austraLasia
1513
1st
April - let's not be foolish; let's face up to some wicked problems
instead
ROME: 1st April 2006 --
Something that Fr Vecchi said later, echoed by Fr Chavez last year:
"...the scope created by modern technology, which can build relationships,
provide a self-image and begin an effective dialogue with interlocutors who are
invisible but nonetheless real...Here especially there is need for a change of
mentality" (AGC370). "...it is a question of....reflecting on the
sort of communication model we are using to bring about growth in the
Congregation itself and its communication" (AGC390).
Now, it would seem foolish not to consider a new world of
discovery about 'communication models', 'effective dialogue'. There is a
vast area developing, in the knowledge management field, but extending to fields
involving collective memory, collaborative modelling. If you use Google
you already benefit from these discoveries, without knowing the engine beneath
the bonnet. Not that one has to know all that much about engines, except
that if you put the wrong fuel in at one end, at the other end
the engine may suddenly cease working! It helps to
know something, then,
For example, there is an Institute
called Compendium, which involves itself in 'sharing ideas, creating
artifacts, making things together and breaking down the boundaries between
dialogue, artifact, knowledge and data'. What Compendium has worked out over
experience and time, is an 'ontology' (which really means a list of categories)
that can be applied to help map a discussion where the arguments seem to go all
over the place. That can be pretty helpful! Communities have lots of
discussions like that and yet are all about building
"relationships...self-image...and effective dialogue" and yes, even with people
"who are [sometimes] invisible but nonetheless real"! The world
represented in Compendium's research is a world often dealing with apparently
insoluble problems. Great minds are coming up with new ways of describing
the human social reality best represented by talk, discussion, argument,
dialogue.
There isn't a person alive who doesn't know
about fragmentation, described by the researchers above as "forces
that change collective intelligence, forces that doom projects and make
collaboration difficult or impossible". Some community meetings would
fit that description, would they not? It helps to be able to name and
image the phenomenon pulling something apart which is potentially whole.
That's us, our communities, our EPP, our EPC, whatever. Fragmentation is a
condition where people see themselves as more separate than united, where
information and knowledge is scattered and chaotic. Social complexity is
one of the forces leading to fragmentation - but it also holds our projects
together.
At this point, enter
a research discovery, or term useful to describe a reality: a 'wicked
problem'. Did you know spiritual life is full of 'wicked problems' and I'm
not talking about sin? A 'wicked problem' is a problem where (1) Everyone
seems to have his or her own definition of the problem (2) there is no 'stop'
rule; problem solving finishes when you run out of time, money, or energy, not
because you find the definitive solution! (3) the solutions tends to be better
or worse, not right or wrong (4) the problem is unique.... and so on. Problems
that are not 'wicked' are 'tame'. Tame problems can be complex but they
can be defined, have usually one right solution, fit the pattern of other
problems and so on. There's a few tame problems around, but possibly more
wicked ones.
The Congregation wants us to change our
mentality, be converted over something - whatever that something is, it is more
likely to be a 'wicked' than a 'tame' problem. If we think that the person
in charge (RM) has given the solution to a group of people (Provincials - who
then give it to Rectors) to implement, we've made the first gross error,
thinking something to be 'tame' which is in fact 'wicked'.
Conversion is usually a wicked problem. Sometimes we can be very good at skilled
incompetence - where we look good because we study the problem and tame
it. Except that like a good lion some problems do not benefit from simple
'capture'; their wildness has a beauty and strength that should not be 'tamed'.
Instead, once there is shared understanding (different
people thinking wildly differently ideas can still share) and shared commitment
to arriving at solutions, there is hope. You get shared understanding and
commitment when people turn up to meetings, say things respectfully even when
they disagree, seek God's will in common - at this point I'm drifting back to
the more familiar language in a dozen Salesian documents, but fresh language can
sometimes give us fresh insights.
April, with its
built-in paschal pauses, might be just the right moment for going back to those
documents, and/or for learning a little about 'wicked problems'. Google
it.
Ever wanted to actually map a
conversation-discussion-argument? I recommend 'Compendium'. Google
it. Tackling Social Communications in our province or community is a
'wicked problem'. See how 'Compendium' handles this in terms of the Rector
Major's AGC 390 letter on www.bosconet.aust.com/bnet06sc.htm (or if that link
doesn't work, the 'Communications in abundance' page from the home
page).
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