Process Values

For all of May we are looking at some of the precepts of the Tiep Hien Buddhist Order to see what they might have to say to us, especially about process values. [1] The ninth   precept of Tiep Hien Buddhism is:           9. Do not say untruthful things for the sake of personal interest or to impress people. Do not utter words that cause division or hatred. Do not spread news that you do not know to be certain. Do not criticize or condemn things that you are not sure of. Always speak truthfully and constructively. Have the courage to speak out about situations of injustice, even when doing so may threaten your own safety. For those of you who are comparing and contrasting the Fourteen Precepts to the Ten Commandments, this is completely analogous to the (coincidentally) ninth Commandment, 9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Except it is much more sweeping in scope. Remember that the Ten ...

For all of May we are looking at some of the precepts of the Tiep Hien Buddhist Order to see what they might have to say to us, especially about process values. [1] The third   precept of Tiep Hien Buddhism is:            3. Do not force others, including children, by any means whatsoever, to adopt your views, whether by authority, threat, money, propaganda, or even education. However, through compassionate dialogue, help others to renounce fanaticism and narrowness. I always have a lot of trouble with compassionate dialogue. I guess I read too many of the Dialogues of Plato in high school. Plato tells stories of the great debate victories of Socrates. I think we will never know if they are accurate retellings or stories Plato made up to let us know how great his teacher was. In the Dialogues Socrates uses logical proofs to make his point. A fundamental principle of logical proofs is the existence of the proposition. ...

For all of May we are looking at some of the precepts of the Tiep Hien Buddhist Order to see what they might have to say to us, especially about process values. [1] The second   precept of Tiep Hien Buddhism is: 2. Do not think that the knowledge you possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow minded and bound to present views. Learn to practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive other's viewpoints. Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and the world at all times.      Once upon a time about 2000 years ago in Judea there was a good shepherd. Well, at this time, there were a lot of good shepherds, because there were a lot of shepherds and most of them were very good. Shepherds epitomize what Drucker has said about workers everywhere: to even hold down a job and be thought competent, the average worker has to do...

In his book Being Peace, Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn shares the Fourteen Precepts of the Tiep Hien Buddhist Order. Tiep Hien is a particularly Vietnamese order of Buddhism that Hanh thinks might find resonance with some Americans. We will spend May looking at some of the precepts to see what they might have to say to us, especially about process values. The first precept of Tiep Hien Buddhism is:                1. Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. All systems of thought are guiding means: they are not absolute truth. When I first read this, I thought, “All systems except this one.” I had a little laugh at the naiveté of the author. But on reflection I realized that this is not a system of thought, it is a system of thinking about systems of thought. In our language, it is a process value, maybe the foundational process value that leads us to all the...

Peacekeeping There is a perennial debate among facilitators about voting during collaborative process. Most of them do not like the idea of using voting to select the final plan of action. The debate is about whether voting has any place – whether voting fits with our process values about how we treat evidence, inference, and one another. For a long time I never understood the passion of the no-voting-never-ever-not-even-to-take-the-group-pulse faction. We live in a democracy. How could voting be a bad thing? Then I read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. This is a novel about a family of missionaries serving in the Belgian Congo before and during the transition of the Congo from colony to democracy. However, the natives of the town where they are serving don’t understand this democracy idea. How can anyone do a good job of ruling a people when 49% of them voted against you? This changed forever my view of the role of voting in coming to consensus. It’s easy to...

Tomorrow, Earth Day, will see Marches for Science in many parts of the country. I hope to march myself on our Niantic Bay Boardwalk. Science has its own set of process values that are very much like those of collaborative work. The scientific method is all about how we treat evidence and inference as we look at natural and experimental observations and try to understand something about our Universe. The one value that sometimes seems to be missing from science is how we treat one another in the process. In fact, both historical and fictionalized accounts of scientific debate are rank with stories of scientists criticizing, attacking, and demonizing those who don’t agree with them. The source of this is the same as the source of most human conflict: positions. Once you take a position on anything, including scientific theories, you cannot allow for the possibility of the other position. The whole March for Science movement we will celebrate tomorrow is a perfect case in poin...

Let’s look more closely at the concept of forces in opposition that must be kept in balance. We talked last week about the three Cs: considerations, concerns, and constraints. Of these, concerns may be the most important. Considerations are the foundation of collaborative work, but no one will be ready to share their considerations until the battles over process values have been won and people are ready to be collaborative. Constraints are critical, but they are found by the proper treatment of evidence and inference. That is perhaps the last battle. Concerns are worries about forces that are acting on the situation. Concerns point to forces that have to be kept in balance. For example, some people are concerned that having a social safety net makes people dependent on the government. Others are concerned that without a safety net people will die, or at a minimum become more of a burden on their neighbors than if early intervention had nipped the problem in the bud. These concer...