Reflexivity

professional development workshop

certification maintenance, RID

Lebanon, NH (31 October 2009)

Real World Ethics

One thing I love about the sign language interpreting community is how seriously we take the matter of professional ethics. We have no choice, actually, because the Deaf community holds our feet to the fire on a regular basis. It is an extraordinary dynamic. The effects of participating in simultaneously-interpreted communication may appear to be concentrated in the interaction between the interpreter and the signer, but the significance of using interpreters extends as well to the entire group and among all languages. Patty Azzarello writes of a team-building activity without an interpreter, detailing the embarrassing lessons learned by the team that discounted the member who was not fluent in English.

He was the smartest guy in the room.

He tried to share his good ideas with us – over and over again.

We basically threw him overboard.

I cannot speculate as to how the dynamics in Patty’s team would have been changed if there had been an interpreter included, but I can say that interpreters witness Deaf people being “thrown overboard” on a far too regular basis.  Michael Harvey has researched and written about vicarious trauma  and interpreters. Notice the disturbing chain effect: Deaf empowerment is (largely) directed at interpreters, who are (often) traumatized by the effort to balance Deaf claims for accessibility to goods, resources, and other forms of participation in democratic society against the (too typical) non-Deaf person’s disregard not only of the claim, but even of the person asserting the claim.

What Can Be Done?

Two dozen interpreters gathered last fall to explore “The Intersection of Ethics and Interpreting” with Robert Nash (author of Real World Ethics: Frameworks for Educators and Human Service Professionals) and Patricia Chau Nguyen (Assistant Dean of Students and Director of  The Asian & Asian American Center at Cornell University). We spent the day exploring the “three moral languages” framework to our experiences as professional interpreters.  “Each of us,” Nash explains, “lives our lives in at least three overlapping moral worlds, and each world features its own special moral language” (Real World Ethics: A Holistic, Problem-Solving Framework, p. 3).

First we explored what Nash calls “zero-level first moral language.” His investigatory questions inspired a range of passionate identifications with deeply-felt personal beliefs:

• “giving back” as a volunteer because without that “we don’t survive as a community”
• “treating people equally,” “not making judgments on them”
• the absolute significance of children: “children have the right to claim my full attention without any preconceptions”
• the ultimate prioritization of right here, right now, “All that I’m sure of is being right here right now right away.”
• “I believe relationships are primary in this short life that we live.”

Among the challenges of making good moral decisions – and of being a good interpreter – is not getting stuck at the zero-level – because there is no “resolution” to be found there. The zero-level involves an individual’s intrapsychic being, which is usually not amenable to alteration. The second language refers to moral character and the role of a person in relation with others. Someone characterized the narratives of the second moral language as a “responsiveness” that is “more than duty.”  I jotted down two examples that captured the gist of this language in relation to sign language interpreters (who tend mainly to be female):

“I think I should be a big girl and stay.”

“I got my big girl pants on today.”

Interpreters are on the boundary not just between languages (and the cultural norms, values, pains, and pride of the people who use them) but also between the second and third moral languages. Naming and excavating our second moral language elicited as much – and in some cases even more – passion than we discovered at the zero-level!

“Brimming over with Beliefs”

• “people should be there for each other when there’s a need”
• “meaning is in deep connection”
• “there is a duty to love”
• “everybody should get what they  need”
• the need for balance: “If you push a virtue to an extreme, it becomes a vice.”  I think this was illustrated by someone’s tease: “You never had a feeling you didn’t express!”
• the skill of empathy, defined as “feeling for” (which raised questions about “the authenticity of generosity” and the risk of vice through “overgiving” and/or “becoming a doormat”)

While the second moral language occurs at the level of the community, Nash and Nguyen showed us how the third moral language is the one imposed by the professional working world. This third level of moral language eschews both the first (personal) and second (communal, cultural) moral languages, emphasizing codified rules and principles rooted in respect and tolerance of moral differences.  Rather than promoting one moral  language over another, Nash and Nguyen both shared examples of ways in which all three languages are always interwoven in any professional discussion of ethical behavior and decision-making.

Interrupting Moral Silence

“Whoa!” Patricia was excited. “That brought out the signing!”

