Creating A New Context--The Way of OD

How we behave moment by moment is determined in large part by the context in which we perceive events around us. In a comedy club I expect to be entertained and am prepared to laugh. At a drugstore counter as I pick up a medication, I remember being treated officiously last time, and I protect myself from being treated as the clerk's problem again.

At the comedy club almost anything the entertainer says is funny, or at least interesting, as long as it is consistent with the behavior of a comedian. Some jokes are funnier than others, but I do expect jokes, not tragic news. At the drug counter the new kid serving as clerk mumbles his questions and gets my name wrong. Then I notice his plastic bracelet and ask what cause he's supporting. It's some kind of tragic disease that needs more research funding; my behavior softens and I help him understand my name and find my order. We part wishing each other a great day. The context shifted.

In a staff meeting I expect to talk about work issues and to state relevant views about decisions we need to make. In one particular group I expect some off-topic comments from certain staff members, and weak, unfocused leadership from the manager running the meeting. I'm resigned to frustration for an hour and a half, but look for opportunities to interject sanity--or at least a smart aleck remark to break the tension.

All interaction, in this sense, has both content and context. We focus on content but are implicitly aware of context for guiding our understanding and response choices. These are the figure-ground combinations described so well by Gestalt psychology: we assign meaning to experiences in terms of the interplay between the figure and the ground--in my terms, between content and context. Changing either one changes the meaning of the whole.

We tend in most circumstances to accept context as it is--even to be unconscious of it, and engage in content-focused exchanges. The meeting is the way it is; my focus is on what people talk about, and my choices are about what I say. One way of understanding Organization Development practice is to view our work as paying attention to the context in which people say and do things; to notice the way that context supports or limits their awareness and choice; and to intervene at the level of context as much as content.

In the role of consultant or facilitator in a staff meeting I can say something about the topic we're discussing--content--and I can also say or do something about how we're talking and interacting--context (or as some refer to this, process).

In a rambling conversation at a meeting, I might say, "Ah... I just want to check; what agenda topic are we on?" and the context pops out of tacit background and into explicit focus in everyone's awareness. Group members come out of trance. It's like watching an overly dramatic play and turning to the next person saying, "what do you think this stage setting is doing to the action of the characters?"

This is always experienced as a break in the flow in some way. Pulses quicken; color returns to faces. Tension shifts, up or down--either experiencing defensiveness and conflict, or relief from frustration and powerlessness. It's a high-risk, high-power move. In that moment our professional behavior is counter-cultural--outside the norm. Done well, it releases group members' creative energy for constructive change. Done slightly wrong--in timing, tone, or wording, it can evoke aggressive coordinated group reaction in protection of the group and its formal leader from this hostile outsider.

We do this all the time in our work, in small or large interventions. Whether we are doing a role-play in a training session, or recording the agenda on a flip-chart or guiding the redesign of work structures, we're changing the context.

And we--anyone--can do this every day in any interaction. We are always each other's context as we talk, work, play, or are silent together. We are actors on the stage and also stage designers for ourselves and each other. As co-authors of our lives we can re-write the plot flow as we go along, creating the quality of our dramas, our tragedies, and our comedies.

The OD practitioner's job is to take these creative risks appropriately and effectively, moment by moment, in each intervention, training session and client engagement. It can't be done well as a technique or a manipulation, because it won't work, or it will backfire. When we consistently do it well, authentically, we truly earn our high fee, and we get the satisfaction of catalyzing constructive change and making a difference.

Do you have a recent experience with changing the context in an interaction? I hope you'll post a comment about it.

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