Replying to LO30931 --
Now that I'm listening a bit more carefully, I think Chris Argyris has
been all over this territory, as he has a maddening habit of having
done. The song goes like this..
There are data, directly observable data, which is the stuff you and I
would mutually agree was there if you weren't being such a smart ass
about the lemonade.
"The guitar weighs 4.5 pounds" is data.
And there's the meaning we make of the data, which broadly started
comes in three flavors; attributions ("This guitar is heavy."),
advocacy ("I think this guitar is too heavy.") and evaluations ("This
guitar sucks.")
(I've just compressed decades of rigorous thought and reflection into
Beevis and Butthead dialogue.)
(Happily too)
Of course, sometimes what we think is data isn't, and so once in a
while we stand on tippy toes and ask ourselves what the hell is really
going on. That does not render the catagories useless .. all models
are limited, and the good Dr. Argyris accounts for this need to
question tacit assumptions.
Over decades of careful and impossible to enjoy research, Chris
explored the variations of dysfunction that come when we confuse data
with the meaning we make of the data. Telling Les Paul that the guitar
sucks leads Les to scratch his head, since Les plays sitting down
(every Monday night at the Iridium near Lincoln Center by the way) so
weight matters not one twit to him. He thinks the guitar is the boss
and he thinks I'm stupid for thinking otherwise, which is why he
doesn't return my phone calls.
Assuming that Chris is covering the same territory, I'd like to
advocate that his categories of directly observable data, attribution,
advocacy and evaluation are superior to the categories fact and
statement, if only because fact and statement are more commonly used
and thus more easily mis-interpreted. Also, Statement to me suggest
something I am asserting to be true that may not be, and I personally
prefer the more clinical terms Chris uses, since within his theory one
understands that an advocacy is not data but someone's interpretation.
But I admit that I am biased by 20 years of having these categories in
my head.
How is your argument any different from his?
John Shibley
[Host's Note: thanks John... then, I think we could restate Mark's
question as, "Is there a correspondence between directly observable
data and the attributions, advocacy, and evaluations we make?" ..
Rick]
--John Shibley <jjsplog@earthlink.net>
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