Organizational Communication and Development since 1980
Application of solution in a problem set that is not as defined. The if only solving…
When the whole of the system engages and enrolls in the solving… then the solving is a solving. When the solving is based in prejudicial framing of the elements, then the solving is … as shifting sand.
The speaking… framing by label. Creates the shifting sand.
Short Term: Three Days to a Week.
Mid-Term: Two Weeks.
Long Term: Two Months to Four Months.
Since the third of February, we have not seen beyond short term. Planning that is based on anything beyond… is at risk of a shift. And, that risk… is the point of exhaustion. To try to position in a frame that is beyond the moment needing to be met is a challenge. Also, in the moment being met, the static, the noise that covers other motions… can also cover messes that will need cleaning … down the road.
The white squall of this short term… a rolling short term… that provides so much cover for, those parts which are not operating in that time frame, to do other things… the need to keep the white squall going… and also having things done which are in a different time frame… that of years, of a year, of six months… each is covered and in that cover, can rationalize some other level of process. The famous… well, it had to be done in order to…
The white squall. To hunker down and take a deep breath in this moment…
The greek chorus… in from stage right… oh, woe… and it is not a good time to hunker… one must spin and spin and spin… sings the chorus. The wind sings a harmony… the shriek of the wind… the bellow of the waves… the flash of lightning…
Short Term… Mid-Term… Long Term… all in the face of this, the white squall.
So, with bare poles, a strong anchor drogue, and a watchful eye as the nose points into the storm fury… There is this moment. The running sea, all around… it is needing a scan in every moment. For, to fall off, is to present the broadside to the storm… and in that moment… the greek chorus can turtle the boat.
# 06-28-2020 The idea of a process or a collection as… no account.
When a process, a permit or license as a someone is called to account… To have that someone suddenly be called on the carpet or rationalized into some larger context is … the threat of death, the threat of the possibility of death and also the threat of no longer getting paid… so, the countervailing begins in …
Someone Died.
Someone Might Die.
Someone did not get paid.
And, the countervailing will be with all the stridency of the rationalization.
When defense of a someone is the motivation and the someone is moved to defended frame… the battle royal that comes next is of a certainty on the tilting field.
Broken bodies and rationalized pronouncements of behavior.
Is there a better way? Of this I am sure. The quiet connection of … what is the desired outcome? For what was this process (someone) brought to living. And, in the shift is it a dying or a new integration of the best of the someone in partnership … or a snipping of a vestigial part… having no value.
When a someone is declared to have no personhood, no value, no connection… this invites the counter prevailing at full voice.
Someone died.
Someone might die.
Someone did not get paid.
# 06-20-2020 The fourth …
Scope, Scale, Context, Capacity.
All grounded in mutual regard.
The fourth force. The counter prevailing.
Prevailing.
Counter prevailing.
When the argument is ‘against’ then the focus is not clear. In the fog of non-clarity… What-izing, Who-izing… the only clarifier is that of mutual regard. In the intensity of the fog… mutual regard is lost… as in a “White Squall”… all vision is blind.
When the argument is ‘for’ then the possibility of collaborative prevailing and counter prevailing may share places in the dialogue. For, the fourth wall is that of mutual regard. The dialogue, becomes grounded in mutual regard. A foundational part… that of mutual regard.
Someone died. Someone might die. Someone didn’t get paid, What is the Someone? Who is the Someone?
Someone Died
Someone Might Die
Someone Didn’t get paid
The Someone is?
The counter prevailing view… as Someone.
The prevailing view… as Someone.
An Institution or… Institutions… as Someone.
An Institutional response… as Someone.
A political party… as Someone.
A Reactive response… as Someone.
A family… as Someone.
An Invasive response… as Someone.
A Reaction to invasive activities… as Someone.
A Disaster response… as Someone.
A Dominant position… as Someone.
An artist… as Someone.
A Minority position… as Someone.
A person… as Someone.
A club… as Someone.
A religion… as Someone.
A social view… as Someone.
