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p.480 What if our knowledge and understanding of reality is not a mirror of some underlying "true" reality, nor a reproduction of that reality? Rather, what if our knowledge of reality is itself a construction that is created in the process of making sense of things (Astley, 1985; Knorr-Cetina, 1981; Weick, 1995)?
In such a constructivist view, change agents would use interventions not to bring about a greater alignment with a "true" reality, but rather to construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct existing realities so as to bring about different performances. Since constructed realities provide the context in which people act and interact, shifting these realities opens new possibilities for action and the realization of new orders of results. The job of change agents, therefore, would be to create new realities in which people and organizations are more effective in achieving the outcomes to which they are committed (Block, 1993; Scherr, 1989; Senge, 1990).
p.481 Constructed reality means that the world we know and understand is our invention (Maturana and Varela, 1987; von Forester, 1984; Watzlawick, 1984b)... constructivists... share in common the proposition that the world can not be known directly.
p.481 In a constructivist perspective, there is no reality that can be known independent of being constructed. All reality is constructed reality.
p.481 Within constructed realities, it is possible to distinguish between what Watzlawick (1990) calls first and second-order reality... First-order, presented realities refer to the physically demonstrable and publicly discernible characteristics, qualities, or attributes of a thing, event, or situation... First-order realities... are composed of uninterpreted facts and data that are accessible..., measurable, and empirically verifiable.
p.482 What differentiates second-order reality from first-order reality is the attachment of meaning. Second-order, represented realities are created whenever we attribute, attach, or give meaning, significance, or value to a first-order reality (Bohm, 1996; Watzlawick, 1990). Second order realities are not "in" the facts or data of the situation itself, but are interpretations put there by observers (Watzlawick, 1976) including their opinions, judgments, assessments, evaluations, and accounts (Harre, 1980)... Second-order realities create a reality apart from first-order realities because... people act on the basis of their interpretations (Watzlawick, 1990, p.313)... The interpretation, in turn, calls for and justifies a specific... course of action which actions become events in a subsequent first-order reality... and so on in a cyclical relationship through time.
The significance of these two realities lies in our failure to distinguish between them and to understand the nature of their interconnection.
p.482-483 the representation (second-order reality) fuses with the presentation (first-order reality) so that what is "presented" as perception is already in large part a re-presentation. The result is what Bohm calls a net presentation in which the two realities fuse and mingle together, occurring as one, seamless reality. Representations infuse the presentation and we relate to our representations as if they are presentations that are "in the world" independent of us. What we experience as presented depends on our representations... Representations are transparent, operating below our consciousness yet informing and shaping our interactions. [JLJ - a realist would laugh at this explanation and argue that what is not "real" is now being "reified" or made real in a roundabout way without admitting that it does not exist. The constructivists and realists fight like this, because they are often tenured professors, and apparently have nothing else better to do with their time, when they are not "teaching" (torturing students). A realist would also likely say that "second-order realities" are practical guides, or guidelines, or indicators, and exist in the mind]
p.483 facts do not dictate meaning. Indeed, constructivism suggests that the consequences of a particular second-order reality can be replaced by the effects of a different second-order reality, which results in different outcomes (Watzlawick, 1990).
p.483 we "know" about things for which we have little or no direct experience because judgments and understandings (representations) of others have been passed on to us... and we operate as if the world really is that way (Wanous, 1992).
p.483 First and second-order realities are constructed and maintained in and through conversations.
p.484 Conversations can range from a single speech acts, e.g. "do it", to an extensive network of speech acts which constitute arguments (Reike and Sillars, 1984), narratives (Fischer, 1987), and other forms of discourse (e.g. Boje, 1991; Thachankary, 1992).
p.484 Conversations may be monologues or dialogues and... may unfold over an extended period of time... A background conversation is an implicit, unspoken "back drop" within which explicit conversations occur and on which they rely for grounding and understanding... Background conversations are already and always there (Harre, 1980), comprising the intertextual links on which current conversations build... conversations bring both history and future into the present utterance by responding to, reaccentuating, and reworking past conversations while anticipating and shaping subsequent conversations... It is this intertextuality of conversations... that maintains and objectifies reality
p.485 Not only are conversations the process through which we construct reality, but they are also are the product of that construction: conversations become the reality (Berquist, 1993)... When we describe, we create what is being described in the description... we have... created the objects and their properties in our conversations [JLJ - we might even do something because we anticipate a conversation such as "Have you done your homework?" and you got punished yesterday for not doing it. So today you do your homework so that you can respond, "Yes, I have"]
p.485 organizations can be understood as networks of conversations constituting a variety of first and second-order realities. That is, organizations are networks of conversations
p.485 Conversations are and provide the very texture of organizations... These conversations establish the context in which people act and thereby set the stage for what will and will not be done (Berquist, 1993; Schrage, 1989).
