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SatirChangeModelInvestigationI am investigating a "model problem" to help me understand the Satir change model (for more information see Steven M. Smith "The Satir Change Model" http://www.stevenmsmith.com/articles/satir_change_model.htm). When studying a hard problem in mathematics, it sometimes helps to look at a small and easily understood problem which highlights some area of difficulty present in the larger problem. In a professional context am often working on problems which would improve the work flow of several independent departments. Organizing a change this big is often very difficult and to help my understanding of the issues I look at a model problem from my personal life to help me grapple with the organizational issues and to allow me to investigate the Satir change module more closely. Twice each month I must sit down and write checks for my rent, credit cards etc. I find it very difficult to sit down and actually perform this task. Often I plan on working on this for several consecutive nights before I actually sit down and fill out the checks. When I think about actually completing this tasks I find it too difficult start and postpone it for another time. This inability to schedule my life administration is an "inefficiency" in my personal life which I could try and solve by using the traditional methods of process improvement. I suppose that a traditional approach would be to use one of the following tools: make a todo list with "write checks" as the first item, put the phrase "write checks" on my calendar on the day I wish to actually write the checks, write up a procedure to describe how I fill out the checks and enter the records in my checkbook. It is clear to me that none of the above improvement strategies will
actually help me with the act of filling out the checks. The problem
is not one of organization, I know that the checks are due soon. Nor
is it a problem of communication, I am the only person involved and I
understand myself perfectly. It is not one of scheduling, I know the
day when I wish to fill out the checks. It is not a problem of
knowing how to do it, I have been doing this successfully for many
years. I know that many people are using computerized check management
tools in an effort to help solve this or similar problems. I do not
believe that I have an issue with the few minutes it takes to perform
this manual ritual. The problem is an issue of emotions and how it
makes me feel to write checks. To avoid these emotions I postpone the
actual writing of the checks until the last minute. It is interesting
to note that when I actually sit down and begin the task it is never
as difficult as I imagine. The hard part is committing to actually do
the work.
Thus this is an excellent model problem to study the Stair change
model and how my feelings about an exercise cause disfunction. Since I
almost always manage to get my checks out on time and not pay a late
penalty I do not feel that this is a real problem in my life but it a
good laboratory for understanding the mechanisms of improvement. One
unresolved question is that since this happens every month I would
expect to have some learning on this process. Instead I find that I
make very similar mistakes every month. Why is it that we can go
through repeated feelings of Chaos and yet not learn anything. This
is the "adrenaline addiction" that plagues level 1 organizations.
I have been wondering about all the types of chaos there are. One
kind of chaos occurs when you feel that you can not do anything to
effect an outcome. The waiting causes chaos. I do not see how this
type can lead to any sort of learning. How is it possible to separate
those types of Chaos which have "learning benefits" from those that do
not? I am inclined to see change more as Barry Oshry states. The
chaos allows one to give up preconception limitations on our behavior.
How does this work?
I have recently been wondering about "procrastination". Perhaps there
is some beneficial purpose to procrastinating. It does seem that some
actions are only possible because of the "self induced crisis" that
procrastination causes. It may be that this is a powerful tool for
creating change in a persons life and that is the reason this tool is
so over used. I would be interested to know of situations where this
tool was traded for a more positive tool which allows new actions to
take place. Does anyone have insights into how procrastination
'works' to allow actions which might not be possible without this
stratagem?
I have a friend who worked as a crisis counselor on a suicide help
line in the early eighties. He was trained in an NLP approach to
intervention. They used a condensed version of the Satir change model
for training. He was taught that "change is only possible at moments
of crisis". So in fact many of the crisis were manufactured by the
clients in an effort to change their lives. These were not
necessarily the best approaches to creating change but were the only
ones which were obvious at the time. In "Leading Systems" Barry Oshry
states "Real possibility often begins just at the point where we
believe that there is no possibility". So all these views appear to
have a place for beneficial crisis. In order to cause a change a
crisis must be brought about. What is hard is to bring it about in a
non destructive manner. Do you have ideas for other techniques in
promoting change?
This model is called the "Satir Learning model" but I am very unsure
of what it is we are talking about learning. Is all chaos a precursor
to learning? Most of my formal education does not involve any form of
Chaos. If I sit in history class and hear about the history of the
Punic Wars I do not find myself in a state which is anything like the
Chaos or transforming ideas of the Satir learning model. Yet we do
want our children to be educated in the sense that they know these
basic facts. I suspect the Satir learning model is working with
another kind of learning which is not the same as book learning.
What kind of learning this model addresses is very hard to pin down.
