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“Winging it and making it up as we go!”
We believe that meaning and understandings about anything should only be regarded as probabilities and possibilities - as indicators of a limited view, at one point in time. They defy being known, predicted, accurately measured or controlled. They are not rational, logical, and ordered, but irrational, illogical, and muddled concepts.
Based on these beliefs about meaning and understanding, our preferred working strategy is
- Look at, understand, learn from, and respond to what is happening NOW!
- Be aware, be flexible, be immediate, be better, faster learners from what just happened!
Our work mindset is focused on exploring and expanding both the scope and nature of our understandings.
Instead of trying to find the one ‘best’ answer, we seek to increase our view of as many possibilities and probabilities as possible. Within the logistical limitations of time and availability, the more people with their different perspectives, involved more often, the more possibilities and probabilities we have to inform us.
Our goal in all work contexts is simple - to help partners to ‘discover the other’ in their partnership. We seek to help partners to explore, clarify and share perspectives about what they think and why they think that way.
Partnership Questions That "Matter"
What is our partnership purpose?
What are our partnership expectations?
What is happening now?
How are we going- what’s working, what’s not, why that might be so?
What do we need to do next?... and
What options do we have to move forward to achieve our partnership purpose more completely or more consistently?
How we LIKE to research
“Start somewhere and follow it everywhere”
In line with the work we want to do, how we like to work and who we
are, our research practice is equally unconventional. For us, any
notions of predictability, control, logic, rationality, truth and
certainty in research are illusionary and limiting.
Our research approach is founded on the philosophy of “Start
somewhere and follow it everywhere”.
Our research actions are guided by our "Core Reciprocity Practices"
1. Maintain a mindset that is focused on “the other”
- Seek to explore and understand what others find meaningful
- Use all interactions with others as the key source of enriching
our own incredibly limited perspectives
2. Approach all conversations with no result in mind, but with
the sole intention of developing deeper inquiry, wherever that leads
- Concentrate on asking questions and developing new insights
rather then providing answers and solutions
- Celebrate difference in perspectives rather than promoting ‘one
best’ point of view
- Suspend our certainty and listening to the views of others with
an open mind and open heart, rather than getting trapped in defending
our existing positions
3. Continually create opportunities for the emergence of
collective insight
- Seek to create a ‘collective sensibility’ in conversation where
the thoughts, ideas and resulting actions belong not to one individual
but to all together
- Encourage all to see how their own unique perspective can make a
value contribution to the collective wisdom of the group
- Focus on creating, developing and maintaining
shared-understanding and shared agreements
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