p.486 In... organizations, the focus and unit of work in producing and managing change is conversation (Lyotard, 1979; Pascarella, 1987). This means that change managers work with and through conversations to generate, sustain, and complete conversations in order to bring about a new network of conversations... that result in the accomplishment of specific commitments... change agents bring about alterations in the existing tapestry of linguistic products... it is this alteration in tapestry and its consequences which is the focus of producing and managing change. [JLJ - Ok, so that means that a machine playing a game is not so much constructing a "search tree" as instead asking "I wonder how this move plays out" and "I don't want to waste time here... the position is holding, my time is better spent elsewhere". The machine starts and stops "conversations" about future prospects, using "musings" which generate "maybe moves" and asks over and over again "How much should I care about that?", directing time and attention accordingly. Once a candidate move sequence is proposed, we can develop challenge lines by asking "Do I have anything else better here?". The conversation constructs the reality, then becomes the reality once we play the "best" candidate move that we have effectively "talked" into existence, from musing to "few"-sing to "new"-sing. I see.
p.487 Within a conversational perspective... change is an unfolding of conversations into already existing conversations and how "a change" occurs to participants will depend on the second-order, represented realities within which they engage the unfolding dynamic.
p.487-488 producing change is like experimental theatre or improvisational jazz where the script (music) is being written while it is being performed (Boje, 1995; Czarniawska, 1997)... the specific conversations that are needed, with whom, and when, have to be generated on a moment to moment basis.
p.488 In a network of conversations where realities are ongoingly being constructed, producing and managing change becomes a matter of shifting conversations (Holmes, 1992; Lyotard, 1979). When someone shifts a conversation, they shift what people talk about and pay attention to (Oakley and Krug, 1991)... shifting what people pay attention to shifts their reality and provides an opportunity for new actions and results to occur.
p.488-489 What is at issue is not so much a matter of "truth"... but what is viable and works to achieve a goal (Rorty, 1991; Schwandt, 1994). Producing change begins with the existing network of conversations and then proceeds to add, weed out, supplement, reintegrate, and organize conversations in order to construct a reality (set of conversations) that fits together with coherence... and supports further exploration and invention (Schwandt, 1994). Producing organizational change, therefore, requires a type of language shift (Holmes, 1992) that produces an attractive and empowering reality (Block, 1987; Ford and Ford, 1994) in which the consequences of a shift fulfill the intentions for which it was undertaken.
p.489 we are talking about bringing forth new conversations into an existing community and having those conversations prosper
p.490 Language and conversational shifts involve changes in focus. We always have a choice in what we talk about... what people talk about reflects what they pay attention to.
p.490 Dialogue is one of the key components to an ontological approach to change in which people come to experience their realities as constructions, giving them the opportunity to generate new conversations and realities (Marzano et al., 1995).
p.491 It is possible to commit to a future without knowing how it will be accomplished, and to work for its accomplishment in a dialogue of discovery during which old conversations and realities are challenged and replaced or supplemented with new ones
p.491 People's willingness to participate in conversations may be influenced by their "perception of impact", i.e. the ability to make a difference in a conversation
p.492 "a change"... is more like experimental theatre in that the script is being written while the play is being performed... within a conversational context "What's next?" is a persistent question requiring that participants take stock of where they are, where they want to be, and what action is appropriate now, under these conditions and circumstances... Because conversations are ephemeral, their existence is a function of the attention given to the continuity, consistency, and relatedness that is required in order to bring about a sufficient speaking and listening that the conversation becomes natural and habitual... The job of a change agent, then, is to initiate, maintain, and complete conversations so as to bring into existence a new conversational reality in which new opportunities for action are created and effective action taken place.
p.492 change involves movement among different types of conversations and orders of discourse. Ford and Ford (1995) propose that the change process is constituted by four types of conversations:
- initiative;
- understanding;
- performance; and
- closure.
p.493 managers' effectiveness in producing change is a function of their ability to distinguish among and effectively use and move among each type of conversation.
p.493 the power of conversationally constructed realities lies in people speaking and listening as creators, rather than as reporters. What one says brings things, ideas, and relations into existence... Like older umpires, there is not anything until we call it... There is no idle speaking in conversationally constructed realities since everything that is said affirms or modifies reality in some way.
p.494 Where reality is not as we would want it, the question is... "Why do we say that?".
p.496 It is possible to consider organizations as networks constituted in and by conversations. Accordingly, producing and managing change involves shifting that network of conversations by intentionally bringing into existence and sustaining "new" conversations while completing (and removing) current conversations. Rather than being simply a tool, conversations are the target, medium, and product of organizational change.
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