The frame of reference makes all the difference. There are many
manual skills which I posses but have not used in many years. I
notice that depending on the context in which I am asked to use them I
may have chaos or I may not. I still possess the skill but its use may
be a type of "Satir Learning" where I need to go through chaos again
or it may be just a repeat performance of what I already know. I have
heard that many consultants face a problem that when they have
successfully taught an organization new ways of working the
organization convinces its self that they knew how to work this way
all along and the consultant was not need to bring about the change in
their work habits. How is it possible to "learn" without realizing
that learning has taken place? What about forgetting? It is often
easy to go back to the old ways of doing things even after years of
integration and practice. Would it be reasonable to say that sloth and
indolence are easily learned? I am not really sure what kind of
learning this model addresses.
Ken Estes
Oct 1 2002
This should should be a good start to what I am thinking of.
I am really hoping to hear what others thoughts about this are.
I think there is MORE here then is generally taught and I believe
we can make a good start in uncovering it.
Ken -- In citing Oshry, do you mean "Leading Systems", or "Seeing Systems".
- The shadow 2002.10.1
The quote is from "Leading Systems: Lessons from the Power Lab" (p 9).
I remember an idea of his about chaos offering us an opportunity
to give up preconseptions we have held. I can not find this quote
now, but I remember it being in the section about "Begging with Barry".
From Seeing System I found these quotes:
p 84 Sometimes the pain of the dance becomes so excruciating for one
party that it leads that party to unilaterally break out of the
dance into the possibility of transformation.
p 94 What had Sandra done? She changed the dance and in doing so
caused the predictable chaos.
--- KenEstes 2002.10.2 The following are a set of letters set by Mary Kinard (Change Shop 2002) posted with her permisison. From: "Mary Kinard" <[email protected]> Ken, > Did you ever have a chance to look at those I'm pleased that you're asking for my feedback. I have had some thoughts triggered by your essays. Your use of the simple OCWS (old-check-writing-system) example to understand the larger issue is clever. And it helps that I can identify with you currently on the same issue. In the Weinberg workshops, we experienced a good introduction to Satir's models and methods. There's much more to the change model. Satir sees the change process as a TRANSFORMATION of WHAT'S ALREADY THERE. We build something new and better on a foundation of the old, based upon acceptance and understanding of the old. That old behavior, which you've named 'procrastination', has served some 'survival' purpose for you in the past. You mention the adrenaline addiction that may produce the energy to do a boring task. Your mind is so full of higher-level processing that it needs some motivation, like the fear of getting a late notice (omigosh!), to provide energy for the mundane. From the MBTI perspective, the procrastination produces a deadline which triggers your inferior (opposite) function -- the S-function is better at doing detailed, here-and-now tasks. It's hard for dominant N's to do something so earthy as paying bills. But, there's a higher-level fear associated with NOT paying the bills. Satir would suggest that you view your OCWS emotion as a friend. Accept your feelings as normal and useful. The outcome is not what matters; instead, what matters is how you process your feelings. If you understand your feelings, then whatever the outcome, you are remaining congruent. As your feelings are being processed, you can decide whether to make new choices of how to protect yourself from whatever fear triggers the OCWS emotion, if you choose to make a change. So, in the OCWS example, the question is: What fear is triggering the emotion? What are some other choices as to how to protect myself from (or otherwise deal with) that thing I fear? Take care, Mary p.s. -- I'm still processing your essays and may
send more comments in little spurts as separate
emails. You addressed several interesting issues.
