bonuses cannot be paid until there is enough cash and proposes that they talk first thing the next day, he - grumbling - accepts.
She then proposes to the business manager that they talk at the same time about when they could talk about possible actions, to decrease the need for working capital and at the same time increase sales. The commercial manager reluctantly acknowledges that at that time he is not prepared to discuss these possible actions, but that he agrees to discuss them the following day in the afternoon, after analyzing in detail and with his people some alternatives that have in mind.
Finally, Gregorio the general manager -with great enthusiasm- asks her to stay after the meeting, to talk about how to coordinate actions, to make each area collaborate with a greater degree of commitment to solving the problem, because he feels that with the exception of finances, the other areas believe - wrongly - that the problem does not concern them… Coco and Procopio take a look at each other before saying goodbye, as if wondering what happened…
Fina smiles, thinks and feels that her coaching meetings are helping her get better and better results.
Epilogue
My intention has been rather to show than to explain, hence allowing me to conclude with a quote from Baudelaire:… «I have stopped in the face of the frightful futility of explaining whatever to whoever, those who know guess me, and for those who they cannot or do not want to understand me, I would pile up the explanations without fruit… »
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to. The degree of compliance depends on the degree of satisfaction of the conditions agreed a priori, due clarification of the context of obviousness assumed by the parties.
b. The social reconstruction of social practices involves identifying constitutive statements (objectives), statements of existence (components, space and time), laws of action (the obligatory, the permitted, the prohibited), strategic rules (how to achieve the objectives), rules conflict resolution, etc.
c. Communication between Men and Women from 9 to 5 at work.
