Conversare – with the intent to change the culture

The title here comes from a comment by one of my constant admirees, Seth Godin. In a recent post entitled Change the culture, change the world Seth says:

“…Powerful organizations and great brands got there by aligning with and accelerating tectonic cultural shifts, not by tweaking sales one at a time.

There are two lessons here. The first is that the easiest thing to do is merely amplify what a culture is already embracing. The second is that real change is cultural change, and you must go about it with the intent to change the culture, not to merely make the easy change, the easy sale.”

I take heart from this insight as I have long intuited that this Conversare experiment is about effecting a culture shift through:

. bringing to conscious attention that conversation is the matrix of our existence, ie what we see, feel and do … all of it arises through the quality of our conversing, including with ourselves. 

. ever increasing recognition and understanding that making time to converse is the means by which we can live more creatively,  productively and harmoniously.

Furthermore I believe that such conscious awareness is not usual in the course of our everyday living in which we interact mainly with people we already know and so have vast assumptions about the experiences we have in common.

And that such awareness can and does emerge when deliberately conversing with a stranger in that there is no common experience to assume. Now there has to be more conscious questioning and more careful listening than in our habitual everyday interacting.

Hence the underpinnings of Conversare events being to:

. bring conversation to life and into life.

. encounter with, and learning from, a stranger.

. be curious about ‘the other’ and give of oneself.

. become more aware of, and practice, core components of conversing, particularly careful listening and questioning, and notice what may emerge.

Apart from being an interesting and enjoyable experience. <smile>

A recent post in the Gurteen Knowledge Letter: Issue 157 – July 2013 has an item What role does conversation play in the work you do?

Do have a look at this to see the comment which indicates a lack of appreciation of what conversation is and what is does – and why it is critical to be aware of  these.

My rejoinder:

How bizarre/amazing it is that the role of conversation in business is so under recognised. It takes little keen observation and reflection to appreciate that much of what happens is a follow on from particular injections of ideas through conversational exchanges in both formal meetings and informal interactions.

Perhaps the most well known insight into this element of organisational dynamics is:

“In the new economy, conversations are the most important form of work. Conversations are the way knowledge workers discover what they know, share it with their colleagues, and in the process create new knowledge in the organization.”

“Conversations inside and outside the company are the chief mechanism for making change and renewal an ongoing part of the company’s culture. One of the many paradoxes of the new economy is that conversation – traditionally regarded as a waste of time – is in fact the key resource for competing on time.”
Alan Webber  Harvard Business Review

For more illumination see my paper entitled ‘The Conversing Company – its culture, power and potential.’

I have not ever encountered an organisational culture in which participants habitually observe and reflect on the subtleties with which new or changed actions have arisen/been co-created from a consciously conversational culture.

Have you?

Alan Stewart
Adelaide

See my new e-book Time to converse – at the heart of human warmth available on Amazon