The Federal Government… as Someone.
An individual… as Someone.
A segregated group… as Someone.
The State Government… as Someone.
A declaration of separation… as Someone.
The homeowner… as Someone.
A musician… as Someone.
The Municipal Government… as Someone.
The lighting and landscape district… as Someone.
A general plan… as Someone.
A Park… as Someone.
A road system… as Someone.
A resolution of an agency… as Someone.
The economy… as Someone.
A declaration… as Someone.
A sacred space… as Someone.
A regulated body… as Someone.
A sacred place… as Someone.
A taxing scheme… as Someone.
The Court… as Someone.
A bank… as Someone.
The act of suppression… as Someone.
A regulatory scheme… as Someone.
A game… as Someone.
A win… as Someone.
A watershed… as Someone.
A loss… as Someone.
An elected body… as Someone.
A team… as Someone.
A river… as Someone.
An official… as Someone.
A belief… as Someone.
A band… as Someone.
A physical moment… as Someone.
The sewer… as Someone.
A subset of government… as Someone.
A neighborhood… as Someone.
A landfill… as Someone.
A cemetery… as Someone.
A land… as Someone.
An earth… as Someone.
The perspective of … someone-hood. The many someones who… because one has died, one might die or one did not get paid… ardently establish rules to make sure that, this set of outcomes … never happens again. All in a frame of independent action. Layer upon layer… of uncoordinated, independent action… What-izing… What-ism… Who-itzing… Who-ism.
Each layer, rational in its perspective… without collective connection … for, it is reactive to the horror of death, potential death and non-payment. A cacophony of layers… rational in selective scope. … rational in selective scope. Someone-izing… Someone-ism.
The two certainties in life… legislated against… Death and Taxes… for if a tax is a fee for license to be allowed to … a demand for payment… not paid … then we have taken the regulatory scheme and made it the snake which eats itself. The layers of scheme… eating the whole… until, as with all structures of creation… we pass away to dust.
When systems are on the same plane as that of creation… the humor of the grand joke… begins to make my sides ache with laughing. For, if I do not laugh… I must weep.
First we, the makers of all of these schemes, must parse the proper levels of belonging and then … in the competition to belong, either up or down the hierarchy of someone… the personhood aspect is hidden in the great list of someones.
And, even the application is hidden for it is a parsing… the parsing is part of the someone-ing. The, in the parsed someone-ing, there is the possibility of an additional segmenting to be more clear about the various clauses and … that which creates an equitable application of the scheme to those who would engage the service for which the scheme is protecting the someone from death, the possibility of death and the possibility of not being paid. For a small fee… not a tax, for that would require a vote of the ‘someones’ and ‘they’ might not understand the incredible need… for protection from death, the possibility of death and the impropriety of non-payment.
This leads to another application… If I, as a certain someone, believe that my payment already covers the service (someone) who is now attempting to demand payment to avoid the three awful outcomes… then, I may take the position that I am being abused … and… the abuser… also takes the portion… death, the specter of death and the specter of non-payment…
Musing on the hard work of rationalization among all of our someones…
That rationalization of … that harmonization of… a grand invitation to meeting this moment. Driven by the unrest of so many someones … demanding voice and hearing… the veil of … demanding hearing. And, the counter… pay no attention to this voice or that voice… suppress this voice or that voice.
The yelling at a voice being suppressed. And… the challenge of beginning to be in conversation… a dialogue of voices… at a table… where food, sustenance, the sharing of and breaking of bread… sharing. The sharing of, the passing of water. The making of a table, a hearth, a welcoming moment… meeting the moment.
The quiet of a shared meal. The communion of a shared cup. The gathering in a shared song. The moment of a moment that … in diverse voice… gathers velocity, together, for…
For a different day.
Then, the mighty pen… that of declaration of ‘civil unrest’ … a ‘rioting’ of someones … against … someones.