From: "Mary Kinard" <[email protected]> Ken, to continue with comments on your SatirChangeModelInvestigation essay... We create MODELS which give visual structure to human behavior concepts that are too complex to measure precisely. The Change Model synthesizes patterns of behavior that Satir saw when working with many families through the years. We can apply it as we choose, a rubber template to be stretched out or compressed, over one second of time, or over centuries. Like you said, the frame of reference is the key. The specifics are within that chosen frame. Satir's focus was family SYSTEMS, more than an individual family member with his/her own problem. If the SYSTEM is dysfunctional, it may manifest itself in one member's behavior, such as a kid abusing drugs or being depressed. So...if you're part of a system where you are just waiting, because you feel powerless to effect the outcome, what does that say about the entire system? You could apply the model to your own internal processing, seeing your brain as a system. Or, the template could be applied to the whole system, in which case the chaos looks different. The learning refers to learning about congruence, which leads to healing. Sometimes chaos leads to learning how to be more congruent, with a transforming idea leading to an improved status quo. Sometimes the system might be stuck in chaos for a long time. Sometimes the system or person chooses to return to the old status quo. The process may not take an orderly progression through the entire model. We can read or hear about congruence, but until we have experienced moving through the change model, the concepts are not fully integrated. Thus, we can truly learn, practice, and integrate in workshops and classes which use experiential methodologies, more than traditional teaching methods. Then, of course, in our daily lives we can continue to practice and integrate. As we become more congruent more often, healing can take place, and we become more complete human beings. But after the classes are over, what can the participants do to remember what they learned and to keep practicing and integrating congruence? What keeps them going? What keeps them from forgetting and going back to the old ways? Mary
From:"Mary Kinard" <[email protected]> Ken, I have paused in processing Satir related questions for the time. I still have more questions and comments about Satir models and related areas, which I'll get back to later. I'd like to continue our email dialog. Your comment about flow has sent my thinking in that direction. My current focus is designing my itinerary for my first trip to Great Britain. Whenever I visit a new culture, I like to integrate into the culture a bit, and I like to view beautiful natural scenery. So, I'm planning to ride trains and stay in B&Bs and talk with people. Have you traveled to Great Britain? If so, what's your impression of the culture? And what's beautiful to see? A digression: my getting ready to plan this trip, which is something I LOVE to do, has felt like the check-writing series -- procrastinate, go get something to eat, answer emails, etc. It's interesting, because I hate the check-writing, but I love designing this trip. Yet, I'm putting off both tasks in the same way. Hmmmmm....perhaps it's related to anxiety and excitement being so similar. Right now, as we speak, I am writing this email instead of doing that task. Interesting. Perhaps it has to do with preferring processing high-level thinking over doing the detail work. Mary The MBTI argument that Mary puts forth is very
similar to a discussion I had with David Schmaltz
and Amy Schwab a week ago in NYC. They believe
that the need for procrastination is not a
"problem to be solved" but a "feature of the
indivuals type". Some people have longer event
horizons then others. There are people who can not
start working until the task is already late and
others who will always get the work done
early. They do not believe that this is a feature
which can be changed nor is it helpful to think of
this as a problem to be solved. They kept asking
me "whats the problem?" and my answers of "stress"
and "high risk of having other important tasks do
do at the same time as check writing" did not seem
to count as "problems".
It is Amy's belief that what the change model
calls "learning" is a change in the expected
outcome of an event. This is why you get some
chaos when you move your watch to the other hand
for example. It is interesting to note that this
does tie in with the NLP idea that learning is
about creating more widely applicable models of
the world.
--- KenEstes 2002.10.20 Ken, your ponderings about change and related stress and your email with Mary are fascinating to read. There are a lot of perspectives, each suggesting possible paths. Being and MBTI "P" I know about procrastination and delay. I find that doing something I need to do (like paying bills) makes me feel better after I do it. I was wondering what you exerience after is, as I suspect you have a different set of feelings. I have some friends who are NLP practitioners. I've heard them say "A move-toward something you want starts with a strong move-away from something you don't want". The premise being that the emotional element is a key to any sort of change you really want. You said: I love Mary's observation that: We create MODELS which give visual structure to human behavior concepts that are too complex to measure precisely. When we need to create distance from our behavior in order to assess whether it serves us or not, a model may help. BeckyWinant 2002.10.20 I guess I should state for the record I am INTJ. What feelings do I get when I write my checks? I feel helpless, I
fell that if I ignore it, it will just 'go away'. In all the build up
is always worse then the act. As soon as I sit down and begin, there
is no problem in finishing. The hard part is to start.
--KenEstes 2002.10.20 > Ken, what's NLP? > Mary
In the mid seventies two researchers
Richard Bandler and John Grindler wrote a book "The Structure of
Magic". It was an attempt to create a unified theory of what the best
therapists were doing. In particular they studied Virginia Satir, and
Milton Erickson the hypnotist, and the Gestalt therapy guy (can't find
his name just now). They were interested in the linguistic constructs
that each of these people used. The language choices were similar and
their theory "Neuro-Linguistic Programming" is about listening to the
words people use to communicate. There is also a strong Satir
influence in their work but they do not explicity use Satir models.
Some of the more recent books are just silly the older ones seem to
have depth but are very badly written and hard to read. The first
book was acclaimed by Virginia she said it gave insight into her
methods but later they both split apart in interests. I think that
there are far more people today studying and working on NLP then there
are people associated with the Satir institutes but there is much
overlap in ideas.
