THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY PROJECT

Sarahbeth Gareis
OGL 340: The Future of Humanity: Dialogue in the Workplace
Dr. Michael Pryzdia
Option Two: Explanation Style
10/08/2021

Total Word Count: 2384

 PART ONE: SEVEN QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION

1) When looking at the lessons of the beer game such as:

a. Structure influences behavior
b. Structure in human systems is subtle
c. Leverage often comes from new ways of thinking
i. how might these results or lessons differ if there is no structure?

2) The potential of any team seems limitless. How might a team succeed or fail if their key
focus in on discussion and not dialogue?

3) When people have business ideas, innovations, or goals what steps should they take to
ensure they are not held back by creative tension?

4) Does having assumptions prevent business owners from “having their cake and eating it
too?”

5) How does the content of thought interfere with a leader’s ability understand their
followers?

6) Why is most thought collective and how does it affect people?

7) What is the difference between dialogue and discussion and how has learning their
separation changed your life? Give one example of how it has.
 PART TWO: EXPLANATIONS

1. The Beer Game is the process of understanding how specific systems affect behavior.
The beer game gives examples of how structure innately affects behavior in systems
of business or everyday life. Structure is the “arrangement of and relations between
the parts or elements of something complex” (Senge, 2006, p. 30). This definition is
very suited for Bohm’s and Senge’s way of understanding how structure directly
affects a system and our own innate thinking. Large corporations or even small need
to have a clear structure of business. Structure gives employees the opportunity to see
how their daily task add to the success of the business. When there are no detailed
structure people may feel disconnected or even left out of the ‘main goal’ of business.
Structure influences behavior. Meaning when “a truly profound and different insight
is the way you begin to see that the system causes its own behavior” (Senge, 2006, p.
43) can be the single most thing to motivate a team to succeed or fail. People need to
feel involved in a greater goal to make themselves feel ‘whole’ every night when they
go to bed. But if people are consumed by the negative perspectives of their situation
people will choose to not connect or involve/remember themselves in that business
capacity. Humans are emotional beings which strive on finding connection. “Two
thirds of the way through War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy breaks off from his narrative
about the history of Napoleon and czarist Russia to contemplate why historians, in
general, are unable to explain very much” (Senge, 2006, p. 43). This statement
reflects emotion. People are unable to accurately recall the traumas of life at times
because they were traumas and stressful. History is a representation of artifacts from
other perspectives of situations and all we can do is work to relate to them. But over
the many years people have worked to create routine and structure; with that we have
more opportunity to succeed in our goals because we have more than one person
within that structure to accomplish it with us.

2. A team needs more than the regular discussion and dialogue. A team needs to teach
one another and have a clear understanding of their roles. That communication may
come from management initially, but it is the responsibility of management and the
team to identify what each other’s roles mean to them personally. “Individuals may
work extraordinarily hard, but their efforts do not efficiently translate to team effort.
By contract, when a team becomes more aligned, a commonality of direction
emerges, and individuals’ energies harmonize” (Senge, 2006, p. 217). Teams can
succeed by having a mix of skills such as alignment and understanding of how one
another play their part, dialogue which gives true understanding and depth to their
means, and discussion which allows for open/regular communication daily. But
learning discipline is not always easy. I believe that the road to success is to have a
team which understands their skills and work better combined than separated and
have healthy dialogue regularly; “the IQ of the team can, potentially, be much greater
than the IQ of the individual” (Senge, 2006, p. 222). The difficult part of this
statement is that not all leaders or managers support group efforts which leaves
 employees feeling outclassed. As Bohm mentions, the purpose of dialogue is to reveal
the incoherence in our thought…thought denies that it is participative” (Senge, 2006,
p. 224). Personally, this statement reflects how when we share in dialogue, we may
feel we are in control of our emotions or thoughts, but we are at the graces of the
situation. So, teams have opportunity to succeed if they can open their minds to
different opportunities of achieving success. What makes situations difficult is that
not everyone educates themselves on the differences between dialogue and
discussion, which can lead a team to failure if everyone has a different perspective of
what success means. So, unless leadership has given a structured plan to achieve
success a team can only begin toward success if they conduct in dialogue.

3. Creative tension has happened to me personally more than a handful of times over the
years. It is an unfortunate thing; “we are aware of the gaps between our vision and
reality” (Senge, 2006, p. 139) and this tells us that we are not abnormal because of
our tension. One thing I find comforting in this course is being able to identify how
things many of us have struggled with personally, in the workforce, or general
dialogue in life many others have also dealt with. I believe that to be successful in
one’s ideas, innovations, and goals they need to find support. As people we want to
be surrounded by those who support and understand our goals. Also, even if our
vision does not directly relate to the current reality, we still need to strive toward it
despite the support. Finding a fundamental solution to an idea or goal can help in
planning a path to reach it. If we do not identify a clear path to success of our ideas
“we allow our goals to erode when we are unwilling to live with emotional tension”
(Senge, 2006, p. 142). At times, this emotional tension comes from no supporters, not
relating to current life or other daily burdens. But it is our responsibility to continue to
strive toward creativity and not allow the tensions of life prevent production or
success. There are multiple steps people can take to prevent creative tension, but a
few are: one - Find support. Two - Believe in one’s vision. Three - Master the vision.
Four - Understand there will be hardships. Five - Make current reality the ally not the
enemy. Just as someone would create an outline prior to writing a paper, it is
important to write out a plan in business to identify what matters most.