Tendrils. Sitting with tendrils. Simple… sitting with tendrils. A tendril of a button … a tendril of the ink from the tip of a tattoo needle. The tendril of a single hair… the link of that tendril as thread. That tendril all a loving thought. That tendril as a weaving of tapestry… each a tendril. The mossy tendrils that come off of and up from stone. Tendrils in scope and scale… a mighty cable… steel … holding up a bridge… still, in context a tendril… a mass of tendrils and also a tendril in context.
# 06-12-2020 The Button
Will we suddenly find, that a facility … once created for a critical frame … is now mostly an unused hulk?
Will we, now with a very different set of resources, find that much of what was held as critical is actually … a renewable resource?
Will we???
Perhaps it is the wrong question. In this midst of so many questions that have put the emphasis on the wrong syllable… (if you say that while doing it… it is much more fun that reading it silently.)
Just as when we lead with the question How and follow with Who, What, Where and When… Leading the other way around … well it creates elements of engagement and enrollment… not just the straw build of How…
Just as when I use scope, scale and context in a bowl called capacity… the framing makes the answers either limited or… complete disconnection from a project.
The whole of the frame… Who, What, Where, When, and How? Scope, Scale, Context and Capacity. Alignment with foundational values and principles… Alignment in …
When a context changes, a capacity changes, a scale changes… a scope changes… is the change engaged and enrolled … or is the old framing defended … made more rigid? Is the system flexible or… made more rigid? Until that rigid frame… can no longer hold… and the whole thing collapses… Then… what button can be pushed?
Just musing on a foggy morning.
Praying about the whole of life.
Our Father, who art in heaven…Hallowed be thy name.
Holy Creation, all of the universe, hallowed in every part.
Thy Kingdom Come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven
Present Now, Present Here, Laws and Loves dancing all and all and all.
Give us this day, our daily bread
From and for, this all of holy creation, every part of mana and life giving water
And Forgive Us our Trespasses
Hold up our feet of clay and let a learning, humbling and forgiveness be given.
As WE forgive those who trespass against us.
Invited, we hold up, our collective feet of clay and let learning, turning and forgiveness be.
Save us from the time of trial
In our conflict, opening our hearts in compassion, both of and with.
And Deliver us from evil,
In our collective, that we would use love to contain our evils,
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory,
For in thou, the all and all and all of creation; home, hearth and community
For ever and ever
All Alpha and Omega
Amen
Amen
The speed of …
The long form… you know… all of creation, all of time, all of…
The mid-length form… you know… a good life, a good run, a good journey, a good voyage, …
The short form… every few days… a thoughtful piece…
The hyper form… something every day… every single day… with hype and dash… leading with the bleeding…
The super hyper form… the talking head… analysis blather… the spill of shape, the same shot… just from a slightly different angle… the analysis of the infinity of possibility… unconnected from … just spinning and spinning…
The alternative dimension form… seeing all of the possible causative connections… the spilled glass in the neighbors house… three blocks down… as it is connected with the turtle race in the city park… across the country… and now, let us go to … June… how do you relate to November… now let us compare that to …
The amazing causative … disconnected, amped up, louder and louder… just on this short walk … in the morning air.
Breathing in the gaps. A gift. A great and kind gift. Humbling, and up-lifting. Both … both,
# 05-04-2020 North, South, East & West.
Yesterday was big; really, really big… Just saying. The culmination of four years. The gathered and collective conferring. The great and grand celebration. Friends gathered; those who have completed the tasks laid before… now to begin the new journey. Suddenly one is completed… Ah, that word… it is not a moment of completion. It is a moment of … How to even begin to integrate the sudden end and new beginning. The 
conferring, which now give a license to learn… The crossing of one finish line, only to see the long and wondrous trek that now calls… The trek that calls… On, come on… this path, this trail, this … high and winding pass… all calling. All calling and the echos of the call… splashing, as the rising sun… The rising sun, as it kisses the tides of the bay.