Here are two NLP stories. JimBullock told me of a new process improvement person who once asked an employyee: What do you do here. The answer he got back was: I work for John Doe. The key here is the missmatch between the questions ("what") and the answer ("who"). So, in this organization it matter "who you know" and jobs are not more defined then "my boss told me to". This was a problem for the process improvement person because he was new and did not "know" anyone so had little athority to get things done. Only when his personal network got started was he able to become effective in this organization. On Friday I had a similar incident. I was interviewing for a job. I
was asked "What would your job to be about? What kind of programs do
you like to write." (this was not exactly the way it was phrased but
close). I view my job more broadly then just writing programs. It
was clear from the way this quesion was raised that I was not asked
about other things I thought my job might be about only about coding
issues. I wanted to discuss many other things besides my programming
ability but I held off. I was very careful to answer the question as
it was asked. This helped ensure that my answer fit with the
interviewers model of the world. The interviewer was a programmer by
training and only thought in terms of code. Tomorrow I have an
interview with his boss. I am hoping that he will see the need for a
more broad job discription then just the programming issues.
Jerry has a Master Practitioner rating in NLP so he may correct some
of what I have said.
--KenEstes 2002.10.20
Look at this quote from cnn.com: "Bear markets end when things collapse and nobody wants to talk about it anymore," he said. The excitement generated by this latest rally suggests we're not close to that yet. Sounds like Satir Learning. I interpret this as: Only when the market is forced to change its point of view can a change in the cycle happen. Since someone is still buying, there must not be fundamental change yet. --KenEstes 2002.10.20 More NLP trivia: Richard Bandler had been a computer systems analyst. John Grinder was a professor of linguistics. The studies included Virginia Satir, Milton Erickson and Fritz Perls. The Neuro-Lingusitic Progrmaming theories examined people's words and their relationship to eye-movement (related to brain activity, sensory recall and memory), and how people's states changed in response to techniques of specificity (Satir), generality (Erikson) and chaining of events (Perls). The sensory systems (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, taste, smell) are seen as a basis that skews how we store memories, access them and how we choose to respond. As for CNN and the stock market: I am suspicious about any announcements. They seem to be more hype and excitement as opposed to real market indicators. -BeckyWinant 2002.20.20 Ken, Gosh, if you are INTJ I can understand how procrastination of bill paying would weigh heavy on your shoulders! Why do you feel that if I ignore it, it will just 'go away'. regarding the check writing? What would happen if you could ignore the bills and they did go away? Then what? - BeckyWinant 2002.10.20
> As for CNN and the stock market: I am suspicious My point was that the predictions were based on a
Satir type view of the world. Did not mean to
imply that I thought that the predictions were
accurate. I used to be a Quantative Analyst for a
few years, so I know all about the accuracy of
their predictions. In fact we had the best luck
selling models which predicted unmeasurable
events! We would sell models to predict daily
trade volatility and these could not be tested for
accuracy.
> Why do you feel that if I ignore it, it will I think its about not taking responsibility for
my expences. Its about trying to live in a world
where there are no negative consequences for my
actions.
This is an irrational belief. Yes, even INTJ are plagued by them. Perhaps the fact that I have irrational beliefs bother me more then others but I still sometimes have them. I just try not to listen to the feelings which do not make sense. This one seems fairly juvenile. Though some project managers can attest if you ignore the new managment long enough they will just go away. Talk to me sometime about my analytical beliefs
about love. You will either find it really funny
or really scary. (just kidding, I do not have a
mental model for love, but it sounds
like something I would do).
I have been watching myself "learn" in a few
different cases and it does feel as if the chaos
allows me to "give up" one of my previously held
beliefs. It does seem as if I try to rationally
pick which is the least troubling belief to give
up. I try and minimize the impact on my previous
status quo. I will not give up any belief until
the external circumstances force me to.
Hey Becky, I have you seen the other things I wrote? Look at my home page
KenEstes. I have two articles from last year about my thoughts about integrating a production group into a CMM type framework. I did not get much interest from it last year and I still
think the idea has merit.
--KenEstes 2002.10.20
Here are the direct links. Sorry I was lazy last night. NeedForProductionKeyProcessArea Ken, My point was that the predictions were based on a Satir type view of the world. Did not mean to imply that I thought that the predictions were accurate. Ah... got it. I think its about not taking responsibility for my expences. Its about trying to live in a world where there are no negative consequences for my actions. So, is the delay on paying you trying to push to a point where there might be negative consequences? If there were negative consequences would that be "good" or "bad"? My observation in my own life has been that the seemingly irrational is often an important key to learning. The irrational doesn't bother me, only trying to turn it into something sensible :) So, I've learned to accept the anomoly. Kind of like accepting abstract art for what it is, rather than trying to "see the images". Regarding your fitting production into a CMM framework is of interest! I printed it out to ponder. Will respond on that page. - BeckyWinant 2002.10.21
Updated: Monday, October 21, 2002 |