4. I believe what prevents people from “having their cake and eating it too?” (Senge,
2006, p. 65) is not having enough information or proper communication. In business
it is especially key to have true understanding of other competitors, team members,
and management. Many times, assumptions set people up to fail. Assumptions are
things we believe to be true, but there is no proof of such. Whether it is assumptions
of how others are, or assumptions of business success outcomes assumptions are
never good. When businesses strive to “have their cake and eating it too…but not at
once” (Senge, 2006, p. 65) they must not have assumptions of how they are reaching
that goal but rather a deliberately clear pathway. If someone wants the whole cake,
there are many steps that must be taken in order to first bake the cake; it does not
appear without the front-end work. Just as in business, in order to succeed everyone
must put in their share of hard work and follow the steps to reach a specific goal. The
daily decisions of business can affect it as a whole, so it is important that leaders do
not get over charismatic too soon. Just as a no one would expect a newborn baby to
 walk, a business cannot take off without growth. With growth comes hardships and
decisions on how a business wants to be recognized. I feel that if a business does not
recognize the reward of customers, they may want to cut corners in their product;
choosing quantity of sales of the quality of business in hopes to make fast money. I
feel that long term success with support from consumers is more important. So, I feel
that quality companies may at times feel they will lose money in the short term by
building quality product from the beginning, despite it being more expensive on the
front end. And companies looking for rapid growth with possible long-term loss may
choose quantity over quality.

5. Thought has so many disturbances it can be difficult to truly understand our own
ways. “With all sorts of emotional disturbances, such as anger, you can first find the
words which will stir up the disturbance so that you can then get something to
observe. In this way you can learn about the relationship between the word, the
thought and all that follows” (Bohm, 1994, p. 114). I find this statement true and
interesting. As humans we focus on the emotion from our lives or situations.
Dialogue within oneself can affect ones thought which can therefore interfere with
one’s ability to be a leader. Leadership takes much learning depending on how
someone is leading. When leading a team, it is important to understand one’s
followers also, but that can be difficult if the content of our thought consumes us as
people. As leaders it is also our duty to be in a position which allows us to bring
success to those around us and educate them on our learnings. In order to prevent
interference of our own pains or thoughts we must teach ourselves how to consume
and fix them. Followers do not always understand how they play a part in a team
without a leader’s ability to also highlight their thought to them through dialogue.
Dialogue has many levels of interpretation and presentation; therefore, it is important
to identify a clear understanding of cultural dialogue in any situation business or not.
As mentioned in the quote from Bohm, as humans we naturally do not focus on the
‘dialogue’ of a conversation but rather the emotions of it. Understanding the
difference can help in more clearly communicating with people and building a
foundation of trust. The more dialogue one has with someone the more opportunity
they have to understand them. The words they use and how they use them can help us
decipher ‘where they stand’ in relation to leaders around them.

6. Thought is a system as described by David Bohm which links within our system to
our dopamine reward center. He describes those feelings are no different than
thought. Thought is a neurochemical process which can be sensed and the whole body
can be affected (Bohm). I believe that collective thought affects people wholesomely
and without it we would not exist in our being. “A whole system in which every part
is dependent on ever other part” (Bohm, 1994, p.55). This statement truly confirmed
how I feel toward collective thought and the way it affects us. With one thought our
body can transform and almost go back in time, to the future, or present. A system is
routine, functioning and is very specific in what its duties are. Just as with our body
and mind we must focus on how thought affects our body inside and out. Observing
what thought means to us and how it makes us feel is important to our mental health.
Our brain is so powerful and our body love routine just as a machine or system. For
 example, thought could be present or non-present; meaning it is something that never
stops. Our subconscious mind is still in thought within our dreams despite being
asleep. Our actions in life affect our thought and that is why it is so important to take
care of ourselves emotionally to ensure our thoughts stay on a positive trend. But
even traumas or heartache are such strong emotions that they affect our thought when
we have felt pain. To be strong within ourselves we must understand our body of
thought and how each thought can change our being for better or worse. I feel thought
is collective because it includes every piece of who we are and howe we interact in
the world.

7. Dialogue is something that takes place between two or more people. Dialogue is
about expressing one’s ideas about a specific topic. It is a great way to gain new
knowledge or understanding of a subject and even learning new points of view.
Dialogue can also be the writings of something. Although dialogue is different than
discussion, both share the topic of communication. Discussion is more focused on
talking to reach a decision or to get to an agreement. Both are important to have in
life because they give insight into our thought even if we do not recognize it.
“Dialogue holds out the possibility of direct insight into the collective movement of
thought, rather than its expression in any particular individual” (Bohm). When
reading of thought, dialogue, discussion it is important to identify how to input it into
one’s life. For me, identifying the separation between dialogue and discussion helped
me understand how my own thoughts or opinions can be a reflection of who is around
me. And, when we can have dialogue as people it allows us to connect with
discussion and find similarities or differences in our work or life. Having a clearer
understanding of the two has helped me communicate better with others. It allows me
to see more deeply into their perspective and find more reasoning behind their
thoughts.
 Works Cited

Senge, Peter. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of a Learning Organization. Doubleday,
2006 [REVISED AND UPDATED EDITION].