One of the interpreters shared a horrific situation that she’d just been through with a medical doctor who had aggressively refused to negotiate how to make the communication with a Deaf patient work. Her story hit us where we live; we’ve all been there.  Stuck.  Because there is a Code of Conduct that governs the boundaries of the professional delivery of services, and because you can’t reason with people who aren’t willing to listen. Implicit throughout the institutional-level moral language in the professional code is that we won’t disrupt the proceedings by making issues out of dynamics that are problematic. Debate over when and how we should and why we should or should not has raged over decades between the Deaf community and interpreters. Meanwhile non-Deaf users of interpretation services remain generally oblivious, content to assert the supposed role supremacy of their status and their normal ways of doing business.

Our colleague was still fuming over the blatant disrespect that the physician had shown for the client (not to mention herself). We took the situation as a case, and applied the nine questions Nash has developed for analyzing and deciding upon an ethical course of action. The involved interpreter reflected on the range of perceptions she had about the doctor being unaware that the (new) patient was Deaf, not knowing an interpreter had been hired for which his practice was financially responsible, and otherwise being completely unfamiliar with interpreted communication. In general, we agreed that all these factors combined still did not justify his reaction, however the involved interpreter was able to perceive that if he was already having a bad day and then “all this” happened….well, even doctors are human. After the initial exchange, he had made an effort to work with the situation and the patient did receive treatment.

Knowledge for Action

A few weeks later that same interpreter happened to be driving by the offending physician’s office with some time on her hands.  She decided to stop in. As it happened, the doctor was available, and they spoke about the incident, de-briefing it together.  I’d like to report that the doctor made a 180-degree shift, but that would be exaggerating. However he did apologize, and it seems possible that he won’t put another Deaf person through the trauma of watching non-Deaf people argue over whether or not communication access is going to be provided to them while they seek health care.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Science of Team Science
1st annual conference
Chicago

A vision is a product of imagination

By definition,  a vision is not the physical sense of sight by which we perceive shapes, colors, distance, and relative positions of objects in our immediate environment. We use the sensory perception of vision as a metaphor for the amorphous sensation of possibility that arises with certain synergies of thought. Possibilities may or may not be creative: likewise every possibility has some ratio of probability. A feature of good management is the skill of ascertaining the probability of achieving any particular possibility and taking action accordingly within a specific zone of risk. Drawing upon Dr John Kounios’ definition of creativity, cited in this New York Times article Charting Creativity: Signposts of a Hazy Territory, creative possibilities are those that involve an insight about how to restructure a situation in a non-obvious way. Organizationally speaking, these are the kinds of visions that earn the label, visionary.

Twin problems: expressing and placing the vision

As amorphous products of imagination, it can be challenging to craft language for expressing a visionary vision. To use a sailing metaphor, one has to tack against the wind toward a destination that is essentially mythical: the island isn’t there until you arrive on its shores and set foot on the ground, confirming its existence. The goal is regularly obscured by weather (fog, storms) and the route affected by the environment (tides, pirates). In order to navigate effectively in murky circumstances, there must be a clear reference point: for enterprises of human organization, providing this clarity is the job of language.

Communicating with language is not a linear process. Misunderstandings, for instance, provide empirical evidence of the non-linearity of language.  In every situation, in any culture, language use is transactional. Although it may seem like picking at hairs, there is a subtle difference between an “interaction” and a “transaction.”[1] Both terms refer to some kind of relationship, but interactions occur between entities that remain fixed and unchanging, whereas in a transaction all entities are affected and changed (to lesser or greater degrees, but always in some way). The precise effects on individuals engaging in transactionally-based vision planning cannot be predicted. This uncertainty can undermine or motivate the group’s dynamic processes.

Thinking in time: operationalizing a vision as an encounter with history

“Most people find it harder to
think about institutions than to think about individuals.”

~ Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R May (1986, p. 239)
Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers

“Placing the organization,” suggest Neustadt & May, “partly because it is the least natural of the various steps we suggest, may yield a high return in terms of questions that might otherwise be left unasked or answers left unexamined” (p. 240). It may be counterintuitive to draw upon their “mini-methods” for political crisis resolution as a guide for organizational vision design and implementation, but bear with me for a moment. The practice of thinking in time is a strategy for design. Conceiving of time as a stream frames a dialogue for collaborative teams to “get forward, as soon as possible, the questions that ought to be asked before anyone says, ‘This is what we should do,’ or ‘Here’s how to do it’” (p. 240).

