Just words? Or words that create worlds?
Gil Friend
Strategic Sustainability OG ? Advisor / Board director / Coach ? Helping World-Changers Change Worlds ? ????Ask "Me" Anything 24/7 at delphi.ai/gfriend or text/call +1-254-739-6394
Bill Baue and Ben Roberts recently posted a "conversational exploration" of two recently published books: "Collective Power" by Ted Rau , and "Activating the Common Good" by Peter Block . (You can find their post here. ) It's worth watching.
Ben reports that "I’ve heard people say 'we need more action and less talk' or 'there’s talk and then there’s action,' and disparaging 'conversation,'" and shares my concern that people commonly don't understand the power of "conversation."
I particularly enjoyed Ben's reading of a section from Block's book called “Conversational Domains for Activating Trust and Accountability.” It's an excellent introduction and invitation into "language action," which rigorously dismisses the "just talk" objection by distinguishing talk that is descriptive ("we met yesterday") from those that are "performative" or generative—that actually create something in the world ("I will meet you at Joe's Cafe at 2pm PST today to sign the contract we have negotiated."). The promise is an action, not a description of an action.
Ben reports that he was introduced "speech act" theory and "language action" by Werner Erhard, who built on his work with Dr. Fernando Flores, who built on the work of John Searle and JL Austin. Searle identified a finite list of key performative verbs:
Flores (with whom I've had the privilege of studying deeply with for some years) further developed and enriched this work in books like Conversations for Action , Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design with Terry Winograd, and Disclosing New Worlds: Entrepreneurship, Democratic Action, and the Cultivation of Solidarity with Charles Spinosa and Hubert Dreyfus. And in enterprises like Business Design Associates and Pluralistic Networks with Chauncey Bell (author of Mobilize: Dancing In The World ) and others.
These perspectives have been a powerful element of our own work at Natural Logic , elevating our clients' aspirations, coordination effectiveness, and results; a generative thread in our monthly Living Between Worlds conversations; and a core component of my coaching and mentoring work with leaders and emerging leaders in the sustainability / regeneration / climate / impact / ESG / etc. realms.
And I find they can provide a powerful "solvent" for unsticking conversations among people who deeply disagree—sometimes so deeply that they can't even speak with each other. (Hmm, any such situations come to mind?)
There's more, of course: the?matter of "mood" (and its reciprocal entanglement with assessments), and the foundational nature of care. But those are topics for another time.
I'm happy to explore this territory further with anyone else interested.
Because, as I've written elsewhere,
"New worlds don't just happen. We speak them into being."
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Strategic Sustainability OG ? Advisor / Board director / Coach ? Helping World-Changers Change Worlds ? ????Ask "Me" Anything 24/7 at delphi.ai/gfriend or text/call +1-254-739-6394
10 个月Chauncey Bell posted this comment to my post of this article over on SubStack :https://gfriend.substack.com/p/just-words-or-words-that-create-worlds): "Thanks for the comment and the mention of my book Gil. It was Flores who brought the conversation about language action into our world. Searle's list of performative verbs was longer than you cite here, as it was brought from the work of his teacher, John L Austin. Flores was the speaker who, having swum deeply into the work of Martin Heidegger as well as Searle and Austin, saw that this arcane domain called "speech acts" was far more important than it looked in rarified discussions in a few graduate school departments of "analytic philosophy." And, in your list, be sure to add Offers as one of the first rank of language actions for making new worlds. With the making of our offers we invite the world to understand our identities in particular ways. When an offer is made and accepted, the speaker of the offer is understood as having made a promise."
Collaborative Cross Functional Leader, Innovative Strategist, Global Change Champion, Purpose Driven, Passionate
10 个月Gil Friend Love this! Thank you for posting. As a multi decades student and short time staff member of Werner Erhard and (Fernando Flores) work around transformation….a world that works for everyone with no one left out including, generative language and communication, Yes! ‘Our words DO create our world’
Helping leaders develop the ears, words, and minds for timely action amidst complexity.
10 个月Gil Friend I'm going to place my best on the latter, words that create worlds. And I like the phrasing you employ of moods being "entangled" with assessments.
Show the way to an America that works for everyone, as speaker & advisor to candidates, policymakers & donors
10 个月“Words that create worlds” - YES! Let’s focus on using words that create the world we want.
Glad my conversation with Bill Baue resonated with you, Gil. Here’s to more talk that moves the action forward and less that “leave us with a sense of helplessness,” as Block notes is the case every time we fail to frame conversations that create commitment or greater intimacy and trust. One small detail in your recap: Peter Block is the one who worked with and was influenced by Werner Erhard, not me! I’m another degree of separation down in the lineage of people like him, Flores, Winograd, etc.