Participant strategic preferences

People tend to move or drift through the social system into those groups and organizations which are engaged in the change processes most congenial to them. As individuals develop they may reach stages when a given change process and its organizational support seems unfruitful or unsuited to their desire for self-expression. The individual needs fresh fields to conquer, a new life-style or a new mode of work. The development of the individual implies life-style mobility and organizational and social change. Social change and development requires development of the individual to adapt to new challenges. This is also the case in meetings. < The difficulty is that society currently sanctions movement within organizational and career systems but not between them. The individual is therefore forced into one particular mode of self-expression for his whole working life unless he wishes to run the risk of being labelled a grass- hopper or dilettante, or of being viewed as an ignorant outsider (a "foreigner") in the systems into which he attempts to move. Participants are faced with this difficulty in conferences which have groups emphasizing distinct modes. Within one system an individual can of course develop other modes of self- expression but only as secondary modes within the constant and overriding primary mode (eg an executive in the business system, an individual can move from a high technology corporation to a commercial art corporation; the switch from science to art is then contained within the unchanging management framework).

The problem in conferences is therefore whether it is possible to provide an organizational setting in which an individual can develop secondary modes of expression and allow any of them to become primary for any desired length of time in response to the flow of the meeting. The problem is complicated by the very radical nature of the differences between approaches to change advocated or undertaken in meetings, as well as between the corresponding modes of expression of the individual engaged in them. There does not appear to be any systematic listing of change strategies but the following list is an indication of the variety: 1. political action< 2. scientific and technological development< 3. economic and financial development< 4. education, training< 5. art, music< 6. architectural and machine design, urban planning< 7. religious faith, prayer< 8. social engineering, social development< 9. philosophical or esoteric understanding< 10. behavioural and perceptual modifications by drugs< 11. public information, media, propaganda< 12. community development< 13. drama, theatre< 14. organizational development< 15. legislative action< 16. military or police action< 17. direct action, violent civilian protest< 18. military or police action< 19. self-exploration, meditation< 20. mediation, negotiation< 21. manual labour.

Ironically, the proponents of a particular form of change tend to perceive it as the only viable or significant form (eg to a political activist everything of any significance is political). They are unable to detect the manner in which their action is counter-balanced, checked, contained or even undermined by the other forms of change. Similarly it is not possible to determine how such different strategies can be blended harmoniously together into a mix which can ensure appropriate change. No body has a mandate to attempt this, and no integrative discipline exists to legitimate such an approach.