“…visualizing issues in timestreams. To link conventional wisdoms of the present with past counterparts and future possibilities; to link interpretations of the past with the experiences of their interpreters, and both with their prescriptions; to link proposals for the future with the inhibitions of the present and inheritances of the past – all these mean to think relatively and in terms of time, opening one’s mind to possibilities as far back as the story’s start and to potentialities as far ahead as relevant (judged, of course, from now, hence subject to revision later). That entails seeing time as a stream. It calls for thinking of the future as emergent from the past and of the present as a channel that perhaps conveys, perhaps deflects, but cannot stop the flow. (Conveys? Deflects? In what degree? A critical concern!) Perception of time-in-flow cannot help but be encouraged by purposeful study of stretches of history, regardless of whose it is or what the focus.” (p. 246)

There are intriguing parallels among Neustadt and May’s recommendations for working with time and those of Peter Block (Flawless Consulting)[2] and Marvin Weisbord & Sandra Janoff (Keeping Difficult Situations from Becoming Difficult Groups).[3]

Neustadt & May’s mini-methods:

1. Get the story, build timelines (when & what), ask journalist questions (where, who, how, why)
2. Identify options for action (defined by current conditions & capabilities), consider marketing (is it preferable to return to what was before or reach to a new, more satisfactory situation?) Principally, what can be done, now? In other words, make “…judgments of the future as a product of the past affected by presumptions about the present. This playing off of future, past, and present is important work” (emphasis added, p. 237).
3. Test/pre-evaluate: “What expectations about causes and effects makes certain options preferable to others?” (p. 238) Play “bets and odds” in terms of your own money, what would you bet on (chances to win) and what avoid (risks of losing)? Explore what would change if new evidence comes to light.
4. Placement (still before deciding on a choice of action!): “…probing presumptions about relevant people and organizations on whose active aid success depends” (p. 238).

Flawless Consulting

Peter Block distinguishes between the manager who has direct control, and the consultant who can achieve only influence. While Newstadt and May’s model assumes several people already working collaboratively on a major issue, Block focuses on the interpersonal, professional client-consultant relationship. “Sometimes,” he explains, “it is not until after some implementation occurs that a clear picture of the real problem emerges” (p. 8). Block is assuming transactionalism and time-in-flow even though he does not state this directly.

The presumption of timeflow is more apparent in Block’s assertion that competence in the preliminary phases of planning “create the foundation for successful outcomes in the implementation stage” (p. 10). Following a path represents movement in time. “Each act that expresses trust in ourselves and belief in the validity of our own experience is always the right path to follow. Each act that is manipulative or filled with pretense is always self-destructive” (p. 11). Block emphasizes the interplay of present and future: if one behaves like this in the present, one can expect that in the future; whereas if one behaves as if then events will likely work out in such and so a manner.

Focus on structural issues that you can control

“To the extent that we treat differences as a problem to be solved rather than a reality to be managed,” explains Weisbord & Janoff, “we set ourselves up for endless diagnosis and intervention at the expense of doing the work” (p. 2). They draw upon Solomon Asch’s (1952) discovery that for one person to maintain a perception of reality which differs from the rest of the group, that individual must have a known ally. Yvonne Agazarian’s (1997) research demonstrated that one can keep a group on task by finding that ally whenever a dynamic emerges that could take a group off-course.

In Weisbord & Janoff’s experience, “…when differences cause frustration, fear, or anger, people will keep working on the task to the extent that they view the situation as normal” (p. 3).  Weisbord & Janoff learned to normalize the emotion, not the difference. Recall the adage teachers use with students: if one person has the question, others have the question. In a task-oriented group, if one person feels the feeling, other people are feeling the feeling. Shared feelings generate natural allies and healthy subgroups. Normalizing the emotional life of a group enables the exploration of a full, wholistic range of questions and concerns – and answers! – available to a group, particularly a group that wants to act as a team.