Looking at numbers. All in a sheet. The numbers telling a story of greater and greater activity… And then… it stopped. Not slowed down… in a matter of days, comes to a complete and total … stop. A full and complete stop. The complete landing… the complete … full stop. Silence. Only the beating heart of the beast… at complete stop. As when the boiler goes completely cold. The creaks and groans are just the stresses of the sun kissing the surface and then the dance between that portion in shade and that portion in sun. The flexing of the external… for 
the internal is gone cold.
The organs of bureaucracy grind on. The budget cycle is in full swing. Planning and framing for the new budget year. Putting together spread sheets and a plan for all aspects of operations… making the numbers work… Planning for how to spend the dollars that now … wait … what dollars? The whole of the planning scheme is tossed on its head. The house of cards is show to be built on shifting sand. The programs, the solid foundations of the local… is shaken to core… that core, driven by a complicated organism that, for the moment… has shut down. The rushing of cars outside… rushing to harvest … fresh food to the table. The hyper local nature of … one day at a time… the links of the supply chains tighten… or go completely slack. A single description denies so many of the links and tangles of this organism moment… This and that proposal… this and that ‘critical’ decision… this and that… suddenly, the assessment of critical and blather are exposed in a new set of ways.
What is critical in one set of universe… may have not value in another. The idea of this universe or that universe… the great and grand joke that it is all one universe. There are 
links between each and every aspect of… the ardent regulatory scheme… The grasping regulatory scheme. The reactive regulatory scheme. The imposed regulatory scheme… the scheme which seeks equity… the scheme which imposes view or frames outcome… unconnected to a fact pattern that is underlying… From where do these come? Someone died… someone might die. Someone didn’t get paid. So, there is an urgency… a great and grand urgency… for someone, a very special someone…
Rushing to craft a budget. Rushing to make the time frame. Rushing… and in that rushing… the sun rises and lights a newly crafted path. One not seen in recent times. That of … the very foundations of… shown to be sitting on shifting sand
.
The caging in of that shifting sand… or, as the storm blows that sand… exposing and covering… revealing and hiding… all in the same storm… Clarity in the storm. The day is breaking, without a cloud in the sky. The earth tide is solid in its moving… Yet, everything is changed. As with the graduation… it is an invitation to a new integration. It is not a completion… a closure… it is a new step in integration. On this moment the sun rises.
On this moment, in gratitude, the sun rises.
Hubris
The heroic journey. Being the hero. As Hero. As Guide.
When the guide comes to the fore, the hero fades. The work of the hero is to be … the hero. The work of the guide is, to engage the journey as well as be in relationship.
Living in a small town. A generous house that allows … music, engagement, a sunny spot to be at the altar in the world.
Hubris
When we, as an agency, begin to align with hero… we become that which we despise.
When I, in agency, begin to align with hero… I become that which I despise.
When shadow drives my behavior. Suddenly ‘winning’ becomes the goal. The wonder of winning… what is that? That place of being the ‘winner’ in this crazy trek.
I hear the speculative nature of living… It echos in my own and of all of the lives that are now in play. The teams that play at speculation are actually based upon being the house. So, when the house owns the line, the house wins. We are working with and … sometimes being… a huge group of folks who have bought into the game of ‘winning’ the big pot. Believing, in the wonder, that we, all of us, own that pot. Now the pot is turned to what is has been for a long time. A grand speculator scheme… a grand Ponzi. And, the iceberg that is the whole of creation… is slowly turning turtle. An acceleration of the swiftly tilting…
And, we, the investors in that grand scheme… we are in a funny place. The last time we rode this pony, it caused us to re-evaluate. And, since then, there has been something holding the moment. For, that re-evaluation, is now the continuing of … holding place on the turtle turning ice…
I woke … the clarity of mixing up the hero and heroic, the hero leader and guide… One leads a parade. One coaches up and over… This is not a parade of leading. It is a journey of comrades. When the comrades are calling for a hero or … seeking that hero who has show the universal feet of clay… there is the moment. My own clay feet, they are still wet from the morning meditation. Created in the past days… swiftly encasing feet, and even whole leg.
