19 tweets · May 2020 · 151 likes · 10 retweets · read on Twitter
New 2×2 I'm exploring. It's important in any convo to be able to: - report reality as one sees it - find out what others know Whether you do that in a sensemaking mode or controlling mode will affect what's possible emotionally, relationally, AND on the information level.
Backstory: 10 days ago I shared the right half of the 2×2 and got a ton of diverse & intriguing replies suggesting what to do with the rest of it. I've refined the ideas since then, & I'm still very open to feedback/critique/suggestions on this thread 🚀
A lot of the ideas (including mine) for the left side ended up being about lying or bullshit, but of course there are more things one can do in a conversation than lie or tell the truth: one can ask questions!
And when that clicked into place, it illuminated with much more clarity *why* the right side of the 2×2 had felt valuable to me in the first place: I knew I wanted to report reality as I saw it, but found I was getting confusing these two kinds of *how*.
I've long had an assumption from my STEM/rationalist background: as long as I'm reporting reality as I see it, I'm... communicating in good faith, essentially. This has tripped me up when I have confused it with the "revealing" move that's central here at @liminal_agency
This confusion has been a mess for everybody involved. For instance, me saying "I want to reveal something" but then proceeding to speak in a way that's still hooked into trying to control the other person, not recognizing (in the moment) that that's antithetical to revealing!
So! Distinguishing these explicitly (which I was starting to do before the 2×2) is helping a lot. I'm learning to feel the difference between saying something: 🔴 "so that you'll change behavior / see I'm right" (arguing) vs 🔵 "to create more shared context" (revealing)
Then likewise, when seeking to understand why someone is doing/saying something that makes no sense to me, I'm learning to feel the difference between: 🟠 trying to expose how they're confused/wrong vs 🟢 trying to see what sense it DOES make to them
Noticing when I'm doing 🔵 vs 🔴 (/ 🟢 vs 🟠) and what the impact is of each, has been insightful. Also I've had times where I thought I was spaciously revealing, but then I didn't get the response I want and I got frustrated, and realized I was still fundamentally arguing.
I've also been exploring consciously practicing them, particularly treating 🟢 as a skill to hone by conducting explicit interviews with friends & colleagues. The frame helps me be really clear that I'm there to draw out the coherence in their thinking, not to invalidate it.
If you try any of this yourself, I would love to hear what you learn from doing it. Btw: My previous tweets were originally phrased in the imperative ("so, when [you are] seeking to... notice whether you...") but then I decided to reveal it instead rather than try to convince
There are some subtle phrasing bits here—you'll notice I said "convince" in the previous tweet, not "argue". I think "convince" better fits what 🔴 is *trying* to do, but eg we can't say "I am convincing" unless I *succeed*, whereas we can say "I am arguing".
OT1H, words are just handles... OTOH, they do also matter! On the gripping hand, I can't ultimately control what people will call things.
Here's a version where I tried putting more words in each of the boxes, possibly with the bold one representing the action, and the other one(s) representing more like... the overall dynamic? idk, it's kinda messy Internally, I feel clear on what 4 dynamics I'm pointing at.
I also found myself noting that those who are coming from some other culture or set of personal patterns might benefit from seeing some more power-UNDER options for the either/or region. Not sure what exactly to call them (the 🟤 & 🟣) but here's what I've got—what do you think?
This alternate power-under version of the chart also helps illustrate how "revealing" is NOT "confessing", to anyone who might have been making *that* confusion (an easy one to make within either/or thinking)
For more context on the term "revealing", you might check out this blog post of mine from 5 years ago (!) malcolmocean.com/2015/06/reveal…
Oh and here are some slides with the graphics, that have commenting/suggesting turned on. Feel free to expand on these & develop your own ideas! Credit appreciated (~CC-BY) because it deepens the context etc, but if you have a reason to do otherwise...🆗 docs.google.com/presentation/d…
We hope you enjoyed this Penultimate Draft Edition™ of Malcolm working with the garage door up 🙃