The four conditions named by Weisbord & Janoff frame their philosophy of knowing “when to just stand there.” The crucial, transactional point of oscillation is between trusting the group to work through whatever dynamics are present toward task accomplishment, and intervening because of a risk to single member whose opinion or experience is dangling in solitary space.  In Weisbord & Janoff’s experience, diverse groups are most likely to accomplish their tasks when:

(1) people are well-matched to the task,
(2) enough time is allowed for each phase,
(3) everybody really knows the group’s goal, and
(4) potential conflict which might result in flight from the task is headed off by making differences and sub-grouping functional, i.e., as ‘‘contributing to growth’ (p 8).

The need to address and re-direct dysfunctional dynamics of fight or flight from the task is an acknowledgment of the streaming flow of time. What happens in the present affects the future, just as much as what is possible in the present has been significantly pre-figured by the past.

Notice group processes: when to slow down and give attention to small details

All of us are under a lot of pressure to move quickly.  The speed of today’s society is more than inertia, there is what appears to be an inexorable acceleration. The challenge is that the balance of time is held disproportionately between individuals and institutions. Institutionalized bureaucracies remain mired in slow time while individuals increase our frenzied activity as if to compensate for the plodding wheels of systemic change. Intriguingly, in the Charting Creativity article cited above, Dr Rex Jung of The Mind Research Network explains how creativity differs from intelligence. Creativity moves more slowly through the brain, wandering along “lots of little side roads with interesting detours, and meandering little byways.” This difference in pace is a remarkable finding that distinguishes “creative thinking” from the lightning-fast-firing of neurons venerated by popular culture. Slowing down, Dr Jung suggests, “might allow for the linkage of more disparate ideas, more novelty and more creativity.”

This is the kind of creativity needed for implementing visionary visions, whether for business or for science. We need to understand, better, how teams promote creativity among each other. Building teams who know how to notice and respond to the dynamics of language use is one powerful way to harness the essential transactionalism of communication so that, together, we can learn to recognize and make conscious choices between dead-end tangents that distract us from the organizational vision and growth-enhancing sidestreams that act back to concentrate intentionality in the flow of time toward achievement.

Constant Calibrating

All along the way, the image of the vision must be kept in mind like a target in timespace. Its necessary conditions, and the steps required to achieve those conditions, must also be envisioned. These are also products of imagination – the steps have not yet been accomplished, the conditions do not yet exist. What one holds in mind – and talks about with collaborators, team-members, friends, and advisors – is the degree of fit between the current situation (as a snapshot of time-in-flow) with any of the previously-conceived steps and conditions (as the destination of time’s flow). Probably the trickiest part is maintaining equilibrium between management and control.

Management is your ability to direct the timestream of changing conditions and changeable steps along channels you anticipate will move you closer to the target. Control is the amount of force you exert against the nature of the conditions and the step tendencies of people in your system. The most effective and enjoyable teams are those in which all members contribute consciously to the transactional balancing act of management without control. A balanced team is alert to information and dynamics that effect the timeflow of implementation. Members of a balanced team share data, thoughts, and impressions openly; confirm differences that challenge previously accepted strategy; and maintain focus on a future timespace in which the organizational vision has been made real.

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[1] See Mustafa Emirbayer, Manifesto for a Relational Sociology, American Journal of Sociology Vol 103, No 2, September 1997, pp. 281-317 for a detailed discussion of the differences between “substantialism” and “relationalism.”

[2] 2^nd Edition, Flawless Consulting by Peter Block. 1981/2000.

[3] This article is adapted from “Principle 6: Master the Art of Subgrouping,” in Weisbord & Janoff, Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There! Ten Principles for Leading Meetings that Matter. 2007.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Entrepreneurship Initiative
University of Massachusetts Amherst

So says Valdis Krebs in Network Weaving 101 (redux). Maybe it’s fair to say that my ambition in life is to close triangles? Get people connected. Especially when we all can learn something worthwhile from each other. But “people” (to my mind) is groups more than it is individuals. Individuals are the ones who enact the relationships, but it i s the group-level implications that matter.

Predictive Marketing

Last Sunday I was at Schnipper’s – “a place of miracles” – waiting for a bus to depart the Port Authority in New York City. I had already missed two busses back to Amherst because I was absorbed in writing a summary blogpost after last week’s exciting, historic, first annual Science of Team Science conference hosted by Northwestern University’s Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute in Chicago.