When I am vector, just as each of us is vector… Then there is something even more … Something even more. I don’t get to be both inside and outside. We are all amid. And, when the cacophony of amid, together becomes so loud… then the desire to be outside, away, different, … with and alone… in quietude and safety… and able to dance in the glorious…
To try to be both a fighter jet and a freighter at the same time. To deploy as “both/and” … is to risk something of tearing apart at the seams. The Hero/Guide is neither Hero nor Guide. The Guide is one who practices presence; the guiding in the guiding. A hero is one who stands arrayed in power and light… keeping all around safe. There is the hubris of the moment.
Seeing all of us… all vectors… all transmitters… all receptors… each in-fected; each and all. In this humbling moment. To understand that something even more is come. In that owning the all, comes the wonder of the journey. The trek. Such is the moment. Great and gracious in care. Great and gracious in care.
Funny too, to come slowly awake and be met with the reading of Easter 19. Acts 8:26-40. Funny to have risen this morning in the understanding of mis-step and mis-stake, only to be guided by a reading that created a grand joke… a humor. A wonderful tension that is both/and; just as this being human is both… and…
The wonder of the joke… both… and. Suddenly this day seems … ‘something about this day…’ A gift. In gratitude, a gift.
Acts 8:26-40
An angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.
To confront being vector being transmitter, being receptor… To confront all of the personal responsibilities of that set of triad. In the rule of three, the stool which stands, as it has three legs… the rule of communication… for it hears, it engages and it speaks… or listens or … is a tube through which sound passes… with some recognition of the sound.
In a social setting… sitting at distance… still a vector, a transmitter and a receptor… all three, all three legs…
And when the signal, that darling signal of contagion, when that has no more stools to jump between… what then? For then, then we have set a new standard… and in that standard… the contagion for which we modified … it now has left an imprint. What then?
How funny. To speak of that then… we are in this now. The panic of contagion. The cacophony of contagion. The peace of contagion. What peace?
For certain, a new method of triage. For certain some method or best practice to make a layer between the vector and the rest… To have a place of care become a point of contagion… the calm voice of practice… And, that moment of wanting to be over there when we are here.
A voice, saying loudly, what do we do now? Or, follow me, I am going to lead a contagion parade. Another voice calling out in pain and exhaustion. Yet another singing a quiet song of lullaby. All in the same symphony of … requiem of…
The sea tide. The waves crashing. The great squall roaring across the lake. The wide river, rising higher and higher… all of these, the water that has tumbled down from high mountain or fallen in storms upon the face of the open surface… all of these… voices of this contagion. For, as vector… we dance in this storm.
The many locks to doors in the body… in the living organism. What locks does this particular key fit and turn? What doors of mechanism and shift do open? What doors, lock tried, resist the entry or turn the visitor to another place and time? The idea of point of entry… in through the front door? In through a small mouse hole? Carried with an ant… investigating the kitchen after the rain has pushed the whole trail inside? Or born on the gentle airs… sprayed and then carried as a note on the airs… carried as a note on the airs. If I can hear, then the contagion has come to me also…
Transmission and contagion… not the same. One is a cacophony. The other… it is a communication. In this moment, sitting with the still small voice… hearing that quiet focus in the dawning… the sacred touch of all dawn… there is a place to quiet the contagion… at distance, connected still… a lesson of the desert mothers and fathers. In this time of great learning… when the old saws have dulled in the practice of just running them across the stone… Dulled in the automatic script… Dulled in the speaking that has unhooked from the moment. That speaking that meets not a moment but a spin…
When the tide rises and the docks rise also, the sudden rush of … into this rising tide… speaking of the wane… the wane to come… it is the … wait, that moment is not now.
So again. The dawn has kissed this moment on this place on the planet. The contagion of cacophony is stilled for the rise… and now, into the day. The voices of all creation, speaking in and at and through… From this set of speaking comes a symphony. For the moment it may be a requiem. Or, a transition into new form. Certainly a song of creation. A gift. A wonder and a gift.
