Productive difference and the use of authority

A couple of weeks ago I referred to an article by social constructionist Ken Gergen and some of his colleagues that proposes four possible elements of a renewed language about dialogue. The second of these was productive difference.

One view of this is as an idealistic recipe. On that view we should always seek to recognise, explore and then resolve the differences amongst us in order to create a new synthesis. This is all well and good but, as several people pointed out to me last week when I wrote about ambivalence, sometimes the power dynamics of the context don’t call for, or even allow, ambivalence or difference, productive or not.

I wondered quite a bit about this when I read the text of the speech Alison Anderson’s made to the Northern Territory parliament last Friday. It captured, for me, much of the struggle that many people face as they attempt to maintain their “difference” within the power dynamics of everyday situations. Sometimes this is stark, as is Anderson’s case or in some of the situations described in Debra Meyerson’s book, Tempered Radicals. Sometimes it is hard to spot.

One thing that strikes me as I think about this is the difference between the idea of power as something we either do or don’t have, and power as something that happens between us. Especially in the context of organisations power is often thought of as the stuff that comes with the holding of a certain position or occupying a particular role. On this view it is possible to ask questions about whether power (in the form of authority) is used ethically. It is less usual, although certainly not unheard of, to ask whether it is used effectively.

If a more social/relational view of power (and authority) is adopted it is more likely to ask questions about whether that authority is used wisely and in a timely and effective way. A core question for me is whether this use of organisational authority is enabling or constraining. This links the use of power much more closely to context. Perhaps there are situations and contexts in which the use of authority in particular ways is neither timely nor effective. In highly complex contexts, for example, where there are clearly a multitude of possible perspectives and a number of possible answers or ways forward, the use of authority to limit the discussion to one perspective would seem to be neither timely nor effective.

So why do we so often do this or see it happening around us? One possibility, I think, comes from our tendency to assume that the world in which we operate is largely predictable and ordered. Because we therefore categorise most things we need to work on as “problems”, we also assume that each problem must have a solution and to seek to narrow down options until we find that solution.

What if, however, there are opportunities and challenges, that contain multiple possibilities and that are subject to emergent and unpredictable change? Surely this would require a different approach that might be likened to running a series of short-term experiments in order to discover the emerging patterns.

I’ll return to this theme in a few weeks!

Something to think about this week
Think about the big things you are working on.

1. To what extent do you think about them as “problems” to be solved and to what extent do you think about them as emerging situations to be explored and discovered?
2. How does seeing the things you are working on in either of these ways impact on the approaches you take and the way you choose to work with those around you?