Was it serendipity? Fate? Karma? Random happenstance? I don’t care what you call it. “It was a clean folder when I met you!” Michael was entertained by the notes I jotted down regarding “the gift and curse of entrepreneurship,” and “the new energy tycoons.” ‘Cisco (just don’t call him Frank) and Marcus (familiar with Auslan) and Mike and I talked connections. Funny how Mike is developing energy technology based on “algae that grows in the dark” and what he wants are suppliers who will “just give me the grease.” (I happen to know a couple of them!)

“I think you’re all awesome.”

I’m quoting Cliff (who was flirting with the entrepreneurs who composed the last panel of the UMass EI course) but I agree – not only with his assessment of the panelists but of everyone I met during this semester-long course. The four successful women who composed our closing panel revisited and emphasized with their own unique twists the most important lessons.

• “Karma is a boomerang, you put it out there. It might not be immediate but it does come back to you.” (Lisa)
• “To be a success, you have to take on the complexion of your community.” (Sarah)
• “Bring in people with different skills [than your own]. You have to learn their interactive ways, but you learn more from non-similar people [than from people who are like yourself].” (Lisa)
• “Use your business as a platform to advance your values. It’s a lot of fun; there’s a lot of power there.” (Nancy)
• “Risk is something the other person sees.” (Marjorie)

Sitting in the Chair

“There is nothing more lonely,” Marjorie explained, than sitting in the chair when … someone gets hurt on the floor? “You sit in the chair.” When losses occur? “You sit in the chair.” When payroll is hard to make? “You sit in the chair.” “We don’t really nurture,” Nancy explained, “how to make all these crazy connections you have to make. You have to learn how to view the world in such a way as to bring all those discrete experiences together.” Lisa offered a corrective, “Go with positive language. It’s contagious!” but you’ve got to come to grips with there being people “who want to build the clock” and people “who want to know what time it is.” Lisa elaborated, “People think differently from you and you can learn from them.” Running a business can be tricky, because you have “to figure out how to do it that breaks the bounds…but you have to know how to play inside before you play outside. You can’t take on City Hall all the time. Sometimes you have to go around.” And you’ve got to know the rewards. “I want to see what I can do,” Sarah explained. “Creating jobs really sets it off for me.”

“Food brings people together.”

Sarah backed up her words with action. Michael and his pals at Schnipper’s probably agree. And Rose and Mau can attest to another way food brings people together – even if we normally don’t think about where food waste goes.  Right now?  Mostly into landfills. But options are afoot! Can you imagine your organic waste becoming an energy source of the future? I can. It isn’t hard to imagine, although building the infrastructure to support it smoothly might take a bit of time and go through a few rough spells while the kinks get worked out. Re-engineering our energy infrastructure on the scale we need is a human adventure akin to that taken by every major wave of immigration. Marjorie emphasized that we all learned everything we need to know in kindergarten:

Life ain’t fair.

Don’t say ain’t.

Hugs feel good.

Naps are important.

She didn’t mention this one, but I think it ranks among the most important lessons: share.

Human potential doesn’t need to be restricted to the extraordinary accomplishments of isolated individuals in specific fields. Group-level accomplishments, such as engineering feats (space travel!) or athletic prowess (any team victory against the odds), demonstrate humanness in ways that exceed what any single person can achieve. Sharing does not imply equality or sameness. The willingness and the ability to share demonstrates respect for others and a measure of recognition that few of us survive in autonomy.  We are all implicated in vast systems of food and energy production that are so far removed from our daily lives we would hardly know what to do in the event of an institutional-level breakdown. Somehow, someway, we’ve got to reform the infrastructure enough so that consistently-increasing percentages of the global population can bounce back fast against inevitable disasters and systemic crises.

“If you can do it, you do”

Michael was bemoaning some of the roles he plays for his start-up, but our roles – in any context – are rarely exclusively determined by the scope of personal desire. The first group role I ever had that other people recognized was as a cheerleader. No no no, I didn’t wave pom poms or wear a short skirt! But I was motivational to the members of my high school’s volleyball team at a time when all the players were feeling down. The road since is rife with of experience, but I remain essentially optimistic: I do think there is plenty of room for hope.  People are so smart! We can design the tools that will enable the discovery and invention of solutions to our worst problems.  We just have to decide that doing so matters enough and follow through.

Popularity: 2% [?]